Dorothea Grossman's Poems to Be Read By Tony Renner on Monday, June 25

Tony Renner, reading work by the late Dorothea Grossman, will be one of the featured readers for the next •chance operations• reading on Monday, June 25, at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The other featured readers will be Ben Moeller-Gaa, John Han, Chris Parr, and Buzz Spector.

Musical guest will be Will Kyle.

Free admission; doors open at 7:30 p.m.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Dorothea Grossman, died on May 6, 2012 at the age of 74.

A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Dorothea “Dottie” Grossman lived in Los Angeles for thirty-plus years. Her work was featured in the March, 2010 edition of Poetry and was awarded that magazine’s J. Howard and Barbara M. J. Wood Prize. The late Allen Ginsberg called her poetry, “clear, odd, personal, funny or wild-weird, curious and lucid.” Her work has appeared in numerous poetry journals and magazines.

Coffeetown Press has recently published Grossman's third collection The Fun of Speaking English: Selected Poems.

EKG

That's my heart,
sloshing around
senselessly
in what sounds like
a big metal bucket
that holds
lots of cold beers
for a party.

-- Dorothea Grossman

Buzz Spector Featured Reader on Monday, June 25, at Duff's in the C.W.E.

Buzz Spector will be one of the featured readers for the next •chance operations• reading on Monday, June 25, at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The other featured readers will be Ben Moeller-Gaa, John Han, Chris Parr, and Tony Renner, reading Dorothea Grossman.

Musical guest to be announced.

Free admission; doors open at 7:30 p.m.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Buzz Spector’s artwork has been the focus of exhibitions in such museums and galleries as the Art Institute of Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the Luigi Pecci Centre for Contemporary Art, Prato, Italy.

His art makes frequent use of the book, both as subject and object, and is concerned with relationships between public history, individual memory, and perception.

Spector’s poetry and experimental writing has been published in various journals and reviews since the 1970s, including Benzene, Café Solo, and River Styx. He is the author of The Book Maker's Desire, critical essays on topics in contemporary art and artists' books (Umbrella Editions, 1995), and numerous exhibition catalogue essays. A volume of selected interviews of Spector plus new page art, Buzzwords, was published in 2012 by Sara Ranchouse, Chicago.

Spector is Dean of the College and Graduate School of Art in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

Haiku

Ghost page
light enters
as if a shadow

-- Buzz Spector

T. Renner, "Book (for Buzz Spector) #2," 2011, digital photograph.

Ben Moeller-Gaa Featured Reader on Monday, June 25, at Duff's in the C.W.E.

Ben Moeller-Gaa will be one of the featured readers for the next •chance operations• reading on Monday, June 25, at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The other featured readers will be John Han, Chris Parr, Buzz Spector, and Tony Renner, reading Dorothea Grossman.

Musical guest to be announced.

Free admission; doors open at 7:30 p.m.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Ben Moeller-Gaa is a haiku poet and a playwright living in St. Louis. His haiku have appeared in four countries on three continents and in two languages. He has poems forthcoming in A Hundred Gourds, Notes From the Gean, Multiverses, and Frogpond as well as a haiku chapbook, Wasp Shadows, due out later this year from Folded Word Press.

Ben's plays have been performed on several small stages in the St. Louis area. His play Digging Up Danny will be performed later this year at the Black Cat Theater in Maplewood by Panther Productions.

Ben is a Contributing Editor to River Styx, a member of the Haiku Foundation, has a degree in English Writing from Knox College, works for Sigma-Aldrich and can be seen in Wicked Pixel films.

John Han Featured Reader on Monday, June 25, at Duff's

John Han will be one of the featured readers for the next •chance operations• reading on Monday, June 25, at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid.

The other featured readers will be Ben Moeller-Gaa, Chris Parr, Buzz Spector, and Tony Renner, reading Dorothea Grossman.

Musical guest to be announced.

Free admission; doors open at 7:30 p.m.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

John Han is Professor of English & Creative Writing at Missouri Baptist University and a haiku instructor at Washington University in St. Louis. An award-winning poet, he has authored three poetry volumes: Little Guy Haiku, Chopsticks and Fork, and Thunder Thighs. His Japanese-style poems have appeared in the Mainichi Daily News, Mariposa, GEPPO, the Laurel Review, Confluence, Spare Mule, Grist, and numerous other periodicals and anthologies.

Gabriel Fried Featured Reader at Duff's in May

Gabriel Fried was one of three featured readers at the •chance operations• reading at Duff's in May.

The featured readers for the next •chance operations• reading on Monday, June 25, at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be John Han, Ben Moeller-Gaa, Chris Parr, Buzz Spector, and Tony Renner, reading Dorothea Grossman.

Musical guest to be announced.

Free admission; doors open at 7:30 p.m.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

"Whoopi Will Always Be Center Square" by Eileen G'Sell

Eileen G'Sell was one of three featured readers at the •chance operations• reading at Duff's in May.

The featured readers for the next •chance operations• reading on Monday, June 25, at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be John Han, Ben Moeller-Gaa, Chris Parr, Buzz Spector, and Tony Renner, reading Dorothea Grossman.

Musical guest to be announced.

Free admission; doors open at 7:30 p.m.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Whoopi Will Always Be Center Square

Right now I am on a plane and there is nothing mundane about it. Cumulus looms, surrounding sky. Surround Sound in a dimming place. Laughter, Twizzlers, moving light. What was then was then, is very important, but not so much that we can’t have now. Gertrude Stein loved tiny words, she caressed the nouns till they came in waves. Outside my plane is a Care Bear house, and nobody cares but me. Rainbows have never bloomed from my abs, but at times I have felt that way. One night I heard your manly voice and imagined your boyish sleeping. That night I slept so happy I felt as though I could vomit stars. Have you ever felt that way? Do you love the life you waken? My best friend Jake knows a lot about culture, at least the kind that counts. Sometimes we talk about Hollywood Squares and ardently swap our childhoods, how you stare at the blacktop flat on your stomach stunned at how it smells. You wonder, how badly have I been hurt? Will somebody come to check? What I’m trying to say is, being this high doesn’t hurt my ears anymore. I have heard the call of ambivalent birds and still fall fast asleep. I have stared at a word like laughter until I know it’s spelled correctly. I have left the curtains open, always, and I have faced the face of the kindest man.

-- Eileen G'Sell

Excerpt from "Chronicide" by Catherine Rankovic

Catherine Rankovic was one of three featured readers at the •chance operations• reading at Duff's in May.

The featured readers for the next •chance operations• reading Monday, June 25, at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, will be John Han, Ben Moeller-Gaa, Chris Parr, Buzz Spector, and Tony Renner, reading Dorothea Grossman.

Musical guest to be announced.

Free admission; doors open at 7:30 p.m.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

From "Chronicide"

the misdemeanor of chronicide.
I’m called to their conference table,
and the boss quickly says, as if chased by an axe, “It’s a staff reduction,”

and far from the tears or violence
they’re prepared for, cellphones set to call security,
elated, I cry, “O, this

is the best day of my life! I am free!”
and laugh ‘til I wet my incontinence pad.
They allowed no farewell party

because anagram “innovate rare chick” was
likely to say something inappropriate.

-- Catherine Rankovic