Monday, September 17, 2012

Matthew Freeman Featured Reader at Duff's on Monday, September 24


Matthew Freeman will be one of three featured readers at the next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, on Monday, September 24.

The other featured readers will be Jazzy Danziger and Kelli Allen.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

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

Musical guest to be announced.


Matthew Freeman has been a poet since he was a teenager in Dogtown, St. Louis. Since then he has fallen in love, traveled the country, and sung his songs. He now lives and writes in the Loop neighborhood of University City, Missouri. The Boulevard of Broken Discourse is his fourth collection of poems. Matthew compiled Flood Stage: An Anthology of St. Louis Poets, a landmark anthology of 55 area poetsMatthew recently received an Albert Montesi Award for his poetry from Saint Louis University.

Critics have high praise for Freeman’s poetry:
“Gritty and real, full of personality (and personalities), urban St. Louis scenery and experience.” —- J. Gordon, Nightimes.com

“Simultaneously hip, funny, and sad.” -— Dorothea Grossman, Poet

“A microscope into the world of an extraordinarily talented schizophrenic.” —- Suzanne Shenkman.

Jazzy Danziger Featured Reader at Duff's on Monday, September 24


Jazzy Danziger will be one of three featured readers at the next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, on Monday, September 24.

The other featured readers will be Kelli Allen and Matthew Freeman.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

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

Musical guest to be announced.

Jazzy Danziger’s debut collection, Darkroom, is the winner of the 2012 Brittingham Prize in Poetry.

Jazzy studied at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns/Poe-Faulkner Fellow in poetry and the editor of Meridian. She currently serves as editor for the Best New Poets anthology. She was raised in Maitland, Florida and lives in Webster Groves.

Watch Jazzy Danziger reading two of her poems, "The Visitor" and "Other Mothers," in the offices of the Riverfront Times.



Kelli Allen Featured Reader at Duff's on Monday, September 24


Kelli Allen will be one of three featured readers at the next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, on Monday, September 24.

The other featured readers will be Jazzy Danziger, and Matthew Freeman.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

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

Musical guest to be announced.

Kelli Allen is an award-winning poet, editor, and scholar.

Her poetry and fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Puerto del Sol, Echo Ink Review, Poetry Quarterly, Fjords, Abridged, Other Poetry, Lyre Lyre, the Blue Sofa Review, WomenArts Quarterly, the Caper Review, It Has Come to This: Poets of the Great Mother Conference, Foliate Oak, Greatest Lakes Review, Lugh Review (where she was the featured author), Blackmail Press, the Chaffy Review, Euphony and elsewhere. She has been the featured poet for Desperanto Press’s segment “Tea With George” for September 2011.

Kelli's fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she was a finalist for the 2011 Rebecca Lard Award. She has served as the Managing Editor of Natural Bridge. She is also the founder of the Graduate Writers Reading Series for the University of Missouri St. Louis. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Missouri St. Louis. She is currently an adjunct professor of English/Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Kelli gives readings and teaches workshops throughout the US.

Kelli's full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, is forthcoming from John Gosslee Books October of 2012.
The Twelfth Swan

Every year we gather the feathers
in small aluminum jars. They fall
from the autumn sky in bursts
for five days. Since the sister
could not complete the final shift
of thorn-made cloth, we know
he will circle above us, one wing
fighting against the arc, a pink
fleshy arm beating uselessly opposite,
a reminder of the periphery.

We have never been able to determine
how he acquires height and stays
drifting rough, ugly in his half-dance
amidst whatever weird fog lingers
this time of year. But he comes,
always with sound as trampled
tissues after our carnival’s last
swift removal of distraction
a few months before. We hear
the one wing, too white, and we look
away. The same the next day and the next.

Yet, the feathers meet us as we walk,
where we greet each other and pretend
to notice only the shifting branches
and graying walls all stone beyond this
or that street. The fourth day
we glance longer and higher
and prepare the pewter to seal
the jars we will fill. He is gone by dinner
on the fifth day of each flight in each year,
in the month we mark by orange coolness
and restless movements toward under-
ground. We have heard a story
about an unnatural affair and a fire,
but cannot remember where it begins
or might end, and so catch what we can.

-- Kelli Allen

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Chris Parr at August Open-Mic


•chance operations• co-founder Chris Parr was one of 8 readers to step up to the open-mic at our August reading.

Other readers were Sarah Griesedieck, Jim McGowin, Tom Simmons, Aaron Williams, Terrie Jacks, Emily Grise, and Michael Sullivan.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, will be Monday, September 24, with featured readers Kelli Allen, Jazzy Danziger, and Matthew Freeman.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

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

Musical guest to be announced.

Michael Sullivan at August Open-Mic


Michael Sullivan was one of 8 readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic at our August reading.

Other readers were Sarah Griesedieck, Jim McGowin, Tom Simmons, Aaron Williams, Terrie Jacks, Emily Grise, and Chris Parr.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, will be Monday, September 24, with featured readers Kelli Allen, Jazzy Danziger, and Matthew Freeman.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

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

Musical guest to be announced.

Emily Grise at August Open-Mic


Emily Grise was one of 8 readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic at our August reading.

Other readers were Sarah Griesedieck, Jim McGowin, Tom Simmons, Aaron Williams, Terrie Jacks, Michael Sullivan, and Chris Parr.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, will be Monday, September 24, with featured readers Kelli Allen, Jazzy Danziger, and Matthew Freeman.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

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

Musical guest to be announced.

Terrie Jacks at August Open-Mic


Terrie Jacks was one of 8 readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic at our August reading.

Other readers were Sarah Griesedieck, Jim McGowin, Tom Simmons, Aaron Williams, Emily Grise, Michael Sullivan, and Chris Parr.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, will be Monday, September 24, with featured readers Kelli Allen, Jazzy Danziger, and Matthew Freeman.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

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

Musical guest to be announced.

Aaron Williams at August Open-Mic


Aaron Williams was one of 8 readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic at our August reading.

Other readers were Sarah Griesedieck, Jim McGowin, Tom Simmons, Terrie Jacks, Emily Grise, Michael Sullivan, and Chris Parr.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, will be Monday, September 24, with featured readers Kelli Allen, Jazzy Danziger, and Matthew Freeman.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

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

Musical guest to be announced.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Tom Simmons at August Open-Mic


Tom Simmons was one of 8 readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic at our August reading.

Other readers were Sarah Griesedieck, Jim McGowin, Aaron Williams, Terrie Jacks, Emily Grise, Michael Sullivan, and Chris Parr.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, will be Monday, September 24, with featured readers Kelli Allen, Jazzy Danziger, and Matthew Freeman.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

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

Musical guest to be announced.

Jim McGowin at August Open-Mic


Jim McGowin was one of 8 readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic at our August reading.

Other readers were Sarah Griesedieck, Tom Simmons, Aaron Williams, Terrie Jacks, Emily Grise, Michael Sullivan, and Chris Parr.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, will be Monday, September 24, with featured readers Kelli Allen, Jazzy Danziger, and Matthew Freeman.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

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

Musical guest to be announced.

Sarah Griesedieck at August Open-Mic


Sarah Griesedieck was one of 8 readers to step up to the •chance operations• open-mic at our August reading.

Other readers were Jim McGowin, Tom Simmons, Aaron Williams, Terrie Jacks, Emily Grise, Michael Sullivan, and Chris Parr.

The next •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, in the Central West End, will be Monday, September 24, with featured readers Kelli Allen, Jazzy Danziger, and Matthew Freeman.

Doors at 7:30 p.m.; admission $3.00.

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

Musical guest to be announced.