Sun., 2/23/14, Fred Voss and Joan Jobe Smith perform at LAVA Salon in downtown L.A.

On the last Sunday of each month, the Los Angeles Visionaries Association (LAVA) welcomes interested individuals to gather in downtown Los Angeles (noon-2 p.m.), for a structured Salon featuring formal presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with others. The Salon features two distinct presentations, each lasting about 45 minutes. Admission is free. 

PRESENTATION ONE:

Joe Oesterle, author of Weird Hollywood and the classics Weird California and Weird Las Vegas will read  spooky stories from his books and share anecdotes from his weird road travels, and sign copies of Weird Hollywood. Joe Oesterle is a former Senior Editor of National Lampoon, a visual artist, musician, animator, and curator of the strange and marvelous. At the Salon, Joe will be joined by Count Smokula, a 496-year-old accordion-playing vampire from the vaguely Eastern-European nation of Smokesylvania. A mainstay in the Los Angeles Underground scene, the Count has been described as a cross between Bela Lugosi and Jackie Mason.

PRESENTATION TWO:

Poet Fred Voss will read for about 20 minutes from his Bloodaxe (UK) collections Hammers And Hearts Of The Gods and Carnegie Hall With Tin Walls and from Tooth And Fang And Machine Handle, his winning chapbook from Nerve Cowboy‘s (USA) 2013 Competition. Poems mostly about his working experiences, reflections on those experiences, and his 35-year life as a machinist which will include non-machine shop philosophical poems and a couple domestic-comedy “Frank & Jane” poems which bear a striking resemblance to his marriage to poet Joan Jobe Smith.

A teenager in 1950s’ L.A., go-go girl in swinging 60s-70s, poet, writer, teacher, mentor, founding editor of PEARL, and confidante of Charles Bukowski for nearly a decade, Joan Jobe Smith will read 20 minutes’ worth of selected poems about the movies, lands of 1,000 dances, and her friendship with Bukowski from her 2012 literary profile Charles Bukowski: Epic Glottis: His Women & His Art (& me), and the 2013 Bukowski Anthology, both published by Silver Birch Press.

 

DATE: Sunday, February 23, 2014

TIME: Noon – 2 p.m.

PLACE: Les Noces du Figaro, 618 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, 90014

Thank you to S.A. Griffin, Joan Jobe Smith, and Fred Voss

Thank you to S.A. Griffin, Joan Jobe Smith, and Fred Voss for reading their poetry as well as other selections from the Silver Birch Press Bukowski Anthology at the launch event on Sept. 22nd at Skylight Books in Los Angeles. Despite the Emmy Awards taking place nearby in Hollywood, we attracted an enthusiastic crowd of Bukowski fans and a good time was had by all!

Thanks, too, to Richard Schave of the Los Angeles Visionaries Association (LAVA) for telling us about the Esotouric Bukowski tour. Find out more at esotouric.com. (And read our post about the terrific tour at this link.)

And, finally, thank you to Jessica Wilson who tried to live stream the event — but,  for various reasons, the best laid plans often go astray (as they say). Our apologies to all those who tried to tune in. The good news is that Jessica recorded the audio and will post it soon — link to come (we hope — but we live in hope…).

We thank Skylight Books for hosting the event — and appreciate the bookstore’s efforts on behalf of Silver Birch Press.

Photos: S.A. Griffin, Joan Jobe Smith, Fred Voss

Reminder: Silver Birch Press Bukowski Anthology Launch Party on 9/22/13

Thanks to Silver Birch Press Bukowski Anthology contributors Harry Calhoun (who suggested the idea) and S.A. Griffin (who found a way to make it happen), and Jessica Wilson (who is making it happen), the Silver Birch Press Bukowski Anthology launch party at Skylight Books in Los Angeles will be available for radio listeners at this link:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-poet-s-soapbox

Tune in at 5 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 22 (Pacific Daylight Time) or tune in later and access the recording.

We are honored that the launch party at Skylight Books will feature readings from the collection by S.A. Griffin, Joan Jobe Smith, and Fred Voss.  For mini bios of our esteemed performers, visit Skylight Books.

WHAT: Silver Birch Press BUKOWSKI ANTHOLOGY launch party and readings from the collection

WHO: S.A. Griffin, Joan Jobe Smith, and Fred Voss

WHERE: Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90027, 323-660-1175

WHEN: Sunday, September 22, 2013, 5 p.m.

If you live in the area, we hope to see you there! If you live outside the area, we hope you’ll tune in here.

Cover art by Mark Erickson and Katy Zartl

Radio streaming of Silver Birch Press Bukowski Anthology Launch Party on 9/22

Thanks to Silver Birch Press Bukowski Anthology contributors Harry Calhoun (who suggested the idea) and S.A. Griffin (who found a way to make it happen), and Jessica Wilson (who is making it happen), the Silver Birch Press Bukowski Anthology launch party at Skylight Books in Los Angeles will be available for radio listeners at this link:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-poet-s-soapbox

Tune in at 5 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 22 (Pacific Daylight Time) or tune in later and access the recording.

We are honored that the launch party at Skylight Books will feature readings from the collection by S.A. Griffin, Joan Jobe Smith, and Fred Voss.  For mini bios of our esteemed performers, visit Skylight Books.

WHAT: Silver Birch Press BUKOWSKI ANTHOLOGY launch party and readings from the collection

WHO: S.A. Griffin, Joan Jobe Smith, and Fred Voss

WHERE: Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90027, 323-660-1175

WHEN: Sunday, September 22, 2013, 5 p.m.

If you live in the area, we hope to see you there! If you live outside the area, we hope you’ll tune in.

Cover art by Mark Erickson and Katy Zartl

Silver Birch Press Bukowski Anthology Launch Party 9/22/13 at Skylight Books, L.A.

Silver Birch Press is pleased to announce that Skylight Books, Los Angeles, will host a launch party for the Silver Birch Press BUKOWSKI ANTHOLOGY. We are honored to report that the event will feature readings from the collection by S.A. Griffin, Joan Jobe Smith, and Fred Voss.  For mini bios of our esteemed performers, visit Skylight Books.

WHAT: Silver Birch Press BUKOWSKI ANTHOLOGY launch party and readings from the collection

WHO: S.A. Griffin, Joan Jobe Smith, and Fred Voss

WHERE: Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90027, 323-660-1175

WHEN: Sunday, September 22, 2013, 5 p.m.

If you live in the area, we hope to see you there!

Cover art by Mark Erickson and Katy Zartl

Joan Jobe Smith Visits Charles Bukowski on Father’s Day

Joan Jobe Smith, author of the Silver Birch Press release CHARLES BUKOWSKI EPIC GLOTTIS: His Art, His Women (& me) paid a visit to her friend and mentor on Sunday, June 16th — Father’s Day. She offers these details: “Confettied his grave with pink geraniums. Buk loved flowers, preferred yellow roses and sunflowers. He didn’t say what he thought about [my book] EPIC GLOTTIS. But he has said ‘Don’t try!’ And I didn’t. Writing my Buk Book came easy. Buk was one fine Muse. He is also the Literary Father to me and Fred [Voss — Joan’s husband].”

PHOTO: Joan Jobe Smith stands next to Charles Bukowski‘s grave while offering pink geraniums and her memoir, CHARLES BUKOWSKI EPIC GLOTTIS. Photo by Fred Voss. (Charles Bukowski is buried at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.)

Find CHARLES BUKOWSKI EPIC GLOTTIS by Joan Jobe Smith at Amazon.com.

New Release: CHARLES BUKOWSKI Epic Glottis by Joan Jobe Smith

On November 24, 2012, Silver Birch Press released CHARLES BUKOWSKI Epic Glottis: His Art & His Women (& me)  — a respectful, affectionate literary profile of novelist and poet Charles Bukowski by Joan Jobe Smith.

In the book, awarding-winning author Joan Jobe Smith — a Pushcart Honoree — shares up-close, personal recollections of her mentor and friend, Charles Bukowski (1920-1994). CHARLES BUKOWSKI Epic Glottis also features remembrances and comments from women in Bukowski’s life — including Frances Dean Smith (francEyE), Ann Menebroker, Linda King, and Pamela “Cupcakes” Miller Wood — in interviews conducted by Joan Jobe Smith and poet/author Fred Voss. This years-in-the-making volume also includes poetry, essays, and other writings by Smith and Voss.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joan Jobe Smith, founding editor of Pearl and Bukowski Review, worked for seven years as a go-go dancer before receiving her B.A. from California State University Long Beach and MFA from the University of California Irvine. A Pushcart Honoree, her award-winning work has appeared internationally in more than 500 publications, including Outlaw Bible, Ambit, Beat Scene, Wormwood Review and Nerve Cowboy—and she has published 20 collections, including Jehovah Jukebox (Event Horizon Press, US) and The Pow Wow Cafe (The Poetry Business, UK), finalist for the UK 1999 Forward Prize. In July 2012, with her husband, poet Fred Voss, she did her sixth reading tour of England (debuting at the 1991 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival), featured at the Humber Mouth Literature Festival in Hull. In 2013, World Parade Books will release her memoir Tales of an Ancient Go-Go Girl.

The poems of Joan Jobe Smith have the reality of force properly put down on paper…a game girl…she cuts herself loose into the stratosphere…a strange woman, a strange, good, basic woman.”

CHARLES BUKOWSKI

CHARLES BUKOWSKI Epic Glottis: His Art & His Women (& me) is available at Amazon.com.

Long Beach, California, Poetry Festival

Silver Birch Press authors Joan Jobe Smith and Fred Voss — whose book Charles Bukowski Epic Glottis will be available later this month — will appear on Saturday, October 13, 2012 at the Long Beach Poetry Festival.  For more information on this free event — which takes place in Long Beach, California, from 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. — visit the official site.

Fred Voss and Joan Jobe Smith at Hip Poetics, Plus a Submission Opportunity

On Wednesday, September 26, 2012, Fred Voss and Joan Jobe Smith (pictured at right), married poets and Silver Birch Press authors of the upcoming CHARLES BUKOWSKI EPIC GLOTTIS, performed at “Hip Poetics” hosted by Gatsby’s Books in Long Beach, California. “Hip Poetics” is an annual comic poetry night sponsored by the creative writing group from California State University Long Beach (CSULB).

CSLULB‘s literary journal RIP RAP 35 is seeking submissions of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, art, photography, and illustration through December 21, 2012. The guidelines are available at this link. (The guidelines are detailed, so read all the fine print!) 

The Pequod Sails…Poem by Fred Voss

THE PEQUOD SAILS UPON THE SEA OF MATRIMONY

Poem by Fred Voss

As he has every night for 4 months Frank is reading MOBY DICK

(a novel he has read 5 times)

to Jane before they go to sleep.

Having reached chapter 72 he reads details of how a whale is stabbed and speared

again and again at close range by laughing pipe-smoking sailors until the whale

spouts blood

and rolls over and the sailors carve up its blubber and cut off

its head

and gather whale vomit.

Frank smiles and says, “Melville’s detailing of the tools and skills of whaling

is just like what I do with the machine shop

in my poems,”

as Jane sighs and bites her fingernails.

“Frank, please stop,” Jane says. “I can’t take anymore. I can’t even swim.

We’ve got to get off the Pequod. I want romance.

I want you to read to me from MY BOOK now.”

Frank winces

and reaches for Jane’s pretty little book ELIZABEH AND PHILIP

in which he has reached chapter 2 and reads

of their royal wedding on November 20, 1947

wedding presents

rings and jewelers

wedding gown with rose-and-corn-ear-patterned lace pink carnation floral decorations

chauffeurs and royal coaches and The King’s Valet

and what the Huntley and Palmers wedding cake was made of and how much it weighed

are detailed and analyzed to Jane’s smiling anglophile delight.

Frank and Jane look at the photographs of Elizabeth and Philip standing at the

Westminster Abbey altar waving out the windows of the Cinderella carriage

smiling from the Palace balcony.

“Oh wasn’t Elizabeth beautiful! Royal weddings are so romantic!” Jane gushes

as Frank writhes and slaps shut the pretty little book

unable to take any more and eager for tomorrow night

when he can get back to the fun and pleasure of reading MOBY DICK

with tattooed-all-over shrunken-head-carrying cannibal Queequeg

and a giant Albino whale

who methodically saws off Captain Ahab’s leg and drowns sailors with a slap of its tail

and finally rams and sinks the Pequod itself in the middle of the Pacific Ocean

leaving Ishmael afloat on Queequeg’s coffin

like an orphan ready to be rescued

by the ship Rachel looking for its lost sailors.

Now what royal wedding,

dear readers,

could be more romantic

than all that?