Thursday, September 6, 2012

SUNDAY, September 9th 2012, 7pm


On Sunday, September 9th, 2012, at 7pm, THE JUBILANT THICKET LITERARY SERIES features poetry by Geoffrey Olsen & Larry Sawyer, memoir by Janet Mason, & performance by Chana Porter.

GEOFFREY OLSEN lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He is the author of the chapbooks Not of Distends * Address Panicked (Minutes Books, 2011) and End Notebook (Petrichord Books; 2008).
LARRY SAWYER has curated the Myopic Books Poetry Reading Series in Wicker Park, Chicago since 2005, and has hosted readings there nearly every weekend that have included poets such as Eileen Myles, Ron Silliman, Cole Swensen, and Bernadette Mayer, as well as many Chicago-area poets. He was chosen as Best Poet in Chicago by The Chicago Reader in its 2012 Best of Chicago Readers Poll. He is co-director of The Chicago School of Poetics (www.chicagoschoolofpoetics.com). Sawyer also edits milk magazine (since 1998) with Lina ramona Vitkauskas. Poetry and literary reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including Action Yes, Boston Review, The Chicago Tribune, Coconut, Court Green, Esque, Exquisite Corpse, Ploughshares, The Prague Literary Review (Czech Republic), Rain Taxi, Vanitas, VLAK (Czech Republic), and elsewhere. His work appeared in The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century (anthology, Cracked Slab Books, 2007). His collection Unable to Fully California (cover art by Krista Franklin) is available on Otoliths Press (Australia). Larry has read his work at venues such as the BONK! Reading and Performance Series in Racine, Wisconsin; the Chicago Printer’s Row Lit Fest; Columbia College Chicago; The Danny’s Tavern Reading Series in Chicago; The Hideout in Chicago; The Poetry Center of Chicago; Quimby’s Bookstore in Chicago; The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee.

JANET MASON is an award winning writer of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry whose literary commentary is regularly featured on This Way Out, an international LGBT radio syndicate based in Los Angeles and aired on more than 400 radio stations in the U.S. and abroad. She is also a blogger for The Huffington Post. Her fiction has most recently been included in Certain Circuits Magazine, On Barcelona, and in Magnolia: A Journal of Women’s Literature.  Her chapbooks of poetry, include When I Was Straight (Insight To Riot Press) and a woman alone (Cycladic Press). Tea Leaves: a memoir of mothers and daughters was published by Bella Books in 2012.  Tea Leaves has been nominated by at least one of the participants in the American Library Association’s “Over the Rainbow” bibliography round table for inclusion in the 2012 ALA list of notable LGBT Books and is second on the Giovanni’s Room bestseller list.  You can visit her at www.amusejanetmason.com.

CHANA PORTER is a writer, theatre artist, yoga teacher and co-founder of AliveWire Theatrics, a company of artists dedicated to facilitating their own work.  Her plays include Leap and the Net Will Appear, Besharet, the musical Animal Hearts, and an adaptation of the novel The Dogs of Babel. Her work has been performed and developed at Rattlestick Playwright’s Theatre, PS122’s 9th Space, Columbia University, Primary Stages, Dixon Place and the White Bear in London. She was named one of the Top 15 Movers and Shakers in 2011 by Its Queens magazine. Jam. Currently, Chana is collaborating on an original opera with the musician Autre Ne Veut and writing an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein with Randolph Curtis Rand.

About her work:
“cuts through the barriers we erect that prevent us from living, from being authentic and loving.” -Suzanna Bowling, Times Square Chronicles
“absolutely astonishing.  Miraculous.  Completely original and captivating.”
-Craig Lucas 

This all happens, as usual, at The Moonstone Arts Center, 110A South 13th Street, Philadelphia, PA.  Will be amazing -- please come.


Sunday, August 5, 2012

SUNDAY, AUGUST 12, 2012, 7PM

On Sunday, August 12, 2012, at 7pm, The Jubilant Thicket Literary Series presents poetry by Mytili Jagannathan & Chris Tonelli & photography & poetry by Suzan Jivan.


MYTILI JAGANNATHAN listens to the notion that “every letter is an alphabet,” making poems that investigate public and private space, power, gender, property, desire, collectivity, and the conditions of speech. She is the author of Acts, a chapbook from Habenicht Press; and her poems have appeared in Sous Rature, EOAGH, Rattapallax, Mirage#4/Period[ical], Combo, Fanzine, Interlope, Xcp: Cross-Cultural Poetics, and Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry.  She’s currently dreaming up film/poetry collaborations with filmmaker Sara Zia Ebrahimi, which so far has yielded the short Up Against (also in collaboration with electronic musician Gralin Hughes) for the “Shelter” episode of the Termite TV Collective.


CHRIS TONELLI is one of the founding editors of Birds, LLC, an independent poetry press. He also founded and curates the So and So Series and edits the So and So Magazine. He is the author of The Trees Around (Birds, LLC), No Theater (Brave Men Press), For People Who Like Gravity and Other People (Rope-A-Dope Press), A Mule-Shaped Cloud (horseless press), and Wide Tree (Kitchen Press). His newest work can be found in the Leveler and is forthcoming in an anthology that he's pretty sure is called fuck poems. He works at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, where he lives with his wife Allison, their son Miles, and their daughter Vera.

" Suzán Jiván ", her nom de plume, originated in 1984 when her photo professor brought back the word Hindi for “life” from an assignment in India.  The accents over the second syllables of her first and last names typify “accenting” the second half of her life.  It is her heart-felt desire to promote life through her poetry and visual art.  Her blog
www.phillyscapes.blogspot.com is dedicated to her late husband, Stanislaus Dubowski.  It is her hope that he will “live on” via her art, and enrich the lives of readers worldwide…


This all occurs at The Moonstone Arts Center, 110A South 13th Street, Philadelphia PA.  Will be beautiful.  Please come.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

SUNDAY July 8 2012, 7pm


On Sunday July 8, 2012, at 7pm, THE JUBILANT THICKET LITERARY SERIES features prose by Jaime Fountaine & poetry by Kari Larsen, Michelle Naka Pierce & Chris Pusateri.

JAIME FOUNTAINE lives and writes in Philadelphia, where she is often found politely discussing her age and valid state-issued identification with the clerks at the liquor store.

KARI LARSEN is the author of Say you're a fiction (Dancing Girl), the Black Telephone (Unthinkable Creatures), and Come as Your Madness (Birds of Lace). More information on these and other projects can be found at www.cold-rubies.com.

MICHELLE NAKA PIERCE was born in Japan.  She is the author of seven titles, including She, A Blueprint (BlazeVOX, 2011) with art by Sue Hammond West and Symptom of Color (Dusie, 2011). Awarded the Poets Out Loud Editor's Prize, Continuous Frieze Bordering Red (Fordham UP, forthcoming 2012) documents the migratory patterns of the hybrid as she travels the floating borders in Rothko's Seagram murals. Pierce is associate professor and director of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, CO.

CHRIS PUSATERI is the author of several books of poetry, including Common Time (Steerage Press, 2012), Molecularity (Dusie, 2011), Anon (BlazeVox, 2008) and North of There (Dusie, 2007).  His poetry and critical prose has appeared in many periodicals, including American Letters & Commentary, Boston Review, Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, Jacket, Verse and many others.  A librarian by trade, he works in Denver, where he reviews new poetry and fiction titles for Library Journal and curates the Belmar Film Series, a free film program that showcases independent and foreign-language cinema.

This all happens at The Moonstone Arts Center, 110A South 13th Street, Philadelphia, PA.  Will be wonderful!  Hope to see you there.








Wednesday, May 30, 2012

SUNDAY, June 11, 2012, 7pm


On Sunday, June 11, 2012, at 7pm, THE JUBILANT THICKET LITERARY SERIES presents poetry by Andrew Hughes, Jonathan Lohr & Jonathan Schoenfelder, & prose by Catherine Averill.

ANDREW HUGHES is the author of the chapbook, SWEETHEARTS OF THE GREAT MIGRATION (BookThug 2008) & the full-length collection, NOW LAYS THE SUNSHINE BY (BookThug 2010). He is co-editor (with the poet Whit Griffin) of the journal, BRIGHT PINK MOSQUITO. His work has appeared in Puppyflowers, Big Bell, Cannibal, Forklift, Ohio, & others. He lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts. 

JONATHAN LOHR was first spotted brooding in a Michelle Branch video in 2003. Leaving that all behind for an ascetic life of poetry, he now lives in Philadelphia, writes poems and publishes books through Scharmel Iris Vanity Press.

CATHERINE AVERILL is pursuing an MFA in Fiction at Temple University
where she teaches composition. She hopes to change the world through
her writing or her baking or Jonathan Lohr, a surprisingly lifelike
robot of her creation.



JONATHAN SCHOENFELDER is a poet from Aberdeen, South Dakota. He moved to Boise, Idaho and received a Bachelor’s degree from Boise State University and currently lives in Philly studying at Temple University for an MFA in Poetry. You can follow him on tumblr at rumirumirumirumi.tumblr.com.

This all occurs at Moonstone Arts Center, 110A South 13th Street, Philadelphia PA.  Will be wonderful -- please come.


Wednesday, April 25, 2012

SUNDAY, MAY 13, 2012, 7pm


On Sunday, May 13, 2012, at 7pm, The Jubilant Thicket Literary Series features poetry by Nikki Roszko & JenMarie Davis, & dance by Ellie Goudie-Averill.

NIKKI ROSZKO is a poet, journalist and musician who lives in Philadelphia. Her work has been featured in the Philadelphia CityPaper, VenusZine and variously online. Trading Futures, a collection of her poetry won the Slipstream Press annual chapbook contest.

JENMARIE DAVIS is half of Fact-Simile Editions and builds books and poems from recycled and reclaimed material. She is the author of Sometime Soon Ago (Shadow Mountain, 2009) and her work has recently appeared in or is forthcoming from Drunken Boat; Elective Affinities; Starlight, Philadelphia; Interim; Summer Stock and Gargoyle

ELLIE GOUDIE-AVERILL (Choreographer), a 2007 MFA Dance Performance graduate of the University of Iowa, co-directs the Stone Depot Dance Lab and currently teaches Modern Dance technique at Temple University and Ballet at the Wissahickon Dance Academy in Philadelphia. Her choreography has been shown in NYC at Dance New Amsterdam’s RAW Material, White Wave’s DUMBO and Cool NY Festivals, and Triskelion Arts; in Philadelphia at The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2011, Group Motion’s Spiel Uhr, CHI Movement Arts Center’s INhale Series, Norristown Dance Festival, and Philly Fringe 2010-11; and throughout the Midwest in Iowa, Missouri and Kansas. Currently, Ellie dances for MacArthur Dance Project and Group Motion Dance Company and has performed with many other choreographers and companies such as SCRAP Performance Group, Movement Brigade, Kayle & Company and Daara Dance.   She began her training at Ballet Midwest in Topeka, Kansas, holds a BFA in dance from the University of Kansas and has also served as Visiting Professor of Ballet at Bucknell University and Artistic Director of the UI Youth Ballet.


This will be a beautiful event! Please come.  It occurs at The Walking Fish Theatre, 2509 Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia PA.


Sunday, March 4, 2012

SUNDAY, MARCH 11th, 2012, 7PM

On Sunday, March 11th, 2012, at 7pm, The Jubilant Thicket Literary Series presents poetry by Jason Zuzga & Anne-Adele Wight & prose by Nic Darling.


JASON ZUZGA’s poems and essays have been published in journals such as LIT, VOLT, SPORK, jubilat, The Yale Review, Drunken Boat, and EOAGH. He is a recipient of fellowships from the James Merrill House and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and in 2005 completed an MFA in poetry and nonfiction at the University of Arizona. Currently, he is the nonfiction editor of FENCE and a graduate student in the English PhD program at the University of Pennsylvania focusing on postwar ecology and documentary media.


ANNE-ADELE WIGHT is fortunate to live in Philadelphia, a city bursting with poetry. She has written two chapbooks and some indefinable constructions. Her new book, Sidestep Catapult, was published recently by BlazeVOX Books.  Anne-Adele is Vice President of the series Poets and Prophets and works as a freelance developmental editor. She lives with her husband and two cats, all of them enigmatic and treasured, and tries in her own way to keep the natural world alive.

NIC DARLING is the “Marketing and PR Guy” for Postgreen though he occasionally claims other job titles such as “Minister of Information” or “Poet in Residence”. He has a tendency toward long-winded philosophical rambling and opinionated diatribes, but he tries to only use those powers for good.

This happens at The Walking Fish Theatre, 2509 Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia, PA.  Will be an amazing event.  Please come!!!

Sunday, February 5, 2012

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2012, 7pm

On Sunday, February 12th 2012 at 7pm, The Jubilant Thicket Literary Series presents poetry by Jacob Russell & Michelle Taransky, & visual art by Nicole Donnelly.

JACOB RUSSELL lives in South Philly, grows tomatoes and herbs in the little strip of a garden in front of his apartment, and reads his poems in the subway concourse with his Spirit Stick, Inihiti. He's currently working to complete a second novel and seeking a publisher for a MS of poetry. He manages the literary blog, Jacob Russell's Barking Dog at http://jacobrussellsbarkingdog.blogspot.com/His work has been performed by InterAct Theatre and appeared in Criiphoria 2, Conversational Magazine, BlazeVox, Scythe, Salmagundi, dcomP Mag, Pindeldeyboz, Pedestal, Philadelphia Stories, Apiary and other literary venues.


MICHELLE TARANSKY’s first book, Barn Burned, Then, was selected by Marjorie Welish for the 2008 Omnidawn Poetry Prize. She lives in Philadelphia where she works at Kelly Writers House and teaches poetry at Temple University.

NICOLE DONNELLY is a Philadelphia-based painter, printmaker, hand papermaker, installation artist, and shadow puppet enthusiast. She received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Iowa in 2009 and her BA in Visual Arts from Bennington College in 2002. Donnelly divides her time between the studio and her job as a curator, often finding time for regular collaborations with poet Hailey Higdon and choreographer Eleanor Goudie-Averill / Stone Depot Dance Lab. Her solo exhibition Mercury Retrograde was on view at the Abington Art Center in 2011, and she recently completed residencies at the Vermont Studio Center (2011) and the Women’s Studio Workshop (2010). She has exhibited her work throughout the United States, and in Canada, Mexico, and South Korea.

This all happens, as usual, at the marvelous Walking Fish Theatre, 2509 Frankford Avenue, in Philadelphia!  Promises to be a very special evening.  Please come.