Dead Poets Slam
“A poem should be equal to: Not true.”
        …Spread the Word

Smart Gals’ Speakeasy celebrates National Poetry Month with its 4th annual Dead Poets Slam. This locally conceived, original event has a rich history, and Smart Gals keeps it alive. Year one, the Suicide Poets stood down the Natural Death Poets by but a few points. Year two, the Men took on the Women. Year three pitted East Coast against West Coast. And now, Smart Gals’ Spring Speakeasy presents a fresh challenge, ripe for a country with new leadership: Citizens vs. Expatriates.

Speakeasy
Sunday, April 26th, 2009
7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Mt. Hollywood Underground
4607 Prospect Avenue, Los Feliz
Admission: $15.00
Information and passwords:
323.302.2257 or smartgals.org
(not just for chicks)

Many and mythic are the artists, writers, and otherwise “sensitive types” who have fled these United States to seek creative support and more responsive international audiences. Recall Langston Hughes’ Parisian sojourns, Hemingway’s romance with Spain. Smart Gals will pit die-hard American denizens against those who chose to disembark. Can poet-of-the-plains Carl Sandburg defeat Eurocentric e.e. cummings? Will the elusive Djuna Barnes tear down Sarah Teasdale? When dead poets enter the slam ring, there is no sure victor.

The evening will open and close with live music by the Red Maids.

What to Expect

Hosted by Noël Alumit (Letters to Montgomery Clift, Talking to the Moon), the Dead Poets Slam levels the creative playing field by forcing seasoned performers to throw down anonymously. The words speak for themselves and our panel of “celebrity” judges including Caley O'Dwyer Feagin, Clifford Johnson, and Sandra Zane of Global Literary Management (swayed by a vocal audience) determines the winner. Featuring performances by cutthroat Kathleen Coyne, dashing David Balkan, elusive Lana Buss, no-holds-barred Terri Harrah, meter-savvy David O’Shea, silver-tongued Lori Yeghiayan, and local live poets Brendan Constantine, S.A. Griffin and Imani Tolliver the Dead Poets Slam never disappoints.

Curious but cautious? Click here to see lively photos of last year’s slam.

Pleasing, nonalcoholic refreshments and savory comestibles will be provided. Should you desire a more spirited beverage, by all means bring it along but do stash it discreetly in a brown paper bag.

Password: “A poem should be equal to: Not true.”

Why socialize on a Sunday? Because mingling is good for your mental health.

Who’s Who

Noël Alumit wrote the novels Letters to Montgomery Clift and Talking to the Moon. He toured with his solo shows The Rice Room and Master of the (Miss) Universe. He works for MAKE ART/STOP AIDS, an international network of artists, scholars and activists dedicated ending to global AIDS. He can be reached via his blog: www.thelastnoel.blogpsot.com.

David H. Balkan is a writer-producer who has written and/or produced over two hundred and fifty hours of film. He has been the executive producer-showrunner on five one-hour dramatic television shows and has served two consecutive terms on the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America. A recipient of the Writers Guild Joan Young Memorial award, Mr. Balkan teaches advanced screenwriting and production at the graduate and undergraduate level in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. He has a second career doing Voice-Over narrations for television and radio commercials and has narrated Audio Books and documentaries, including Larry Bird’s autobiography, Bird Watching.

Lana Buss is Managing Director and co-owner of The Hothouse - an impovisation and acting studio in North Hollywood. She holds an MFA in Acting from Arizona State University and a BFA in Theatre from USD. As an actor she has worked with The Shakespeare Co. in Washington D.C., The Judith Shakespeare Co. in NYC, and the LA Women's Shakespeare Co. here in Los Angeles. Currently she teaches, directs and also performs improvisation at The Hothouse. Check us out: hothouseimprov.com.

Brendan Constantine’s work has appeared in numerous journals, most notably Ploughshares, The Cortland Review, RUNES, & ArtLife. His book-length collection Letters To Guns has recently been released from Red Hen Press, and will be available for purchase at the event. He is currently poet in residence at the Windward School in west Los Angeles. Find out more at brendanconstantine.com.

Kathleen Coyne has worked on stage in L. A., Off-Broadway, toured nationally, and done numerous film and TV roles. She has received 2 personal artist grants from the LACAD to create plays based on the lives of low-income elders downtown Los Angeles. An Associate Artist with Cornerstone Theater Company she created “Traveling in Time-Stories of L.A.” with the elders of Angeles Plaza for the Uncommon Artists exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

S.A. Griffin is a Carma Bum. Editor, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Firecracker Award) and editor/publisher Black Ace 8 (Temple of Man), Call by francEyE, The Outlaw's Prayer: Teaching The Dead To Sing by John Dorsey and The Electric Yes Indeed! by Scott Wannberg. Most recently author of Numbskull Sutra, Greatest Hits (Pudding House) and The Fucker Inside. Named by Wanda Coleman best performance/poet L.A. Weekly. Working actor since 1978, Dramalogue Award and Kari Award (Canada). A Cadillac wrangler and gambler from the inside, he lives, loves and works in Los Angeles. Father, husband and Vietnam era vet. Librarians rule, viva independent bookstores, long live small press.

Terri Harrah is glad to be a part of this event.

Clifford Johnson is a theoretical physicist at the University of Southern California. His research focuses on strongly coupled phenomena which are important in a wide variety of physics topics including quantum gravity, particle physics, cosmology, black holes, string theory, field theory, and nuclear physics. He is part of the ongoing international effort to use modern physics to understand and describe the origin, past, present and future of the Universe. He has a wide range of interests, and works to place science in the broader culture where it belongs, accessible to all members of society. He contributes regularly to television and radio programs (especially the History Channel's series The Universe), consults for television and film, writes for a variety of publications, and has a blog at asymptotia.com.

Caley O'Dwyer Feagin's (caleyodwyer.com) poems appear in Prairie Schooner, Alaska Quarterly Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, and others. He is a winner of an Academy of American Poets Prize, a two-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, and a recipient of a Helene Wurlitzer grant for poetry. His book of poems, Full Nova (2001), is available from Orchises Press. Caley's current poetry writing project, Light, Earth and Blue, is a series of poems written in relation to the abstract expressionist paintings of Mark Rothko. He teaches writing at the University of Southern California and is a psychotherapy intern at Narrative Solutions.

David O’Shea tells stories from his life as a NYC cabdriver, Santa Claus, FEMA worker, and tax accountant in theatres throughout Los Angeles. In NYC, his one-man show, Taxi Stories, was reviewed as “gut-busting and deeply moving testament.” of a “now by-gone New York when the city’s danger and unpredictability were part of its charm.

Imani Tolliver is a poet, visual artist and educator. She has been a consultant for museums, educational institutions and was honored to serve as the 2007/2008 Poet Laureate for the Watts Towers Arts Center in Los Angeles, California.

Lori Yeghiayan is a proud Smart Gals veteran having appeared in The Dead Poets Slam Speakeasy of 2005, curated the Armenia/LA Speakeasy of 2006 and performed in numerous Are You Interested?s since 2000. She holds an MFA in Theatre/Acting from UCSD.

Sandra Zane is an agent at Global Literary Management in Los Angeles. She has thirteen years of book publishing experience, focusing on the agency's connection to Hollywood, and developing her list of clients with an emphasis on literary and commercial fiction, and narrative non-fiction, history, lifestyle, and pop culture.

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Smart Gals Productions is a 501(C)3 not-for-profit, public-benefit arts organization dedicated to creating original gatherings in unlikely places, and to building the greater arts community of Los Angeles. On the last Sunday of every month, Smart Gals brings together curious, likeminded people via their socially progressive underground salon, The Speakeasy, now enjoying its fifth year.