Bøger af C. D. Johnson

"These poems enter (sometimes gently, sometimes brutally), the quiet sanctuary of fiction we live in daily but choose to ignore. Miriam's keen observation of the fictions takes us on a journey to understanding the complexities of self and day-to-day survival in this irrational world created by the human mind." - EJ Antonio "Driving the Celexa offers an empathic mix of poems with the overarching theme of surviving with one's sanity intact. Miriam Stanley is at her best when she's closely observing the daily routines of her fellow New Yorkers. Her work gives us a glimpse of the future while understanding one can't escape the baleful grip of history: Lessons well worth remembering in these perilous times. Read these poems with an open heart, you will be rewarded." - Danny Shot "Miriam Stanley's work evokes truth. We live in a society where the basic fundamentals is to tell the truth. If you are interested in the truth read this work. Miriam is rhythmic and lyrical but not overbearing." - Robert Gibbons

Foreword I must have already been fifteen or sixteen by the time I was first confronted by J. D. Salinger's story "Franny", whose setting is over lunch with a boyfriend, Lane, prior to his presumably Ivy League mater's football game against Yale. When she returns to their table after recovering from an episode of dizziness and nausea, he questions her about the small book she has been carrying. She nonchalantly responds that it is titled The Way of a Pilgrim, the story of how a Russian wanderer learns the power of "praying without ceasing." The prayer in play is "The Jesus Prayer," the mantra "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me," internalized to a point where it becomes unconscious, like a heartbeat. So essentially this is the story of a nice Jewish girl from the Upper East Side of Manhattan mesmerizing herself in a Catholic requiem which becomes a Zen koan. When after her disclosure Franny faints, Lane tends to her until she regains consciousness, postpones the weekend's events, hails a tax for her, and leaves Franny, who is still praying without ceasing. This present selection of my poems harkens back to that initial reading of Salinger's story, and to Dante's of "the love that moves the sun and other stars," through a spring semester with Paul Ruggiers, a distinguished Jesuit scholar who taught at the University of Oklahoma at the time. Admittedly, my identification with the Judeo-Christian tradition is largely incidental; had I been born somewhere other than Biblically belted Norman Oklahoma, I might well have been inclined toward Buddhism, Islam, etc. (then again there may well be something nominative going on, Jones being a derivation from John, St. John the Baptist having been the disciple to proclaim Christ, something perhaps both semiotic and symbolic). The eventual assembly of this collection evolved in what educators refer to backward design, an objective for a curriculum being determined and then strategies toward it devised. Just prior writing another of my raunchy" ditties, "Peepshow," I vowed to next subject myself to a sustained, spiritual, interrogation; "five stations," a rather apparent evocation of T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets," followed. The collection then began to reassemble itself along the strata of that sequence. (I continue to find myself amused with the knowledge that Hunter College, my thrice-fold alma mater, declined Thomas Stearns a faculty position early in his career, a history courtesy former Hunter and Princeton professor, and John Berryman drinking buddy, James Williams). And so these were the origins of a poem of common prayer, perhaps best characterized as a collision and collusion between Eliotic apology and Whitmanic queer theory. The impact of my initial encounter with Franny Glass some fifty years hence continues to haunt me in an oddly reassuring way. Yes the possibility of the ability to pray without ceasing, to quote the close to the last line to my last poem herein, "a love poem being a prayer" that, in fact, something, or one, greater than ourselves does indeed love us. L.W.J.

One of New York City's biggest literary events, featuring more than 170 scheduled performers, returns to the historic Nuyorican Poets Café on New Year's Day. The 24th annual Alternative New Year's Day Spoken Word / Performance Extravaganza took place on January 1, 2018. The year's theme was "Pa'lante a la Luz (Charge Into The Light )". The Alternative draws an overflow crowd every year. The Alternative, which continues to be free to the public, features poets, prose writers, monologists, musicians, dancers and other performers in a 10-hour showcase that ranges from some of New York's most seasoned talents to emerging stars. The lineup evolves each year to keep the event fresh and democratic. The audience is encouraged to donate paperback books to Books Through Bars (http: //booksthroughbarsnyc.org ) for people incarcerated in prison, and canned or boxed food or drink for City Harvest (https: //cityharvest.org), which provides for the hungry in New York. The Alternative began on New Year's Day in 1995, and quickly became one of the most popular events on the city's poetry and literary scene. Founder, Bruce Weber, is ably assisted by a staff of writers, designers and curators. Each year a fresh group of performers are plucked from all corners of the Tri-State area to enliven and transform The Alternative in unexpected ways. Adding to the mix, for the fifth consecutive year we've produced this anthology composed of featured writers, published by Rogue Scholars Press under the guidance of C. D. Johnson. "We're excited about our continuing effort to bring in new voices every year and touch all corners of the city. This year promises to be spectacular," said Mr. Weber of this year's event. This volume features the work of: Austin Alexis. Joel Allegretti. Merissa Anderson. Madeline Artenberg. Carmen Bardeguez-Brown. Yael Baron. Steve Bloom. Peter Bushyeager. Natalie N. Caro. Patricia Carragon. Maria Fernanda Lara Chamorro. Tina Chan. Michael Collins. Lydia Cortes. Steve Dalachinsky. Pete Dolack. Gabriel Don. Bill Evans. Bonny Finberg. Jen Fitzgerald. Daniela Gioseffi. Barbara D. Hall. Patrick Hammer Jr.. Bob Heman. Aimee Herman. Ngoma Hill. Roxanne Hoffman. David Huberman. Kate Irving. IsatheIntrovert. Evie Ivy. C. D. Johnson. Icegayle Johnson. Larry Jones. Meg Kaizu. Lee Klein. Linda Kleinbub. Ron Kolm. Ptr Kozlowski. Annie Rachele Lanzillotto. Jane LeCroy. Linda Lerner. Toni Mergentime Levi. Mindy Levokove. Eleonore Ley. Tsaurah Litzky. Ellen Aug Lytle. Stan Marcus. Jesús Papoleto Meléndez. Nancy Mercado. Alejandra Moreno. Dennis Moritz. KB Nemcosky. Yuko Otomo. Eve Packer. D.Bird el Palabrero. Puma Perl. Howard Pflanzer. Su Polo. Ron Price. Zero Prophet. Leslie Prosterman. Jill Rapaport. Carlos Manuel Rivera. Renato Rosaldo. Robert Roth. Thaddeus Rutkowski. K. Saito. Sarah Serrano. Ravi Shankar. Yuyutsu Sharma. Susan Sherman. John L. Silver. Joanna Sit. Angela Sloan. Miriam Stanley. Laurie Stone. Zelene Pineda Suchilt. Terese Svoboda. Alice B. Talkless. J M Theisen de Gonzalez. Tim Tomlinson. Edwin Torres. Ewan Turner. Claire Van Winkle. George Wallace. Phyllis Wat. Bruce Weber. Francine Witte. Jeffrey Cyphers Wright.

Our 23rd Event And Our 4th Anthology... Amazing! Every year I reconsider the broad strokes and possibilities, and the staff gathers in early winter to talk about new directions and bridges to cross. A major part of our planning is to reach out to new guest curators for assistance in keeping the channels open to new voices and sounds. We also hope to bring in artists we've missed, neglected, or not had back in a while. This year I am especially thrilled by the multitude of new performers that have been added to event. When the Alternative New Year's Day Spoken Word / Performance Extravaganza began I fantasized about creating an anthology on the spot, with the help of an industrial strength photocopy machine nearby. Now in the age of the internet, and the publishing possibilities the internet has conjured up, plus the masterful hand and eye of C. D. Johnson, we have our fourth annual collection of a selection of works by participants in Forever Night: Siempre Noche. The theme Forever Night: Siempre Noche was chosen in the course of this past overheated summer of Trump and Clinton, and after the theme was selected by the vote of the staff, some staff members wondered if it was perhaps too dark in its insinuations. Now, following the autumn election, we must and we shall persist even harder in our artistry, clinging to art's ever present truth to get us through the forthcoming night ahead.

A.N.Y.D.S.W.P.E. / Our 22nd year for the Alternative New Year's Day Spoken Word / Performance Extravaganza event, and our third year celebrating with an anthology! The talent is overflowing and the pages of this volume burst forth yet again as more than 80 poets and writers give up their words to be sacrificed on the hallowed altar of the Ars Poetica. No doubt both you and the Muses will find their offerings satiating. Where are the masters of word and verse to go from here? Only to fame and glory, my friends! Only to fame and glory! ...Or your bookshelves. That will be nice, too.

This 1973 book was written to provide senior undergraduates and first-year graduate students with a guide to the Hammett equation.