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Photo: Entry
Author: Greg
While it was written in 2021, it’s time to ring in the new year with new reviews of new(ish) books of poems. This first one for me for 2022 is a collection by Joey Yearous-Algozin, A Feeling Called Heaven. You can find the review at North of Oxford.
I am pleased to announce that my recent performance poem, “The Fiend of Leschi,” posted in its recorded form here, has been included in a new form in North of Oxford’s Pandemic of Violence Anthology.
Note that in the poem, Leschi refers to the neighborhood (in Seattle), and not the Nisqually chief.
After twisting and turning my way through Coil’s discography, I decided I had to pay homage with a couple music videos. One is for “Going Up” and it’s full of footage from a trip to the Olympics this past summer.
After working on “Going Up,” I decided to make use of the large bodies of footage of water from the past year that have found miscellaneous digital dust collecting on them. Altogether they helped form the music video for the single-track album, “Queens of the Circulating Library,” which resonated with me the first time I heard it.
At 49 minutes long, it’s one of my largest abstract video projects to date, and one that also includes some narrative elements within the abstraction.
These follow up two other music videos I’ve created in the past, one for “Ex-American Blues” by Speaker Music:
And one for KMRU’s “drawing water,” created this past summer:
Excited to post my last performance of poetry alongside Jim O’Halloran and friends, at Kezira Cafe in Columbia City, Seattle. While the poem has nothing to do with its predecessor, Return to Rain, it is the spiritual successor. Note the details in the video’s description:
The Fiend of Leschi, a poem performed by Greg Bem with the Jim O’Halloran Trio. Recorded at Kezira Restaurant in Columbia City, Seattle, on 11/19/21. Device used: Galaxy S21+. Edited lightly in Ableton Live 11.
The piece is just over 15 minutes in length.
Six GIFs from my recent stay at the San Juan Island Friday Harbor Labs’s Whiteley Center. Originally shot on a GoPro Hero 9, edited in Resolve, and processed into GIFs via ScreenToGIF. If these don’t load quickly for you, I recommend a brief meditation before returning to the page and the loaded GIFs.
Regarding the export process, I noticed that ScreenToGIF radically mutes the images’ contrast. This is something that I wasn’t expecting, as the original videos for the GIFs are quite substantially brighter, but the quality ends up looking like an Instagram filter, so I guess these cool waters are “cool” images as a result.
Who knows how this’ll look. If you have a fast internet connection, it might work out . . . fast.
San Juan Island Timelapse GIF 1
San Juan Island Timelapse GIF 1 BW
More forthcoming!
I have reviewed Sarah Mangold’s newest book, Her Wilderness Will Be Her Manners, over at North of Oxford. Take a read, explore this new book!
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Stalagmite Light
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Resolving a project: Memory Forms: Ruin
Excited to announce a new poetry project is up on this site. Memory Forms: Ruin was rejected from a recent Shanti Arts call for submissions, solidifying it as an even “further ruin” that paired well with a situational recording of rainfall and other ambient sounds at Friday Harbor, in Seattle, Washington. The poems were written after visits to Sequim, Washington, and Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado.
You can find the poems and the soundtrack for reading the poems on this site, here.
My latest review of Karen Elizabeth Bishop’s new poetry collection is now available at North of Oxford. Read it here.
A couple nights ago I had the pleasure of reading a poem with the Jim O’Halloran Trio at Kezira Cafe in Columbia City, Seattle. The poem, “Return to Rain,” is linked below. Here’s the segment of the set with the reading:
And some larger selections of the show.
Sadly, the focus was set to auto and was doing some really weird stuff in the low-light room. The sound isn’t perfect either, but better than null!
And here’s the poem:
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A review of Amy Beeder’s work
Happy to announce I have reviewed Amy Beeder’s And So Wax Was Made & Also Honey over at North of Oxford.
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Happy 60th, Paul E. Nelson!
Following a recent 60th birthday, Paul E. Nelson celebrated with a reading and we engaged in an interview shortly thereafter. Both are available on YouTube.
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New Rain Taxi Reviews
Another month, more reviews of poetry.
The Fall 2021 print edition of Rain Taxi includes my review of Is This Scary? by Jacob Scheier.
The online edition of Rain Taxi just released by review of CURB by Divya Victor.
Don’t miss ’em!