Kate Schapira & Mary Wilson read at Carpenter St.!

Mary Wilson and Kate Schapira
read AND write for you
on Thursday, August 2nd, at 7 pm
at 186 Carpenter St., Providence

We'll follow short readings with poems written on the spot, just for you. Listen to our tasty work, then hang out and eat snacks while we respond to your requests!

City Change #11

Rachel L. writes from Brooklyn, NY: "Soon the contested Barclay Stadium will open at Atlantic Yards. I think they were trying to make it as grotesque as possible."

July 19th: RISD Design the Night: Text presents a Publicly Complex Summer Special

On July 19th, Publicly Complex will present six Providence poets at the RISD Museum, reading their work and writing poems on demand!

Anytime between 7 and 9, you can hear a great mini-reading in the Porcelain Gallery or visit one of the two writing stations in Pendleton House to have a poem written to your specifications by one of these excellent poets:

Andy Axel
Darcie Dennigan
Michael Turner
Amish Trivedi
Rosalynde Vas Dias
Mary Wilson

Publicly Complex partner Ada Books will have a table of beautiful books for display and sale, as well as works by the participants.

The RISD Museum's Design the Night events are open late/open free nights at the museum, brimful with talks, performances, and hands-on activities, as well as all the art the museum has to offer. You can find a complete schedule for July 19th here:

https://www.facebook.com/events/195418947251759/

This will be amazing. Providence-area poetry-lovers, we hope to see you there!

Review of How We Saved the City

Joshua Ware wrote a short, thoughtful review of How We Saved the City. Thanks, Joshua!

Congratulations, Messrs. Frank and Ready

I'm aware of the arguments against the focus and emphasis on marriage equality -- that not all gay and queer people want to get married, that marriage as a social and economic institution has some bad history, that the rights and privileges that come through marriage should be available to everyone, that marriage isn't the only kind of valuable relationship, and most importantly that the focus on marriage equality draws attention away from more basic equal rights and more radical possibilities alike.

People who do believe in marriage and want to acknowledge their love in this way -- whoever they are and however many of them there are, provided everyone involved wants to -- should be able to go for it, and so I was glad to read this morning of Congressman Barney Frank's marriage to his partner.

I really do encourage you to buy The Soft Place

There are so many ways to do it! You could buy it here! or here! You could buy it at Ada Books or Books on the Square if you live in Providence!

If you buy it online, forward your receipt to my gmail address, publiclycomplex, and include a mailing address. I'll send you a copy of new mini-chapbook The Pass. It has a picture of a yucca plant on it.

Bishop on shame (just when you thought you could hold up your head)

Beloved friend and fellow poet Bronwen Tate sent me this extract from Elizabeth Bishop's "The Country Mouse" in her Collected Prose:

"Three great truths came home to me during this stretch of my life, all hard to describe and equally important. Emma and I were sitting under the chestnut trees, making conversation in the way both children and adults do. She asked me about my parents. I said my father was dead; I didn't ever remember seeing him. What about my mother? I thought for a moment and then I said in a sentimental voice: "She went away and left me. . . She died, too." Emma was impressed and sympathetic and I loathed myself. It was the first time I had lied deliberately and consciously, and the first time I was aware of falsity and the great power of sentimentality -- although I didn't know the word. My mother was not dead. She was in a sanatorium, in another prolonged 'nervous breakdown.' I didn't know then, and still don't, whether it was from shame I lied or from a hideous craving for sympathy, playing up my sad romantic plight. But the feeling of self-distaste, whatever it came from, was only too real. I jumped up, to get away from my monstrous self that I could not keep from lying."

4th of JuPie

James and I have a 4th of JuPie party every year to celebrate the freedom to eat delicious pie. Here are some hot items from this year's event.

Party duration: about 5 hours

Number of babies: 2

What I made: a veggie pot pie with a biscuit topping and a straight-up peach pie with a top crust




First pie to disappear entirely: spinach and mushroom quiche (Annie Schapira)

Other pielights: the best key lime pie I have ever tasted (Holly Sedlock); veggie samosas (Michael Turner and Jason whose last name I can't remember -- sorry, Jason, if you see this. Your samosas were good); banana coconut cream (no idea, but well done, that person); spicy cornbread (Jenna Legault); sweet potato/cheese/fennel pie-lets (Rachel Schapira)


Pies I maxed out before trying: cherry pie; fennel pie; Cliff of Pink Gelatin pie; peach custard pie; apricot almond pie with apricots from the neighbor's tree (some of these had leftovers, so I get another chance)

Roof time: yes

Fireworks after: yes, standing on Wickenden Street looking through the gap in the buildings

Number of bags of recyclables: 2

Number of dishes left at our house: 5

Number of pairs of sunglasses left at our house: 2