We are so excited to invite you to the 11th annual Poets Theater festival- this year at CounterPULSE!

This year’s lineup, scheduled for Sunday January 15th and Sunday January 22nd, includes innovative offerings by some of our most elastic minds, who will whip you into a frenzy of joy and ecstasy that will leave you begging for more.

Join us Sunday January 15th at 5:00pm for:
+Idioterne by Joseph Kaplan and directed by Zach Tuck

+Time’s Machinery; or the Stopwatch written and directed by Brent Cunningham

+Theater (a Thousand Plateaus) written by Kieran Daly and directed by Sara Wintz

+Dating by Consensus written and directed by Lindsey Boldt and Steve Orth

+ You Have to Take Care of My Work Together written and directed by Paul Ebenkamp

+Precious Princess or PIG Speak written and directed by Bob Gluck and Jocelyn Saidenberg

+Utopia and Other Drugs written by Ronald Palmer, Cynthia Sailers and Stephanie Young and directed by Brent Cunningham

+Barber Shop or Butch Realness Meets Real Butchness written by Ryan B. Funk and directed by Kevin Killian

+The Morton Sal Girl Monologue: NaCl and the Meaning of Her Mark written and directed by Wendy Kramer

And then come back on Sunday January 22nd at 5:00pm for :

+Transient’s Theme: a soap operatic etude written and directed by Bethany Ides

+Debt Play written and directed by Lauren Levin, Laura Woltag, Lara Durback, Melissa Mack, Anne Lesley Selcer and Tony Valadez

+Lycanthropes, loup garoux, 28 nov, lean and mean written and directed by C.S. Giscombe

+Charles Baudelaire the Vampire Slayer written by Brandon Brown and directed by Clive Worsley

+One More Time: a play in parts written by Edwin Torres and directed by Sophie Reiff

+BUCKSHOT: A RASHOMON written by Brian Bauman and directed by Kevin Killian

+Werther Live, On the Radio written by Gail Scott and directed by Monica Peck

+What She Said written by Rodney Koeneke and George Albon directed by Lauren Shufran

TICKETS: $15 online
$20 at the doorWe are thrilled to offer online pre-sale tickets for the first time ever! What? Convenience, ease and community spirit? Watch out 2012!

To buy tickets in advance: http://poetstheater-eorg.eventbrite.com/

The event not only featured editors Kathleen Fraser, Beverly Dahlen and Susan Gevirtz, but also presentations from former contributors Robin Treblay-McGaw, Norma Cole, Yedda Morrison (on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha) and Camille Roy. It was fantastic!

photos by Camille Roy

After a summer full of sublime thought-provoking performances in collaboration with SFMOMA’s Open Space in the series “Pop-Up Poets”, we are now ready to bring out the autumnal wares in the Fall Season at Small Press Traffic!

This season we are thrilled to present a series of investigations on the motivations and legacies of some of the most vibrant Bay Area writing scenes.

We are also making an exciting shift in our programming we hope you’ll appreciate. Starting this Fall all SPT events will be at 5pm on the first and third Sundays!

Yes, you heard that right.

Now you’ll be able to spend your Sunday sleeping in, enjoying brunch with friends, going for a leisurely walk or film, and then ending the afternoon with a fascinating early evening with some of the most brilliant minds of our time.

Also, unless noted, all events will be held at the BART-friendly Artist Television Access in the Mission!

We are so grateful to collaborate with two of the most exciting and inspiring art spaces in San Francisco: ATA and CCA!

Ok, get your calendars out because you won’t want to miss a single event of this fantastic line-up.

____________
September 18, 2011 at 5pm
at Artist Television Access
Warren Sonbert, Alan Bernheimer and Jim Brashear
The season opens with a screening of A Woman’s Touch, a 1983 film by Warren Sonbert, featuring Carla Harryman and Melissa Reilly against a backdrop of 1980′s San Francisco with a special introduction by Alan Bernheimer

plus: A sound performance by Bay Area critic, performer writer Jim Brashear to open our new venue!

October 2, 2011 at 5pm
at Artist Television Access
a night with How(ever)

Join Kathleen Fraser, Susan Gevirtz and more guests TBA to discuss the arrival and labors of HOW(ever), a magazine dedicated to the inquiry into modernist and contemporary innovative writing practices by women.

October 16,2011 at 5pm
*SPECIAL EVENT*
at Timken Hall, California College of the Arts
Kevin Killian and Karla Milosovich’s DANCE WORLD GYM
“In the dance world… anything goes.” –Terpsichore

Featuring a huge cast of artists, writers, editors, poets, playwrights, filmmakers, musicians, novelists, curators, designers and volunteers, and one dancer, it’s DANCE WORLD GYM. E-I-E-I-O!

November 6, 2011 at 5pm
at Artist Television Access
a conversation with Robin Tremblay-McGaw and Alysia Abbott

Poet and critic Tremblay-McGaw converses with writer and radio producer Alysia Abbott about her father Steve Abbott’s relationship to the Bay Area writing scene as the editor of Poetry Flash and Soup and as one of the lead organizers of the LeftWrite Conference and in honor Steve’s work as editor, organizer and writer in the Bay Area.

November 20, 2011 at 5pm
at Timken Hall, CCA San Francisco
an evening with the Grand Piano collective

A celebration and discussion of the literary histories the Bay Area Language Poetry of the Grand Piano collective including Lyn Hejinian, Kit Robinson, Ted Pearson, Barrett Watten, Carla Harryman, Steve Benson, Tom Mandel, Rae Armantrout, and MORE!

December 4, 2011 at 5pm
at Artist Television Access
Kaplan Harris in conversation with Bruce Boone and Robert Glück

Thirty years after the LeftWrite conference,
Kaplan Harris sits down with the organizers of the conference to revisit some of the motivations, fractures and legacies of this seminal moment in Bay Area History.

December 18, 2011 at 5pm
at Artist Television Access
Bay Area APIA poets and the Avant Garde led by Barbara Jane Reyes

Panel discussion on Bay Area Asian-Pacific-Islander-American poets and the avant-garde. In this panel, authors, editors, and educators will discuss APIA poetry, and their relationships with avant-garde poetries, the historical contexts for today’s poetries, and challenges or obstacles to writing with consideration to aesthetics and ethnic identity. Participants include Jai Arun Ravine, Margaret Rhee, Eileen Tabios, Truong Tran, and Jean Vengua, and others TBA

Hope to see you there!

On June 5th
Gotta COLLECT at SFMOMA
Kids get in free! 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Explore a Stein-inspired salon for families in the Schwab room in addition to regular Family Sunday programming.

The Schwab room will be converted into a living room with a continuous reading of The World is Round by Gertrude Stein as well as a reading of Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude by Jonah Winter.

There will also be drawing activities in the living room as well Museums in a Box activities at the Koret Studio and sculpture, photo and drawing gallery art making activities. The gallery activities will be on the 2nd and 5th floors.

co-organized with Christian Davies and sponsored by SFMOMA

11:30 a.m.
Jaime Cortez is a multi-disciplinarian artist, editor, activist, writer and playwright.

12:30 p.m.
Xochiquetzal Candelaria is tenured English faculty at San Francisco City College and author of 1973 (University of Arizona Press.)

1:30 p.m.
Samantha Giles is the author of the forthcoming hurdis addo (displaced press) and the director of Small Press Traffic.

Free and open to the public

Saturday, June 04, 2011
GERTRUDE STEIN’S THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
Haas Atrium at SFMOMA
11:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Co-organized with Suzanne Stein and SFMOMA.

Twenty-six Bay Area poets perform an all-day marathon reading of selections from Gertrude Stein’s epic novel, The Making of Americans. Composed during the years of the legendary Paris salons held by Stein and her siblings, this “history of a family’s progress” represents the beginning of Stein’s distinctive modernist style.

11:30 a.m.
Miranda Mellis is the author of The Revisionist and None of This Is Real.

11:45 a.m.
Kit Robinson is a poet, musician, and freelance writer.

12:00 p.m.
Kevin Killian is the author of Action Kylie and Impossible Princess.

12:15 p.m.
Stacy Doris’s next book is Fledge, A Phenomenology of Spirit.

12:30 p.m.
Lauren Shufran is a PhD candidate in literature at UC Santa Cruz.

12:45 p.m.
Colter Jacobsen is an artist and musician living in San Francisco.

1:00 p.m.
Patricia Dienstfrey is cofounder of Kelsey Street Press and a poet.

1:15 p.m.
Bill Berkson is a poet and professor emeritus at the San Francisco Art Institute.

1:30 p.m.
Erika Staiti’s recent chapbook, in the stitches, was published by Trafficker Press.

1:45 p.m.
Jen Benka has authored two books of poems and works at 826 National.

2:00 p.m.
Carol Mirakove is the author of Mediated and Occupied.

2:15 p.m.
Dan Thomas-Glass is an East Bay poet and edits With + Stand.

2:30 p.m.
Carrie Hunter’s first book, The Incompossible, is out from Black Radish Books.

2:45 p.m.
David Brazil is a writer and publishes TRY! magazine with Sara Larsen.

3:00 p.m.
Camille Roy’s most recent book is Sherwood Forest from Futurepoem.

3:15 p.m.
Taylor Brady is the co-author of Snow Sensitive Skin.

3:30 p.m.
Lara Durback is a poet, letterpress printer, and publisher.

3:45 p.m.
Rob Halpern’s books include Rumored Place, Disaster Suites, and Music for Porn.

4:00 p.m.
Jean Day is the author of Enthusiasm and other books.

4:15 p.m.
Jocelyn Saidenberg is a writer, former librarian, and future apiarist.

4:30 p.m.
Cedar Sigo’s most recent book is Stranger In Town.

4:45 p.m.
Laura Moriarty is a poet, novelist, and deputy director of Small Press Distribution.

5:00 p.m.
Stephen Ratcliffe lives in Bolinas, writes about clouds and ridge.

5:15 p.m.
Yedda Morrison is a poet and visual artist living in San Francisco.

5:30 p.m.
Ron Palmer writes porn-thriller philosophy and lives in the Richmond.

5:45 p.m.
Lyn Hejinian is a poet and a professor of English at UC Berkeley.

Free and open to the public.

Please join us this Friday evening for a very special event as we welcome Joan Retallack to SPT for the inaugural Leslie Scalapino Memorial Lecture in Innovative Poetics.

If the end of the world is coming…Celebrate it with Small Press Traffic
at
THE RELIQUARIUM
an apocalyptic fundraiser

Join us for the end of days (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_end_times_prediction) at this end of season bash featuring:

+reenactments from scenes of the end of the world
+the co-generation of a literary time capsule
+an auction of poetic reliquaries
+an end times dance party
+drinks and MORE!

May 21, 2011 at 7:30pm
California College of the Arts Graduate Writing Studio
195 deHaro at 15th
San Francisco, California

entrance a mere $10!

with reliquaries by:
Steve Benson
Charles Bernstein
Rachel Blau duPlessis
Julian Brolaski
Enrique Chagoya
Thom Donovan
Elaine Equi
Coco and Rob Fitterman and Kim Rosenfield
Kathleen Fraser
Bob Gluck
Judith Goldman
Tracy Grinnell
Nina Katchadorian
Kevin Killian
Joanne Kyger
Nathanial Mackey
Harryette Mullen
Eileen Myles
Sina Queyras
Ariana Reines
Larry Rinder
Camille Roy
Fiona Templeton
Edwin Torres
Amy Trachtenberg
Kaia Sand
Tyrone Williams
and MORE!

Can’t make it to the event? You can still bid on poet reliquaries online! Send in your absentee bids to smallpresstraffic@gmail.com