Lizard Lounge Poetry Jam

“Whether they’re the fierce undercurrent of a poet’s musings or simply jammin’ on their own, the Jeff Robinson Trio exhibit a power and confidence that flirts with perfection.” Patricia Smith

May

Lizard Lounge Poetry Slam Team Finals - 18

This is always an exciting night of poetry and Lizard Lounge Poetry Jam Love! Not a night to be missed. We will announce the finalist after the semi-finals but you must mark this on your calendar! It’s also Slam Mama Joyce Cunha’s Birthday Party!

Regie Gibson - 25
Poet, songwriter, author, workshop facilitator, and educator Regie Gibson has performed, taught, and lectured at schools, universities, theaters and various other venues on two continents and in seven countries. Most recently in Havana Cuba. Regie and his work appear in the New Line Cinema film love jones, based largely on events in his life. The poem entitled “Brother to the Night (A Blues for Nina)” appears on the movie soundtrack and is performed by the film’s star, Larenz Tate. Regie performed “Hey Nappyhead” in the film with world-renowned percussionist and composer Kahil El Zabar, composer of the score for the musical The Lion King.

Regie has performed at: The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago Cultural Center, Elgin Symphony Orchestra Hall with the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra Hall with the members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Day of Art Festival, Chicago1s Steppenwolf Theater1s award-winning Traffic Series with David Amram (Composed music & collaborated with Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg.),Harvard Universities Longfellow Hall for the Cambridge Poetry Festival, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH.

Regie has personally worked with: Gwendolyn Brooks (Poet Laureate of Illinois & Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry.), The Last Poets, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Roy Ayers, Fareed Haque, Kurt Vonnegut, David Amram (Composed music & collaborated with Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg.), Harold Levi, The Monks of the Drepong Gamong Monastery, members of the world famous AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), Mos Def (Hip Hop artist), David Murray (Saxophonist with Miles Davis.), Sterling Plumpp (Professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago. & an author), Marc Smith (creator of the international (Poetry Slam phenomenon), Patricia Smith (3 time individual National Poetry Slam champ, columnist & author.), Reg E. Gaines (Writer of 3Bring On The Noise, Bring On The Funk2 with Savion Glover.), and many other artist in musical genres including World, Celtic, Hip Hop, Jazz, Funk, Blues, Salsa, Andelusian, East Indian, House, and European Classical.

Regie has taught, lectured and facilitated workshops for: the Cambridge Poetry Festival at Harvard University, the Poetry Center of the Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Black Writers Guild, Inside Out of Detroit, MI, University of Chicago Lab School, Northwestern University, Roosevelt University, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Eastern Michigan University, National Louis University, Washtenaw State College, Youth Speaks of San Francisco, CA, University Without Walls of San Antonio, TX, as a Chernin Center for the Arts Community Writers Fellow, a writer in residence at the Effi O. Ellis Center sponsored through National Louis University, and for public schools systems throughout the States of Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, California, Rhode Island, and Philadelphia. Regie is the 1998 National Poetry Slam Individual Champion, was selected one of Chicago Tribune’s Artist of the Year for Excellence (1998) for his poetry, will co-judge the Chicago Sun-Times 2001 Poetry Competition with Marc Smith (Creator of the international (Poetry Slam phenomenon.) and Mark Strand (University of Chicago professor & 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry), and is regularly featured on National Public Radio.

Regie has toured with the Chicago Mask Ensemble, performing dramatic and poetic adaptations of common myths from around the world. Co-produced the play “The Mystery of Fire Bread” with Frau Marianne Buchwald, while performing in Europe with the Sharnier Theater in the cities of Hanover, Frankfurt, Berlin, and the Literature Haus in Hamburg, Germany. Performed at the Night of Sacred Music in Chicago. His original works of poetry have been dramatized and scored by classical flautist and professor Janet Misurell Mitchell and produced and directed by Eric Rosen for the Steppenwolf Theater’s Words on Fire production.

In 1999 Regie performed for the award-winning Traffic Series at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater where Regie adapted the work of Kurt Vonnegut. Mr. Vonnegut was in attendance, and raved about the eloquence with which his work was rendered. “When you perform, you are supersonic and in the stratosphere where you can see the Earth really as a ball, moist, blue-green. You sing and chant for all of us. Nobody gets left out.” — Kurt Vonnegut

In 1999 Regie founded the Church of The Funky Word, a literary and musical arts ensemble utilizing ancient, contemporary and original literary text combined with world music and rituals from various world cultures.

Regie is widely published in anthologies, magazines and journals, such as Power Lines, An Anthology of Poetry along with three Pulitzer-Prize winning poets Gwendolyn Brooks, Yosef Komunyakaa, and Lisel Mueller, his first full-length book of poetry Storms Beneath The Skin (EM Press) was released in 2001. www.em-press.com

June

Ethan Gilsdorf - 1
Ethan was awarded a 2007 Fellowship from the Somerville Arts Council/Mass Cultural Council for a non-fiction book in progress.

The winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esmé Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, Gilsdorf has been awarded a grant from the Vermont Arts Council (1999) and residencies at the Millay Colony (2005), the Hall Farm Center for Arts and Education (Vermont/USA, 2004), the New Pacific Studio (New Zealand, 2005-06) and Vermont Studio Center (Vermont/USA, 1999)

His poems can be seen in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Poetry London, plus anthologies like Future Welcome; Short Fuse: The Global Anthology of New Fusion Poetry; Outsiders: Poems About Rebels, Exiles, and Renegades; Radio Waves: Poems Celebrating the Wireless; and In the Criminal’s Cabinet. Gilsdorf was also the Paris regional coordinator for Poets For Peace/United Poets Coalition.

He is co-founder of Grub Street’s Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP) in Boston.

Cherry Foreman - 8
Cherry Foreman began sharing her poetry here at The Lizard Loung in 2005 and it was an instant love affair! After moving from Baton Rouge to Boston in 1996, she finally happened upon the Sunday “church service” she had been craving! This is her first feature (ever) and wishes only to make proud all of the amazing poets, prophets, ministers and teachers who have gone before her. “I love to write. I don’t know my life without it. It’s how I reflect, process, remain a student of myself and keep my heart and mind open. Thank God for the WORD!”

Cherry is a writer, poet, yoga instructor, teacher, student, friend, daughter, sister, hairdresser, e.m.t., english lit. major, cook, waitress, and soon to be real estate agent (in no particular order)

Diana Saenz - 15
Diana Sáenz a poet and playwright of versatility and depth will be reading with The Jeff Robinson Trio, at the Lizard Lounge. She has previously read at University of California at Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Claremont where she delivered a lecture on the Development of Latino Playwriting since the 1960’s and the Socio-political Role of the Artist. She has been reading with the Jeff Robinson Trio since it began doing the Poetry Jazz series, and has featured in many poetry venues. She has also read at Leslie College, Massachusetts University at Lowell, The Revolving Museum in Lowell, and The Harvard Peabody Museum of Anthropology. Her plays have been performed in Texas, California, Massachusetts, Maine and Poland .

Diana has written six books of poetry, Ordinary Lives Discussed, Just This Side of the Third Millennium, Apes in Space, Uneaten Duck, and The Book of Eve. In 1992 she was commissioned to write the text for Frida Kahlo: Self Portrait in Dance, a performance based on the life of Frida Kahlo. The performance played to standing room only in a 400 seat Theatre.