Thank You, and Upcoming

A big thank you for another great Mommy, Mommy! Wow — Hot potato.

We won't be having a Mommy, Mommy! in September. Instead, join Anna Joy Springer, Janice Lee and I at the Les Figues Benefit auction, "Give A Fig," at LACE, with performances by Bhanu Kapil, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum and Christine Wertheim (amazing!)

Tickets are ON SALE NOW!

DADDY, DADDY! – Where Have All The Daddies Gone?

Don’t miss the best masculine-feminist literary event of the decade!
Mommy, Mommy! (#5) in affiliation with Les Figues Press presents:
DADDY, DADDY! – Where Have All The Daddies Gone?

Saturday, July 11, 2009
$5 - $20 sliding scale
Doors 7:30pm
Reading starts at 8:00pm
compactspace 105 East 6th St., Los Angeles
www.compactspace.com
(right next to Pussy & Pooch)

4 Artists!

HAROLD ABRAMOWITZ! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SILAS HOWARD!

BRIAN KIM STEFANS! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BRIDGET IRISH!

For July’s Mommy, Mommy! the Mommies take a backseat and let the Daddies drive the bus. Outrageous performance, film, digital poetry, storytelling, and fiction send you into the strong strong arms of your own inner pops, AND, could it be any more perfect that Daddy, Daddy! is happening on FREE SLURPEE DAY at 7/11? Bring your empty Slurpee cup for prize drawing.

Mommy, Mommy! is a literary art event where feminists and their friends enjoy stimulating word-centered performances. The writing is beautiful, intelligent, and strange, and so are the performers. Mommy Mommy! features writers and other artists whose work, like the great fantastical and fabricated mommy, scolds, abandons, soothes, and triggers. Mommy, Mommy! fills the hole in your soul with the milk of the shamefully sexy unknown.


Harold Abramowitz is a writer, teacher, and editor. His first book, Dear Dearly Departed, was published by Palm Press in 2008. Harold has two books forthcoming in 2009: Sin is to Celebration, a collaboration with Amanda Ackerman, from House Press, and Not Blessed from Les Figues Press. He is also the author of a chapbook, Three Column Table (Insert Press, 2007), a mirco-book, Sunday, or A Summer’s Day (PS Books, 2008), and an e-book, Technique of Bandaging and Splinting (Little Red Leaves, 2009). He has contributed to various literary publications, co-edits the short-form literary press eohippus labs (www.eohippuslabs.com ), and co-curates the experimental cabaret event series, Late Night Snack.

Silas Howard is a filmmaker, musician (Tribe 8) and tall-tale teller whose work has screened at Sundance, SXSW and Disneyland. Howard's writing is also featured in the anthologies, Without a Net: Growing Up Working Class and Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction, as well as the feminist/queer artists' journal, LTTR: Positively Nasty. Howard received his MFA in directing at UCLA and was nominated for a Rockefeller award in 2004 and 2008.

Brian Kim Stefans’ recent books include Kluge: A Meditation, and other works (Roof, 2007), What is Said to the Poet Concerning Flowers (Factory School, 2006), and Before Starting Over: Essays and Interviews (Salt Publishing, 2007). His digital works such as ³The Dreamlife of Letters² and ³Star Wars, One Letter at a Time² have been shown in gallery settings worldwide; many of these can be found at his website, www.arras.net. He is an Assistant Professor of English at UCLA, specializing in poetry and electronic writing.

Bridget Irish, born on St Patrick’s Day, is an interdisciplinary artist and occasional film/video curator. In addition to making her own shorts, Ms. Irish also works with photography, installation, music, performance, and combinations thereof. Bridget uses her body as a medium in tandem with pop-culture referents, parody and game-rule strategies while stimulating relationships between artist, props, and audience. Irish performs and exhibits nationally, solo and collaboratively – in 2001, she toured with Dr. Frockrocket's Vivifying (Re-Animatronic) Menagerie and Medicine Show, and performed with the Sex Workers Art Show National Tour in 2006 and 2007. For more tidbits & details, please visit www.bridgetirish.com / www.filmanddestroy.org.

Mommy Mommy #4: Night of the Living Mommies!

Mommy, Mommy! I don't like fishing.
Shut up and stop squirming.

Please join us for Mommy, Mommy! (#4)

Christine Wertheim!
Janice Lee!
Claire Phillips!


Saturday, May 9, 2009
$5 - $20 sliding scale
Doors 7:30pm
Reading starts at 8:00pm
compactspace 105 East 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90016
www.compactspace.com

Christine Wertheim is a former painter with a PhD in literature and semiotics from Middlesex University, (UK). She teaches at the California Institute for the Arts for whom she co-organizes an annual conference: Séance (2004), Noulipo (2005), Impunities (2006), Feminaissance (2007), Untitled (2008). With Matias Viegener she has co-edited two anthologies of contemporary experimental writing: Séance, Make Now Press, 2006, and The noulipian Analects, Les Figues Press, 2007. A third, Feminaissance is forthcoming in Fall 2009. The book of her own poetics +|'me'S-pace is published by Les Figues Press, 2007. Christine also co-directs The Institute For Figuring, which organizes presentations and exhibitions on the intersections of art and science.

Janice Lee is interested in metaphors of consciousness, theoretical neuroscience, and models of hybridity. She has presented papers in Mexico, Canada, New Mexico, and if she can find someone to fund her, in Hong Kong this summer. Her work can be found in Big Toe Review, Zafusy, antennae, and Black Warrior Review. Her first book is KEROTAKIS (Dog Horn Press, Dec 2009), a multidisciplinary exploration of the stakes of consciousness. Holding an MFA from CalArts, she lives in Los Angeles where she is a co-curator of the reading series Mommy, Mommy!, co-editor of [out of nothing], Associate Editor of Les Figues Press, and co-founder of the interdisciplinary arts collective Strophe.

Claire Phillips studied poetry at San Francisco State University, where she received an Academy of American Poets, First Prize. After receiving an M.A. in creative writing at N.Y.U., she promoted her first novella, Black Market Babies, as a featured author at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. She has also read at the Nuyorican, City Lights in San Francisco, and Skylight Books and Machine Project in Los Angeles. Her short fiction has been anthologized in Juncture (Soft Skull), and can be heard on the KQED podcast reading series, The Writer’s Block. Her latest project is co-editing an arts publication, Look At Me, to be published by the Netherlands Architecture Institute and distributed by DAP, Spring 2010. Presently she teaches writing at CalArts, SCI-Arc and UC Irvine.

Photo credit: Monica Nouwens

Save the date!

Mommy Mommy #4!

8pm Saturday May 9th
at compact space

To feature:

Janice Lee!
Claire Philips!
Christine Wertheim!

MOMMY, MOMMY! #3: ALL THE MOMMIES

Word-Based Performances—WoWWy

Please join us for Mommy, Mommy! (#3)

Lynn Breedlove
Jen Hofer
Douglas Kearney

Saturday, March 7, 2009
$5 - $20 sliding scale
Doors 7:30pm
Reading starts at 8:00pm
compactspace 105 East 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90016
www.compactspace.com 626 676 0627

Douglas Kearney’s work as a poet, performer and librettist has been featured in many fine publications and venues in print, in-the-flesh and in digital code. His first book, Fear, Some, was published in 2006 (Red Hen Press). His second manuscript, The Black Automaton, was chosen by Catherine Wagner for the National Poetry Series and will be published by Fence Books in 2009. In 2008, he was honored with a Whiting Writers Award. He lives in the Valley with his wife and teaches at California Institute of the Arts. For more info, visit www.douglaskearney.com.
(photo by Los Jackson)

Jen Hofer’s recent publications include The Route, an epistolary and poetic collaboration with Patrick Durgin (Atelos, 2008), a translation of books two and three of Dolores Dorantes by Dolores Dorantes (Counterpath and Kenning Editions, 2008), lip wolf, a translation of Laura Solórzano’s lobo de labio (Action Books, 2007), Sin puertas visibles: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Mexican Women (University of Pittsburgh Press and Ediciones Sin Nombre, 2003), and slide rule (subpress, 2002). Her forthcoming books are from the valley of death (Ponzipo), Laws (Dusie Books), a book-length series of anti-war-manifesto poems titled one (Palm Press), a translation of Guatemalan poet Alan Mills’ Síncope (Demónio Negro) and Aerial 10, a critical volume on the work of Lyn Hejinian, co-edited with Rod Smith (Edge Books). She has published poems and translations in numerous small-press publications, including 1913, Aufgabe, Black Clock, Bomb, DISASTER, The Brooklyn Rail, eough, Jacket, Mar con Soroche, Primary Writing, Tampa Review and War and Peace. Jen lives in Los Angeles, where she is currently the Moseley Chair in Poetry at Pomona College; she also teaches in the BFA Writing Program at Goddard College and in the MFA Writing Program at CalArts, and works as a Spanish-language interpreter with numerous local non-profit organizations and with the Los Angeles County Superior Courts.

A vanguard of the queer/trans community, Lynn Breedlove is a visionary who has long been shaping revolutionary art. S/he has over 3,790 hits on Google.com. The founder and frontperson of the first American out dyke punk band Tribe 8, which has always stood for queer, transgender, multiracial, and working class visibility, Breedlove has toured Europe and North America with Tribe 8 as well as Rise Above: The Tribe8 Documentary. S/he is the acclaimed author of Godspeed, an autobiographical novel which s/he has toured as a multi-media solo show highlighted by the music and photos of women, queers, dykes, and transfolk.

Mommy Mommy #3!!!

Save the date...

7:30 pm Saturday March 7
at compactspace

With The All-Star Line-Up:

Lynn Breedlove / Jen Hofer / Douglas Kearney

Mommies Love To Be Thanked

Thank you to Jenny Donovan, Gaby Torres, Kim Rosenfield and Rob Fitterman for such an excellent Mommy Mommy #2. And thank you to everyone who came out for the readers. We love it when people come out!

Here's something Jenny and Gaby made, to express their gratitude.

Mommy Mommy #2 [Jan 2, 2009] :::

Mommy, Mommy! #2: Torres, Rosenfield, Fitterman, Donovan

Mommy, Mommy! I don't like tomato soup! Shut up, kid, we only have it once a month.

Join us for Mommy, Mommy! (#2), with Jenny Donovan, Robert Fitterman, Kim Rosenfield, and Gaby Torres.

Friday, January 2, 2008
$5 - $20 sliding scale
Doors 7:30pm
Reading starts at 8:00pm
compactspace 105 East 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90016
www.compactspace.com 626 676 0627

JENNY DONOVAN is an artist, writer and translator, whose work has appeared in numerous journals, including Revista Espiral, Papeles de la Mancuspia, Encyclopedia Volume 2 F-K, Abrazo, and Bulbo Press. She has presented work in various independent spaces and museums in the US and Mexico, including: La Casa de la Cultura (Monterrey, México), The San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, Voz Alta (San Diego), el ISBC (Tijuana) y El Centro Cultural de Tijuana. With Gaby Torres, Donovan co-directs La Derramadora Press, a binational and bilingual independent press that produces small editions of hand crafted books from recycled materials.

ROBERT FITTERMAN is the author of nine books of poetry, including three installments of his ongoing poem Metropolis: Metropolis 1-15 (Sun & Moon Press, 2000), Metropolis 16-29 (Coach House Books, 2002), and Metropolis XXX: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edge Books, 2004). Earlier titles include Leases (Periphery Press), among the cynics (Singing Horse Press) and Ameresque (Buck Downs Books). His most recent title, War, the musical, is a collaboration with artist Dirk Rowntree. He teaches at New York University in both the General Studies Program and the Department of English, and also the writing faculty at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College.

KIM ROSENFIELD is a poet and psychotherapist. She is the author of three books of genre blurring language; Good Morning--Midnight-- (Roof Books 2001), which won Small Press Traffic’s Book of the Year award in 2002, Tràma (Krupskaya 2004), and re: evolution (Les Figues Press 2008). She lives in NYC.


GABRIELA TORRES OLIVARES is the author of three collections of short stories, including Regiomonteses (enfermario) (ediciones La Derramadora press, 2008), Están Muertos, (Harakiri Plaquettes, 2004), and Incompletario (Ediciones Intempestivas, 2007). Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including: Caja de Viento (Ediciones El Árbol) and La Difícil Brevedad (2006), as well as in periodicals, including: Diálogos Posmodernos de Campeche (Quintana Roo), El Norte (Monterrey), La Rocka (Monterrey), Postdata (Argentina), Tierra Adentro (Mexico City), Indie- Rocks! (Mexico City), El Universal Parisino (Paris), Armas y Letras (UANL), Homines (Spain), Alta Noche (Hermosillo), Balbuceo (Guanajuato), and Pic-Nic (Mexico City). Torres currently lives in Rosarito, B.C., where she is the co-director, and chief editor of La Derramadora Press, as well as the co-director of Aprimotapiado, an artists’ books workshop that was developed as part of Proyecto Cívico Diálogos e Interrogantes.