Bukowksi's Birthday Bash

This invitation from Miriam of Side Stream will be of most interest to Auckland folks:

!!!Bukowski's Birthday Bash!!!

Poets from the fringe mash it up with live, improvised jazz by the Dirty Words Live Sessions Band.

8 pm Friday August 14th 2009 @ Thirsty Dog (Corner of K' Rd & Howe St)

$10 on the door to fund the next issues of Side Stream, our free, bi-monthly poetry zine.

Let's keep our only independent and free underground poetry zine happening for another year. We've just released issue 20 this month. We've published about 90 poets (mainly from New Zealand) and a dozen artists across two and a half years, printing and hand-binding over 3,700 copies of the zine in that time, all of which have been given away for free to people from such places as Berlin and Portland to Melbourne and Kaitaia. All of this made possible by volunteers from all around the nation and the world. We want this truly community project to continue.

And our second fundraiser is going to be killer!

Bukowski would have dug Side Stream, seeing as he lived and breathed the underbelly, and what he spat out made it beautiful. The Dirty Words Live Sessions rocked my socks off in a very major way at the beginning of the year and then went into hibernation. But I tracked them down. I wouldn't let it go.

So for one night the Dirty Words Live Sessions are brought back to life with performances-with-a-twist from poets connected to Side Stream, including myself. The twist being that the three-piece band are improvising and have no idea what will be performed. The poet has to listen and go where the musicians lead, there is to be no direct communication between poet and band. It's totally spontaneous and totally exhilarating. There may be a chance for the audience to have a go, Mr Hollands will be there, so anything could happen. Whatever this is, this is not going to be a poetry reading.

So spread the word, tell everyone it's happening, Bukowski's Birthday Bash is coming, and it is going to be fantastic, let's make it go viral, and I'll see you there - August 15th, Thirsty Dog.