We Had a Fabulous Time at the March 31st FPP Finale!

We were lucky to have had Rivka Galchen, Mya Green, Patrick Rosal, and Khalik Allah join us for the Apogee Journal co-sponsored final reading of our fourth season.  They reminded us why we try to get the writers and artists we love under the same room for some electric language and images.

photo 1-35Rivka Galchen gave us a hilarious new take on the first person plural by reading the first few pages of Moby Dick, substituting “we” and “us” for “I” and “me” (during which time she was joined by her self-possessed young daughter, another plural).  She then read from her essay about a Elmhurst Hospital Center in Elmhurst, Queens, “the most diverse neighborhood in New York City and maybe in the world.”  Galchen completed part of her medical training at the hospital, which offers translation services in 153 languages, and could attest that to treat patients there one had to know the afflictions of the world, not just your corner of it.  The “we” was everywhere in evidence!

IMG_0348Mya Green then took the stage with the strong, round sounds of her poetry (“carry the one, conquer, divide by none”).  Often about the fault lines between the natural world and the social, the racial and the elemental, her poems slide along, pulling place into people and turning people back out again into places.  “Sweet with wilted cherry skins/dirt under my nails, rattle.” Her last poems were part of a “Tornado Series,” inspired by the tornado that devastated her hometown, Tuscaloosa, AL.  In “Damage Path,” she writes, “Tornado, I am your witness and your face.”

 

photo 3-27And then Patrick Rosal danced onto the stage with his liquid lines that nonetheless punch, punch, punched, mixing in his Filipino roots, his b-boy and dj past, and his ability to adapt as an outsider to culture after new culture.  One poem was about a dj who was “half black and half Filipino and passing as Latino…some might say that’s what being Filipino is.”  He writes of of carving out a presence in the city, on the streets– “Sometimes the only way to lay out a punk who ducks you is to trick him into singing.” A line from one poem might capture an aspect to Rosal’s poetic ventures: “Two tunes left to play at the same time will sync up…pick ax and wax wing…” He, too, responded to natural disaster with a poem about a teacher’s brutal will for her students to survive the tsunami of 2009.  As they watched friends and relations wash away, she lashed them to telephone and electricity poles lining the street, “building an orchard of them.”

photo 4-30We ended the night with Khalik Allah‘s stirring, exploratory documentary Antonyms of Beauty.  Allah spoke briefly about the work before he screened it, explaining that when he began filming and photographing in the streets of Harlem he thought he was seeking out the ugliest, rawest images he could find.  But he ended up finding beauty, finding his “superheroes.”  The film follows and interviews “Frenchie,” a Haitian immigrant who lives on the streets, watching him in his social context, absorbing the constant motion and sound of the streets, and listening carefully while he answers questions about the philosophies that guide his life, about god, and about the people who might look at him and see only loss.

Thank you to our readers/artists and thanks to our audience for a rich night! We’ll be back in September with more great line ups!

Announcing the Tuesday, March 31st Lineup at the Shrine in Harlem!

We– FPP Harlem Collective and Apogee Journal— are thrilled to present the line up for the First Person Plural Harlem Reading Series on Tuesday, March 31st: writer Rivka Galchen, poets Mya Green, and Patrick Rosal, and a screening of Field Niggas and Antonyms of Beauty by filmmaker Khalik Allah. Join us at 7pm at Shrine, located at 2271 Adam Clayton Powell (7th Ave) between 133rd and 134th in Harlem.  By subway: 2/3 to 135th, or B/C to 135th.  As always, admission is free.   Bar is cash only.

rivka galchenRivka Galchen is the author of the novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, a finalist for numerous prizes including The Canadian Writer’s Trust’s Fiction Prize and the Governor’s General Award.  She is also the author of the short story collection, American Innovations, and has published essays and stories in The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, The Believer, and Harper’s Magazine, for which she is a contributing editor. She teaches in the Writing Program at Columbia University and has received a Ronna Jaffe Writer’s Foundation award and a fellowship from The American Academy in Berlin.  In 2010 Galchen was chosen by The New Yorker as one of its “20 Under 40”.

mya greenMya Green is the author of the poetry collection, Selvidge and the winner of the Poet Lore Contest.  She graduated with an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and has poetry published in journals such as Apogee Journal. She served as poetry contest director and editor for LUMINA Journal Volume XI and acted as a liaison for Sarah Lawrence’s 9th Annual Poetry Festival, where she also opened for 2012 National Book Award winner, Nikky Finney.

patrick rosalPatrick Rosal is the author of four full-length poetry collections. His most recent, Boneshepherds (2011), was named a small press highlight by the National Book Critics Circle and a notable book by the Academy of American Poets. He is also the author of My American Kundiman (2006), and Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive (2003).  He has published work in journals such as Apogee Journal, and his newest book, Brooklyn Antediluvian, is forthcoming in 2016.  His collections have been honored with the Association of Asian American Studies Book Award, Global Filipino Literary Award and the Asian American Writers Workshop Members’ Choice Award. In 2009, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to the Philippines. He is co-founding editor of Some Call It Ballin’, a literary sports quarterly.

khalik allahKhalik Allah is a documentary filmmaker and photographer recently named “Harlem’s ‘Official’ Street Photographer” in a Time Magazine feature.  His work has been screened at UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art in Brooklyn and he has presented work at venues such as Bard College, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the TRUE/FALSE Film Festival, and Strictly NY2: a Photographic Exhibit.

FPP is pleased to be partnering with Apogee Journal for this event.  Apogee is a literary journal specializing in art and literature that engage with issues of identity politics: race, gender, sexuality, class, and hyphenated identities. They currently produce a biannual issue featuring fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art. Their goal is to publish exciting work that interrogates the status quo, and provides a platform for unheard voices, including emerging writers of color. We love the work they do and are happy to collaborate in any way possible!