We Had the Best Time!

Thank you to our readers/performers– Ashley Byler & Laurel Atwell, Jacqueline Jones LaMon, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, and Phillip Lopate– for an incredible night of art and some FPP-style togetherness.  The night began with a tour through some of Stacy Parker Le Melle’s photographs of Harlem, full of rich color and striking angles.  Ashley Byler then presented her dance composition, “Accumulation: Variation No. 1 (a re-imagining of Trisha Brown’s 1971 work with Beyoncé Knowles as prescriber of pedestrian movement),” a deadpan mash-up of modernist repetition, sequined hot pants, and “Run the World (Girls).”  Jacqueline Jones LaMon read a series of poems, some from her collection, Last Seen, a haunting portrayal of long-term missing African-American children in the US.  We were particularly moved by her poems written this summer about the Rockaways and Coney Island, places now missing or wounded themselves.  Marie Myung-Ok Lee read a comic excerpt from her forthcoming novel, Firstborn Son, which details the vociferous protests a Korean-American doctor receives from his friends when he announces his plans to return to North Korea with Doctors Without Borders.  And Phillip Lopate treated us to razor-sharp political poems leading to a wry personal essay about his youthful ventures into politics and one particularly hilarious, (unintentionally) all-white Black Panthers Rally.  We also collected $238.27  in our Occupy Sandy collection box and donated here: http://interoccupy.net/occupysandy/.  Thanks for your generosity!  And thanks to performers and audience, alike, for giving us a memorable night!

FPP Harlem Reading this Monday: Let’s Get Together and Feel Alright…

What a crazy week–a hurricane, its aftermath, a cancelled marathon,
an election, a nor’easter–these changes in routine brought New
Yorkers together in new ways. Join us at Shrine for more drama and
togetherness next Monday.

Ashley Byler will start things off with a performance to Beyonce’s “Run the World (Girls),” followed by readings from Jacqueline Jones LaMon, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, and Phillip Lopate.  We can’t wait to hear their work. As always, our event is FREE, though we will be collecting donations for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. (An added bonus: Stacy Parker Le Melle, one of “us,” will share some of her Harlem photographs.  Her images are featured in the FPP event posters, like the one above.)

See you at 7:00pm!