Mongolian Yurt Poetry Reading & Open Mic
Captain, Sam, Jeremiah, and I landed in Tucson, Arizona late December 2014. We almost skipped through Arizona aiming for California, but gut feeling told us Tucson was calling. Immediately after deciding to hit Tucson before heading further West, Jeremiah was solicited to perform at the "Green Lion, Red Raccoon" poetry reading at Cafe Passe with Ezra Letra, Isaac Kirkman, Tere Fowler-Chapman, Zarina Zabrisky & Simon Rogghe.
We threw down our saved funds on a gamble: renting a Mongolian yurt for the month of January in order to find work, break even, and move on.
The yurt belongs to poet Farzana Marie. She brought the yurt into the United States from Mongolia. Farzana hosts monthly ciphers and poetry readings in the yurt. Her yurt gatherings focus on the exchange between artists on an intimate scale. The yurt is located at Tucson youth hostel La Vita House.
Opportunities fell together. We organized with Farzana and La Vita House to put together a one off show composed of traveling kids, poets, rappers, musicians, and story tellers of all varieties.
We lacked a printer when arriving in Tucson. & funds. & basically everything beyond the space to host the event. Through dumpster diving, creative resource scrambling, and extensive support from the Tucson community, the event kicked off with nearly 100 people attending, a Christmas tree burning, an amazing feature list, and a compelling open mic that gave our pleasure-receptors no rest.
ROUND ONE
January 2015
FEATURES
Melanie Madden has appeared on the game shows Jeopardy! and Win Ben Stein's Money, and lost at both. She writes essays and the occasional poem and regularly tells stories with FST! (pronounced "fist!") Female StoryTellers.
Steve Roggenbuck is the founder of Boost House, & a poet exploring poetry's new capabilities with the internet.
Neeko Ford is a 19 y/o Tucson hip hop artist debuting his first album this upcoming year. This is soul-to-mouth-riding-the-beat honest rap.
ROUND TWO
March 2015
FEATURES
Andrew Maranzanor is co-founder of Punk Hostage Press. His poems are ransoms notes that will hold you and all punks hostage till you get it.
Jos Charles is a white genderqueer poet, writer, & founding-editor of THEM, the first trans literary journal in the United States.
Christopher Morgan is the Editor for the "Arroyo Literary Review" and Chief Bartender / Chapbook Editor at Nostrovia!. He grew up in Detroit and the Bible Belt of Georgia before settling in California’s Bay Area, where he received his M.A. in Creative Writing. His fables have been published at Gargoyle, tNY Press, A cappella Zoo, Voicemail Poems, Little River, Skydeer Helpking, and Fruita Pulp, among others.
Neeko Ford is a 19 y/o Tucson hip hop artist debuting his first album this upcoming year. This is soul-to-mouth-riding-the-beat honest rap.
Chris Burke is a youth traveling street musician who hit last month's open mic and planted vocal seeds in the ear holes of every member of the audience he entranced.
Steve Roggenbuck is founder of Boost House & a poet exploring poetry's new capabilities with the internet.
Farzana Marie is a poet, translator and peace-maker who has spent several of the last twelve years in Afghanistan in both military and civilian volunteer capacities. She is author of a nonfiction book called, "Hearts for Sale, a Buyer's Guide to Winning in Afghanistan," a chapbook of poems, "Letters to War and Lethe," and the just-released anthology, "Load Poems Like Guns: Women's Poetry from Herat, Afghanistan."
Romeo Castro is a lost boy hip hop artist kicking it around the Tucson streets free styling and spitting off the top of his head without a stumble. Arizona local, Romeo is the type of cat you'll see so wrapped up in a freestyle, that a mac truck honking, charging his way, would not through him off the beat.