The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

Santiago Roncagliolo Wins The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011 has been awarded to Peruvian author Santiago Roncagliolo for his third novel, Red April (Atlantic Books). Roncagliolo beat off competition from a strong shortlist including Nobel Prize-winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk and former Independent Foreign Fiction Prize winner, Norwegian Per Petterson, to win the Prize.

At 36, Roncagliolo is the youngest-ever author, as well as the first from Peru, to win the Prize.

The £10,000 award is shared equally with Roncagliolo's American translator, Edith Grossman, who is also a first-time winner. She was previously shortlisted for the Prize in 2003.

The Little Vagabond

Dear mother, dear mother, the church is cold,
But the ale-house is healthy and pleasant and warm;
Besides I can tell where I am used well,
Such usage in Heaven will never do well.

Learning a New Language

I am a clown
Walking like Charlie Chaplin
Down some ridiculous street
Saying absurd things
Usually at the wrong time

Asking whether trees have leaves
And birds have wings
And what is the color of the sky
Learning how plants grow
And how water flows

Knowing that whatever I think I know
I probably don't
Thinking that I understand
The biggest stumbling block
How can you fill a glass that is full?

Getting it wrong until it becomes right
Growing from the root of ignorance
New leaves unfold
Trusting that buds will form
That flowers will bloom

Reveling in my own incompetence
Like a child full of wonder at a new found world
Butterfly wings flapping out new words
Birds singing an unknown song
Like the beginning of a new day yet unseen

(Learning a New Language is one of the poems featured in the Bar None Anthology. The author, Russell Rosander, is one of the founders of the Bar None Group. )

Poetry is Dead For Javier Sicilia

The world is not worthy of words

they have been suffocated from the inside

as they suffocated you, as they tore apart your lungs ...

the pain does not leave me

all that remains is a world

through the silence of the righteous,

only through your silence and my silence, Juanelo.

Those words comprise the last poem that Javier Sicilia has written and will ever write.

The winner of Mexico's highest literary prize - the Premio de Poesía Aguascalientes - for his book of poems Desert Triptych in 2009 has vowed that he will never write another poem. He read his last poem at a service for his 24 year-old son, Juan Christopher, an innocent victim of Mexico's war on drugs.

"Poetry doesn't exist in me anymore," he later said.

Since his son's death in March of this year, Javier, an avowed anarchist has devoted all of his time and energies to end the senseless slaughter of more than 40 000 Mexicans since President Felipe Calderón began his crackdown.

Javier Sicilia is now at the forefront of a movement demanding change and has lead marches where the message has been,¡Hasta la madre! or "enough is enough." One such march earlier this month attracted upward of 150 000 people demanding change.

This grassroots movement asks the government to provide more funding and access for youth groups and a renewed emphasis on fighting corruption within the ranks of the public service who administer justice. Strikingly, he has also called for the legalization of marijuana.

While we may mourn the loss of a poet's voice, we give praise to the voice of a people and Javier Sicilia speaks not just for the living but for his son who no longer can.

Neither will be silenced. Nor will the voice of a people.

Color Our World

Bar None Group publishes a limited amount of artwork in black and white and colour by a single artist or photographer in each issue, including on the front and back covers. We are looking to publish work of all styles. We are looking for cool/strange photography, paintings, and drawings. Work may be color or black and white. However, the interior of our print issues reproduces only in black and white.

All artwork should be sent electronically in RAW format if possible with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. Please ensure that your artwork is titled and that your submission is smaller than 2 MB.

Should we choose to publish your work the Bar None Group will contact you upon the selection of your material. Artists, photographers and graphic designers are reminded to include a 50 word biography. See a list of our contributors for shaping your biography.

Photo essays - for the time being - will only be considered for our Facebook page.

Send all submissions to: barnonegroup@gmail.com

J. Patrick Lewis Named Children’s Poet Laureate

CHICAGO — The Poetry Foundation is pleased to announce that poet J. Patrick Lewis will serve as the nation’s third Children’s Poet Laureate: Consultant in Children’s Poetry to the Poetry Foundation for a two-year tenure. The award, which includes a $25,000 cash prize, aims to raise awareness that children have a natural receptivity to poetry and are its most appreciative audience, especially when poems are written specifically for them.

“Pat’s many books bring great joy to young readers—the future of poetry,” said Poetry Foundation president John Barr. “He has profuse gifts as a poet—with wordplay, humor, and technical facility—and truly loves writing for and to children. To say that in children’s poetry Pat has found his calling is no mean thing because he has excelled in so many other walks of life: scholar, economist, and author. What Pat Lewis brings to the office of Children’s Poet Laureate is a life fully lived and, of course, tremendous joy for his craft and audience.”

The author of more than 50 books of poetry for children, Lewis began his career as an academic; he taught in the departments of business, accounting, and economics at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio, until 1998, when he left to devote himself to writing full time. His books for children include Spot the Plot: A Riddle Book of Book Riddles; The Last Resort; The Shoe Tree of Chagrin; and A Hippopotamusn’t: And Other Animal Poems. His children’s poetry has appeared in Highlights for Children, Cricket, and Ranger Rick, among many other places, and his writing has been widely anthologized. His contributions to children’s literature have been recognized with the 2011 Poetry Award from the National Council of Teachers of English and the Ohioana Awards’ 2004 Alice Louise Wood Memorial Prize. His first book of poetry for adults, Gulls Hold Up the Sky: Poems 1983–2010, was published in 2010. A father of three and grandfather of five, he visits more than 30 elementary schools a year, keynotes at literature conferences, and presents teachers’ workshops on introducing poetry in the classroom.

Findings from the Poetry Foundation’s seminal research study, Poetry in America,  demonstrate that a lifelong love for poetry is most likely to result if cultivated early in childhood and reinforced thereafter. During his laureateship, Lewis will give two major public readings for children and their families, teachers, and librarians. He will also serve as an advisor to the Poetry Foundation on children’s literature and may engage in a variety of projects and events to help instill a love of poetry among the nation’s youngest readers. The Poetry Foundation made the appointment with input from a panel of experts in the field of children’s literature.

Las Mañanitas

Estas son las mañanitas,
que cantaba el Rey David. 
Hoy por ser día a las madres
se las cantamos aquí

Despierta mi bien,
despierta, mira que ya amaneció.
Ya los pajaritos cantan. 
La luna ya se metió

Que linda está la mañana
en que vengo a saludarte. 
Venimos todos con gusto
y placer a felicitarte. 

Ya viene amaneciendo. 
Ya la luz del día nos dio. 
Levántate de mañana. 
Mira que ya amaneció.

El día en que tu naciste,
nacieron todas las flores
y en la pila del bautismo
cantaron los ruiseñores.

Quisiera ser un San Juan,
quisiera ser un San Pedro,
para venirte a cantar
con la música del cielo.
De las estrellas del cielo
quisiera bajarte dos;
una para saludarte
y otra para decirte adiós.

First Lines Second Thoughts - The Catcher in the Rye

If you really want to hear about it,
the first thing you'll probably want to know
is where I was born,
and what my lousy childhood was like,
and how my parents were occupied and all
before they had me,
and all that David Copperfield
kind of crap,
but I don't feel like going into it,
if you want to know the truth.

- J.D. Salinger

First Lines Second Thoughts is a look at the first lines of well known literary works.
On second thought, do these opening words stand alone as poetry?

For A Mother

A mother is more than a night in a delivery room
She is there when needed
Soothes away pain
With a smile or a touch
Provides lessons in life
And especially lessons in laughs

She gives from her heart
Sharing hugs and balloons
Expecting nothing in return
Well, maybe a smile
A mother is more than a womb

Boo-Hooray Unearths Angus MacLise

“Angus MacLise was the Velvet Underground's first drummer. He withdrew when he found out that at a paying job he had to start and stop playing when told to. No one told Angus to stop playing. So the job of a working musician was impossible for Angus, and he taught us all a lesson about purity of spirit.” - Lou Reed

Angus MacLise was an American artist, poet, percussionist, and composer active in New York, San Francisco, Paris, London and Kathmandu from the 1950’s through the 1970’s. Best known as the original drummer of the Velvet Underground, MacLise’s lifework included music, calligraphy, performance art, poetry, drawings, plays, and limited edition artist’s books.

Dreamweapon, The Art and Life of Angus MacLise 1938-1979 is the upcoming exhibit at pop-up/parasite gallery Boo-Hooray, which runs May 10 - May 29. This is the first overview of the lifework of a major American 20th century artistic polyglot.

MacLise was a collaborative partner in the early 1960’s with art groups and individuals such as Fluxus (George Maciunas, Yoko Ono), Theatre of the Ridiculous, and Jack Smith. As a poet, MacLise began publishing in partnership with high school friend Piero Heliczer in the late 1950’s, establishing the Dead Language Press in Paris, widely acknowledged as one a most significant small artist book presses of the 20th Century. Together with his wife, artist and underground press illustrator Hetty MacLise, he edited issue No. 9 of the magazine-in-a-box, Aspen, considered a hallmark of American publishing.

While residing in Nepal, he formed the Bardo Matrix/Dreamweapon Press with Ira Cohen, issuing poetry in limited editions on handmade rice paper. The press published Paul Bowles, Charles Henri Ford, Gregory Corso and Diane Di Prima among others. MacLise also published his own works and edited the poetry magazine Ting Pa.

On Summer Solstice 1979, MacLise died from hypoglycemia in Kathmandu, and was cremated in the fashion of Tibetan Buddhist funerary rites.

A suitcase of Angus MacLise’s artwork, publications, and manuscript as well as more than 100 hours of recorded music was left with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela for safe-keeping thirty years ago. This extraordinary time-vault is the foundation of the exhibition, with additional materials drawn from private previously unseen collections and archives.

The exhibition Opening Party is on May 10th from 6pm to 9pm at 521 W23rd Street in New York City.

The Monster Under the Bed

On the night that bin Laden died
 - with a bullet in his head -
A beeping phone awoke me
from a restless night's sleep
 - there were two messages

The night was still young
I thought about celebrating
but I smiled and went back to sleep
"A small, cool
gathering my house now"

A shout of joy
from down below
ended my restless night
 - Jay was awake and had seen the news
A new day was about to unfold

Two hours later
Jay was doing laundry
and I was confirming
my flight back home

An hour after that
and Jay was out for eats
and I was on the beach
with my feet facing
our own private Mecca

The waves
 - oblivious to the news from Pakistan -
continue to crash
against the shores of Mexico

Osama bin Laden
 - the monster under the bed -
no longer has to worry about
restless nights
 - but we do