We got a small feature in the Boston Globe today, announcing our show tomorrow.  We want to say thank you to Courtney Hollands for contacting the Zeitgeist (wonderful art space where we have regular concerts) and for being interested enough in what we do to pick us for the "Nightlife" section.

The Boston Globe, December 17th, 3009

AVANT-GARDE

Inter-Holiday Collaborative Concert

 

Inman Square is already artsy.  But you’ve got to dig to find this Bring-Your-Own, Open-Mic, twisted holiday-style live film scoring of short films by David Lynch, and poets Raffael de Gruttola and Diana Norma in silent film-interludes by the Lumiere Brothers. Also: renku poetry, jazz haiku, Klezmeritis!  Also featuring the band Entropy Machine backing up the poets.

 

The Chagall Performance Art Collaborative hides out in OUTPOST 186, a Zeitgeist Gallery tucked away at 186-and-a-half Hampshire Street.  Follow the beaten-down, junk-yard sandwich signs next to the Ryles parking lot and you’ll find the OUTPOST 186.  Concert start time is always a mystery… doors open at 8pm.

 

Price: $10/5student

Phone: (785) 979 8675

Age Suitability: All ages, must be curious

Tags: Poetry, Spoken Word, Chagall, jazz, Klezmer, Open-mic

 

Inter-Holiday Collaborative Concert

Friday, Dec 18 8:00p

at Zeitgeist OUTPOST 186, Inman Sq, Cambridge, MA

186.5 Hampshire Street, Inman Square Cambridge

Central Square T-Stop

 

Categories: Film, Holiday, Music, Poetry, Open-mic

Creator:  DennisShafer.com

..
Visit Cambridge Writers Workshop

If you live near Cambridge,MA and would like to join a community of committed writers who share innovative and experimental approaches to their writing as well as review and support each other in the revision to publication process, come join us on our new Ning network. Long-distance, digital participation is an option. -Diana Norma

Project:  Weaving Self into Paper Remnants of Memory
(Found Text & objects, Artist’s Body in Performance, Thread, Foam Board)
 





This piece was born out of my studies in “Spatial Poetics” with renown and brilliant interdisciplinary artist, Sanford Biggers.  I wove paper traces of memorabilia collected over several years that had formerly been sleeping in hatboxes.  These included opera tickets, train and other travel vouchers, museum tickets, and other paper remnants that signified entrance into cultural spaces and the crossing of borders.  Maps from places I have lived in were taped to my body and I entered the performance space, climbed onto the mounted board and carefully wove myself into the thread and paper traces before assuming various unconscious horizontal positions.  Spectators were invited by a third party to examine the piece more closely.  After 15 minutes, I unwove myself and exited the performance area.  This “Spatial Poetics” piece was performed at the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard University.








 

It was a beautiful day in Cambridge today, during the yearly festival in October.  The streets were enlivened by bands and solo musicians.  An old accordionist with a red velvet lined case strung tears like pearls and hung them from the sky above his thick, dirty fingers.  I was lucky enough to see the Balkan- influenced, Seattle-based group the Orchestra Zirconium marching through the streets.

Together with poet Rita Banerjee and other writers, we also met for our session of the Cambridge Writers Workshop at the Inman Square 1369 cafe.  We continued on to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, which holds a wonderfully poetic and eclectic collection arranged just how Ms. Gardner left it.  There, we listened to the Borromeo String Quartet play Béla Bartók's quartets 1, 3, and 5 in a performance that left me feeling like several weather systems had passed through my inner skies.  Afterwards, we roamed around the strange and beautiful collection and wrote ekphrastic poetry stories in the sunlit courtyard.

If you are in the Cambridge area and want to join a small community of writers, come to the Outpost 186 ( 186.5 Hampshire Street, Cambridge, MA) at 7 p.m. on Friday October 16th, and stay for our interdisciplinary arts cabaret with poetry, music, and visual art, beginning at 8 p.m.

Check out this video: Ochestra Zirconium

-- Diana Norma

I saw your pictures on the public wall.

I am grateful for
an old guitar buried below a forgotten forest
rain gathered in morning’s skirt
how the chair holds dawn
how the Parisian roof touches my blanket

In the summer of 2008, we had our debut Poetry in Dialogue concert with Estonian poet Ellom ( www.myspace.com/alonetimewithme ) at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris with musical collaborators Dennis Shafer, Mattias Leboucher and Elise Douylliez. In April 2009, we Diana Norma & Ellom: Poetry in Dialogue will make our American debut with two performances in Cambridge MA. ---

These performances will kick off the Chagall Performance Art Collaborative series Sounds in Bloom is starting (in residence at the Zeitgeist Outpost every third Friday of the month).

On April 5th, 2009 at the Zeitgeist Outpost
6 p.m
186.5 Hampshire St.
Cambridge, MA---

performance art/ poetry: Ellom and Diana Norma/
saxophones: Dennis Shafer/
piano: Simon Tedeschi/
piano: Jason Fellito/
featuring compositions by: David Krebs/
viola: Kirsten Swanson/---

April 7th, 2009 at The New School
7p.m.
25 Lowell St.
Cambridge, MA
Harvard Square T-Stop ---

featuring:

performance art/ poetry: Ellom and Diana Norma/
saxophones: Dennis Shafer/
piano: Kai-Ching Chang/
featuring compositions by: David Krebs/
viola: Kirsten Swanson/
visual art: Foxman James

Both concerts are $5 suggested donation.

We hope to see you soon....


Diana Norma & the Chagall Performance Art Collaborativve

Dear Friends,

I have some good news. My little book of poems and photographs placed runner-up for best poetry book at the national 2008 DIY Book Festival. Apparently, less than 5 percent of entrants get any sort of attention at all, so I am happy to receive this unexpected and happy news! To see the full list of winners, you can visit: http://www.diyreporter.com/news/news2.asp?news2_id=420

Thank you for all your support, dear readers and friends. I'll send you poems and concert updates soon. In the meantime, if you'd like a signed copy of Roses in the Snow, just email me at DNormaS@gmail.com

Warmly,

Norma








my book Roses in the Snow can be found by clicking your heels here

Dear Friends,

This past Saturday, my poetry mentor Kathleen Spivack threw a wonderful birthday party in support of her favorite poetry bookshop and the oldest one in our nation, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop in Cambridge, MA. It is truly a wondrous little place. In an effort to support one her favorite places, she gave out gift certificates for her birthday and held an open reading for all writers who wished to read. The reception was held at The Democracy Center. I urge you to celebrate our bookshops and do whatever you can to support them through these difficult times. If you are in the area, please visit the Grolier. In the coming weeks before the year's end, my book, Roses in the Snow will also be available at The Grolier! Stay tuned and please do visit the shop


Grolier Poetry Book Shop

6 Plympton St., Harvard Square

Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138

phone: 617-547-4648

Hours of operation:

Tues. and Wed. : 11am-7pm

Thurs.-Saturday: 11am-6pm

Closed Sunday and Monday


Some info. from their website:

Those who have visited the Grolier Poetry Book Shop, or have established a relationship with it over the years, inlcude: e.e.cummings, Marianne Moore, Conrad Aiken, T.S. Eliot, Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Mary Oliver, Donald Hall, Robert Creeley, and others. In the words of Robert Creeley, "Poetry is our final human language and resource. The Grolier Poetry Book Shop is where it still lives–still talks, still makes the only sense that ever matters". Or, as Donald Hall, the 2006-2007 Poet Laureate of the United States, has put it, regarding the book shop, "The Grolier Poetry Book Shop is the greatest poetry place in the universe. If we love poetry, the Grolier is our temple, agora, cottage, mansion, coliseum, and estate. Support it! Support it! Support it! Click here to view a slide show.


History
Founded in 1927 by Adrian Gambet and Gordon Cairnie, the original shop stocked mainly private press books, some poetry, and a sampling of avant-garde literature. Frequented over the years by the poets mentioned above, as well as others such as Charles Olson, Seamus Heaney, Frank Bidart, Robert Pinsky, David Ferry, the literary tradition became well established.

In 1979, then owner, Louisa Solano, started developing the store as an exclusive showcase for the works of poets. Sponsorship of autograph parties and of a reading series soon followed, joined by the founding of the Intercollegiate Undergraduate Poetry Reading Series and the introduction of the Annual Grolier Poetry Prize. The Ellen LaForge Memorial Poetry Foundation became a co-sponsor of the two reading series, the general and the undergraduate, as well as of the Grolier Poetry Prize. Many of the winners of the Grolier Poetry Prize have gone on to establish themselves, and one Natasha Trethewey went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2007

In 2006 Solano sold the Book Shop to Ifeanyi Menkiti, poet and professor of philosophy at Wellesley College, with the shop opening under new management on May 6, 2006.