Saturday, August 29, 2009

Jenny Overman Performs One Woman Show


Poetry Night at Bistro 33 is proud to welcome Jenny Overman on Wednesday, September 2nd at 9 P.M. She will be performing her one-woman show titled “Worries on Wall St. and Mr. Jones.”

Jenny Overman is a performance poet, artist, dancer and actress who looks forward to presenting a new piece of theatrical poetry, “Worries on Wall St. and Mr. Jones,” at Poetry Night at Bistro 33. A native New Yorker now living in Oakland, Overman is the author of the poetry collection I am So White in Some Ways, a book that explores topics concerning social status, race, body image, sexuality and religion.

“Worries on Wall St. and Mr. Jones” is a poetic and personal telling of Jenny Overman's relationship with New York City, Wall Street, and the economic crisis. The performance will addresses themes of loss, wealth, Judaism, anti-Semitism, and creativity. Included will be a narrative poem about Bernie Madoff as well as other poignant and topical pieces that respond to personal, social, and economic insecurity.

More information about Jenny can be found at www.jennyoverman.com.

Attendees are encouraged to arrive early to secure a table, and to sign up for a spot on the Open Mic list.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Thrilling performance by Alice Anderson


Wednesday night Alice Anderson's presence and grace enchanted the audience.

Above was the marvelous opening act by Patrick Grizzell

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Critical Acclaim for Alice Anderson



Alice Anderson is a gifted, intense, lucid, and absolutely fearless young poet. Human Nature marks a splendid debut. - Thomas Lux

The poet here is someone new in American letters. . . These poems are shocking and bravem relentless in their obsessive power. - Garrett Hongo

Alice Anderson is willing to investigate the darkest of answers . . . her ferocious map of the past also points the way out. "Welcome," she tells us "to the living." - Mark Doty

Beware, all who enter here. Anderson's remarkable first book, winner of the 1994 Elmer Holmes Bobst Award for Emerging Writers, is like an outcropping of hell-the reader is compelled by fascination and horror to keep reading. These are poems of paternal incest and complicity: the brother brought into the sister's room to watch her sexual activity with the father; the mother talking about it with the daughter as if "we're in this together"; the woman grown, betrayed, enraged, and convinced that "no man will ever adore me that way again." Dedicated to Sharon Olds, these poems bear her influence: the unflinching look at a difficult reality, the rich attention to physical detail, the rush of overwhelming experience, the aesthetic control. The book's last line-"It's the human's nature to survive, welcome to the living"-which also gives the book its grim and hopeful title, celebrates survival. Anderson's life force is implicit in the language throughout these
poems, objective, exact, charged with an emotional force given only to those who have been to hell and returned to tell the tale. - Publisher's Weekly, starred review

Alice Anderson performs at Poetry Night at Bistro 33



Poetry Night at Bistro 33 is proud to welcome Alice Anderson on Wednesday, August 19th at 9 P.M.

Author of the New York University Press book Human Nature, which has won two major first book prizes, Alice Anderson is a strikingly talented poet. One can find her work in journals such as New York Quarterly, New Letters, Agni and The Plum Review; and in anthologies such as On The Verge: Emerging Poets and Artists in America; American Poetry, The Next Generation; and The Why and Later: Poets Speak on Rape. Anderson’s classic poem “The Split” appears in the 20th anniversary edition of The Courage to Heal. A longtime advocate for victims of incest and domestic violence, Alice Anderson now writes out of Sacramento, having escaped the post-Katrina Mississippi coast. Her poetry addresses difficult subjects with eloquence and grace.

Opening for Alice Anderson will be Patrick Grizzell. Co-Founder and former President of the Sacramento Poetry center, Patrick Grizzell is a poet, songwriter and visual artist who has published Dark Music: Selected Poems and Stories (edited by D.R. Wagner), Chicken Months, and The Goat of Esmeralda.

Attendees are encouraged to arrive early to secure a table, and to sign up for a spot on the Open Mic list.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Thanks to the 80 people who showed up to hear D. R. Wagner


Sasa Afredi opens for D. R. and excites the crowdAbove the large crowd listens intently to D. R.



D. R. sings one of his songs

Sunday, August 2, 2009

D. R. Wagner to perform at Bistro 33


Poetry Night at Bistro 33 is proud to welcome D. R. Wagner on Wednesday, August 5th at 9 P.M.

D. R. Wagner has authored over 20 books of poetry and letters, and has produced over 50 magazines and chapbooks. He was the founder and editor at Niagara Press and Runciple Spoons Press, and had worked with and published poets such as d.a. levy, Kenneth Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg, and Jim Morrison. In addition to his literary career, D. R. Wagner is also a singer-songwriter, musician and a visual artist of work that has won international awards and appeared in numerous publications and museum collections. Wagner has taught Design at UC Davis for twenty years.

Attendees are encouraged to arrive early to secure a table, and to sign up for a spot on the Open Mic list.

Poetry Night at Bistro 33, hosted by Andy Jones and produced by Brad Henderson, occurs on the first and third Wednesday of every month at 9 P.M. with an open microphone segment at 10 P.M.


Bistro 33, 226 F. St.

(530) 756-4556