D.R. Wagner and Patrick Grizzell
Monday, February 22 at 7:30 PM
Sacramento Poetry Center at 1719 25th Street
Host: Tim Kahl
D.R. Wagner is the author of over thirty books and chapbooks or poetry and letters. He founded press : today : niagara in Niagara Falls, NY in 1965 and later Runcible Spoon (a press) in the late 1960’s and produced over fifty magazines and chapbooks. He co-wrote The Egyptian Stroboscope with d.a. levy in the late 1960’s. He read with Jim Morrison of the Doors in a legendary reading with Morrison and Michael McClure.
He has read with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Al Winans, Viola Weinberg, d.a. levy, E.R. Baxter III, Ed Sanders, Ann Waldman and many, many other poets over the past 40 years. His work is much published and has appeared in numerous translations. He has exhibited visual poetry with the likes of William Burroughs, Byron Gysin, Ian Hamilton Finlay, bp Nichol, bill bissett, J.F. Bory, John Furnival in venues ranging from The Musee de Arts Decoratifs, Paris, at the Louvre, to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
He is also a visual artist, producing miniature needle-made tapestries that have been exhibited internationally and are included in numerous publications and museum collections.
He is, further, a professional musician, working as a singer-songwriter and playing guitar and keyboards. He currently plays and sings with the band SOME TIME TONIGHT,
He taught Design at the University of California at Davis from 1988 until 2015. He has also taught in the Honors program at the University conducting classes in Poetry by Design.
His most recent books include 97 POEMS from Cold River Press, BREAKING & ENTERING from Lummox Press, THE NIGHT MARKET from Crisis Chronicles Press , PRIVATE ARCHAEOLOGY from Bottle of Smoke Press and the first book in the Pocketbook Series from Cold River Press, REMEMBERING ETERNITY. He edited, with poet John Dorsey, the d.a. levy tribute poetry anthology RENEGADE FLOWERS published by HYDEOUT PRESS. His most recent book THE GENERATION OF FORMS (2016) was published in February by Night Ballet Press, Cleveland, Ohio.
He currently lives in Locke, CA, the Cultural Center of the Sacramento River Delta.
Harps
These harps that collect
In the eddies of lovemaking,
We find them days later
Still strung with the silk
Strings that bound us so together.
I carefully lift them from
The stream thinking they
Have belonged to angels.
They are hung with wet and
The sweet smell of childhood,
Bright with green wagons and the
Ghosts of dogs barking near
The door yard.
They shine so. It is hard
To believe they were once
Ourselves and that we played upon them,
Full and drenched in passion,
Smiles, music on our lips.
I reach to touch the part
That makes the music and all
Is water once again, a riffle,
Then a rapid, then a tumbling.
Over and over again until the
Room is great with longing,
The river spreading itself
Before me like a song.
Patrick Grizzell is a poet, songwriter and visual artist. His books include Dark Music, Chicken Months (about which Robert Bly wrote, “ . . . the poems have a sweet spontaneity and tenderness.”), Minotaure into Night (with sumo paintings by Jimi Suzuki), and the recently published chapbooks, 13 Poems and It’s Like That. He has a full-length collection, Writing in Place, under way.
He was a founding member and previous director of, as well as an editor for The Sacramento Poetry Center.
He has performed poetry and music with, among others, Allen Ginsberg, Leon Redbone, Gary Snyder, Jim Ringer and Mary McCaslin, Ed Sanders, Taj Mahal, Shizumi Shigeto, William Stafford, Robert Creeley, and Anne Waldman.
He studied art and literature at CSUS with Maya Angelou, Dennis Schmitz, Eugene Redmond, Kathryn Hohlwein, John Fitzgibbon, Jimi Suzuki and others.
His band, Proxy Moon, released its premiere CD in November, 2015.
John Lee Hooker once said he “sound pretty good” on the dobro.
