Illiterate Magazine

Links To Those Who Have Submitted Performing Live!

We had a good time last week at the Wed night Poetry/Open Mic thing that we host at the Burnt Toast in Boulder, on the Hill. We tend to always have a good time, but this week an extra fun time was had by all. A nice mix of new comers and loyal every-weekers performed some really great stuff. We mourned the loss of Walter Cronkite, celebrated the recent birthday of Hunter Thompson, drank Great Shark Hunt spiked bottles of mid-shelved whiskey, and shared survival tips on how to navigate the Apocalypse if that job quitting maverick raping ex-Governor Sarah Palin ever manages to pull off another run at the White House and/or nabs a cushy un-fact-checked gig as a winking talk show host, thus...Read more

  Sirama Bajo has just published a new chapbook that everyone should probably check out. It’s called “S” as in Fisherman, which is, you know, a pretty fucking good title. I read the entire thing the other day two or three times in a row and instead of running my mouth about how much I liked it or why I liked it or trying to convince you why you should like it I’d rather just type out a few poems from the book for you to read here in order to hopefully convince you to pick up a copy (they’re only 3 bucks!) and figure out why you like it for yourself. There are no poem titles, and some of the poems are really short, four or five lines short, which...Read more

Poetry Mission About Cheeseburgers!

  This week’s poetry mission comes from a Wed night Open Mic assignment we came up with a couple weeks ago. Olatundji Akpo-sani (Co-host of the Burnt Toast readings and Co-Publisher of Baobob Tree Press) had written a poem about cheeseburgers that he wasn’t too sure about, but that everyone else who’d read it tended to like it or thought it was great. He insisted that it wasn’t very good, so we decided to see who could out-shitty poem him. Whoever wrote the worst poem about cheeseburgers won. A half dozen of us accepted the challenge (I’d be publishing all of them below but I haven’t collected them yet and typed them up, complete first shitty chees...Read more

The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan

  Near the top of the list of books everyone should own, especially if they’re a fucking poet, is: The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan   edited by Alice Notley with Anselm Berrigan and Edmund Berrigan This beautiful 749 page monster contains Berrigan’s published and unpublished poetry written between 1962 and his death on July 4th, 1983 (including his rediculously influencial masterpiece known as The Sonnets). I'm not going to ramble on at this point about how much I love this glorious bastard, or how much I respect what he managed to accomplish with the unique way he experimented with language, or the almost super hero-like powers he wielded whe...Read more

Boulder Forms a new Artists Guild

There's a new Guild in town, and they are currently looking for new members and someone to design their new logo. If you're interested in doing either or both of these things you can read the official Artists' Guild of Boulder letter pasted below. If you have any questions after that you can email me at rob_geisen@illiteratemagazine.com and I'll put you in touch with the appropriate Guild gang member who will be super-happy to answer them for you. New Gotham needs you. Make a difference. Join the Battle against the Un-Unitied who instead of working together to change the world for the better, just sit around bitching about things in their plaid pajamas of psychosis of doomCapes and/or Cowls ...Read more

Poems For David Carradine

  Fuck. The After-Life has just added yet another of the great ones to its collection. David Carradine: is dead. The CNN headline initially published on Wednesday reported that he was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room ‘Hanging In Closet’, which pissed me off, because, you know, it’s just sort of a really bullshit way to put it. Show some respect you fucking assholes.  He was one of the Good Guys. You don’t go announcing his death to the entire world by saying he was found hanging in a closet, as if he were some sort of rumpled travel suit dangling in some misunderstood hotel room tucked between a complimentary hotel bathrobe, a combination lock 3x4...Read more

Napalm Health Spa 2009 Report

Concerned Citizens,The new Napalm Health Spa 2009 Report has been released into the wild and is now available to read online at:http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs09/index.htmlThis year's contributers include Sam Abrams (who I once heard give a great talk about Walt Whitman's homosexuality), Andre Codrescu (who once told me that "It's not a successful poetry reading unless you get laid) and Sarah Peters (who writes among other things great Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan fiction and also shares my recent affinity with House) among others...There's some great fucking things in this years Report that you're going to want to read: immediately, thanks to Editor and founder of the Museum of American...Read more

Headed For Delirium Release Party

Free Night of Poetry and Musicat the Draft House in Boulder (2027 13th St, between Spruce & Pearl)Featuring the World Wide Release of Monica Bolles' new book:                                       Headed For Delirium featuring live music by                         Cort McCumber                   &...Read more

Ryan Adams Presents: Infinity Blues

Ryan Adams has just published his first book of poetry. It’s called Infinity Blues.That’s all I wanted to say right now. I mean, this is not a review. This is an announcement. The review will come later.I just picked up a copy of it a couple days ago. I feel like I need to reread it another ten times though before I can forge some sort of defensible opinion. Right now I’ve only read it one time, really fast, all the way through. I had the same reaction to Infinity Blues that I have when listening to one of his albums for the first time (except for Love Is Hell which instantly drilled itself into the back of my brain stem, causing me to recognize it instantly as a fucking mo...Read more

A Cure For the Mad Swine Disease Blues

At the time of this posting three mighty events wrestle each other for my public radio news dial's attention. Obama has officially completed his first 100 days in office. Bea Arthur's dead. And Mad Swine Disease is coming to get you! It hasn't found its way to Colorado yet, but gleefully nervous reporters assure us that the disorder is in fact aware of the mountain state's existence and, if you believe everything you read, is right now making preparations to board its dogs at a kennel and searching for cheap plane tickets into DIA on Priceline.com. But fear not, concerned citizens, for Hope has not yet quit its day job. It's still out there, plugging away at shit. So whether you're con...Read more