drunkenboat.com

Vivre la DB12

dbblog — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 06:11:35 +0000

Welcome to Drunken Boat’s 12th issue! We invite you to celebrate its launch at a memorable event in New York City. On September 22nd from 7-10pm, American Irish Historical Society with presentations of a number of special folios including Celtic Twilight: 21st-Century Irish Americans on Eugene O’Neill, edited by Robert M. Dowling.

Performers will include London’s own editor and poet James Byrne, Chicago-based essayist Jeanie Chung, author T.J. English, poet and performance artist Duriel E. Harris, novelist Maureen Howard, translator and transversioner Gabriela Jauregui, editor and poet Caledonia Kearns, Black 47 frontman Larry Kirwan, poet Leslie McGrath, author Caitlin Leffel, author and director Ciar´n O’Reilly, scholar Katherine Sugg, musician and fiction writer Chris Tarry, fiction writer Deepak Unnikrishnan, installation artist Quintan Ana Wikswo, and poet Eamonn Wall.

Celtic Twilight is dedicated to Haiti relief after the horrific event of January 12, 2010, and the folio includes a donation link for the Ireland-borne organization Concern Worldwide, which has been on the ground in Haiti since 1994. Join us for this extraordinary evening, open to the public and with served refreshments, to celebrate Drunken Boat and Irish American arts and culture.

RSVPs are required. If you’d like to celebrate with us, please contact Meaghan Doherty of AIHS at medoherty@aihs.org or call her at 212-288-2263.

New York Premiere of “Raising Hell”

dbblog — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 23:00:19 +0000

When Ed Webb-Ingall set out to tell the story of the children of lesbian and gay parents in the UK in “Raising Hell,” he decided to fuse queer film theory of the 70s, 80s, and 90s with documentary techniques learned on the set of films about Joy Division and Al Gore’s LiveEarth Project. He combined his own experience with live interviews and historical found footage. All this in a compact, 30 minute format, ideal for screening at community centers and schools. Sound ambitious? Maybe, but as Webb-Ingall points out, “evidence out last year states Lesbians do make better parents than conventional ones.”

This Saturday, August 21, at 3 p.m., Webb-Ingall’s film will premiere to New York audiences at the Maysles Film Institute at 343 Lenox Avenue/Malcolm X Boulevard, NYC. The half-hour screening will be followed by a panel with the filmmaker and members of COLAGE, a support and advocacy organization for daughters and sons of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents, including Drunken Boat’s Nonfiction Editor, Heather Bryant.

The film is kid-centric with the intention of telling the often ignored and unknown story of the children of Lesbian and Gay parents from a personal and political viewpoint. Through researching, developing and screening this film Ed Webb-Ingall hopes at once to normalise and elaborate on the experiences of the children of lesbian and gay parents. Instead of perpetuating the myth of the perfect family, or the perfect childhood, this film shows kids who, whatever they felt about their families, didn’t want to change or hide them, but be proud of who and what they have made them.

Watch the “Raising Hell” film trailer here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4opetRNq8Y

More info on the Maysles Institute web site:

http://www.mayslesinstitute.org/cinema/calendar.html

Party With Your Favorite Boat

dbblog — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:10:41 +0000

Join the DB editors for a night of celebration, as we ring in the new issue. Featuring readings and multi-media performances by:

T.J. English
Duriel Harris
Maureen Howard
Alida & Albana Karakushi
Caledonia Kearns
Leslie McGrath
Irina Reyn
Chris Tarry
Eamonn Wall
Quintan Ana Wikswo

and more TBA.

RSVPs are REQUIRED. This night of entertainment is free of charge, with a suggested donation, $5.

September 22 · 7:00pm – 9:00pm
American Irish Historical Society
991 5th Avenue (btwn 80th & 81st)
New York, NY

Click here to RSVP.

Nonfiction in Drunken Boat

dbblog — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 02:51:51 +0000

For our upcoming nonfiction folio, we’re looking for literary nonfiction by/for/about musicians and music. Writers should submit via our online submissions manager and the call is open until September 15th, with some leeway for truly stellar pieces.

Click here to submit.

Reetika Vazirani, 1962-2003

dbblog — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 02:50:05 +0000

By Ethelbert Miller

Today is Reetika’s birthday. On January 22, 2010, at the National Press Club, I made the following remarks at the the launch of RADHA SAYS, her posthumous book of poems:

I think Reetika Vazirani’s life and work is a bridge between two worlds. Reetika was a woman who was always on the move – looking and searching for a home. It is no surprise that her work turned inwards to explore such topics as religion and myths. How can we recognize our footprints if we cannot see the path we are on?

In the last poem of WORLD HOTEL, Reetika reminds us that it’s a young country and we cannot bear to grow old.

In RADHA SAYS, she writes:

Never mind the flickering lamp
I am lying on my side
And you who’ve known all breathing patterns
Who’ve finished meditating on
Forever forgoing desire descend
To my room for the last time

In one of the many letters that Reetika wrote me—all of them now at William and Mary for future scholars to read—she jokes about wearing a baseball cap and pretending to be me. That summer of 2003, at Bennington, we sat with our backs together and our heads touching. I told her I now knew where her poems came from.

We rocked back and forth…

Lullaby
I would not sing you to sleep.
I would press my lips to your ear
And hope the terror in my heart stirs you.

In 2010, it is not the terror that stirs us but the love. The love we have for Reetika and all the words that still live.