What Shall I Wear
By David Michael Jackson
I checked my closet today
Will I wear my feelings on my sleeve
Will it be my waistcoat of sadness
with the hopeless cape of yesterday
I would wear instead a shirt of love
with a coat of pure kindness
and shoes of a good journey
and gloves of giving
I look into a grey sky
and ask for help
with my wardrobe
In continuing with the tradition of the annual meetings of the Poetry Comb (started on the last Sunday of April in Chicago), Janet Kuypers decided to go sponsor Austin’s 2018 Poetry Bomb at Graffiti Wall at Castle Hill outdoors for her Austin, TX installment of this annual Chicago poetry tradition on April 29th, 2017, starting at 3:30 in the afternoon. She invited people to got together to read poetry at a place that is not an open mic, to just share poetry with passers-by — and people did go there to join her to read poetry — usually Janet Kuypers would not go to the same venue more than once, but because the Baylor Street Art Wall (the Graffiti Wall) was being shut down this year, Janet Kuypers had to come back to this iconic location one more time.
See YouTube video from 4/29/18 of Janet Kuypers reading her prose “Type “A” Person”, then her poems “Venture to the Unknown” and “I’m Thinking About Myself Too Much” from her performance art collection book “Chapter 38 v1” toward the end of the Austin 2018 Poetry Bomb at the Baylor Street Art Wall (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
See YouTube video from 4/29/18 of Janet Kuypers reading her prose “Type “A” Person”, then her poems “Venture to the Unknown” and “I’m Thinking About Myself Too Much” from her performance art collection book “Chapter 38 v1” toward the end of the Austin 2018 Poetry Bomb at the Baylor Street Art Wall (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
See a 36+ minute YouTube video of Janet Kuypers and Thom Woodruff going back and forth with poetry; where Janet Kuypers read her poems “Helping Men in Public Places”, “I Want”, and “Last Before Extinction”, then John Yotko read a poem he just wrote the day before, then Janet Kuypers read her poems “Warren Stories” and “Kurt Irons”, then Thom spoke, then Janet Kuypers read her poems “Never Did the Same”, “All These Reminders”, “Who You Tell Your Dreams To”, and “You and Me and Your Girlfriend”, then Thom spoke, then Janet Kuypers read her poems “My Mother My Mother My Mother”, then her prose “NASA Project”, and finally her poem “Moonlight”, all read from her performance art collection book “Chapter 38 v1” at the official beginning 4/29/18 of the Austin installment of the 2018 Poetry Bomb at the Baylor Street Art Wall (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
See a 36+ minute YouTube video of Janet Kuypers and Thom Woodruff going back and forth with poetry; where Janet Kuypers read her poems “Helping Men in Public Places”, “I Want”, and “Last Before Extinction”, then John Yotko read a poem he just wrote the day before, then Janet Kuypers read her poems “Warren Stories” and “Kurt Irons”, then Thom spoke, then Janet Kuypers read her poems “Never Did the Same”, “All These Reminders”, “Who You Tell Your Dreams To”, and “You and Me and Your Girlfriend”, then Thom spoke, then Janet Kuypers read her poems “My Mother My Mother My Mother”, then her prose “NASA Project”, and finally her poem “Moonlight”, all read from her performance art collection book “Chapter 38 v1” at the official beginning 4/29/18 of the Austin installment of the 2018 Poetry Bomb at the Baylor Street Art Wall (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Everything was Alive and Dying” and “Communication” from her performance art collection book “Chapter 38 v1” before the official beginning 4/29/18 of the Austin installment of the 2018 Poetry Bomb at the Baylor Street Art Wall (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Everything was Alive and Dying” and “Communication” from her performance art collection book “Chapter 38 v1” before the official beginning 4/29/18 of the Austin installment of the 2018 Poetry Bomb at the Baylor Street Art Wall (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
See YouTube from 4/29/18 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Coquinas” and “How Do I Explain It” from her performance art collection book “Chapter 38 v1” before the official beginning of the Austin installment of the 2018 Poetry Bomb at the Baylor Street Art Wall (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
See YouTube from 4/29/18 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Coquinas” and “How Do I Explain It” from her performance art collection book “Chapter 38 v1” before the official beginning of the Austin installment of the 2018 Poetry Bomb at the Baylor Street Art Wall (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
Janet Kuypers was live — at Baylor Street Art Wall.
April 4th marked the first time Janet Kuypers hosted Community Poetry@Half Price Books, which was the only meeting like this at Half Price Books (5555 N Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX) during National Poetry Month in 2018. April 4th also marked a April 2018 Book Release Reading of new books from Scars Publications, which saw the release of the books “War of Water” from cc&d magazine; and “My Name is Nobody” from Down in the Dirt magazine. In his reading, Janet Kuypers read performance art poetry and song material from the show “Energy with Poetry and Music” that appeared in cc&d magazine’s book (along with a haiku) as well as poetry from “My Name is Nobody”.
Because issue collection books – have also been recently released, Janet Kuypers also read (in two separate readings) material from the Scars Publications cc&d September-December 2017 issue collection book “Language of Untamed Spirit” and and the Down in the Dirt September-December 2017 issue collection book “the Light in the Sky” for the final readings of the event.
 Thanks to Trevor Wainwright for taking photos of Janet Kuypers showing off the cc&d v282 book “War of Water” (before reading the performance Art section of the book of poems and songs performed in the “Energy with Poetry and Music” show) as Janet Kuypers 4/4/18 guest-hosted Community Poetry@Half Price Books in Austin. |
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; at Artvilla.com his publications include
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules and Next Arrivals, collected poems, & Moon selected Audio Textual Poems available at Amazon.com as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ March 2018 Book Release Reading 3/7/18, where she read her cc&d 3/18 book “The False Portrait” haiku poem “escape”, and then her “Finding Peace” performance art poems “Protecting Peace can Put you in Prison” “Really Physically Heal (2017 edit)”, “Keeping the Peace and Coming to Peace” and “On a High Horse Like This” in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books; this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera.
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ March 2018 Book Release Reading 3/7/18, where she read her Down in the Dirt 3/18 book “Dear Reader” poems “everyday objects equal performance art”, “Queen of Multimedia for a reason”, and “Your Imaginary Soul Weighs 21 Grams” in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books, this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera.
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers at her 3/7/18 “Community Poetry @ Half Price Books” Austin feature reading, reading from the cc&d September-December 2017 issue collection book “Language of Untamed Spirit” her poems “Mapping the Way to True Love” and “Just One Book” (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
This video is meant to provoke your thoughts about the nature of living beings, both Human and not Human, particularly as the conflict with each other. Equally, it questions critically Poetry and Journalism.
The poem itself was written on 20 April 2020. it has appeared, both in English and Spanish, in different formats in Poetry Life and Times, which is edited by the poet Robin Ouzman Hislop. There is also another interview video in Spanish, published in June 2021, less elaborated than this one.
I would like to remind everybody how important is to be vaccinated and to protect ourselves and others against the virus.
With thanks to all those who are working to control this horrible pandemic and those who spread quality information, not fake news.
Author of the video, texts and poem: Antonio Martínez Arboleda.
Antonio Martínez Arboleda:
Antonio (Tony Martin-Woods) started to write poetry for the public in 2012, at the age of 43, driven by his political indignation. That same year he also set in motion Poesía Indignada, an online publication of political poetry. He runs the poetry evening Transforming with Poetry at Inkwell, in Leeds, and collaborates with 100 Thousands Poets for Change 100tpc.org/. Tony is also known in the UK for his work as an academic and educator under his real-life name, Antonio Martínez Arboleda at the University of Leeds. His project of digitisation of poetry, Ártemis, compiles more than 100 high quality videos of Spanish poets and other Open Educational Resources. http://www.artemispoesia.com/ .
He is the delegate in the UK of Crátera Revista de Crítica y Poesía Contemporánea , where he also publishes his work as translator from English into Spanish. He published his first volume of poetry in Spanish, Los viajes de Diosa (The Travels of Goddess), in 2015, as a response to the Great Recession, particularly in Spain. His second book, Goddess Summons the Nation Paperback , Goddess Summons the Nation Kindle Edition , is a critique of the ideas of nation and capitalism, mainly in the British Brexit context. It incorporates voices of culprits, victims and heroes with mordacity and rhythm. It consists of 21 poems, 18 of which are originally written in English, available in print and kindle in Amazon and other platforms. Editor’s note: further information bio & academic activities can be found at this link: https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/languages/staff/91/antonio-martinez-arboleda
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ;
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com
See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)