Poetry with Music

Below are video links from a June 4^th 2016 (6/4/16, or 20160604) poetry performance of Janet Kuypers’ Austin poetry feature through Expressions 2016: June is a Woman! at Austin’s the Bahá’í Center about being a woman, and about what women go through. Because she happened to see this spray-painted word on the side of the road this spring (when construction workers often write single words down to indicate things like where power lines are under ground), she had to take pictures with the word she saw, and she therefore decided to title this show “Obey”. In this show she also ran repeating images projected on the screen behind her of her drawings of woman alternating with her edited “Obey” images, and sampled in the background during her readings were instrumentals from 3 tracks from the Laurie Anderson album release, “the Ugly One with the Jewels”. She even explained to the live audience after the show that she even chose to wear a flapper dress for this show, because (A) that time period reflected the time just after women gained the right to vote in the United States, and (B) this clothing was the irst obvious sign of women wanted to stand on their own (and enjoy themselves too). It didn’t hurt that in Kuypers’ animation in her show (like doing the twist or jumping on a hotel bed, or even with her animated gestures during all of her performance), the fringe one her dress would exaggerate her movements as well.

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Before the show started she also released copies to most everyone there of a chapbook of the writings she was performing in her show (in the order they were performed), and all of the pieces from this reading were also released electronically in a “Obey” chapbook, which you can download as a PDF file for free any time.

Read her haiku poems
progress,
extend,
falling,
civil,
and greatest,
then read her poems
Earth is a Topiary (her 1st of 2 poems where she used a voice modulator to reads parts of her poem in a male voice),
On Becoming a Woman (an editing and expansion of her 1999 poem Becoming a Woman),
Viewing the Woman in a 19th Century Photograph (an editing of her 1991 poem Photograph, Nineteenth Century and her 2nd of 2 poems where she used a voice modulator to reads parts of her poem in a male voice),
Content With Inferior Men, portions of her poem
In The Air with slightly altered wording, and
Oh, She Was a Woman (an editing of her 1997 poem She Was a Woman).

(Thanks to Thom for some photos from the event.)

May 7^th 2016 (5/7/16, or 20160507) poetry performance (with accompanying guitar music by John) of Janet Kuypers’ first scheduled Austin poetry feature through Expressions 2016: Reasons to be Cheerful at Austin’s the Bahá’í Center (at 2215 E M Franklin Ave, Austin, TX 78723) after her move, and because this was also her wedding anniversary, they started the evening with her and John singing the song friends performed at their wedding — Depeche Mode’s “The Bottom Line” (with altered chorus lyrics for their wedding). So enjoy this set os poems (set to music in the show) about not only astronomy but also love, in “Love in the Universe”.

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    All of the pieces from this reading were also released in a “Love in the Universe” chapbook, which you can download as a PDF file for free any time.

Watch video, or read Janet Kuypers in her 5/7/16 show “Love in the Universe” in her first scheduled feature at Expressions 2016: Reasons to be Cheerful in Austin first singing (with John singing and on guitar) the Depeche Mode song The Bottom Line (with altered chorus lyrics for heir wedding), then with her poems Pluto, Plutonium & Death (a bonus Periodic Table poem), her haiku universe, observer’s love poem (2016 edit), everything is my home, Wanted To Play, and electricity.

(And thanks to Thom for the photos from this live event!)