These two poems are by Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhran, of Oakland, California at the time we published them, several years ago. They are not formatted exactly as they were in the mag when we originally published them. Go to the website at http://karawane.homestead.com to view the original publication they were in and to see them in their full glory!

I really really liked this poetry very much.



lessons in excavation



for Sandra Maria Calvo & Maria Mazziotti Gillan


although it is true i have been "american" for six and four and three generations

i have been irish and german jewish and arab spanish and african far longer

my roots there in europe the middle east nord afrika and the mediterranean



(across an ocean twice traveled and even more removed)



are much deeper stronger thicker

than these mere branches thin and weak shallow

and overshadowing the ground upon which i was born

check the soil below they run for miles

those above their distance measured

in only feet and inches



(perhaps it is best this way)



in winter the leaves fall

the thin branches grow thinner gnarled and grey

matching the sky above indistinguishable



(to some the tree would appear dead)



luckily

there are still those of us

who know the truth of things

who know the benefits beyond shade

who know other ways of living beyond the grey

who know what lies beneath the surface and

who still dare



to dig


(previously published in The Hammer)






la lengua of love



for JV



my love for u es multilingue many-tongued washing

over u with each wave of appreciation this gift of

sharing u n yr body with me wetness n warmth

heat hot springs from the ocean floor always

returning wave upon wave of undulation

always finding ourselves on each

other's shores with no course

back nor wanting any

nor wanting any


(previously published in Mizna)

Karawane Call for Artists - Quad Cities

I have been very neglectful of this page! Here is Karawane's call for submissions to the Quad Cities edition. If you have trouble reading it, you can also download it from our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/karawanemagazine/ or write us at karawane@earthlink.net.

Coin-Op Poetry

So, we have started a poetry reading at a local laundromat in the Quad Cities. We have been going for a couple of months and we had our best turnout the Monday before Thanksgiving. We are going to have another reading this week, Monday December 5th, then we will break for the holidays and start back up on Martin Luther King day, the third Monday in January.

Here is a flyer for the event and also some pictures from two of our previous Coin-Op Readings.

The Temp Job: A Performance Piece from Issue 10 - 2007

The Temp Job: A Performance Piece

The Set Up

This is the original documentation of three out of five days spent on a temp assignment in a major corporation wherein I had virtually no work to do whatsoever. After I had done two books of crossword puzzles and attempted to read a few books, which proved difficult to stay with after 8 hours of sitting in one place under fluorescent lights, I began to write down every time I looked at the clock and how much time was left in my day. On Friday, I began writing down some things about what I was doing at the time.

Documentation

Director and theorist Richard Schechner describes performance as “twice behaved behavior.” What follows here is the “documentation” of the original impetus for this performance—the transcription of my time logs from my temp job. These logs can serve as the basis for a performance, reading, etc. as well as serving as the blueprint or instructions for a newly generated piece.

Theorizing

As Andy Warhol once said, "we figured out how much we thought the audience could take and went about 10 minutes beyond that. Leave them wanting less was always our motto."

The point, of course, of an installation piece such as this is to highlight the passing, often slow, of time and to emphasize both temporality and space. In this case, it is the confining of space and time into a cubicle and a workday.

The Performance

In the performance, a desk should be placed in some public place and the performer should go there eight hours a day, preferably for at least a week.  Every time the performer looks at the clock he or she will say the time out loud and make some kind of repetitive action. Whenever anyone comes near the performance piece, they will be asked "are you the new temp?" When some smart ass says yes, he or she should be "trained" on how to do the performance and then the original performer can take a break.

Thursday

8:20
8:09
7:59
7:40
7:20
6:37
6:10
6:01
4:55
4:39
4:38
4:01
3:43
3;33
3:24
3:22
3:17
3:10
3:09
3:08
3:01
2:44
2:20
2:19
2:15
2:10
2:02
1:57
1:51
1:46
1:40
1:20
1:14
1:11
1:06
1:04
1:00
:55
:39
:37
:36
:33
:24
:21
:19
:15
:14
:10
:07


Friday variation

I left early today, so starting with 8:00 rather than 8:30.

8:04
7:56
7:45
7:44
7:39
7:33 Called to check my bank balance
7:20
7:04
6:54
6:37
6:34
6:33
6:26 Took a bathroom break
6:18 Made a phone call
6:13
6:08 Distributed mail
6:03
5:49 Went to the store to get money and buy a chocolate milk
5:23 Read Skyway News
4:58 Went to the 4th floor to visit old co-workers
4:52
4:43 Talked on the phone
4:35 Spilled water on the message book. Copied over 1 page of phone messages
4:29
4:01 Did the daily crossword puzzles. Could not finish New York Times Puzzle in the Strib. Finished LA Times Puzzle.
3:32
3:30
3:03 Lunch
2:53 Talked to Cheryl on the phone
2:48 Called Aramark about the beeping vending machine
2:43
2:41 Personal phone call
2:29
2:00 Read the Star Tribune Front section
1:44
1:40
1:32
1:02 Hung out with Ryan, former co-worker, in the breakroom. I ate popcorn. He spilled ice on the table and on me.
:51
:39 Copied over my notes from a seminar in December
:38
:21 Had a coughing attack. Had to run to the bathroom. Hacked and spit up a little. Hurt my throat for the rest of the day.
Ish.
:18
:15
:09
:08 Boss told me to go ahead and leave and thanks for covering this week.

Poems by Ric Royer - Issue 10 2007

Here are a few poems that we published in our last issue, which was almost 10 years ago now. These are Yoko Ono-ish in that they are small instruction pieces.

Poems by Ric Royer


Atmospheric Poetry

Speak into a paper bag.

When the paper bag is full of air,
hold it up and pop it. Watch the
words float around.


Sleep Action

Piles, piles, piles.
Goodnight, sleep tight
under piles.

Website update

Hey all. We have a website update including information on the grant we received in the Quad Cities, an update on submission guidelines, and an update on our merchandise.

We also have an increasingly active Facebook presence as well. Check it out and like us on Facebook.

I will be posting more updates and samples on this page in the weeks and months to come!

David Christopher LaTerre from Issue 7, 2002

This one is also from Issue 7 of Karawane. David informs us that it has been revised several times and asked if he could send an update, but I really wanted to include the one we had originally published.

This one did not have formatting problems. If you have ever heard David read--in Minneapolis, in Seattle, or anywhere on the road--then you know that he reads as he writes: in one huge breath/block of text.

So here is David Christopher LaTerre's Dogme 2000.



DOGME 2000


Interesting people are loners. you can’t meet them. get out! can’t break up their marriages or usurp their secret fire escape lovers. there are none; the walk alone. who produced these individuals? not Madison Avenue or Milan. tattoos, interesting? piercings, interesting? very long hair, very short hair, interesting? vintage clothing; high fashion? interested? interested yet? bisexual? interracial? boho? like on T.V.! not weird enough. who paved the way for identity (not these people). consider the intelligentsia of time: bit thinkers in smoky backrooms. all in ugly suits & ties. members of the Bauhaus, of Dada, private salons & think tanks. outside the university(often); outside the court. creators of the thinking-edge. can’t even read their writing! they looked like narcs! they were uncool. they were very uncool. so square, they’d level the world beyond its shrunken-head tattoos & all its affect. they freaked out. & it freaked people out. like Ulysses & The Rite of Spring. when we rant that ‘it’s just looks’ or ‘all is vanity’, we imply that there is
something else. there may NOT be! What do people care about? look at the pyramid of THINGS, PEOPLE; IDEAS(materialism, Jerry Springer, & original thought) interesting? why did the punk cross the road? he was stapled to a chicken. what do you think skinheads talk about? punk rock? they talk about their families & their jobs. WHAT is interesting? WHO is? what is radical? who made the PROTOTYPE? why copy it? my moral: why copy anything? you want to be unique but first you have to be a true individual: that means no more cliques. no more TEAMS. no more GIRLFRIENDS. no more BOYfriends.
NO MORE PROPS. but see how eventually the underground goes middleground...’Liberal’ sees expensive copper pan at Williams-Sonoma. want-to-buy. forget about grassroots & Marxism. artists& cultural neighborhoods strews with 100lb boys (crystal meth bulimia) entire city of boys & that prop: either a girl, a dog, a cellphone, or snarling or spitting on the street with that ridiculous SWAGGER. where have I seen
that before? oh yeah. EVERYWHERE!(or male couples)...the world is full of E.M. Forster women & Anne Tyler men. the barback is a D.J. Star! your girlfriend’s in a review about temping for Amazon.com. the real horror of the modern city — the unreal city — today is its hypocritical MINDSET: young, hip, plugged into the web & can’t think for itself! wait for it to be DECIDED! so we have corporate-endorsed ravewear
& syndicated prison-issue Hip Hop. all you you won’t be BEAT UP(fashion isn’t as brave as it is fearful). loners are never cool. James Dean was an interpretation. I’m lonely in this place of people only LOOKING or acting weird. they can’t access weirdness, they can only GUESS! they never had it repackaged and run up the flagpole like a trend. they only borrowed it! they just paint it on like ARMOR! I finally REBELLED against cool. they said that I ‘lost’ my cool, that I freaked out (which is VERY uncool & apparently undesirable); I must have felt PASSIONATE about something. cool isn’t dynamic in any way. how did it ever catch on? how could anyone in any century look around & be BORED, or subsequently adopt this as an identity. NOTHING WAS EVER ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH BEING COOL, BUT EVERYTHING WAS ACHIEVED BY FREAKING OUT. INTERESTING PEOPLE ARE LONERS. YOU CAN'T MEET THEM. GET OUT. —not weird enough. it’s not weird enough! when we were out there changing the tide...wanna be lonely? wanna give it a shot? oh, I don’t know; I’m not saying this right. I should ARTICULATE this better...simplify: maybe something...GET OUT!