OntheWilderSide

Featuring:

Anne Waldman, Eliot Katz, Sahar Muradi, Zohra Saed, The Mast (featuring Haale Gafori and Matt Kilmer), Sara Goudarzi, Bob Rosenthal, Papoleto Melendez, Yusuf Misdaq, Tahani Salah, Jackie Sheeler, Chris Brandt, David Henderson, and surprise special guests.

10/22/2011 update: New additions to the evening’s celebrations:

-Plus!
Guest speaker, the author and investigative reporter, Greg Palast
and
Group reading of Allen Ginsberg’s great anti-nuclear energy poem, “Plutonian Ode.”

Poets for Renewable Energy and Peace (PREP) will be hosting its first public event on the afternoon of Sunday, October 23, 2011, from 1-4pm, at Theater 80 on 80 St. Marks Place in Manhattan. The event is being organized in conjunction with the Howl Festival, which is putting on a series of October events at Theater 80 to raise money for the Howl HELP Fund, which will provide emergency assistance to help community artists with emergency healthcare, housing, and social service needs.

The October 23rd event will feature several emerging poets whose families are from Afghanistan and the Middle East; poet Anne Waldman, whose 1,000-page feminist epic, The Iovis Trilogy, has just been published by Coffee House Press; music from the Brooklyn-based duo, The Mast (featuring Haale Gafori and Matt Kilmer), whose debut album, “Wild Poppies,” has been receiving rave reviews; a group reading of Allen Ginsberg’s great anti-nuclear energy poem, “Plutonian Ode”; and a diverse group of longtime New York poets, including some who worked closely with Allen Ginsberg for many years.

The lineup for the Oct. 23rd event includes: Sahar Muradi, Zohra Saed, Anne Waldman, The Mast (featuring Haale Gafori and Matt Kilmer), Sara Goudarzi, Bob Rosenthal, Papoleto Melendez, Yusuf Misdaq, Tahani Salah, Jackie Sheeler, Chris Brandt, David Henderson, Eliot Katz, and surprise special guests. Admission for the event is $10 at the door.

From the Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War movements of the 1950s and 1960s to the early stages of the current war in Iraq, poets and other artists have played key roles in educating the public about important social issues, inspiring young people to get involved in grassroots movements for progressive social change, and in helping to build activist groups in order to improve social policies. After having watched the Obama administration continue the previous administration’s disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more recently seeing the nuclear catastrophe in Japan and its still-growing environmental effects (and given the dangerously close proximity of the Indian Point nuclear power plant), a group of New York City activist poets got together and decided that the time was ripe for poets to speak out in a more united way against war and nuclear energy. Poets for Renewable Energy and Peace was recently created to attempt to inspire new grassroots activism against war and nuclear energy.

Please join Poets for Renewable Energy and Peace, and the Howl Festival, for this launch event on Sunday, October 23, 2011, at 1pm, at Theater 80 (80 St. Marks Place, NY, NY).

Filed under: activism, Anti-War, Ecology, energy, Environment, events, green, international politics, Iraq, local, News, Peace, poetry, politics, progressive politics, Recommended Poetry, Solar, sustainability, sustainable, US Politics, war Tagged: | activism, afghanistan, allen ginsberg, Anne Waldman, anti-nuke, antinuclear, Bob Rosenthal, Chris Brandt, Eliot Katz, energy issues, Feminism, greg palast, Haale Gafori, iraq war, Manhattan events, Matt Kilmer, nuclear energy, nukes, nyc events, NYC poetry, Peace, peace politics, Plutonian Ode, Poets for Renewable Energy and Peace, PREP, renewable energy, renewables, The Mast, Vietnam War, women writers, women's issues