Back to BCCC

I will be back in Binghamton tomorrow (11/8) speaking to various classes including my friend Jan Quackenbush's Oral Interp/Speach for the Stage class. The BCCC students are always great and I look forward to doing an extended section of my new book for them!

misterjim and AWP 2k8

Well, due to the overwhelming response to last year's poetry slam at AWP, I have been asked to take over the nightly open mics! So this year AWP 2K8 will feature a nightly slam and open mic!

(The 2008 AWP Conference will be held at the Hilton on Times Square in mid-town Manhattan from 1/30-2/2/08)

Taken from the AWP website program. . .

10:30 p.m.-11:30 p.m.

Gibson SuiteHilton, 2nd Floor

R. All Collegiate Afterhours Poetry Slam. (Jim Warner)
All Collegiate Afterhours Slam sponsored by Wilkes University and Etruscan Press.

Event is open to all undergraduate and graduate students attending the conference. Participation is capped at ten slammers a night. Slam pieces must be no longer than three minutes in length.

Limited open mic to follow slam (time permitting).

Sign-up at the Wilkes University low residency MA/MFA in Creative Writing/Etruscan Press table in the book Fair.

Prizes, judges, and organization of the event all handled by Wilkes University Asst. Program Director and poet Jim Warner.

For more info on AWP: www.awpwriter.org

all points bulletin. . .

More news to come about readings in the following towns:

-Baltimore, MD
-Bethlahem, PA
-Binghamton, NY
-Charlotte, NC
-Greenville, SC
-. . . and somewhere(s) in Virginia

Plus: News about AWP and NYC to follow as well!

My next victim. . .

Taken from the Anthology website(www.myspace.com/scranthology):

Friday Night at Anthology!!

Hey, everybody--Start your weekend by listening to some kickass poetry from Jim Warner! It's free, highly entertaining, and early in the evening, so you can go wreck your brain AFTER feeding it something healthy...Jim will read and sign (if your buy) his new book, Too Bad It's Poetry, published by Paper Kite Press.If you've never heard Jim read, then you've never experienced the true rock and roll spirit of the spoken word. He will make you rethink everything you've ever been taught or heard about poetry. Do not miss it.

Anthology New and Used
Books515 Center St. Scranton, PA
570.941.9630
Friday, November 2nd, 6:30pm
Free and open to the public

Random Press

Here's some additional stories about my new book and whatnot. . .

Colonel Connection

Diamond City Weekly

The Beacon

TOO BAD IT'S POETRY! Now Available!

My first full length book is called TOO BAD IT'S POETRY.
It is out and available through Paper Kite Press. Click here to visit Paper Kite Press and to buy my book.

Praise for TOO BAD IT'S POETRY:

"The amazing poem "east/west" is a must read. Warner successfully weaves--or more aptly fuses--references to music, spirituality, psychology, pop culture and literature as he explores themes of exile and identity. In these electric poems we journey with him as he both searches for and invents a new home--this one made of language. " -Toi Derricotte

Warner @ BCCC

I will be doing a stint with professor (and wonderful playwright) Jan Quackenbush's classes at Broome County Community College on Thursday March 29th. I will be talking about performing poetry, the art of slam, and tips on presenting and learning work by heart.

misterjim and the All Collegiate Slam!

2007 AWP ANNUAL CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
Saturday: March 3rd, 2007

Hilton Atlanta
Henry Wing
2nd Floor
Room S170.

All Collegiate Poetry Slam. All Collegiate Poetry Slam sponsored by Wilkes University and Etruscan Press. Event is open to all undergraduate and graduate students attending the conference. Participation is limited to twenty-five poets. Sign-up at the Wilkes University low residency MA in Creative Writing/Etruscan Press table in the book Fair. Prizes, judges, and organization of the event all handled by Wilkes University Asst. Program Director and poet—James Warner.

For more info about the conference click here.

for Roy Buchanan

roy buchanan on paralell Earth 2

shoelaces are the last vote
of confidence. Taken

away, they confim all your doubts;

this is fine. You are still
alive and the blues you will

learn sleeping off the Wild Turkey
doesn't even take your Telecaster

out
of
tune.

Christine Gelineau Reading

Third Friday Open Mic

Wordpainting
156 S. Franklin St. 2nd Floor
Wilkes-Barre, PA

Date: Friday, Feb. 16th
Time: 7 p.m.
$5

Arrive early to sign up for the open mic portion of the evening.
Featured Reader: Christine Gelineau

Remorseless Loyalty, Christine's first full-length collection of poetry has just been nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Award in Poetry by David St. John. Remorseless Loyalty was the winner of the Richard Snyder Publication Award from Ashland Poetry Press and is new out in 2006. Her new chapbook, In the Greenwood World is expected early in November, 2006, while French Connections an anthology of Franco-American poets, is scheduled for a January 2007 release.

Poetry Out Loud

Congratulations Chellsie Heil! Chellsie bested eight other talent high school students to become the 2007 Northeast Pennsylvania regional winner of Poetry Out Loud. She will go to Harrisburg in March to compete against 11 regional winners to earn the right to represent Pennsylvania at nationals.

Thank you Jennifer Hill Kaucher at Paper Kite Press, IU 19, and PCA for inviting me to judge--I had a blast with my fellow judges.

For more info about Poetry Out Loud,click here.

Back to the Noble

Hello everyone,

I will be returning to host the monthly Barnes and Noble poetry reading on Friday February 9th @ 7pm-ish at the Arena Hub Plaza Barnes and Noble. This will be the first time I have hosted the Barnes Reading in over six monthes. . . come share the love!

Where: Barnes and Noble (Arena Hub Plazza, Wilkes-Barre)
When: Friday Feb. 9th @ 7pm

falling in love @rehab

falling in love at rehab

He had a little boy and a promise.
The ink on her neck told a story
she couldn’t keep to herself.

At night, he would toss and turn on
a bed of empty needles. The hunger

never went away—became cold
sweat with memory rings around

his shirt collar. She was a memory
with a candy necklace—color dissolving

sugar into collarbone and bony fingers.
Tips licked sugar away like denial—the

fire of addiction, two slow glowing
coals at the heart of her icy irises. A

photograph was framed—tattooed arms
held her night against his nicotine

breath. The smoke of smoldering,
shouldering the burden of being in love

with the love that kills. His baby boy
visited with Uncle of Ashes—each long

Kool drag, a crayon-colored letter. The
bluest pills were the ones swallowed

by distant eyes. A kindergarten snap
shot taped to the bathroom mirror. When

they were finally free—the baby, the ink,
and the man—then they could be a family.

She cradled the boy in his mirror, holding
nothing and everything back with the tiniest push.

Isabella

Isabella

The pop quiz
whiz kid
had a Spanish name

for his imaginary
girlfriend. In
time-tested teen logic

a foreign name made it
believable. Verisimilitude
didn’t fly and neither did ten

cent names in a dollar store town.
Lunch box mentality
meant sons who took lunch money had

fists like frozen hams. The
nose bent slightly in the
mirror. He was too smart

to not see the left hook:
“bitches like you don’t have
girlfriends.”
Wrapped in a family quilt

the nose radiated pain like a
knobby antenna, picking up
the faint
chords of a flamenco.

morning commute

morning commute in January

snow at the sidewalk’s edge

untouched. Frozen mud awaiting

unsuspecting heels and soles. I know

how the mud froze and even in dress

shoes, I cut a path above

as long as

as far as

I could before joining

the tangle of urban tracks. For a

moment even as temporary as a

blanket of snow I wanted to know

where I came from made a visible mark.