Harlan Steinberger

By Rose Albano-Risso

City Editor

Nov. 29, 2010

The name Michael C. Ford will probably ring a bell to not just a few Manteca Unified School District students who were in elementary and high school during the mid-to-late 1980s. Those were the years when the award-winning spoken-word artist did stints as a poet-in-residence at Brock Elliott School, Manteca High and other campuses in the district.

Chances are, some of the students he taught probably still have in their possession today copies of an anthology of the youthful verses they penned in the classroom which was “published” at the end of their poetry lessons with the Grammy/Pulitzer Prize poet.

Ford was actually the resident poet for San Joaquin County area schools as well as language arts consultant for the California Poets-in-the-Schools program at the time, so he touched the lives of hundreds more would-be young poets than just those he mentored in the Manteca Unified School District. (more…)

Thanks all who came out and many thanks to Beyond Baroque for hosting such a wonderful night!

Baba Alade performed songs off his album Unified and One

Ellyn Maybe introduced us to a Poetry Rodeo. Many thanks to the incredible band and the rest of the poets!

***Don’t forget! Hen House is curating an awesome lineup of poets and musicians this Friday at Beyond Baroque 7:30pm! We will have wine and samosas from Samosa House! The night will feature collaborations, improvisations and new material from Michael C Ford, Rich Ferguson, Baba Alade, Yvonne del la Vega, Ellyn Maybe, Jaimes Palacio, Eve Brandstein and Rex Weiner as well as many more special guests.

Read more about the event from:

A CAREER OF EVOCATIVE YEARS

by Michael C Ford

My initial thought was to decline an invitation to comment on these 49 spoken word tracks. As an associate producer at Hen House Studios, during the gestation period of this recorded document, there might have been some danger that the subjective nature of my prose would take on the PR complexion of a pinch of low grade salt. That being said, however, as someone who studied the important facets of the creative process with Kenneth Rexroth, Kenneth Patchen and, later, with the poet and translator Jack Hirschman at UCLA, I have better chance of identifying with what’s concerned the Robert Peters compendium of five decades of literary contributions than, perhaps, most anyone. And I/m really talking about gifts which comprise his prolific catalogue, and how his many works have been assimilated into realms of the World Culture.

One has only to listen to Peters, on tracks like Father, Son, Cousin, Country-Western Band or Home-Made Saw-Rig. With a combination of rhapsody and lament he invites us to experience the rural landscapes, as well as the interior terrain of the years of his Wisconsin youth. Then, as with cuts like Memory Loss In A Parkinglot, we’re hearing him go onward, into an undeniable poetic maturity. It should be noted that executive producer Harlan Steinberger is responsible for the competently composed, engaging and thoroughly complimentary musical backdrop.

As a hyphenated American poet-playwright- essayist-critical analyst, Peters has been continuously, acknowledged as an author of evocative, imperious perceptions, generally, involved with the whole of international literature. (more…)

Hen House’s own Ellyn Maybe and Michael C Ford featured in Beyond Baroque’s poetry supershow Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts

Friday July 23rd 7:30pm

By Falling James

Sparring With Beatnik Ghosts is a “traveling poetry supershow” of spoken-word performers and musicians that started in San Francisco in 2008 and is finally making its debut in L.A. The series presents adventurous modern-day poets in bars and venues where the early Beat poets used to hang out, in the hopes that the lingering spirits of the elders will inspire their progeny’s new work. Given its long history as a SoCal literary vortex, Beyond Baroque seems to be an ideal setting for “tapping the mystic voices and drumming the Beat haunts from their tombs in Los Angeles.” This seventh edition of the series features the longtime local poet Ellyn Maybe, appearing with a band (!), and veteran wordsmith Michael C. Ford, whose “arsenal of commando language” blows apart every last standing irrational political pie-ball cowboy who continually threatens National Nirvana.” Meanwhile, former Ringling Sister Iris Berry (Two Blocks East of Vine, pictured) leavens her tales of heroin misadventures and gangster boyfriends with a punk rock perspective and gallows humor. The show also includes Jim Bolt, Mike the Poet, Rachel Kann, Brenda Petrakos, Gary Justice, host Mani Suri and special guests known only as the Mystery Poets. (Link to LA Weekly Events)

J. Glenn Evans of PoetsWest writes:

“A new DVD released by Hen House Studios in Venice, California. Curated by Michael C Ford, the DVD is a feast of memories of poets, their friends and two members of the Rexroth family who also read from the works of Kenneth Rexroth. The passion and feelings of the poet are mirrored through the voices of the participants. Several of them gave credit to Kenneth as a personal mentor. His widow, Carol Tinker, and his daughter, Mariana Rexroth, a spark of fire off the old genius in her performance, was there. Michael C Ford did a marvelous job hosting this fast-moving, entertaining and engaging program. The program is a panorama of a passing scene of poets and memories that would have been lost had this wonderful high quality DVD not been produced. Our thanks to Hen House Studios and Michael C Ford for its production.

The DVD features Morgan Gibson, Kerry Tomlinson, Lewis MacAdams, Philomene Long, Eloise Klein Healy, Aram Saroyan, Bonnie Tamblyn, Sprague Grayden, Bob Brandts, James Cushing, Doren Robbins, Uri Hertz, Ruben Guevara, Carol Tinker, Brad Dourif, Mariana Rexroth and Michael C Ford.”

Look for Upcoming Programs of PoetsWest at KSER.

“Kenneth Rexroth: The Signature of All Things”