| as tough as I was I crumbled on the ICU floor as much as he loomed so large and unforgiving only laid out, looking bad except for his dignity which is mostly what I remember about him on that day, this man who couldn’t give me what he never got himself he looked like an eagle lying there he wouldβve liked that a bird in mid-flight the gray in his hair like silver in his wings his broad face and broke Irish nose his proud jaw set flying up into the greatest sky against the wind. |
Archive for October, 2022|Monthly archive page
NOTHING LEFT TO BURN AND NOTHING LEFT TO PROVE
In Uncategorized on October 25, 2022 at 7:42 am
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, The Unofficial Release of Jim Trainerβs STRIDE
In Uncategorized on October 4, 2022 at 9:49 amJim Trainer, Poet
PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Jim Trainer
Phone: 512-203-6288
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
10/17/22
NOT A BOOK RELEASE-AN EVENING OF POETRY AND THE SPOKEN WORD WITH JIM TRAINER-ON OCTOBER 17 AT CAVANAUGHβS HEADHOUSE SQUARE
Poet, publisher and performer Jim Trainer will not be releasing his 8th collection of poetry, STRIDE (Yellow Lark Press) with a reading featuring luminaries of the Philadelphia spoken word community. Copies of STRIDE will be available however, along with a limited edition and letterpressed broadside of his poem βRECURRENTβ (shared below). Trainer will bring his Standup Tragedyβ’ to Philadelphia on October 17. But itβs not a book release.
βFuck it.β Trainer says, instead of putting on the perfect send up for his latest collection.
βMe and my friends are gonna tell it, in an old bar with bad lighting.β The informal gathering will take place upstairs at Cavanaughβs in historic Headhouse Square.
Trainer will be joined by poet preacher Charlie OβHay (Far from Luck), street slinger Butch Hamaday (Drink In The Palace Light) and matron mama Maleka Fruean (Germantown Info Hub) for a show consisting of poetry, storytelling and dark humor.
βItβs not about the ha-has,β Trainer says of his Stand Up Tragedy, βbut sometimes all you can do is laugh.β As a personal journalist at Going For the Throat and Into The Void magazine Trainer has spent over a decade chronicling the inner life of a creative, and documenting the travails of a shift worker and βromantic nihilistβ trying to βstay in walls” and continue writing in peace. His storytelling is a βleast factual, most accurateβ account of an artist trying to make it in the end of times.
Heβs released collections of his street poetry every year since 2015 through Yellow Lark Press. His matter of fact delivery sounds unrehearsed, with turns of phrase and tips-of-the-hat to plainspoken poets Philip Levine, Charles Bukowski and Billy Collins.
Join Jim Trainer in not celebrating the release of STRIDE, his 8th collection of poetry, at Cavanaughβs Headhouse Square on October 17 at 7P.M. ET.
RSVP:
https://www.jimtrainer.net/notabookrelease
For more information:
Jim Trainer
512-203-6288
jamesmichaeltrainer@gmail.com
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Jim Trainer is a poet, publisher, writer and performer. He has blogged weekly at Going For the Throat for over a decade, penned a monthly column at Into The Void and contributes to Music, Movies&Hoops. As a proponent of personal journalism Trainer reports on the inner life while writing about recovery, mental health and the creative process. Trainer publishes one collection of poetry, and sometimes prose, every year through Yellow Lark Press. STRIDE is his 8th. Trainer is the progenitor of Stand Up Tragedyβ’ and performs regularly throughout the world.
Poet and photographer Charlie OβHayβs poems have appeared in over 100 journals, including Mudfish, West Branch, Painted Bride Quarterly, Cortland Review, Gargoyle and The New York Quarterly. He is the recipient of a 1995 Fellowship in Poetry from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Far from Luck (Lucky Bat Books) is his first collection of poems and photographs. His second book, Smoking In Elevators was published by Lucky Bat in December 2014. Since 2010, Charlie’s ongoing photo series Everyone Has a Name has shared images and stories of the homeless in Center City Philadelphia to promote understanding, dignity, and an end to homelessness in America.
Butch Hamaday is an aging punk, ex-hardcore kid and street poet living in Baltimore town, Maryland. Originally from Philadelphia, he has traveled America, sometimes by thumb, writing and working jobs most people don’t want. Drink In The Palace Light, his debut collection of poetry, was released this year through Deep Field Press. When he isn’t writing he is busy making clandestine plans for the revolution with his 11 and 13-year old.
Maleka Fruean is a mama, writer, journalist, and community organizer based out of Philadelphia. She writes about unexpected joys, cumulative grief, and identity-hiding-in-kitchen-closets kind of things. She sees how stories and poetry, both in fictional and non-fictional ways, can bring us to where our different human truths intersect.
Jim Trainer
512-203-6288
jamesmichaeltrainer@gmail.com
Going for the Throat 