It’s not every day ultra is going to suggest you go to a poetry reading, but the parties involved in this one make it easy to recommend. Head up to the Market Day Poetry series Saturday, July 25 at 12 noon at St Johns Booksellers (8622 N Lombard). Portland poet, David Abel of Spare Room hosts.

From the press release:

Sam Lohmann is the publisher of /Peaches & Bats/ (that’s the cover of no. 4, above), which moves from annual to semiannual frequency with the forthcoming issue. He is also the copublisher of the monthly email newsletter /What We Are Learning/. He is the author of several chapbooks; /Onlooking/ is forthcoming this summer from airfoil.

Allison Cobb is the author of the poetry collection /Born2/ from Chax Press, a chronicle of Los Alamos, New Mexico — her birthplace and the home of the atomic bomb. Her work has been published widely, and she is the recipient of a 2009 New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. She recently moved from Brooklyn, NY to Portland.

David Abel is a founding organizer of the Spare Room reading series, and the editor/publisher of the /Envelope/ broadside series. His most recent chapbook, /Commonly/, was published this spring by airfoil. He has been active in interdisciplinary projects in Portland for many years as a collaborator, curator, and performer.

The poets storm the Museum. Or wait, that’s the Futurists in Italy circa 1909. No, 100 years on, the poets are invited to enter politely. That the Portland Art Museum is throwing open its doors for one of Portland’s most interesting poets to do a workshop of poetry in response to visual art is very exciting. I’m all for intersections, meetings, overlaps between written and visual art.

Joseph Bradshaw, a member of Spare Room who teaches at both PSU and PNCA, is teaches the workshop at the Portland Art Museum (1219 SW Park Avenue) in the Kinney Classroom, Saturday, July 18 from 10 AM -4 PM sponsored by the Multnomah Art Center and PAM. The cost is $48.

“Ekphrasis,” (I almost typed eekphrasis…something else entirely) is “a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art.” The workshop will introduce examples, take you on a tour of the museum, and get down to business reading the painting through the poem, responding to art in all media.

Call 503.823.2787 to register. Fees include museum admission.

As a warm up exercise why not read Why I am not a painter by Frank O’Hara.

You are the president I have been waiting for my whole life. Science lectures in the White House. Poetry readings in the White House. Music in the White House. Yes, when hard times are upon us we are well to remember what makes us great…we make great art, we innovate, we discover, we synthesize, and we swing. And this is the first time I’ve ever invoked any semblance of the trickle down theory…let art, culture, real science and the engaged intellect be ways that we enage our city as well…and ways our city engages citizen.

This transcript fragment from an interview of President Elect Barack (OMG) Obama by Tom Brokaw on NBC’s Meet the Press…”in 44 days, Barack Obama will become the 44th president of the United States…”

MR. BROKAW: Who are the kinds of artists that you would like to bring to the White House?

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: …part of what we want to do is to open up the White House and, and remind people this is, this is the people’s house. There is an incredible bully pulpit to be used when it comes to, for example, education. Yes, we’re going to have an education policy. Yes, we’re going to be putting more money into school construction. But, ultimately, we want to talk about parents reading to their kids. We want to invite kids from local schools into the White House. When it comes to science, elevating science once again, and having lectures in the White House where people are talking about traveling to the stars or breaking down atoms, inspiring our youth to get a sense of what discovery is all about. Thinking about the diversity of our culture and, and inviting jazz musicians and classical musicians and poetry readings in the White House so that, once again, we appreciate this incredible tapestry that’s America. I–you know, that, I think, is, is going to be incredibly important, particularly because we’re going through hard times. And, historically, what has always brought us through hard times is that national character, that sense of optimism, that willingness to look forward, that, that sense that better days are ahead. I think that our art and our culture, our science, you know, that’s the essence of what makes America special, and, and we want to project that as much as possible in the White House.