Tuesday, March 30, 2010

April 25 Phoenix Reading with Gordon Gilbert in NYC


Phoenix Reading Series @ Bengal Curry, April 25, 2010
*Please note: There will not be an Open Mic*

April 25, 2010
5:30PM-7:30PM
@
Bengal Curry
65 West Broadway
New York, NY 10007-2292
212.571.1122
Between Murray and Warren.
1 1⁄2 blocks below Chambers St
Take the 1, 2, 3, A, C or E trains to Chambers Street
Hosted by Mike Graves & George Spencer

This Sunday will be another great experience at the Phoenix Reading @ Bengal Curry. If you love poetry you will not want to miss it. If you love Indian food, including the best naan in NYC, you will not want to miss it. If you love both you will be in Nirvana.

If the weather is bad please call Bengal Curry at 212-571-1122 to verify that the venue is open.

The following poets will be featuring:

Gordon A. Gilbert, Jr. is a former educator who now consults for the NYC Dept. of Education. He has been writing both poetry and fiction since he was a teenager but not for publication. Only a year ago last March, he began to do public readings. Gordon has lived in the West Village for the last thirty-four years, but has been a resident of NYC since the early 60’s. He may be contacted at gordonagilbertjr@usa.net.

Roxanne Hoffman worked on Wall Street, now answers a patient hotline for a major New York home healthcare provider and runs the small press, Poets Wear Prada. Her vampy poetry can be heard during David Gold's indie flick "LOVE AND THE VAMPIRE" starring Rick Poli and featured at The Arlene's Grocery Picture Show's 2005 Festival. Her printed words appear in the anthologies THE BANDANA REPUBLIC: A Literary Anthology By Gang Members & Their Affiliates (Soft Skull, 2008), LOVE AFTER 70 (Wising Up Press, 2008), most recently in IT ALL CHANGED IN AN INSTANT: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure (Harper Perennial), and many other places off and on the net. She blogs at http://roxanne-hoffman.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

March 31 Green Pavilion Reading with John Marcus Powell

I will be reading with the always delightly delicious & mischievous story-teller John Marcus Powell at this month's Green Pavilion Poetry Event in Brooklyn. Please come to support us and bring your poetry, music and humor to share at the open mic

Here are the details:

Wednesday, March 31st - 7PM

The Green Pavilion Poetry Event
Come read your poetry under the chandeliers!

JOHN MARCUS POWELL & ROXANNE HOFFMAN
@
Green Pavilion Restaurant
4307-18th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11218-5616
(718) 435-4722

OPEN READING
$3 Donation requested + $5 Food/Drink Minimum

Hosts: Evie Ivy, Sol Rubin, Cindy Sostchen-Hochman

By Subway: Take F train to 18th Ave. station. Last car coming from Manhattan, right staircase to street. You will be only about 1/2 block away from the venue, same block you will be standing on.






New poem in SNM Horror Magazine

SNM Horror Magazine - SNM Dark Poetry 6


My poem "Spider at Twilight Bar" appears SNM Horror Magazine on the "SNM DARK POETRY 6" page, edited by Theresa Newbill: http://www.snmhorrormag.com/snmdarkpoetry6.htm.

This 6 month anniversary issue of SNM Dark Poetry Page includes:

Paula Ray - "Harvest"
Arthur Crow - "Supernatural"
Roxanne Hoffman - "Spider at Twilight Bar"
Anthony Matias - "Dark Places"
Donna Burgess - "End Song"
Michael Garza - "The Rise and Fall"
Angel Bryant - "One Year Survivor"
Pavelle Wesser - "Daylight Into Dreams"
Harris Whitman - "Lovers' Eternal Embrace"
Brian Newbill - "The House and the Room"

Editor's Poetry Contributions:
Theresa Newbill - "Return "
Steven Marshall - "Time Heals All Scars"

*March 2010 Interview Spotlight Feature:
Dave Kuzminski of Preditors & Editors

Exclusive Interview with George A. Romero
Presented from 2009 Horrorfest Convention.


You can also read 2 previous publications in SNM Horror Magazine archives:
"Dream Lover" SNM DARK POETRY 5
http://www.snmhorrormag.com/snmdarkpoetry5.htm

"Once Bitten" SNM DARK POETRY 3
http://www.snmhorrormag.com/snmdarkpoetry3.htm

Sunday, March 14, 2010

The Vampire Poet

Roxanne, The Vampire Poet


The Vampire Poet
Roxanne is a member of the Vampire Empire, the Bram Stoker Memorial Association and the International Society for for the Study of Ghosts and Apparitions. She loves ghost stories, especially those about vampires and werewolves and is completing a novel in verse about a family of vampires titled Bloodline.

Here is a selection of her vampire poetry. "The Slayer" was written specifically to be used as voice over for the independent film Love and the Vampire directed by Rick Poli, and produced by David Gold, Producer and Host of the David Gold Show on Manhattan Cable ©Madeline Artenberg 2004TV. "Dare I" and "A Vampire's Lament" were developed independently of the film and modified for use in the film. The original full-length versions of all three poems are posted below. For photo's of Rick Poli who also plays the Vampire Vasile Popescu in the film and his co-star Debra Lewis who plays Vasile's bride, please scroll down the end of the page.

"The Vampire's Lament" appeared in the 2005 Spring Edition of Nomads Choir.





DARE I?





Dare I tell of demon spell?
of mirrors, I dare not pass,
for now, I face an empty glass,
where once, I graced
a splendid figure, now erased,
I peer, reflecting only space.

Reflections
©Roxanne Hoffman 2001

And yet, I see these haggard hands,
stretched out before me,
nails gnarled, bony knuckles cracked,
and their shifting shadow cast,
when thumbs linked with long fingers waving,
like a winged rat in flight.
Dare I tell of demon spell?
of window shades, I dare not raise,
where once I sat sunning,
and praised countless, cloudless, blue-sky days,
from which now I shrink, shunning
the sun’s scorching hellish blaze!

And yet, I yearn for light,
but must settle for the fleeting flickers
of imitation sun by way of
brass candles sticks and whale oil wicks.

Dare I tell of demon spell?
of late night walk,
and stealth-like stalk;
of fangs flesh rip,
with blood-stained lip;
of faces left as white as chalk,
and heavy heads slumped over,
with limbs, limp and lifeless,
dumped in shallow graves.

Dare I tell of demon spell?
of home’s sweet haven,
now choking, sunless, vaulted cell.
of Life’s-So-Lonely hell.

Dare I?
For who would listen to my complaint?
some noble patient saint?
or some slayer laying in wait?
for me to make some mistake,
and so tripped, trap me.

March 19, 2004
Roxanne Hoffman
Hoboken, NJ

©Copyright ©2004 Roxanne Hoffman



A Vampire's Lament




In this still hour before the night,
I contemplate my pitiful plight
to be lured by the wolfish howling of the wind,
each night, my primal prowling again begins.

I rise rejoining the restless pack
and stealthy seep out into the black
shadows cast by the remaining ruins of the day
to track the scent of human misery.

I creep along the well-trimmed hedges and neatly planted borders,
while their daytime tenders slumber soundly gated in their quarters,
until I hear the widow's weeping wail,
and spot her lighted window beckoning,
and so invited, I race rueful across the grounds
to do my rightful reckoning.

Secret Path
©Roxanne Hoffman 2001

And in this manner I continue my nightly haunt,
until Dawn's pink fingers climb the heathered hills
and spill her welcome warmth and golden glow
across the checkerboard fields laid out below.

For then I rest and sleep the dreamless sleep of death,
until woken by the wolfish howling of the wind
or the weeping widow's wail.

February 21, 2004
Roxanne Hoffman
Hoboken, NJ

Published in the Spring 2005 Edition of NOMADS CHOIR

Copyright ©2004 Roxanne Hoffman


Fountain Head
©Roxanne Hoffman 2001




The Slayer




The Slayer hunts his prey by day:
The monsters who murdered his wife and child and got away,
A pair of parasites whose ceaseless appetite for human flesh and bone
have turned the Slayer's already heavy heart to leaded stone.

Without a tear or fear left to blur his vision,
He seeks his prey with eagle-eye precision:
Each disappearance tracked and traced;
Each clue, each lead, each suspect chased;
Each detail double-checked, cross-checked and categorized;

Each street and alley scrutinized.
The Slayer hunts his prey by day
and will not rest until they lay,
limp and lifeless {evaporated} at his feet
for only then will his mission be complete.

And only then will his heart beat free again
so he can once more laugh and cry like other men.

April 26, 2004
Roxanne Hoffman
Hoboken, NJ

Copyright ©2004 Roxanne Hoffman




Rick Poli as Vasile Popescu in "Love and the Vampire"


Rick Poli
©Roxanne Hoffman 2004



Co-Star Debra Lewis as Vasile's Bride


Debra Lewis
©Roxanne Hoffman 2004