Shawnte Orion's Blog, page 2

Origin Story for Gravity & Spectacle

Back in 2014, I noticed that JJ Horner was having a yard sale. JJ was always one of my favorite artists, so I try to keep an eye out for him. I stopped by after work and saw some great paintings that couldn't fit into my little Honda before finding a strange piece that looked like a flesh-toned Saguaro covered with eyes.





JJ said it was hollow because he made it to go over someone's head in a video that he directed. I had no plans for it, just thought it would look cool on my desk to stare at me while I write. But a few weeks later, Jia Oak Baker won a new Leica camera from an Instagram contest (she baked cookies that looked like little cameras) and she wanted to see what it could do. We drove JJ's mask out to the desert (where it seemed like it belonged) and took a bunch of photos. We did this a few times over the next month in random locations like a grocery store etc. We were still just experimenting without any purpose, when Jia noticed a chapbook contest that wanted ten poems with ten images. We liked the idea and the challenge so we went for it. Unfortunately, our little manuscript didn't get selected but we liked what was developing so we focused our attention toward creating a proper full length book.
I gave Jia some more background on JJ Horner: that I first met him when I started doing Tuesday night readings at The Paper Heart Gallery, where JJ would set up a canvas and do live painting while poets read, musicians played, and host DJ Seduce would spin records. He started up a skateboard company called Pyramid Country and designed all the trippy artwork for their shirts and skate videos (which get lots of love from Thrasher Magazine ). 
 photo by Paul Horner

I remembered that he also did a video for one of my favorite Phoenix bands AJJ , so I showed Jia his video for the song Coffin Dance and was surprised to see our Many-Eyed Saguaro mask make a brief appearance at the 2:20 mark:
 
Phoenix streets, music, art, skateboarding. Jia encouraged me to take the poems into all those areas of influence, since they were so interwoven. 
We visited a skatepark next to Cowtown Skateboards and almost seemed to blend in. Then we went to AJJ's album release show (for The Bible 2) at the Rebel Lounge and felt welcomed. Integrating those types of elements within our poems and photographs helped give our project some direction.


Gravity & Spectacle can be ordered from Tolsun Books , Small Press Distribution , even Amazon.
or I'd be happy to send you a signed copyjust send your mailing address and $20 (free shipping)
through PayPal https://www.paypal.me/ShawnteOrion
or Venmo https://venmo.com/ShawnteOrion

Behind The Blurb part 1 of 3 Rosemarie Dombrowski (full blurb that wouldn't fit)

Jia and I are eternally grateful that three of our favorite artists/humans were willing to lend their time and support of our book, in convenient blurb form.

If you already know Rosemarie Dombrowski, Sean Bonnette, and Matt Hart, then you understand why we love them.

Otherwise, I will be posting a series of entries for each of their blurbs and some personal background on them and their own work and where to find it.



Today I will start with Rosemarie Dombrowski, who sent us a gigantic blurb that she knew would never fit on the back of the book. We almost moved it inside to use like a foreword, but we decided to take an excerpt and keep it on the back cover. Here is the full unabridged version:

Cactus Head (the mask, the man, the poet) is a metonymy for Phoenix—the wastelands and the outposts and the once-iconic venues, all of it juxtaposed with the ever-public persona of a dandy, someone (or something) as ubiquitous as street art and the steel shade structures that line our downtown streets.

The persona that Orion creates through verse – and that Oak Baker brings to life through image –is simultaneously the desert on drugs and in rehab. He is the curator of the ugly-beautiful, the faded bricks and the fairytale horizon. Accordingly, Orion perfectly captures the limbo of modern life with the opening lines of the opening poem: the Sonoran desert is an hourglass/knocked on its side.

But maybe the most delicious part is the fact that the line between ego and alter ego is invisible here, that every poem leaves you feeling as though you’re listening to the wire-tap tapes of some old-school hooligan (maybe Orion himself), like it’s all a veiled confession in the spirit of Whitman’s Calamus poems, arranged and rearranged into a secret sequence of desire and longing—though not for the transcendent, but rather for the ephemera, the scraps of pop culture and personal desire he’s collected along the way. Orion’s leaving them for us like a trail of breadcrumbs, like a topographical map into the heart of Phoenix.

Most importantly, this collection has proven that Phoenix is a real city, its streets choked with culture, the fatty tissue of its heart lined with punk rock politics and poets who are sometimes as hollow as pinatas.


~Rosemarie Dombrowski, inaugural Poet Laureate of Phoenix, founding editor of rinky dink press and The Revolution (Relaunch)

Both of RD's books are out of print and might be hard to find ("The Philosophy of Unclean Things" and "The Book of Emergencies"), but she also has a recent chapbook "The Cleavage Planes of Southwest Minerals [A Love Story] which can be found at Split Rock Review .


She is also the Founding Editor for rinky dink press and The Revolution (Relaunch)


photo from Kelly McGrath

Copies of Gravity & Spectacle can be ordered from Tolsun Books, Small Press Distribution, and even Amazon.

Or if you'd like to get a signed copy from me, just send $20 (free shipping)
through PayPal https://www.paypal.me/ShawnteOrion
or Venmo https://venmo.com/ShawnteOrion 

Secret Low-Key Virtual Book Launch for GRAVITY & SPECTACLE

Our book launch was canceled, so I'll just make a quiet little blogpost announcement:

It began with an impulse purchase of an art mask sculpture from artist JJ Horner's yard sale, before going through five or six years of collaboration work with photographer Jia Oak Baker. Now  Gravity & Spectacle has been published as a gorgeously square book of poems and photographs by Tolsun Books.




This project was supposed to come out about two years ago, but we kept pushing back the deadline because it just wasn't good enough. We finally got to a point where we were proud enough to publish it right when the pandemic hit.

"Jia Oak Baker's stunning photographs of a discarded punk-rock-skateboard-video-prop-mask, and Shawnte Orion's sardonic, pop culture-infused poetry make the strange world of Gravity & Spectacle. It is a slanted ode to Phoenix and its surrounding deserts, both gorgeous and absurd, stoic and wry, gravitational and spectacular, a "love letter to the fireplace" of a hometown seen through the lens and the pens of two of its inhabitants."

We had to upgrade and pay extra for high quality gloss pages so they could handle all the photographs. We were still nervous and hoping everything would look right, because we couldn't order a preview copy first... but the Tolsun team (special thanks to David Pischke) did an amazing job with the layout and design. Jia and I were so excited to see that this book came out better than we could have imagined. We can't wait to bring it to readings in some of our favorite cities whenever we are allowed.

But in the meantime, you can order a copy from Tolsun Books, Small Press Distribution, and even Amazon.

Or if you'd like to get a signed copy from me, just send $20 (free shipping)
through PayPal https://www.paypal.me/ShawnteOrion
or Venmo https://venmo.com/ShawnteOrion

I'll make more posts about the background (including the J.J. Horner art), blurbs (infinite thanks to Rosemarie Dombrowski, Sean Bonnette, and Matt Hart), and sidestories of the book in the coming days.

If you need a sneak peek, take a look at these sample poems and photographs that were showcased by A Dozen Nothing in February at https://adozennothing.com/2020/02/01/shawnte-orion-jia-oak-baker-february-2020/

Poem and Photograph in Thimble Literary Magazine

One of my poems accompanied by a Jia Oak Baker photograph is online in the newest issue of Thimble Literary Magazine (https://www.thimblelitmag.com/2019/12/18/inner-monologue-with-hors-doeuvres/). Much thanks for the Thimble Editors for including our work.



 



This is almost like a preview of our upcoming book, Gravity & Spectacle , which will soon be published by Tolsun Books: https://tolsunbooks.com/shop/gravity-amp-spectacle

Gravity & Spectacle (cover art for new book)

Finally have an official cover for the next book, which is a conspiracy between my poems and Jia Oak Baker photographs where I am wearing a mask that was created by artist JJ Horner

2019 Northern Arizona Book Fest

I loved having an excuse to escape the heat and travel to beautiful Flagstaff for this year's Northern Arizona Book Festival with some of the other editors for Rinky Dink Press .

rdp is currently in the process of reading through hundreds of submissions for our next series, but we were excited to debut a special edition zine from Erik Bitsui (Gutter Punk) and it was a treat to hear it all read in Erik's own voice. For the record, I had too much fun designing the cover art.



Grateful to Jesse Sensibar and everyone who works so hard to put this annual festival together and share it with the community for free.






This year Jake Skeets was one of the headliners and he read from his powerful new book Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers



Other highlights included the Tolsun Books showcase with Cody Wilson, Jesse Sensibar, & Michael Buckius:



I was happy to arrive in time to catch Rowie Shebala and the Indigenous Writers Symposium Reading at Firecreek Coffee, Tucson favorites including Bojan Louis and Miles Waggener from Nebraska.

Poetry Meme Monday

Thought I'd make a poetry meme, to try and find a laugh on this typical Monday.

Punk Rock Presses AWP Panel in Portland 2019

Surprised but stoked that our Punk Rock Presses panel got selected for AWP 2019 in Portland .


Of course it was pretty much a last minute thing, but so are most of our best projects. I was contacted by my friend Rosemarie Dombrowski (founder of Rinky Dink Press and reigning Poet Laureate of Phoenix ) because another panel that she was involved with fell apart. She asked if I would be interested in helping her put together a panel on presses with a punk influence/ethos (probably because she remembered that I used to perform with my friend Rocky Yazzie and his bands Turquoiz Noiz and The Skinwalkers). We both got excited about the possibilities and the three other presses we wanted to approach in hopes that they would join us and it all worked out.  

Punk Rock Presses: rinky dink, Forklift Ohio, Cardboard House, Wax Paper

Punk is a style of music, a state of mind, and a subculture of the small press world. Though punk is often perceived as nothing more than an anti-establishment posture, a punk ideology espouses a DIY ethos, is non-conformist in its productions, and resists selling out under pressure. These four presses define what it means to be punk publishers, and they’re thriving in a world of better-funded, perfect-bound counterparts…and wondering how long before the raw becomes the cooked.

I'm lucky to be part of such a distinguished team that includes Hans Hetrick of The Wax Paper , Giancarlo Huapaya of Cardboard House Press and Matt Hart of Forklift, Ohio , because they each bring unique experiences and dynamics to our panel. Outsiders on the inside!

Special Phoenix Issue of Shrew Literary Magazine

I'm always grateful to be surrounded by so many talented writers, artists, musicians in this Arizona desert. The constant inspiration from these creatives has enriched my writing and my life.

So when Jersey poet Joe Weil asked if I would guest edit a Phoenix issue of Shrew Literary Magazine, I was proud to share a little glimpse of this community. Click on the link or the cover image below for some of the poets and artists who were generous enough to share their work:

Poems, Sculptures, Pathways, and Murals for live/work condos

Recently, I was commissioned to write a poem and perform at the official opening for an art installation at a new mixed use development for the City of Scottsdale Public Art. It was short notice because the original poet involved in the project had to drop out. I was worried about trying to come up with something worthwhile in only one week, but then I had to admit that even if I was asked four months in advance, I would have probably waited until that last week to get started, anyway.


So I agreed to the challenge and went out to walk around and investigate the SOHO development in Scottsdale, which incorporated beautiful murals by artist Lauren Lee (who has created some of my favorite murals around Phoenix), lithocrete pathways by Texas artist Leticia Huerta , and these building block sculptures from Colorado artist Christopher Weed .


Although, I had more than enough anxiety leading up to the event, everything turned out great, I had a wonderful time at the opening, the audience was very receptive, a few folks asked to buy my books on the spot, and I was proud to be associated with the work of these artists.




It was a good reminder that it's okay to go out of my comfort zone every once in awhile and see what happens.