New Site: ifnotforkidnap.com

Y'all, we're transitioning to we've got a new domain and design

ifnotforkidnap.com

and will soon be announcing two new Kidnap features, as well as some pretty great ephemera--and a book!--that Jamal and Stacey have been cooking up.

Please update yr links!

Yours in love and bondage,

Saturday, June 23rd: Travis Meyer, Monica Storss, Hobie Anthony, & Brumes

Join us for the next IF NOT FOR KIDNAP! Featuring three local poets MONICA STORSS, TRAVIS MEYER, HOBIE ANTHONY, and musical guest BRUMES at Recess Gallery (1127 SE 10TH). This event is free and all are welcome!

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MONICA STORSS is a left-coast poet with an affinity for the deep South. Her work has appeared in Dash Literary Journal, Unshod Quills, The Southern Women’s Review. Shas taught at UC Davis, Portland State Univeristy, American River College, and Portland Community College. Best known as a performance poet, she has toured all over the world. She currently makes her home in Portland, Oregon.

TRAVIS MEYER is co-founding editor at Pocket Notes, an editor at Poor Claudia, and web developer at OCTOPUS. He lives in SE Portland where he works as a writer and designer.

HOBIE ANTHONY writes prose, poetry, and prose poetry in Portland, OR. A native of the South, prodigal son to Chicago, and new Northwesterner, he seeks to understand this America. He can be found or is forthcoming in such journals as Housefire, Crate, Prime Mincer, The Other Room, R.kv.r.y., Ampersand, NAP, [PANK], Birkensnake, Word Riot, Prime Number, and Connotation Presss, among others. He writes experimental novels.

BRUMES was formed in the midst of the dark winter of 2012, a union among old roommates with a common desire to illustrate ethereality on a sonic level. On vocals and synth is Susana Feliz, hailing from an island across the sea. Desiree Rousseau, on harp and guitar, is originally a Portland native but has lived in all 4 corners of the ancountry. Together they create beyond the musical sphere incorporating painting, drawing, and photography into their project. Get a feel for their dream sounds athttps://soundcloud.com/brumes.

Saturday, December 1st: Kyle Crawford, Adrian Kien, Megan Williams, & Daphne Stanford + Romcom

Kidnap is hosting 4 poets from Boise, your new, very own sister-poet city (invention, or truth?) c/o Boise's own version of Kidnap, Ghosts & Projectors (check 'em out)!!

Kyle Crawford, Adrian Kien, Megan Williams, and Daphne Stanford, plus musical guest Romcom!

Like always, all are welcome. Please come and introduce yourself, and listen, and meet poets from not-here, and talk, and listen some more. We are pleased to have you. 

Adrian Kien grew up in Elko, NV and Missoula, MT. He received his MFA at Boise State University. He is the author of the forthcoming, The Caress is a Letter of Instruction (Slope Editions). He is also the author of Look Up, a collaboration with the artist, Kelly Packer, The Caress is a Letter of Instruction (Strange Machine chapbook winner, 2011), An Anatomy Lesson, translations of Christian Prigent (Free Poetry, 2010) and Who is There (Blazevox, 2008). When not teaching or writing, he enjoys exploring the Idaho backcountry looking for deer and cow bones for his wife to paint.

Kyle Crawford is but a fisherman from the Great Fucking Plains.
(or, if you’d prefer a clearer bio from a previous reading: Kyle Crawford was born and raised in a small town in rural Nebraska. He attended college in Lincoln, Nebraska at the University of Nebraska. While Kyle didn’t grow up in Lincoln, he certainly grew up there. A founder of SP CE, a writing studio in Lincoln, Kyle headed west to create poems within the confines of the open spaces of his childhood in a completely new context–Boise, Idaho.)

Daphne Stanford has lived in Carpinteria, Portland, Iowa City, Riggins, Boise, and Eugene. She currently reads poetry over the airwaves, Sundays, on KRBX 89.9 FM, Caldwell/Boise. Her poems can be found atThe Monarch Review, Lingerpost, and Caesura (forthcoming). She holds a BA in English from Reed College and an MFA from the University of Oregon.

Megan Williams writes, farms, and waits tables in Boise, Idaho, where she curates GHOSTS & PROJECTORS. a poetry reading series. Her poetry has recently been a bridesmaid for the “Discovery”/ Boston Review prize and the Center for Book Arts chapbook contest, has actually appeared in journals such as Tin House, PANK, and Vinyl Poetry, among others.

Romcom is Cole Browning of Prescription Pills and Wampire.

http://www.soundcloud.com/romcom-2
http://www.romcom1.bandcamp.com/

Tuesday, October 2nd: Dan Magers, Farrah Field, and Jarred White, with music by import/import

Take note, lovers: 

THE NEW-LOOK INFK 

at RECESS 1127 SE 10th Avenue Portland, OR 97214 TUESDAY, OCT 2nd

Our long-time love affair with FARRAH FIELD, DAN MAGERS, & JARED WHITE, with MUSICAL GUEST IMPORT/IMPORT inaugurates our new love-affair with a new venue! 

As always, this event is free and open to everyone, but we will have a donation box set up to help us fund the new space. Come prepared to fall in love with the authors' books, our brand spanking new tote bags, and drinks!

Doors open at 7:30, and we'll start the readings at 8. We are so excited to see you!

Farrah Field is the author of Rising (Four Way Books, 2009) and the chapbook Parents (Immaculate Disciples Press, 2011). Her poems and essays have appeared in many publications including Sixth Finch, Ploughshares, Harp & Altar, Lit, Typo, La Petite Zine, and Drunken Boat. Two of her poems were selected by Kevin Young for The Best American Poetry 2011. Her essays and reviews have appeared in Harp & Altar and Coldfront. She lives in Brooklyn where she co-hosts an event series called Yardmeter Editions. She occasionally blogs at adultish.blogspot.com and is co-owner of Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop.


Dan Magers is co‐founder and co‐editor of Sink Review, an online poetry journal as well as founder
and editor of Immaculate Disciples Press, a handmade chapbook press focused on poetry and visual
arts collaborations. He grew up in Kansas City, Missouri and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Jared White lives in Brooklyn where he co-directs Yardmeter Editions and runs Berl's Brooklyn Poetry Shop with Farrah Field. His chapbook, Yellowcake, was in the hand-sewn anthology Narwhal from Cannibal Books in 2009. His poems, essays and multimedia pieces have also recently appeared in Coconut, Flying Object's It's My Decision, Harp & Altar, La Petite Zine, No, Dear,Sink Review, Esque, and We Are So Happy To Know Something.

import/import started as a solo recording project conducted in a series of bedrooms and basements. The compositional focus of the project centers around woodwinds, keys, and textural experimentation. import/import's first EP, interface lakes, will be released by The Real Future Recording Company on September 27, and the band's follow-up and third record are in the works.

Saturday, September 1st: Cookout & Community Poetry Experiment & DANCE PARTY

IF NOT FOR KIDNAP''s glorious mutation begins in earnest this Saturday! Please come join us for the last event at the house--a late summer grilling and community poetry experiment!

EDIT: Also, post-reading DANCE PARTY. Come get crunk with Kidnap! Festivities now start at five so as to avoid everyone getting too faded to dance...

Beginning in October, Kidnap will be hosting readings elsewhere around town and more occasionally than our monthly tradition. This will allow us to be a bit more ambitious in our curation of the events, and also give us time to start making Kidnap swag and limited edition books. 

To celebrate and say goodbye to the space that defined us for so long, we're throwing a "bring some shit to grill and drink and share and come hang out"-type of party, beginning 'round 5 pm on Saturday, September 1st.

Also, please bring one page of your own work or work you greatly admire. After some hours of chit-chat and cheers, we will enlist your help in reading an amalgamated document by the Kidnap community.

As always, everyone is welcome.

Thursday, August 16th: K. Silem Mohammad, Elizabeth J. Colen, Aaron Teel; music by Nick Caceres

This month: IF NOT FOR KIDNAP makes you feel, perhaps, a little too good. Three bomb poets, one great musical act, and a chance at ecstatic communion with the void.

You're welcome. Ain't no thing. 

If you've got 'em, bring:

Drinks or food to share
Cash for books or the donation jar
Excellent friends

If not, just bring your beautiful self

/

K. Silem Mohammad is the author of the poetry collections The Front, Breathalyzer, Deer Head Nation, and A Thousand Devils. He is the editor of Abraham Lincoln, a magazine of poetry, and the faculty editor of West Wind Review at Southern Oregon University.

Elizabeth J. Colen is the author of poetry collections Money for Sunsets and Waiting Up for the End of the World: Conspiracies, as well as flash fiction collection Dear Mother Monster, Dear Daughter Mistake. Other things you should know: she has had plastic surgery, once got stabbed before a Dead Milkmen show, is related to two dead presidents, has no interest in pie or potatoes, but likes porn, pawn shops, pools and power plays, and once pinched enough money from a large corporation to be considered a level-three felon.

Aaron Teel is the author of Shampoo Horns, winner of the Sixth Annual Rose Metal Press Short Short Chapbook Contest. His work has appeared in Tin House, Smokelong Quarterly, Monkeybicycle, Matter Press, Brevity Magazine, North Texas Review, Side B Magazine and Art Prostitute, among others.

Nick Caceres has been writing and performing folk music in his home town of Portland oregon since he was 15. He released a number of albums including Hours Of Life in 2006, then went on to form Gratitillium, which released an album locally on Tender Loving Empire records as well as a self release, touring the west coast in 2010. He's since turned back to his folk music and has plans for a full length, self produced release here in Portland before he intends to travel again to share and pursue his art.

Thursday, July 26th: Cindy St. John & Parker Tettleton, music by Chanticleer Tru

Portland has totes obvs had soooo a better summer than the rest of the country, grinning and drinking Pabst while everyone else has been sweating their hair out. Let's keep that going!

Join us Thursday, July 26th for readings by Texas oil tycoon Cindy St. John and old-timey southern gentleman Parker Tettleton. We are also lucky to have roped Chanticleer Tru--who's on the cover of this month's Just Out magazine--into performing a couple sets for us.

Come by around 7:30 and bring drinks or food to share, money for the donation jar, and any lucky soul you grace with your true affection.

/

Cindy St. John is the author of several chapbooks, most recently Be the Heat (Slash Pine Press). Her poems have appeared in many magazines, including Peaches & Bats, H_NGM_N, and No Tell Motel. She lives in Austin, TX, where she prints Headlamp, poetry and art postcards, and teaches literature and creative writing to teenagers.

/

Parker Tettleton's twenty four, a Leo, & has lived in Portland for approximately a week. His second collection, Greens, came out this past Memorial Day & is available from Thunderclap! Press via Lulu.com.

/

Chanticleer Tru:


Willamette Week-- "...Jaw dropping vocals"

Performer Magazine-- "He is a ever evolving, ever changing, listless and languid living beau ideal"

PQ Monthly-- "His stage presence is nothing short of otherworldly"

Saturday, June 23rd: Don Mee Choi, Jennifer Bartlett; special guests Jesse Morse & Jennifer Denrow; music by Jeff Diteman and Ryan Spangler

Who knows more about June than Kidnap? Who else is throwing a big ol' house party on Saturday, June 23rd, with poets Don Mee Choi, Jennifer Bartlett, Jesse Morse, and Jennifer Denrow? And who will have live music for you as well? And probably chips, and possibly cupcakes (if someone brings cupcakes!)?? Who the eff else???

Nobody--that's who!

Please join If Not For Kidnap in welcoming summer, in welcoming these folks from Seattle, Brooklyn, and Denver, and in welcoming at least a few hundred cans of Pabst! As always, 

Bring people you love

Bring food/drinks to share

Bring $ for swag/donations

and

Bring your beautiful self, cutie

//

Don Mee Choi lives in Seattle and is author of The Morning News is Exciting (Action Books, 2010). She has translated numerous books by Kim Hyesoon, most recently All the Grabage of the World, Unite! (Action Books, 2011) and Princess Abandoned: essays (Tinfish, 2012)

Jennifer Bartlett is the author of Derivative of the Moving Image and (a) lullaby without any music. She is co-editor with Michael Northen and Sheila Black of Beauty is a Verb: The New Disability Poets. Her individual poems have a appeared in New American Writing, Denver Quarterly, Peaches and Bats, and the c_L newsletter, amongst others. She is currently researching a biography on Larry Eigner, a memoir titled "My Body is the Marginalia," and recently compiled an Electronic Poetry Center page for the late Mary Rising Higgins. She lives in Brooklyn with the writer Jim Stewart, their son Jeffrey, and many many animals.

Jesse Morse lives in Denver, and is the author of Rotations (C_L Press) and paragraphs for dolphins (Thuggery & Grace). He runs the once-PDX-based reading series Smorg. 

Jennifer Denrow lives in Denver. She wrote California (Four Way Books, 2011).

Jeff Diteman (cello) and Ryan Spangler (keys) have twenty tasty fingers between them. Their music is heavily influenced by transcendental ping-pong, snails, Dmitri Shostakovich, and mitosis. They have previously performed as The Yielded You and in the Penumbra String Trio.

Wednesday, May 30th: Sid Miller, Michael Heald, and The Old Chagrin

What would May be without Kidnap? 

Just another nonsense pseudo-summer month!


Please join us on Wednesday, May 30th for semi-tropical words by local demi-gods Sid Miller and Michael Heald, and half-shark-alligator half-man melodies by The Old Chagrin!


As always, please bring anyone you love, any drinks or food you might want to share, and any extra cash you've got lying around for books or the donation jar. Let's all remember May for what it was: kinda a cock-tease, sorta a blast, and for sure an excellent month to be using your ears!

/


Sid Miller's two books of poetry are Nixon on the Piano and Dot-to-Dot, Oregon. He is the editor of Burnside Review and director of Crow Arts Manor. In ancient Chinese mythology it is believed that his twin boys sprang forth directly from his testis.

Michael Heald is the publisher of Perfect Day Publishing. His book THIS IS PART OF SOMETHING BIGGER CALLED SMALL will be out this year.

The Old Chagrin use instruments to generate sounds, which, when taken together, produce feelings of euphoria in listeners.

Tuesday, April 24th: Kidnap's Third Anniversary! Donald Dunbar, Jamalieh Haley, Kira Clark, and some crazy poets chorus!

Join us next Tuesday as IF NOT FOR KIDNAP celebrates its third year of survival!

Will we continue to elude the authorities?
Will poetry finally be freed from its awful cage?
Will it be revealed we've all been framed for a crime we didn't commit, forced to carve out a life on the road, seeking justice for ourselves and others?

These answers and more, 7:30! Please bring beer and excellent people, money for the donation jar, and anything else you think fitting.

Your hosts, Donald and Jamalieh, will be providing much of the entertainment. Don't worry. We know what we're doing.

There will be a chorus of your favorite local poets.

Also

Kira Clark will make music for us. Kira is uncomfortable and makes morose pop.

Tuesday, March 13th: Poets Eileen Myles & Rachel Springer, Music by Diagonal People

We are off schedule again, but that only mean we have incredible authors whose talent is far more precious than routine! Come over Tuesday night at 7:30 and hear Eileen Myles, Rachel Springer, and musical guest Diagonal People!

Please bring drinks to share, cash for the donation jar (and/or to buy Eileen Myles books), and any awesome person you know!

EILEEN MYLES was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, educated in catholic schools, graduated from U. Mass (Boston) in 1971, and moved to New York City in 1974 to be a poet. Snowflake/different streets, her new double volume (of poems) will be out this spring from Wave Books. Eileen’s Inferno: a poet's novel (2010) which details a female writer’s coming of age was described by John Ashbery as “zingingly funny and melancholy.” Alison Bechdel called Inferno “this shimmering document.” Her more than twenty publications include Sorry Tree (2007), Cool for You (2000), Skies (2001) Not Me (1991), and Chelsea Girls (1994). The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art (2009) received a Warhol/Creative Capital art writing grant in 2007. In 2010 Eileen received the Shelley Prize for her poetry. She writes about books, art and culture for a wide variety of publications including Art Forum, Book Forum, and Parkett and she blogs on Art in America and Harriet’s sites. She’s teaching in Columbia’s graduate program this spring. Please visit her at eileenmyles.com.

RACHEL SPRINGER is a poet and statistician who lives in Portland, OR. Her poems have appeared in >kill author, elimae, and failbetter.com. Her poems are the "jerking between flesh and mannequin."

New music, improvised music. Cracked pencil lead on score paper mixes with spontaneous composition to present sounds organized in unfamiliar ways. DIAGONAL PEOPLE values the bizarre, under appreciated, the experimental and the esoteric. We find inspiration in the new (Terry Riley, Ruth Crawford Seeger, George Crumb), the hip (Henry Threadgill, John Zorn, William Basinski), and the crusty (Gregorian chant, Bach). What you hear now is a freeze frame of forward movement- a single image from our picture show. We're not quite sure how the picture show ends.

Tuesday, February 21st: James Yeary, Hannah Pass, and music by Jacki Penny

Dear Friend,

You're invited to come experience the magic of Kidnap, or the joy of Kidnap, or the l-o-v-e of Kidnap, with dope poet James Yeary, sick fictionist Hannah Pass, and ghost guitar player Jacki Penny!

The evening will begin at 7:30, and your head will certainly be blown by 8:22.

Please bring anyone you like, and please bring drinks or snacks to share, money for the donation jar, and

y'all,

bring your smiling gorgeous self.

:

James Yeary is a poet whose work has occasionally spilled into sculpture and performance. His whitewashing of Ezra Pound's The Cantos transformed the 800-page epic into a spaced-out meditation on an another man's algorithm, other men's politics, and all of our silence. It broke the spine. James edits the small press c_L, which issues nice chapbooks on nice paper, a monthly newsletter of international poetry on not-so-nice paper, and, recently, a set of greeting cards with full-color illustrations of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons. For the Spare Room reading series he has organized a marathon reading of Charles Olson's The Maximus Poems and a festival of poetry for multiple voices. His collaboration with visual artist Nate Orton in the my day zine series has taken him halfway to the coast in ten-mile stretches.

Hannah Pass grew up in central Wisconsin. Her stories have been nominated for DZANC Best of the Web 2011 and StorySouth Million Writers Award. Her writing has appeared in Caketrain, The Collagist, Poor Claudia and Nano Fiction among other places. She is a Nonfiction Editor at Silk Road Review and an assistant for the Tin House Writer's Workshop. She lives on a volcano, in southeast Portland.

Jacki Penny is not a stage name. It's a real name. There is nothing hidden. Just person and guitar. No smoke. No mirrors. Music about a life outside of the confines of now. Music that is timeless but not tired. There is an intimacy that keeps you at a distance. There is a familiarity that cannot be placed. Sit in your car on a clear winter day and thought about everything you have ever previously thought of. Do it. Think about the last time you were really happy. Think about the last time you watched When Harry Met Sally. Think about the last time you let someone down. Think about every mistake you have made. Think about everything that led up to you thinking about this. Think about what this paragraph is actually about. Oh yeah. That's Jacki Penny.

FRIDAY January 20th: KIDNAP PARTY: Kevin Sampsell, Bryan Coffelt, Chloe Caldwell, and Edward Mullany; Music by The We Shared Milk

Please join us, in conjunction with Crow Arts Manor and Future Tense Books, for the

Lindbergh Baby of If Not For Kidnap!

We've got four all-star readers, killer music, and more booze than should probably be in one place. Some of this booze is donated by Crow Arts Manor, in honor of their classics book drive:

Crow Arts Manor literary library will be open to the public starting late this January. So far they've received generous donations of current titles from presses across the country, but are still trying to fill in the classics. If you bring 2 or more books to Kidnap of either poetry, short fiction, or literary criticism, they will give you a $15 discount on any of their future classes. If you only bring one, you get a high-five from the person of your choosing!

As for the entertainment, local hero writers KEVIN SAMPSELL and BRYAN COFFELT are joined by out-of-town champs CHLOE CALDWELL and EDWARD MULLANY and those irrepressible rockers THE WE SHARED MILK.

***

When not editing and publishing books (with Bryan Coffelt!) for Future Tense Books or working at Powell's, KEVIN SAMPSELL writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. A Pushcart Prize nominee for 2011, Sampsell's latest work appears in Best Sex Writing 2012, Everyday Genius, The Rumpus, Housefire, Prism Index, and the anthology, Nouns of Assemblage. He is the author the story collection, Creamy Bullets and the memoir, A Common Pornography.

CHLOE CALDWELL is a non-fiction writer living in upstate New York. Her first book of essays: Legs Get Led Astray, will be released by Future Tense Books in April of 2012. She writes a column for The Faster Times called “Love & Music.” Her essays have appeared in The Rumpus, Vol 1. Brooklyn and Mr. Beller's Neighborhood. She is forthcoming in The Nervous Breakdown and The New York Times.

BRYAN COFFELT is assistant editor & designer for Future Tense Books. His poetry and fiction has appeared in elimae, Shampoo, Opium Magazine, and The West Wind Review. He is really into doom metal right now.

EDWARD MULLANY grew up in Australia and in the American Midwest. His first book, If I Falter at the Gallows, was released by Publishing Genius in October 2011. His writing has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, New Ohio Review, Tampa Review and other journals. He's a recipient of a Barthelme Memorial Fellowship in poetry.

what the press is saying about THE WE SHARED MILK
"...in firm command of a sound that has elements of hazed-out '70s and slack-jawed '90s, but sounds entirely up to date." -Portland Mercury
"When they put their sound down on tape, The We Shared Milk sound as if they’ve taken a couple of hits and eaten a couple sleeves of Oreos. .. Live, these guys are all power and energy." -Rose City Live

***

Doors open at 7:30, bring anyone you like (seriously, if you don't like 'em, don't bring 'em), and if you're able, bring books to donate to Crow Arts Manor, money for the donation jar, snacks or refreshments to share, and your own gorgeous face.

No Kidnap December

See you Friday, January 20th for a special Kidnap Party. 2012: Let's take it to the limit?

xo,

D & J

Tuesday, November 29th: Diana Salier, Amy Temple Harper, and Wolf in the Dreamcatcher

Come down off your food binge with Amy and Diana! Forget about your hideous relatives with Wolf in the Dreamcatcher! Finally: the perfect proof that allows you to exist in the fine balance of relaxation and stimulation. Bring drinks, food, etc., etc., etc.. Doors are open... at 7:30, everyone is welcome.

Please note! If you like chapbooks--and who doesn't like chapbooks?--two brand-new, just-released, sure-to-be-classic chapbooks will be available for purchase from Amy & Diana.

Amy Temple Harper was born in S. Korea and found on the street. She was brought to an orphanage in Seoul and adopted to the United States. She substitute teaches grades K-12 for the Portland Public School District. She is also a chef and a mother. She writes poetry, fiction, and is currently working on a memoir. Her first publication is titled “Cramped Uptown,” due for release in November, 2011.

Diana Salier is a musician and person who writes. Her first chapbook WIKIPEDIA SAYS IT WILL PASS was released on Deadly Chaps Press in September 2011. She's a graduate of NYU's creative writing program, and her work has appeared or is forthoming in Every Day Genius, Nap Magazine, Red Lightbulbs, 3:AM Magazine, Housefire, and Kill Author, among other places. She's currently working on a full-length collection called Letters From Robots. She grew up in a house in Los Angeles and now lives in an apartment in San Francisco. She is wearing striped pajamas.

Stan Gentle, the man behind Wolf in the Dreamcatcher, claims to be the failed commercial copywriter who got tired of trying to make a difference. He now busies himself composing one-minute songs about the mysterious abduction of poop, lost to the ages Elvis movies, and what he calls The Vegan Betrayal. The songs are at once anthem and corrosive to the synapses, a mix of mostly English words and a pretty convincing synthesizer. Recently, WITDC has garnered critical acclaim on websites like Friendster and publications like Light Metal Age. Live shows have been called “gamey and raw”, prompting tastemakers like Norma Lyon to give a nod. “It’s more a new trope than a gimmick. It might even be a meme. Anyway, it doesn’t suck.”

Tuesday October 25th: Robert Alan Wendeborn, Karen Wood Hepner, and musical guest Special Head!

Beat-boxing (!), throat singing (!), rad short poems (!), Lord of the Rings (!). Doors open at 7:30, music starts at 8, and plenty of deliverance:

Robert Alan Wendeborn is the editor of Extended Play, a short magazine of long literature and writes for Uncanny Valley, a literature and pop-culture blog/magazine/press. He has had poems and reviews published in PANK, > kill author, and The Collagist. Most recently, he has been featured in the Portland Mercury blog for his Lord of the Rings themed haiku, "Legolas, rub me/on my soft Baggins with your/long Bombadildo." If you want to know more about him, or his writing, you should give him a thorough googling.

Karen Wood Hepner writes songs, poems, and marketing blurbs. Mostly her poems are very short because she is always short on time. But it turns out short poems are the raddest kind! She is also raising teenage boys and has that marketing blurb job. She's a pretty busy lady.

Special Head is a one man band from Tucson Arizona. Special Head performs live looping of throat singing, beat boxing, bass, xylophone, pan flute. Then he sings or raps comedic lyrics over the beats and melodies he has created. Some of his songs are serious and tackle issues of global consciousness. Others are simply hilarious.

Tuesday September 27th: Maryrose Larkin, Amanda Huckins, and musical guest Animal Eyes

Two poets and a band. That's right: we give you continuity, structure, and (most importantly) heuristicality. Within this format you will get two women of discrete topology, and a band in temporal flux. Come on--let's compare our own exciting lives with the exciting life we all create at Kidnap at 7:30.

Maryrose Larkin lives in Portland, Ore. where she works as a donor researcher. She is the author of Inverse (nine muses books, 2006), Whimsy Daybook 2007 (FLASH+CARD, 2006), The Book of Ocean (i.e. press, 2007), DARC (FLASH+CARD, 2009), The Name of this Intersection is Frost (Shearsman Books, 2010), and Marrowing (Airfoil, 2011).
Maryrose is one of the organizers of Spare Room, a Portland-based writing collective, and is co-editor, with Sarah Mangold, of FLASH+CARD, a chapbook and ephemera poetry press. She is currently working on "Twenty Questions for Five Masters" a play for Language Master and voice.
http://peepshowpoetry.blogspot.com/2010/07/blog-post_29.html
http://www.littleredleaves.com/LRL4/4home.html
http://www.notellmotel.org/poem_single.php?id=609_0_1_0

Amanda Huckins is a poet who lives partially plunged into the ground of Portland, Oregon. Another poet said of her: "I feel like [Amanda is] the Hubble telescope and some, like, space rock flew into [her] f*cking up all [her] sensors but uhh, [she is] still collecting data and the data is damaged in such a way that it is actually much more interesting and uhh you know, useful than the previous data but it's also difficult to read/understand". It may sound like she’s mentally incapacitated, but she most likely is not. Either way, she letterpressed and sewed together a chapbook called Contorted Stone, and she regularly engages in passive and/or immediate collaborations using Google Docs.

Animal Eyes is a Portland, Oregon band. They’re in the process of recording their first album. There are songs about what it’s like to be leaving home at the beginning of a new century, only a few years before the world is supposed to end, about growing older and realizing how important it is to learn from our collective past, to have a collective past, to have family, and about living in cycles with the earth; to be born, to live, and to rest in the ground when we’re done.
www.animaleyesband.com

Tuesday August 30th: Anis Mojgani, Riley Michael Parker, and musical guest Curious Hands

Happy August everyone! This Tuesday is your chance to get your idea of language messed up and all hot and bothered. This is good for you. The alpha state of your brain will thank you the next day while trying to brainstorm at work. Plus, it's proven that entering this state induces relaxation and healing. Sound good? Good. Because, Anis Mojgani and Riley Michael Parker are ready to do this for you.
Come at 7:30 to mingle and pitch in to the drink fund if you would like to partake!

A former resident of Portland’s Writers-In-The-Schools program, Anis Mojgani is both a two-time national poetry slam and an international poetry slam champion. He is the author of two poetry collections: Over the Anvil We Stretch, and The Feather Room, which was recently nominated for the National Book Award. His work has appeared in Rattle, The Legendary, Radius, as well as on HBO and NPR. Originally from New Orleans, Anis currently lives with his wife in a small house on the Eastside of Austin TX.
thepianofarm.com

Riley Michael Parker is the head editor at HOUSEFIRE, publisher of NOUNS OF ASSEMBLAGE. He wrote OUR BELOVED 26TH, with a new novel out October called A PLAGUE OF WOLVES AND WOMEN, dresses all in black white and red, self-proclamating "fucks like a champ", owns a cat, directed JUNIOR PROM (short film), lived in Las Vegas, lived in Oklahoma, never went to college, owns a coffin, has never been to Mexico.

music! music! music!
http://www.bananastandmedia.com/releases/album/curious_hands_live_from_the_banana_stand

Kidnap Especial: Monday, August 15th in Director Park: Emily Kendal Frey, Ethan Saul Bull, & James Gendron

If Not For Kidnap, in coordination with Director Park and Multnomah Arts Center Literary Arts Program, presents an out-of-doors performance of poesy, exactly perfect for your summer inclinations.

PLEASE NOTE: This does not take place at Kidnap House. Rather, at Director Park downtown!

This next MONDAY, we have for you:

Ethan Saul Bull - Author of Inside Narratives, revolutionary, and master of the human heart.

Emily Kendal Frey - Author of The Grief Performance, Frances, The New Planet, & Airport, shaman, and all-around word reciter exciter.

James Gendron - Author of Money Poems, kickboxing champion, and regular boxing champion.

The event is free, and afterwards you may play in the fountain.

It may be chilly, because this is summer in Portland.

[Special props go to David Abel, who coordinates the DPR series, Alicia and Spencer at Director Park, and Michael Walsh at MAC, for making the readings possible]

[Also, the following Monday (8/22) same time same place, hear Robert Mittenthal from Seattle, Donato Mancini from Vancouver BC, and Louis Cabri from Ottawa.]

Tuesday, July 26th: Lindsay Hill, Paul Longo, and musical guest Gratillium

If you show up at 7:30 Tuesday night to If Not For Kidnap you will hear BEAUTIFUL MUSIC, BEAUTIFUL POETRY, and see BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE. Plus, FEEL BEAUTIFUL by being part of aural illustration.

There is a donation jar to help the readers out, and provide you with delicious things. The donation jar also accepts delicious things. All are welcome--come and say "hi"!

Lindsay Hill was born in San Francisco and is a graduate of Bard College. His most recently published books are: The Empty Quarter and Contango (both from Singing Horse Press, San Diego). Recent work has appeared in Peaches & Bats, New American Writing, and Peep/Show poetry online: peepshowpoetry.blogspot.com/. Lindsay lives in
Portland with his wife, the painter Nita Hill.

Paul Longo lives in Portland, where he’s learning to say “I got it all in the world,” and to keep plants alive. At work he develops medical devices that stop lethal bleeding. After work he and his friends are collaborating on the perfect compliment. He has degrees in poetry and engineering, and was once co-editor of the Sonora Review. His poems have appeared in Best New Poets and a few other places.

Gratitillium was formed in 2008 by Portland folk artist Nick Caceres. After recording makeshift songs on just his macbook with a built in mic, Caceres released this 'creation' as a full length debut under the name Gratitillium Vol 1, on local indie favorite Tender Loving Empire records. A band was etched around the initial album, and after a series of local shows at venues from the Green House to the Doug Fir and everything in between, Gratitillium was ready to hit the road in 2010 on a west coast tour, after releasing the EP/middle album, of full band versions of six songs off of the initial full length. The album was titled Wild Alive, Vol 1.5 and was a self release, with a release show held at the Holocene with guests Pancake Breakfast and Tiger House in april 2010.
Gratitillium then toured the west coast in early fall, 2010, playing with bands/friends such as:
The Hosannas
Yeah Great Fine
Jared Mees and the Grown Children
The Walkmen
Monarques
Fa Fa Fa
and many more talented acts...