Rich Ferguson, Mary Kerr, and S.A. Griffin are the guests for a roundtable discussion of Beat literature and the new anthology Beat Not Beat: An Anthology of California Poets Screwing on the Beat and Post-Beat Tradition (Moon Tide Press).

Pushcart Prize-nominated poet Rich Ferguson has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, Moby, and other esteemed poets and musicians. Ferguson was selected by the National Beat Poetry Foundation, Inc. (NBPF), to serve as the State of California Beat Poet Laureate (Sept. 2020 to Sept. 2022). He is a featured performer in the film, What About Me? featuring Michael Stipe, Michael Franti, k.d. lang, and others. His poetry and award-winning spoken-word music videos have appeared in numerous anthologies and festivals, and he was a winner in Opium Magazine’s Literary Death Match, L.A. Ferguson is the editor of an anthology of CA poets entitled Beat Not Beat (Moon Tide Press).

Mary Kerr is an Independent Producer of documentaries on the California Beat Era. Her films include The Beach (1996), Venice West and the LA Scene (2011), and San Francisco’s Wild History Groove (2011).

S.A. Griffin, co-editor of Beat Not Beat and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Firecracker Award) and Carma Bum progenitor lives, loves and works in Los Angeles. In 2010 he created The Poetry Bomb, a former Vietnam era practice bomb converted into an art object filled with over 900 poems from around the world in an effort to inspire civil disagreements culminating in The Poetry Bomb Couch Surfing Across America Tour of Words. Named Best Performance Poet by the LA Weekly, in 2011 he was the first recipient of Beyond Baroque’s Distinguished Service Award. His most recent book, Pandemic Soul Music (Punk Hostage Press), will be on bookshelves December 2022. Husband, father and USAF Vietnam era veteran.

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Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.

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This is the second annual Holiday Spectacular episode of the Otherppl with Brad Listi podcast. The guests are Melissa Broder, Gene and Jenny Morgan, Amelia Gray and Lee Shipman, Ben Loory, Rich Ferguson, and Adam Greenfield. Recorded on December 10, 2016.

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PS. Here are links to some things discussed in the show:

Prince on Arsenio Hall, 1991

Jimmy Stewart reads a poem about his dog on The Tonight Show

This week on the Otherppl with Brad Listi podcast, a conversation with TNB Poetry editor Rich Ferguson , whose debut novel, New Jersey Me, is available now from Rare Bird Books / A Barnacle Book. Big congrats to Rich! Go buy his book!

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Chris Leslie-Hynan is a very busy man these days. With the success of his first novel, Ride Around Shining, he has been touring on and off for well over the last year. I caught up with him somewhere around Las Vegas to discuss his novel and also some of the biases and expectations he had to confront when writing about race, class, and envy.

Be one with the world. One with yourself. One with the tranquility gallery behind your eyes, its humble paintings of peace & prosperity. One with how that gallery is so often under reconstruction, deconstruction. One with how everything is so impermanent, so fleeting. How your every thought breeds Frankensteins & angels. Be one with all your Frankensteins & angels.

First question, gotta ask: What’s up with the hat?

A lot of people ask me that question. And it’s a valid one, as I’m wearing it in most every photo. Though, there are certain spoken word videos where I don’t wear it, or a bandana: “All The Times” and “Human Condition” are two videos that come to mind. I also never wear it in the shower, to bed, or to work. Haven’t worn it to a funeral either. Or when getting a driver’s license photo.

When words meant to be spoken are bottled up for too long, those words stop showering and shaving. Crank speed metal at four a.m. Carve lines into your forehead with rusty knives. Illegally park in handicapped spaces, create fake ads on Craigslist. Those bottled-up words trade up for down, left for right, dropkick you into the shacklebone zone. They smile in public, beat you in private. Fill your mouth with rains and hurricanes, pee a circle around your soul and mark it for extinction.

You’ve surely seen all the fanfare on TNB lately about The Beautiful Anthology (TNB Books, June 2012), a collection of essays, stories and some poetry on the topic of beauty. Thanks to the tireless efforts of editor Elizabeth Collins the book has emerged as a very beautiful physical object full of diverse, witty, engaging pieces. There has already been a fair bit written about the essays in this volume, but given my whole-hearted insistence that poetry is the queen of all forms of writing, I decided a look at Erato’s hand on the book is in order.

Rich Ferguson is a performance poet who has a poem featured in TNB Books’ new collection The Beautiful Anthology. Here, Ferguson waxes poetic about life and beauty.

How can we make the world more beautiful?

If we can ever learn how to be more comfortable with ourselves—inside and out—and allow other people the same courtesy, that’s a good start to helping make the world a more beautiful place.

We’re proud to announce the publication of The Beautiful Anthology, edited by Elizabeth Collins, now available in trade paperback from TNB Books, the official imprint of The Nervous Breakdown.

The Beautiful Anthology can be purchased at Amazon.  To order your copy, please click right here.  (Note:  in the coming days, TBA will be available via other retailers like Powell’s and BN.com.  Ebook editions are also forthcoming.)

Author’s Note: A musical track I created with L.A. musician Bo Blount is currently featured in the trailer for The Beautiful Anthology (BIG thanks to David Grossbach for putting it together). Below you’ll find the poem which inspired the piece. If you’d like to listen to the track, or download a free version of it, click on the SoundCloud link at the bottom of the page. Hope you enjoy…

Like a Russian mobster tattoo
This is you forever inked into my flesh
Telling the story of us

That story’s name: Butterfly, Moon, Bed

For those of you who couldn’t make it out to last week’s TNB Literary Experience in Los Angeles, here’s a little taste of what you missed.

Behold this set from spoken word maestro Rich Ferguson, accompanied by B.O.S.S: