Saturday, September 26: BONK!

BONK!

Saturday, September 26 at 6 p.m. the Racine Public Library will once again host "BONK!", the free monthly performance series that has quickly become an established entertainment event in downtown Racine. Sponsored by Blueberries Café, and held at 515 Sixth St., the series was created to expose the public to both local and nationally recognized artistic talents. Each event showcases poets, writers, musicians, film makers and other talented artists. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. with seating available on a first come/first served basis. Each BONK! event features a short question and answer session with the artists. Gracing the stage this month will be a unique group of up and coming, nationally recognized writers. Join us for performances by writer JOYELLE MCSWEENEY, writer JOHANNES GORANSSON, and poet/puppeteer ISH KLEIN.

Joyelle McSweeney is the author of poetry books The Red Bird and The Commandrine and Other Poems, available through Fence Books; and the noir and sci-fi novels Nylund, the Sarcographer and Flet, available through Tarpaulin Sky Press and Fence. She and partner Johannes Goransson are editors of Action, Yes and Action Books, a web-quarterly and press spotlighting international writing and hybrid forms. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Notre Dame.

Johannes Goransson is the author of Dear Ra, A New Quarantine Will Take My Place and Pilot ("Johann the Carousel Horse"). He has translated many Swedish books including most recently With Deer by Aase Berg, Collobert Orbital by Johan Jonson, and Ideals Clearance by Henry Parland. He is co-editor of Action,Yes and Action Books and keeps a blog at exoskeleton-johannes.blogspot.com.

Poet, puppeteer and filmmaker Ish Klein recently published her first book, Union!, which was released by Canarium Press in April 2009. Her poems have been published in Make Magazine, The Canary, Gare du Nord, The Hat magazine, X-connect, Bridge, Spork and online. Her films have screened all over the world and at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art. They can be viewed on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/ishkleinfilms

Local artists and performers are encouraged to consider sharing their talent/craft with the community via the BONK! series. For more information on how to participate or to view video of past performances please visit http://bonkperformanceseries.wordpress.com. You may also contact the Racine Public Library at 262.619.2571, Becky Spika at becky.spika@racinelibrary.info , or Nick Demske at nick.demske@racinelibrary.info.