Clara Hsu – Clara Hsu

Y Exchange

Y-Exchange is a featured artists presentation on the intersection of performing arts, technology and science co-presented by Kinetech Arts, ODC Theater, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. This public event presents featured artists through 25-min talks followed by 15-min Q&As. It’s held every last Wednesday of the month and free! RSVP today!

About the artists

Clara Hsu is a piano teacher, actor, poet and playwright. She is the director of Clarion Performing Arts Center. In 2019 Clara established Clarion Summer Theater. She produced Love on the Magpie Bridge to celebrate the Chinese Night of Sevens Festival. Her second play, The Piano, a Play-Movie was selected by the 2021 Children’s Film Festival Seattle. Her new play, Neil Armstrong at the Moon Palace will premiere at the end of this summer. Clara won the Jefferson Award for public service in May, 2021. Her latest work, the Gai Mou Sou Rap has gone viral on YouTube.

Tom Skalak joined the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation in 2018 as Senior Advisor to Clara Wu Tsai. The Foundation makes philanthropic investments in science, economic mobility, and cultural production (art, music, film), with a vision to produce transformative impact on societal well-being and sustainability. Tom is Vice President for Research Emeritus at the University of Virginia and was previously the founding Executive Director of The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group in Seattle, the Microsoft co-founder’s global science investing group. In these roles, Tom led creative synthesis of research and innovation programs spanning biosciences, environmental sustainability, physical sciences, engineering and technology, arts, design, and humanities. Tom was educated as a bioengineer at The Johns Hopkins University (B.E.S. 1979) and the University of California, San Diego (Ph.D. 1984), was a Resident Artist at the Djerassi Resident.

Moon Palace Residential

October 1, 2020 is the Chinese Autumn Moon Festival. Celebrate the day with eating moon cakes and listening to the legends of the moon. Watch Grant Avenue Follies of San Francisco Chinatown give their version of life under quarantine. Like the residents on the moon we’re kind of stuck. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun!

Go to: http://www.clarionmusic.com to access the link.

Fire Thieves 12, After the Lightning Reading

The Fire Thieves is an inter-sectional & inter-generational poetry series produced by San Francisco poet laureate Kim Shuck, with a different venue every month and four generations represented as featured readers.

This month’s featured readers include Clara Hsu, Caroline Goodwin, Mya Byrne, Lourdes Figueroa, Bill Vartnaw and Elizabeth Wilson.

Visual Design: May Kodama

This event made possible by the Academy of American Poets with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

La Palabra Musical / The Music of The Word

Join us ONLINE Saturday August 22nd
join us the 4th Saturday of every Month
THE MUSIC OF THE WORD
(LA PALABRA MUSICAL)
still in English, Spanish, Spanglish y Lo Que Sea &
until the Virus lets the Libraries re-open we’ll be on ZOOM
3PM – 5PM No Cover
hosted by Avotcja
And don’t forget to bring your Congas,
Guiros, Maracas, Panderetas, etc.
SATURDAY AUGUST 22nd
VENUS JONES (Poet/Actress)
PABLO PAREDES (Poeta/Educator)
CLARA HSU (Poet/Musician)
GREGORY POND (Poet/Musician)
&
you on the Open Mic y mas
Always the word festival to remember!

Join us! https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89469374148?pwd=ZFdIOFQvVEkyWi8xZWNNMStnSDJUdz09
Meeting ID: 894 6937 4148
Password: 848453

“TRIPLE SPAR”: A DECADE OF SPARRING WITH BEATNIK GHOSTS

Petaluma Poetry Walk

Clara Hsu will be featured along with Vilma Ginzberg, Elizabeth Carothers Herron, and Susan T. Mashiyama at the 20th annual Petaluma Poetry Walk, 6pm at Aqus Cafe. This event begins at noon .Enjoy a memorable stroll through historic Petaluma with scheduled hourly stops at various venues along the way to hear noted poets read their works. Maps are available at Copperfield’s bookstore or on website.

(Photo by Mary-Marcia Casoly.)

The First to Escape

I am happy to announce the publication of my new book of poems, The First to Escape. It has been seven years since Mystique, my first book. However, changes in my writing occurred only when I began studying poetry with Jack Foley in 2011. Those of you who witness the change have found it “remarkable.” Those of you who think you know me (and my writing) might scratch your head when you read this one! The poems in The First to Escape actively explore new territories in language and expression. I invite you to partake the excitement with me.

Poet and musician Jake Berry made the following comment:

“The First to Escape is that rare volume of contemporary poetry that carries the weight of its ancient and modernist predecessors while remaining passionately engaged with its own time. Multicultural, multiethnic, yes, but intimate, not exotic, with openings into surprising and mysterious familiarity. “Brilliant darkness.” What Clara Hsu renders here is a deeply moving and masterfully articulated musical language – a poetry that draws us into a conversation beyond ourselves, beyond any closed idea of self. This is vital work by a fully realized poet.”

From Zhang Ziqing, Nanjing University, China:

As a Chinese, I’m certainly familiar with the lines taken from the classic Chinese poems, but I hadn’t expected her to mix them with her own lines, as in “Moving with Li Po.” It is a creative experiment.

The First to Escape is available on line at Amazon.com and at readings.

Book Readings:

Wednesday July 16 at 7pm

Sacred Grounds Cafe
Hayes Street (and Cole), San Francisco
I have invited Jack Foley, my mentor and co-publisher of Poetry Hotel Press to read with me. Reading begins at 7pm. Open mike before and after the feature.
Hosted by Dan Brady.

Sunday July 20, 5 to 7pm

Cafe Leila
1724 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley
The Music of the Word, La Palabra Musical is hosted by Avotcja. Featured readers are: Clara Hsu, Jack and Adelle Foley, and Michael Goldstein.

South Cal Debut:

San Francisco’s Wild History Groove & Reading
Friday August 15, 7:30 – 10pm
Beyond Baroque
681 Venice Blvd, Venice, CA
San Francisco’s Wild History Groove is the companion film to Mary Kerr’s Venice West & the LA Scene, screened earlier at Beyond Baroque. Refreshments at 7:30; program at 8. Poets Jack & Adelle Foley (participants in the documentary) and Clara Hsu will appear to introduce work from their exciting new press, Poetry Hotel Press.

Hail Mary

About a year ago Mary Rudge was scheduled to go into the hospital for a heart operation. Just a few days before her appointment I was asked to do a mini feature at the Sacred Grounds Cafe. Mary wanted to come.

“Don’t bother,” I told her, “It’s only 8 minutes long. Come when I do a longer feature.”

But she came anyway, because she thought there might be a chance that she would not survive the operation. I read my multi-voice poems with Jack Foley. Mary was delighted. Sacred Grounds was especially full that night and I don’t think Mary even got a chance to read her own poems, but that was not why she came.

Mary passed away in her sleep on January 19. The night before she received a lifetime achievement award from Artists Embassy International. She was with poetry to the end, and I am forever honored by her love and support.

Mary-Rudge200-July-4-2013 — photo by Dave Holt

Mistress Mary
child of verse
how did the curtain fall?
With laurel crown
on haloed hair
and loving faces gathered around.

Gentle Mary
long endured
brittle bones and heart.
Mother Hubbard
with a problem shoe
fed her kids and filled the cupboard.

Hail Mary
full of grace
the Lord is with thee.
A lullaby
from earth to heaven
for the wee lamb blithe and spry.

Poetry Hotel/ Birthday Poem

WHY I’M GLAD YOU CAME INTO THE WORLD, WHY I WISH YOU A HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOW (2013), AND MANY MORE

—Jack Foley

Listen to the poem!

The Poetry Hotel
Imagine paying for a night at the hotel with a poem…
—Clara Hsu

(Clara) At the Civic Center Bart Station
Carlos, Dan and I had a vision
to take possession of the Mission Street Marriott
after we win the lottery.

(Jack) When I heard this poem,

We will renovate the building
knock everything down to its bones.
With imagination, joy, and persistence
we give birth to the Poetry Hotel.

I wanted to join up.

When you enter the Poetry Hotel,
observe the grand reception hall.
Poets check in with a poem
check out with a new chapbook.

I’ve got poems, I’ve even got

The ground floor is reserved for first drafts
the second floor is for revision.
From the third to the twentieth floor
there are chutes and ladders built especially
for the out of bounds writers.

a rhyming dictionary,

All the rooms have the essential
desk, chair and bed,
an unlimited supply of paper, and
ink gel pens to write.

though I don’t use it.

There are numerous libraries
each named after a poet.
Collections of works are readily available
for reference, research and reading.

Clara came to me

As for dining, the Poetry Café
serves daily a scrumptious buffet.
Muffins, puddings and all sorts of pies,
thick soups, black coffee, exotic teas
to nurture the poetic belly.

and asked whether I could bring her to a “break-through.”

Every evening there is a gathering
new and old poems are read.
Cakes and champagne are served afterwards
to celebrate the creation of words.

I notice now

This enterprise is run so successfully
it is franchised throughout the world.
All the poets in this planet
come home to the Poetry Hotel.

that she brings me to “break-throughs.”

Carlos, Dan and I blinked
as we stepped into the train.
It was filled with sleepy people
who wanted to get home quick.

When I’m weary, at night, it’s late, near bed time, my mind a blur,

Days of work and nights of toil
weaken our eyes and hearts
But tonight we lay the cornerstone
for the Poetry Hotel.

she sends me poems from her own “poetry hotel,”

that boiling consciousness,

and suddenly:

(Both) I waken.

Photo by Dore Steinberg.

Birthday Dialogue

Good morning sun. Goodbye rain and wind that came before the sun. The sense of renewal is ever present on such a day, no matter what age you are celebrating.

There is a big field to play in. Perhaps we begin with facing each other. Here is my birthday poem, with a response from Jack Foley.

Birthday

fifty-seven knots
back to the threshold
of unknowing
zest
with style
ecstasy
with flair
one eye toward the gyre
whole body traverses
this universe
as big and as tiny
as all other universes
pushes pulls
into out of
forms and proportions
distance is memory
the fire
fueling
the present.

Birthday
Clara Hsu/ Jack Foley

fifty-seven knots

Oh, I remember
back to the threshold

fifty-seven
of unknowing

and unknowing
zest

the “cloud”—
with style

What’s strange is
ecstasy

you feel it
with flair

only sometimes

one eye toward the gyre

Mostly,
whole body traverses

you’re whatever age you’ve set your bodymind clock for
this universe

Desire

as big and as tiny

remains
as all other universes

and intellect
pushes pulls

in the vastness
into out of

of all you’ve done
forms and proportions

in more than 70 years
distance is memory

Distance is memory
the fire

Fire
fueling

(that deep friend)
the present.

blazes

image by Doc Ross.