Lizard Lounge Poetry Jam 20th Anniversary x

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Nov. 17, 2016 - PRLog -- THE LIZARD LOUNGE POETRYJAM 20TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
Feb 18 & 19, 2017 7:30pm
The Lizard Lounge 1667 Mass Ave

We are very proud to announce our 20th anniversary of poetry and music and the weekly residency (Every Sunday) at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge hosted by the Jeff Robinson Trio.

Saxophonist Jeff Robinson is an alumnus of Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, where he studied with saxophonists Bill Pierce and George Garzone. He's studied theatre with Oleg Tabakov, Artistic Director of the legendary Moscow Art Theatre Company and Shakespeare scholar Kristin Linklater. Jeff's one man show about jazz legend Charlie "Bird" Parker entitled "Live Bird" has appeared off-Broadway and Charlie Parker's hometown of Kansas City Missouri.

St. Louis Missouri native, saxophonist, composer, radio disc jockey, actor, director, playwright and poet, Jeff started the band the Jeff Robinson Trio in 1995 as a bridge between music and theatre. The "Trio" accompany poets at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA and have a weekly residency that has lasted nearly 20 years.  The Jeff Robinson Trio have performed with some of the best poets in the United States of America, including Patricia Smith, Amiri Baraka and Quincy Troupe amongst thousand more.

He has directed several plays including Pearl Cleage's "Blues for an Alabama Sky" for Our Place Theatre Company which he received an Independent Reviewers of New England Awards (IRNE) nomination for Best Director. Robinson directed Craig Lucas's "Reckless" for Theatre Zone and also his self-scripted "Alley Cats" at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston, MA with the Baldwin Theatre Company

He received an IRNE Award nomination for Best Actor for his portrayal of the 'Stage Manager" in Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" at the Wheelock Family Theatre as well as his portrayal of Charlie Parker in "Live Bird" for the Baldwin Theatre. His radio show "Poetry Jam" was aired on WMBR 88.1 FM in Cambridge and was streamed live via the internet.  He has recorded for Rounder Records and is presently working on a new recording with his trio. visit http://jeffrobinson.org and http://livebird.com for more information about Jeff and his play Live Bird.

We will have Iyeoka Okoawo headline the Saturday, Feb 18th at the Lizard Lounge.

Iyeoka Okoawo

Nigerian-American poet, recording artist and TED Fellow, Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo has completed recording her second album, "Gold", for US-based label Underground Sun. The new 13-song collection of work is to be released worldwide on July 1, 2016.

The album was recorded in Venice, California over the last year. Key songs include the inspirational "Thunder", "Hurricane" and "Akomen of Udomi"; a song dedicated to the captured girls in Nigeria. Similar to the last full length effort by the writing & producing team Iyeoka and producer/ songwriter David Franz, the album captures an eclectic mix of afrobeat, pop, jazz, dance and rock. "Sinnerman" is an ode and nod to the great Nina Simone who also covers the song. " Sweet Song" features an award winning poem.

Although a resident of Boston MA, Iyeoka spends many months in Hawaii where the core of her band Rock By Funk Tribe call their home base. It was in Hawaii where the hypnotic and melodic songs "Who Would Follow" and "Gold" were created and came to life. The album also includes the single " Every Second Every Hour" which was released in May 2015.

A few of Iyeoka's many accolades include recipient of 2010 TED Global Fellow and winner of 2009 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion. 2016 brings her back to TED to host a conference in June. Her family started and runs the Amenawon Foundation to help less fortunate people in her home country of Nigeria. This is a repeating theme in many of her poems and songs.

We will have poet Patricia Smith headline Sunday, Feb 19th.

Patricia Smith

Called "a testament to the power of words to change lives," Patricia Smith is a renaissance artist of unmistakable signature, recognized as a force in the fields of poetry, playwriting, fiction, performance and creative collaboration.

She is the author of six critically-acknowledged volumes of poetry, including Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, winner of the 2014 Rebekah Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress, the 2013 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy American Poets and the Phillis Wheatley Award in Poetry; Blood Dazzler (a National Book Award finalist), and Teahouse of the Almighty (a National Poetry Series winner), all from Coffee House Press; Close to Death and Big Towns, Big Talk, both from Zoland Books, and Life According to Motown from Tia Chucha Press. She also edited the crime fiction anthology Staten Island Noir.

Patricia's work has appeared in Poetry (including the journal's 100th anniversary edition), The Paris Review, Granta, Tin House, TriQuarterly, poemmemoirstory, Ecotone, Able Muse and many other journals, and in dozens of groundbreaking anthologies--including Best American Poetry, Best American Essays, Villanelles, Killer Verse--Poems of Mayhem and Murder, American Tensions--Literary Identity and the Search for Justice, and 100 Best African American Poems. Her contribution to Staten Island Noir, the story "When They Are Done With Us" won the Robert L. Fish Award from the Mystery Writers of America (for best debut story in the genre) and is upcoming in Best American Mystery Stories 2013. She is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, for her poems "The Way Pilots Walk" and "Laugh Your Troubles Away!" In the summer of 2012, she was awarded fellowships to both Yaddo and the McDowell Colony, where she worked in a studio once occupied by James Baldwin.