| MPitS | |
Blake More |
 |
ink
syringe
blue medicine words |
 |
A 1987 graduate of UCLA and a lifetime member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society, Blake More is an artist with many creative voices and expressions. Currently, she spends half her time on the road sharing her original work, a quarter of her time teaching poetry, art, drama and film in the classroom, and all the time in between creating new works.
Blake first stepped on stage in Japan in 1994, when she agreed to recite poetry with a friend's jazz band at a Shinjuku music club in Tokyo. Since then, she has performed her spoken word art in a range of venues¾from cafes, art galleries, and museums to 1000 seat theaters¾in major cities all over the world, including Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York City, Amsterdam, New Orleans, and San Francisco. Her performance art is a fusion of spoken word, music, yogic contortion, dance, trapeze, clowning and costuming. She creates to reveal, questions to inspire and shares to engage the audience in soulful expression.
Among her performance highlights are the time she shared the stage with jazz pianist Cecil Taylor and beat poet Tony Seymour in a Bob Kaufman tribute reading at the Main branch of the San Francisco Public Library. Last summer, she traveled to Holland to perform at the International Poetry Festival in Amsterdam. This spring, she went on a cross country performance tour with a group of San Francisco performance artists and musicians (go to www.laughingsquid.org/nyc for details). But her favorite project to date is a multimedia play called Boxing Pandora, which she wrote, produced, costumed, directed, and stared in; 75 minutes long, the play itself involved the efforts of over 20 local artists and included an original score, original video (both live and prerecorded), a 13 member Greek-inspired chorus, poetic monologue, dance, audience participation and a trapeze (no monkeys though).
A freelance writer for 12 years, Blake's work has appeared in Utne Reader, Yoga Journal, Intuition Magazine Alternative Medicine Digest and Tokyo Time Out. To date, she has written two non-fiction books, one fiction book, and three poetry chapbooks. Her most successful book is a holistic health book entitled Alternative Medicine's Definitive Guide to Headaches, which has sold over 100,000 copies sold to date. Her poetry has appeared in a number of literary journals and books, including Heart Flip (CPITS anthology), The Alchemy Of The Word: Voices At the Edge, San Francisco Poets Live At Venue 9, Wood, Water, Air and Fire: Anthology of Mendocino Women Poets, Hard Love: Looking at Violence & Intimacy, The Toaster Broke, So We're Going To Get Married, and two books of poetry entitled Late Eve(all) Woman in Paradise and I scribble, Therefore I am. She recently released a spoken word CD entitled Pills, Thrills & Bellyaches.
In addition to her writing, she teaches poetry, film, art and performance to K-12 youth. A California Poets In the Schools (CPITS) poet teacher for four years, she has recently become the Mendocino County Area Coordinator for CPITS, which means in addition to her poetry duties, Blake oversees nine Mendocino County poet teachers. She has put on three Mendocino County Youth Poetry Slams and serves as the coach of the Point Arena High School Poetry Slam Team. She also receives foundation, private and California Arts Council grant funding to teach art to K-8 graders in six Mendocino County Schools and one Sonoma County School:
• One of these projects was entitled "The Poetry Of The Blues", in which she and New Orleans blues pianist Nelson Lunding guided 2nd thru 8th grade students in the writing of original 12 bar blues songs (like "Rocks in my Shoes", "Our Bus Life" "Soap Opera School"), which were then arranged by Nelson and sung by the kids. These recordings were compiled into five original Kids Blues CDs, and one compilation CD entitled "We're Playing Blues", which is currently on sale as a fundraiser for "Gualala Arts In the Schools".
• In another especially noteworthy youth project, she and videographer Christian Birk guided six Native American youth in the creation of a documentary film about living on the Pomo Reservations of Kashia, Point Arena, and Manchester in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties. Because of its raw power and stark honesty, the group was one of 14 youth groups in the nation to be invited to participate in the 2003 Reel Studio Young Filmmakers Workshop at Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah; the film has been widely shown to diverse audiences, from schools to art centers, from tribal centers to businesses and social service organizations. It even managed to land a spot on the shelf in the Smithsonian Cultural Heritage Library.
She is also sits on several non-profit arts and education boards, including
CITYARTS gallery (www.cityarts.ws) and Gualala Arts In the Schools (www.gualalaarts.org),
and is a member of the Rebecca Fraternal Society.
Blakes Website:http://www.snakelyone.com/
BLAKE MORE blake@snakelyone.com
Honey Moon
Marry me moon
and I will wrap myself around you
like a gown of sun
love your shadow
as much as your pearled mirror
never forget you when the sky
grows tired of your glory
and calls out the cloudsI long for a lover
who isn't afraid of my howling
sees my waxing and waning
with equal eyes
a mate who lays with me some nights
leaves me alone on others
always offers a sliver to hold onto
the changing tide
my wombMarry me moon
and I will never be lonely again.
~Blake More
SCHOOLS & COMMUNITY_________________________
California Poets In the Schools Area Coordinator
CityArt Gallery Board of Directors
Gualala Arts In The Schools Steering Committee
Third Thursday Poetry Series At Cityart organizor
Fort Ross School
Horicon School
Manchester Elementary School
Pacific Coast Charter High School
Pacific Coast Charter School
P oint Arena Elementary School
Point Arena High School
South Coast High School
| MPitS Home | About | Links | Poet Teachers | Schools | Site Map |
Website designed by Bob Evans & Blake More. If you have comments about this Web Site please email: blake@snakelyone.com