Poetry Electric: Powerful Words/Powerful Women

Helixx C. Armageddon is a performance artist, lyricist, poet, and music producer. She is a founding member of The Anomolies, a gender justice hip-hop collective, formed in 1995. Helixx has performed in notable venues around New York City including Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Bowery Poetry Club, Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre, Hammerstein Ballroom, Gene Frankel Theatre, Howl! Happening and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. Currently, she is working on an experimental spoken word album and is based in the East Village.

Caroline Banks is an award-winning actor, singer, writer, poet, voiceover artist, and producer based in Manhattan. She is a proud member of the resident acting company The Bats at The Flea Theater where she is a “Serials” regular and has been fortunate to work with such artists as Niegel Smith, Taylor Mac, and Carolyn Cantor. Off-Broadway: The Fall (Fringe Encores Series), Paradiso: Chapter One (dir. Michael Counts), The Path of Beatrice (dir. Counts) and The Cooping Theory (Poseidon Theatre Company). Regional: Unknown Soldier (Williamstown Theatre Festival; dir. Trip Cullman), Big Bend in the Red Dirt Desert (WTF), The Good Person of Setzuan (McCarter Theatre Center; dir. Mark Nelson), and Pippin (McCarter; dir. Tracy Bersley). New York (selected): the New York Times critically acclaimed productions of both Bad Penny by Mac Wellman (The Flea; dir. Kristan Seemel) andThe Death of a Black Man (Theater for the New City; dir. Electric Black). TV: “Mysteries at the Museum” (Travel Channel), “The Perfect Murder” (Investigation Discovery), and “Cicatrix” (SAG Pilot). Princeton University graduate (two Outstanding Work in Theatre Awards). www.carolinebanksactor.com

Stephanie Blanch is honored to read in POWERFUL WORDS/POWERFUL WOMEN alongside her lyrical Goddesses. She is a special educator who has been teaching since 2004. Poetry has been her way of “sorting out her stuff” since third grade, so she’s happy to be here sorting it out with you. Her multimedia poetry and prose can be found at the exhibition, Blacktivism: The New Generation in Washington, DC (since 2016). Some of her works have also been shared at: La Mama Poetry Electric: Tribute to Toni Morrison(2019), Harlem Pride: Speak Your Myne(2019), Downbraiding: A Reading in Three Voices(2019), Still BOLD (2019) Poets on the Verge(2018), La Mama: Women Writers/Resist (2017) NYC Black Pride(2016), Womyn & Words at the Lesbian HerStory Archives(2015), Latinos NYC: Nuyorican Cafe(2015), and Women of the African Diaspora(2014).

New York-based German artist Heide Hatry taught art for 15 years while simultaneously conducting an international business as an antiquarian bookseller. Since moving to New York in 2003 she has curated numerous exhibitions, has shown her own work at museums and galleries around the world, has edited many books and art catalogues, has produced about 200 unique artist’s books, treating texts of writers and exploring her own writing, and had 4 books published about her own work: Skin (2005), Heads and Tales (2009), Not a Rose (2012), and Icons in Ash (2017). Hatry is best known for her body-related performances and her work employing animal parts and cremated remains. Among her fundamental preoccupations are identity, gender roles (and specifically what it means to be a woman), the nature of aesthetic experience and the meaning of beauty, the effects of knowledge upon perception, and the human exploitation of the natural world.

Eve Packer: Bronx-born, poet/performer/actress, appears solo, w/music, in dance and theatre. She has appeared in works ranging from Beckett to Hansberry to Baraka & others.  Several grants and awards including NYFA, Jerome Foundation, NEH, and NYSCA.She has published three poetry books, skulls head samba,, playland  poems 1994-2004, and new nails. (Fly By Night Press)..Has several poetry/jazz CD’s w/ saxophonist Noah Howard,  and others, the most recent: ny woman: poetry/jazz highlights. Spring ’18 saw her new chapbook foss park. Fall ’19 she was proud to appear in william electric black’s the whites. Teaches at WCC. Lives downtown and swims daily. (evebpacker@aol.com)

Tamra Plotnick’s poetry and prose works have been published in a number of journals and anthologies, including: Serving House Journal; The Waiting Room Reader, Vol II: Words to Keep You Company, edited by Rachel Hadas; and Global City Review: International Edition. Her memoir excerpt “Barbie and Gandhi Sitting in a Tree” appeared in The Coachella Review. Her poetry manuscript In the Zero of Sky is looking for a publisher. She has read and performed her work in multimedia shows at a range of venues, including Dixon Place, La Mama Theater, Zinc Bar and Cornelia Street Café. She teaches at The James Baldwin School in Chelsea and lives in Brooklyn with family.

Native New Yorker Ilka Scobie is a poet and art writer who teaches poetry in the public school system. Recent work has appeared in Marie Claire Italia, London Artlyst, American Book Review and small press publications. Book publications include the anthology Resist Much/Obey Little, Flower Power Man, and Jews: A History of the Lower East Side. Of her participation in the 2020 St. Marks Annual New Year’s Reading, the Wall Street Journal noted: “But they also offered poems marked by a sense of whimsy or nostalgia. Or, in the case of a work by Ilka Scobie, a little of both.”

Danusia Trevino is an actress and a storyteller. Born and raised in Poland. She toured the United States and Europe with the New York City punk band FUR. As an actress, she performed with the Black Lips Performance Cult and Anohni ( Pyramid Club and PS122) SITI Company (NATL tour) Solo show Wonder Bread; (HBPF, 59E59st, Theater Row, TNC, Edinburgh Fringe Festival). La MaMa (Erick Ehn Festival). Most recently she performed with the Wooster Group in A Pink Chair (The Centre Pomidou, Paris/The Performing Garage NY/ Red Cat LA, Skirball Center , NY ) and with the Warsaw’s Nowy Teatr Ginsberg/Bialoszewski (The Performing Garage) Film work: Xenophilia, Acts of Worship, Where is Joel Baum, Metamorphosis, and An Actress. Web series: The Louise Log. She was a part of the New York literary salon, Women of Letters at Joe’s Pub, This Alien Nation also at Joes Pub and appeared at Cornelia Street Cafe’s Liar’s Show. A Moth double Grand SLAM winner she is a regular with Moth Main Stage. Her story “ Guilty” has been featured twice on the Moth Radio hour PRX. Danusiatrevino.com

Arden Wohl is a native New Yorker residing in the East Village with her husband, artist Jonah Freeman and their son, Roman. She has a BA in Film and Television Studies from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She had an ethical fashion line with the brand cri de coeur. She continues to write and read poetry around New York City. She is of Jewish heritage.

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