Voracity Book Launch at Birdhouse Books January 6, 2023 Featuring Christopher Luna with special guests Angelo Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna

 

Join us for First Friday with The Lunas (Christopher Luna, Toni Lumbrazo Luna, and Angelo Luna) featuring the Vancouver book launch for Christopher Luna's Voracity (Lightship Press, 2022).

From Birdhouse Books: "It’s a family affair: Christopher Luna, Toni Lumbrazo Luna, and Angelo Luna will be joining us for the return of our First Friday Poetry Series! 

Christopher Luna, co-host of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic and co-founder of Printed Matter Vancouver, has just released his new poetry collection, VORACITY, from Lightship Press, and will be joined by his wife Toni Lumbrazo Luna, co-founder of Printed Matter Vancouver and local poetry powerhouse, and his son Angelo Luna, who co-authored the father-son poetry collection EXCHANGING WISDOM."

Angelo Luna, Toni Lumbrazo Luna, and Christopher Luna in Rochester, NY November 2019

Photo by Maria Vara

 7pm

Friday, January 6

Birdhouse Books

1001 Main Street Basement

Vancouver, WA 98660

Voracity, featuring poetry and collages by Christopher Luna, is now available from Lightship Press or the author: christopherjluna@gmail.com.

"Brutally honest confessional poetry, Christopher Luna's Voracity conjures a beatific earnestness which transcends pain and suffering through acts of lyrical, life-affirming grace and redemption." David Madgalene, author of Call Down the Angel

In this revealing poetry collection, Luna invites readers on a candid and intimate journey behind the mask of a public figure as he grapples with identity, body image, and the enormity of his hungers."

Driven By Hope by Toni Lumbrazo Luna

Printed Matter Vancouver, 2019

Driven By Hope is Toni Lumbrazo Luna’s third book of poetry. It contains glimpses into the lives of people she has met throughout her career as a Social Worker and Life/Career Coach. These poems are based on real life and Toni takes them to new places inside her imagination. Perhaps you will see yourself through her eyes. Order Driven By Hope here:

https://www.amazon.com/Driven-Hope-Toni.../dp/1070872970/

 

Exchanging Wisdom: A Guide for Parents of the Autonomous

The Poetry Box, 2021

Exchanging Wisdom features poems for and about Christopher’s son Angelo Luna, as well as a few pieces Angelo wrote for Christopher. The earliest poem was written when Angelo was three, and the most recent at age 21. Christopher endeavored to encourage his son to be an autonomous, freethinking individual. Angelo grew to become that and so much more. Taken as a whole, the poems in this collection track the development of Angelo’s personality and the strong bond between father and son.

 Christopher Luna is a true heir to the Beat and New York School traditions of candor and grandeur. This collaboration and celebration of life runs on impeccable timing and deep love. As Luna and his son Angelo exchange wisdom they also re-invent the meaning of open verse: these poems crack open the heart and spill the joy of parenthood into the world.

—Lisa Jarnot, author 

Robert Duncan, the Ambassador from Venus

One day you’re gonna have to…remind me how to believe in the basic goodness of all beings, Christopher Luna tells his son, Angelo, in his latest book, Exchanging Wisdom. More than a collection of father-son poems, Exchanging Wisdom is a record of gratitude. Luna knows that to be a parent is to be both teacher and pupil, vulnerable and responsible. In every poem Luna’s love beams: Like Lone Wolf and Cub we traversed…and you reminded me that magic is real…. These poems contemplate our never-ending wars, sickness, apathy, and art-making through the lens of a deeply reverent father. For some, being a parent, being the adult, is synonymous with having the answers. Luna, a Buddhist poet, community-organizer, and activist, reminds us that questioning is the only way to truth. What are you afraid to find? he wonders. Are these the right questions to ask? In these mind- and heart-opening poems Luna invites us to experience pure joy and wonder again through memory and thankfulness. Once you’ve opened those doors/ you need never do so again, asserts Luna. Once father you cannot go back to your former life. Thankfully for us, Luna never did.

 —Claudia F. Savage, author of Bruising Continent

Naughty Greeting Card For Aimee

Here are a few images I included in a card to my old friend Aimee, who shares my fondness for goddesses. 

FREE THE NIPPLE!

If you'd like to see more of my collage art, visit 

https://www.instagram.com/christopherjluna/

Censored by Instagram: THE MOST GLORIOUS THING

A big fuck you to Instagram for censoring the following image because it violates community standards:

THE MOST GLORIOUS THING
By Christopher Luna

UPDATE: The image mysteriously appeared on my Instagram profile, and was also automatically shared to my Facebook profile, which did not censor it. Historically, censors are wildly incosnsistent, and unable to follow their own rules because they were arbitrary in the first place. 

FREE THE NIPPLE!

If you'd like to see more of my collage art, visit 

https://www.instagram.com/christopherjluna/

 

Photos and Video from Flowetry in Motion, April 23, 2022

Thanks to Morgan Paige, Zachary Wolk, The Carlson Quartet, Lifted Events, Jaja PDX, and The Haven PDX for Flowetry in Motion. What an honor it was to have been invited by my dear friend Morgan Paige to perform in this inaugural event for the collective of artists stirring things up at this magical space on SE Taylor Street in Portland. Dan Raphael and I performed near the beginning of the show, and then there were several more hours of poetry, juggling, hip hop, jazz, bellydancing, and more. What a memorable night.

I would also like to thank Morgan and Zachary for the wonderful photos and videos.

I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to engage in my favorite activity--reading my poetry accompanied by a hot jazz band. The poems I shared during this part of the set were a suite of short pieces written for National Poetry Month in April 2020, most of which are slated to appear in Voracity, forthcoming from Igor Brezhnev's Lightship Press.

I also read a short excerpt from Beneath the Underdog by Charles Mingus to commemorate the centennial of this legendary American musician and composer. Thanks to The Carlson Quartet for their beauitful music and support.

Dan Raphael reads "Children of the Blue 
Supermarket" with The Carlson Quartet. 

Morgan Paige and Christopher Luna

Christopher Luna and Dan Raphael

Christopher Luna reads with The Carlson Quartet

Christopher Luna reads with The Carlson Quartet

Morgan Paige and Christopher Luna

Dan Raphael reads his poetry with The Carlson Quartet

Dan Raphael reads his poetry with The Carlson Quartet

Dan Raphael reads his poetry with The Carlson Quartet

Roman Norfleet and Jacque Hammond blowing our minds

Water closet selfie--much love!

Igor Brezhnev readfs his poetry with Backbeat Jazz Band

Morgan Paige and Christopher Luna

Morgan Paige and Christopher Luna

So much love for my poetry community!

Christopher Luna, Dan Raphael, and Morgan Paige

After Visions of Cody: A Poem and Collage for Jack Kerouac

I have been telling people for years that Visions of Cody is my favorite novel by Jack Kerouac, a brilliant, panoramic portrait of the American landscape that also contains pages and pages of transcribed conversations between Kerouac and his good friend Neal Cassady, both of whom were famous talkers.

In my opinion, the best poetry Kerouac produced can be found in Mexico City Blues. 

The following poem was inspired by Kerouac's life and work as well as my impressions of these two literary masterpieces.   

After Visions of Cody
Collage by Christopher Luna

After Visions of Cody

by Christopher Luna 

pages and pages of

oomp-pa-pi-dah

hip jive

& muzzy gobbledygook

 

            mid-Century mascu-line

Buddhist glossolalia

 

exophonic explorer’s

linguistic innovations

the gift of idetic recall

in panoramic

sweep across the soil

of the American landscape

 

a tale told by conquerors

conquerors’ sons

perpetrators of

genocide and

their filial beneficiaries

 

wild, joyful

not yet pickled

nor doomed

to descend

into boredom

 

not yet become

just another

reactionary

who moved back

in with Mom

 

to hide from the world

beat by capitalism

 

beatific

 

in spite of himself

 

visionary           free

Symbolically Potent / Existential Transcencence: A Poem and Collage for Angelo's Birthday, March 30, 2022

 

Angelo has loved skulls for as long as I can remember. This led to a tradition of creating skull-themed collages for him for his birthday and other special occasions. This year I also wrote a poem. Not sure why, but I had never spoken to him about my own obsession with skulls as a child and young adult. I drew them, and enjoyed images of skulls, because I thought they were cool. 

The poem I wrote for Angelo this year attempts to unpack our love of skulls and how this common interest connects to the different ways that we think about and perceive the universe.