Spoken Word and Music

Welcome to KirkLumpkin.com the web site of poet/lyricist/songwriter/vocalist/spoken word artist, Kirk Lumpkin.

His latest completed project is Sound Poems by The Word-Music Continuum, Kirk's unique performance ensemble uniting music and spoken word. The group's long awaited second CD reveals Lumpkin in his most original and moving performances.

Kirk's other projects include: his solo CD, Moondog Sessions (2007) and the latest collection of his poetry, In Deep (2004).

“Kirk is a shaman.”
— Frank Moore, Internet radio & TV host, performance artist

Kirk's Bio

Kirk’s poetry has appeared in many different magazines, anthologies, and online publications. Kirk has performed his poetry and music in festivals, clubs, bookstores, and cafes all around the San Francisco Bay Area and much of Northern California. In 2006 he did a poetry performance mini-tour of the LA area—four readings in six days including one at Beyond Baroque in Venice. In 2006 he also did a mini-reading tour of western Colorado. In 2007 he did two readings in Toronto, Canada and one in New York City at the Bowery Poetry Club. He has also done poetry readings in England and Scotland under the auspices of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

In 2003, Kirk ended his lengthy stint hosting the Cafe International Friday Night Performance Series (San Francisco Bay Guardian "Best Spoken Word Open Mic"), which he'd been with since 1994. He hosted the spoken word open mic at Burning Man (1997, '98, & '99). He coordinated the Ecology Center Literary Series 1997-99. As part of his work as the Special Events & Promotions Coordinator for the Berkeley Farmers’ Market (a program of the Ecology Center) he's developed a collaboration with Poetry Flash and Ecocity Builders in presenting the Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, hosted annually by former U.S. Poet Laureate, Robert Hass. At the beginning of 2005 Kirk joined the Board of PEN Oakland. The year before a song he co-wrote was a finalist in the UNISONG International Song Contest and another was an Honorable Mention in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest.

Please sign the mailing list and visit the News and Events page of this website often to find out where and when you can hear Kirk Lumpkin reading his poetry and performing with his two bands.

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Sound Poems
The New CD

Moondog Sessions
(2007)

The cover of In Deep (2004),
Kirk Lumpkin's latest book of poetry

The Moondog Sessions Story

This is a CD of passionate, intelligent original rock songs co-created with David Andrews and many of their best musician friends. Along with all the members of the Wild Buds, keyboards, cello, harmonica, percussion, several vocalists, saxophone, and more are added to the mix-

Kirk Lumpkin and David Andrews first performed together in the rock band, DETOUR. Kirk played drums and wrote most of the lyrics and David played bass. While in that band David and Kirk wrote only one song together. When the band broke up Kirk wanted to sing his lyrics himself and David wanted to play his main instrument, the guitar.Kirk and David also believed they could write more songs together and they did. On the strength of those songs they co-founded the rock band, Shadow Government. After at least three distinct editions of Shadow Government they were ready to try something new.

Kirk and David saw in Moondog Studios a place to create their first full-blown album using a greatly expanded palette of sounds and styles. They recruited their former band mates and one by one all of the best musicians they knew that they thought could add to their project. It took a long time to get all of the many talented individuals that they wanted to involve into the studio. [In the mean time Kirk and David had helped form a new band, the Wild Buds. All the Wild Buds (Bill Lackey, Mark Randall, Ted Higgins, David Andrews, & Kirk Lumpkin) play on this album, but the Wild Buds are another story and another soon to be released album.]

Moondog Sessions has its own particular magic including some of the dark edginess of Shadow Government, some of the feel-good rockin’ of the Wild Buds, and an amazing multitude of energies that their collaborators have brought to these songs. Kirk and David feel grateful and greatly honored that so many were willing to put so much of their creativity into this recording. Besides all the great performers on this album Kirk and David would also like to thank some musicians that aren’t on the album, but that helped get them here: Paul Mills, a long time collaborator on many levels; Brian Payne, Mark Weider, and Thunder, all of whom played bass in an edition of Shadow Government. And then some of these same people we need to thank again for their focused listening in our final round of mixing—thanks to: James Hosley, Muriel Sumter, Bill Lackey, Mark Weider, David Ricardo, Paul Mills, Ted Higgins, and Robert Keller. David would also like to thank Nellie, Django, Kyler, and Heidi. Kirk would also like to thank his wife Lyn for her understanding and voice teacher Pat Wynne for her help on some of these songs.

Thanks to all of you that listen.

All photos on Moondog Sessions by Robert Keller (robertkellerphotography.com).
howling coyote © Jupiterimages Corporation

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BUY NOW

BOOKING

To book Kirk contact:
(415) 474-6159
poet@kirklumpkin.com

The poems gathered together in this book have previously appeared in many different magazines, anthologies, and online publications. These poems are the best of what Kirk has written over the last 20 years since his first book, Co-Hearing. Kirk has performed his poetry and music in festivals, clubs, bookstores, and cafes all around the San Francisco Bay Area and much of Northern California. He has also done poetry readings in England and Scotland under the auspices of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

All of the poems in this book were written to be spoken and to be heard. I urge you to read them aloud to yourself, to someone else, or at least to speak them inside your head. Then they will have a life of their own and reward you with the energies stored inside them. —Kirk Lumpkin

Comments on In Deep

"I'm deeply honored to have your poem for me [Walking in the Woods with a Poet] in a book with so many other wonderful poems. ...it's such a solid real illumination...consciousness mingled with your own consciousness.
Lovely, Michael "
—Michael McClure, Beat poet & playwright

"Kirk Lumpkin has been an important part of the Bay Area (and beyond) poetry scene for years, hosting readings in San Francisco and Berkeley, helping to facilitate the Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, and hosting open mikes at Burning Man. We're proud to see this new book gathering poems that are homages, poems that are evocative and tender love lyrics.

Here’s a haiku that show his environmentalist streak:

As for building dams
For most it would be best to
Leave it to beavers

At the core of Lumpkin's aesthetic is his affinity with nature, as well as a renegade-rocker penchant for the ecstatic.
In some poems, these unite strongly to charge a rich eroticism:

After the Harvest
Beneath the trees
plums and peaches and apricots
lie
in lascivious abandon
on the leaf-littered
orchard floor.
Their skins split open
in wet dripping lips
revealing
the seeds within.
Like dancers
that have madly danced
‘round the bonfire
of the summer sun
and have at last
collapsed,
or like sweetness gathering satellites,
self-pleasuring planets,
that have slipped from orbit
and crashlanded here,
or like fallen angels,
or like priestesses of love
that offer themselves
to any
who will taste their flesh
or plant their seeds‹
they offer themselves
to the Earth."
—Jannie M. Dresser reviewing in the Bay Area Poets Seasonal Review

"It's really quite an accomplishment to be able to sustain that level of passion and yet never show a lapse in craft or understanding of mechanics. Great work."
—Tim Peelers, Small Press editor/publisher, author of Waiting for Godot's First Pitch

"Kirk Lumpkin has been one of the Bay Area's leading eco-poets for a dozen years, and his new book, In Deep, brings a lot of recent work under one cover."
—from Recommended Books as Holiday Gift Ideas
by Art Goodtimes in The Telluride Watch

"Kirk Lumpkin is a progressive poet... Reminiscent of Emily Dickinson with its visual aesthetics, Kirk's poetry employs short lines and her famous sporadic use of dashes. But while Dickinson was reclusive and had to distance herself from the world to write about it, Kirk Lumpkin's brazen style conveys his intimate thoughts.
...His poetry can be direct...It can also be hauntingly abstract...Kirk Lumpkin's poetry...is memorable for it's brutal honesty."
—Michelle Thoeny, reviewing in Listen & Be Heard (free weekly)

Here's what more folks are saying about Kirk's poetry:

“From the Burning Man Festival to burning toxics in an industrial wasteland, these poems blaze with the passion of an activist, a poet committed to the defense of the biosphere. But in this volume Lumpkin also brings in the personal, his recent marriage, the death of this mother… here amidst the splendor and peril of our endangered planet.“
—David Shaddock, poet, author of "Dreams Are Another Set Of Muscles"

“It’s a treat to hear Kirk’s powerful ‘rock on out’ voice alone without his fine band of musicians, The Word/Music Continuum—his poetry is passionate and strong. ...he is grabbing, pulling and punching, caressing, molding words in tactile fashion as a sculptor might do— earth, trees and all living creatures …you will hear in his words."
—Jesse Beagle, poetry host, poet/songwriter

“When future poetry readers want to know how poets of the late 20th and early 21st century envisioned the future era, they will find very few hopeful portrayals. Mostly there will be silence, as many poets (even now!) haven’t turned their craft to the work of creating hopeful visions, and quite a few of the visions being created are—to say the least—bleak. By contrast Kirk’s poetry, fresh, visionary, hopeful, reads well on the page and sounds even better in person since Kirk is a consummate performance artist. Kirk’s poems impressed me from the beginning…and he has only gotten better over time.”
—Dennis Fritzinger, poet; poetry editor, Earth First! Journal

“Thank you again for a dynamite reading...Dale & I were applauding the Coyote piece [Your Muse Meets Coyote], a grand one. I like the range & variety of subjects. Flights of fancy & show of courage… One Love, Adam”
—Adam David Miller, poet, author of Land Between

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BUY NOW

MAIL ORDER: send a check or money order (written out to Kirk Lumpkin, write "In Deep" in the comment) for $10 plus $3 for shipping and handling to Zyga Multimedia Research, P.O. Box 3407, Berkeley, 94703-0407.

BOOKING

To book Kirk for poetry performances contact:
(415) 474-6159
poet@kirklumpkin.com

The Word-Music Continuum

The Word-Music Continuum is a unique performance ensemble uniting music with the spoken word:

Kirk Lumpkin – poetry & percussion
Paul Mills – guitar
Mark Wieder – double bass
(current band member)
Mark Randall – electric bass (on CD)

After The Word-Music Continuum’s self-titled first release in 1998 they performed at festivals, art centers, clubs, cafes, and bookstores around Northern California. The group then went on a performance hiatus, which was much longer than expected, to record Sound Poems.

Click here to read about the pieces on Sound Poems

Along with this new release, Kirk and Paul Mills welcome new band member, Mark Wieder on double bass, to The Word-Music Continuum.

“To say the house was rocked is an understatement. You were great! You showed us that the blend of word and music is limitless and that poetry has no bounds.”
—William S. Gainer of the Nevada County Poetry Series

“...powerfully performed...stunning performance...”
“You knocked us out...wonderful spiritual fusion of words/music!!!”
—Jesse Beagle, poet, songwriter, poetry host

“…The Word-Music Continuum was that mind-blowing!”
—Frank Moore, performance artist,poet,& Internet radio host

“The Word-Music Continuum isn’t trying to be something, it is something.”
—Robert Keller, songwriter, singer, guitarist

The Word-Music Continuum has performed with great success in diverse situations including: North Beach Festival, Lord Buckley Festival, Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, Burning Man, Telegraph Avenue Book Fair, Mills College, Ecology Center, Copperfield’s, Venue 9, Above Paradise, Cody’s Books, etc.

Kirk Lumpkin is a poet and author of In Deep and Co-Hearing; former host of the Café International Friday Night Performance Series (Bay Guardian Best of the Bay winner for “Best Spoken Word Open Mic”); lead vocalist with the WILD BUDS: West Coast Mardi Gras Band ; and has been a DJ with Free Radio Berkeley and Berkeley Liberation Radio. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies; he’s performed widely as a solo poet. He was one of the three creators of ZYGA Assemblage, which was on the Selection List of The Small Press Book Club

(“…innovative…a must for those intrigued by vanguard culture.”—Focus).

Paul Mills is a guitarist, composer, and producer. As a member of The Word-Music Continuum he contributes original music with Mark Randall and produced the group’s self-titled first album. He also plays guitar with Jazz Sabbath, a jazz-rock fusion band specializing in guitar-driven improvisations and the Mills Ensemble, a contemporary folk group.

Mark Wieder has been playing bass since 1985. He’s studied with Robert Ashley, Vince Delgado, and Anthony Braxton. He’s played with Aleph Null, Dick Oxtot, the Hot Club of Marin, the Shotgun Players, etc. His tunes have been performed by the Golden Age Jazz Band and the La Peña Latin Jazz Experimental Ensemble. He also plays with the Seething Brunswicks and the Blues Daddies.

Mark Randall is a versatile electric bass player that has recorded and performed with a wide array of rock, funk, jazz, blues, and fusion bands. He has studied at both the Berklee College of Music in Boston and the Jazzschool in Berkeley. He currently plays with the Wild Buds.

Kirk, Paul & Mark Randall were all formerly members of the Bay Guardian “Demo Tape Of The Week” winning band, DETOUR ( alternative rock-jazz).

About the pieces on Sound Poems:

1. Bone/Body/Spirit/Flower
(Kirk Lumpkin/Paul Mills/Mark Randall)
The words for this piece were inspired by an exhibition of paintings by Georgia O’Keefe at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco. (Paul and Mark add some extra vocals.)

2. Encountering Calder's Mobiles
(Kirk Lumpkin/Paul Mills/Mark Randall)
The words for this piece were inspired by an exhibition of Alexander Calder’s art at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

3. Noodle House
(Kirk Lumpkin/Paul Mills/Mark Randall/Dennis Mackler)
One night down at the rehearsal studio while the musicians were ceaselessly “noodling” on their instruments the vocalist began writing the words for this piece. (Note: this piece contains an expletive that some people might find offensive. Sorry to the those with sensitive ears, but it just seemed to be the best word in the context.)

4. The Words Trilogy
(Kirk Lumpkin/Paul Mills/Mark Randall)
I. Before Words
II. Words
III. After Words

5. Beyond Our Senses
(Kirk Lumpkin/Paul Mills/Mark Randall)
The “chorus” of this piece consists of a short list of things that most of us accept that science as absolutely proven the existence of even though none of them can be perceived by us directly through our senses.

6. Visual Pollution
(Kirk Lumpkin/Paul Mills/Mark Randall)
This is about something that has been with us at least as long as cities, but perhaps began to first enter consciousness as a possible problem with the cave paintings.

7. The Lakes of Band-I-Amir
(Kirk Lumpkin/Paul Mills/Mark Randall)
Kirk visited Band-I-Amir and Bamiyan in Afganistan in 1971. Both of these places have had long periods of peace, but their human history has also been one of many violent invasions. In 1973 Band-I-Amir was declared Afghanistan’s first National Park, but that had never become a functional reality before the Russians invaded in 1979.

The statues of the Buddha at Bamiyan were the tallest in the world with one 175 feet tall and another 120 feet tall. Though Bamiyan now seems quite isolated, when the statues were created between 200 & 400 A.D., it was a center of culture and art on the ancient Silk Road that connected China to the Middle East and Europe.
The words are the most recent version of a poem that first appeared, as the oldest poem, in Kirk’s first book, Co-Hearing (1983).

Thanks to editor David James Randolph for including what was then the most recent version of The Lakes of Band-I-Amir in CANDLES IN THE DARK: Preaching and Poetry in Times of Crisis (2003).

8. In The Dark
(Kirk Lumpkin/Dennis Mackler)
What you see can get in the way.

9. Bonus track: Information
(Kirk Lumpkin/Justin Baird)
A sonic journey is sculpted by musician/sound technician Justin Baird from the sounds of Strawberry Creek in Berkeley (plus a little keyboard by Paul). Starting with sounds gathered up Strawberry Canyon in the U.C. Botanical Garden near the Creek’s headwaters where you hear a child run across a footbridge and the birdcalls of a Black Phoebe and a Steller's Jay. The journey takes us downstream to where the Creek enters a culvert. (The Creek is culverted for most of its length except through the U.C. Berkeley Campus and in and around Strawberry Creek Park where it was resurrected by one of the first urban daylighting projects of an urban creek.) You hear the sound of someone jumping on a manhole cover above the culverted creek and finally the wind and waves where the Creek enters into San Francisco Bay.

This piece was created to be performed at the Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival which happens annually in Civic Center Park, Berkeley where it is hosted by Robert Hass (US Poet Laureate 1995–97). Thanks to festival director, Mark Baldridge and Poetry Flash Editor, Joyce Jenkins for the opportunity to perform this.

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Sound Poems
The New CD

MAIL ORDER: send a check (written to Kirk Lumpkin, and WMC in the comment) for $15 plus $3 for shipping & handling to:
P.O. Box 3407
Berkeley, CA 94703-0407.

BOOKING

(415) 474-6159
wmc@kirklumpkin.com

The people in this band have big fun playing this music and you can feel it. They blend the celebratory music of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras with rock’n’roll rooted on of our own West Coast. The music is rockin’, funky and bluesy, and you can dance to all of it. Many musical styles— all cookin' together in one fine musical gumbo. The Wild Buds are ready to rock your soul and the make the good times roll!

In their short time as a band they have played a lot of great events: Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras Celebration, Berkeley Farmers’ Market; People’s Park Anniversary Celebration; Cajun & More Festival, Civic Center Park, Berkeley: Benefits for Food Not Bombs, Humanist Hall, Oakland; Ashkenaz; and lots of East Bay parties.

The personnel have performed in many styles from alternative rock to jazz and from American traditional music to poetry-music fusion.

Their bands: Shadow Government, Jazz Sabbath, The Word-Music Continuum, Backstep, DETOUR, Colette Washington’s Naked Soul, Mud Boy and the Pond Scum, The Jammies, etc.

Venues played with these bands: Ashkenaz, The Last Day Saloon, Stork Club, North Beach Festival, Burning Man, Venue 9, New George’s, Starry Plough, The Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Mill’s College, People’s Park, Cato’s, Cafe International, Cody’s Books, Above Paradise (Paradise Lounge), The Lord Buckley Festival, Berkeley Square, Nevada County Art Center, etc.

Also, look forward to the forthcoming Kirk Lumpkin, David Andrews, & friends album of original rock songs.

Wild Buds Song List

Covers

Iko Iko (traditional)
Hey Pocky A-Way
(Meters, Wild
Tchoupitoulas)
Cissy Strut (Meters)
Baby, Please Don’t Go
(traditional)
Big Boss Man (Jimmie Reed)
Jambalaya (Hank Williams)
Green River (Credence
Clearwater Revival)
Proud Mary (Credence)
House of the Rising Sun
License To Kill (Bob Dylan)
Crossroads (Robert Johnson)
Thank You (Falettinme Be
Mice Elf Agin) (Sly Stone)
Little Sister (Elvis)
Brother John(Neville Brothers)
Wild Night (Van Morrison)
Black Magic Woman (Santana)
Where Are Gonna Work
When The Trees Are Gone?
(Darryl Cherney/Jello Biafra)

Originals

Keep On
Maybe Baby
Power
One
Survival Dance
Here Before Chant
Shadow Man
The Elemental
The Chorus Frog Song
Wild Buds Song
Positive Voodoo
Run Wild

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WILD BUDS
West Coast
Mardi Gras Band

Kirk Lumpkin
(lead vocals, percussion)
Mark Randall
(bass, backup vocals)
David Andrews
(guitar, backup vocals)
Bill Lackey
(guitar, back/lead vocals)
Ted Higgins
(drums)