A day-long celebration of Steve Cannon's life this Sunday

Steve Cannon, the writer and poet who founded the East Village-based magazine and gallery A Gathering of the Tribes, died this past July. He was 84.

There's a celebration of his life tomorrow (Nov. 3) at various locations throughout the neighborhood. Select details follow (find the Facebook invite here with more information) ...

• 1 to 1:30 p.m.: Gather in front of the old Tribes Gallery building at 285 E. 3rd St. between Avenue C and Avenue D

The renowned Rebirth Brass Band from New Orleans, will kick it off.

• 2 p.m.: Salutations, poetry, music, dance.

Rebirth will be joined by NYC musicians via the Arts for Art “Artists for a Free World” marching band, spearheaded by William Parker.

• 3 p.m.: The Second Line will stop in Tompkins Square Park for poetry music and dance.

• 3:30 p.m.: Exit at 9th Street, Second Line continues west to 2nd Avenue, north to St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery

• 4 p.m.: Doors open to indoor music by downtown jazz (Vision Festival, Arts for Art) with snacks and drinks available in the Parish Hall until 4:30 p.m. (music continues in Sanctuary which will conclude w/ poetry performance by Anne Waldman w/ Melanie Dyer (viola).

• 4:30 p.m.: The formal service begins, with family, speakers, poets, films, Poets Choir, and a short play by Steve.

Remembering Steve Cannon

Steve Cannon, the writer and poet who founded the East Village-based magazine and gallery A Gathering of the Tribes, died this past Sunday. He was 84.

There's a celebration of his life tomorrow at the Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery between Bleecker and Houston. Here are a few details via the Facebook invite:

A gathering to remember Steve Cannon and collectively mourn his loss will be held this Sunday, July 14, at the Bowery Poetry Club from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

A more formal memorial service/celebration of life will be held in October, so that those who live out of town, or who are currently traveling for the summer may attend. Details about the memorial service in October will be announced soon.

On Sunday, in addition to featured speakers, a sign-up sheet will be available at the Bowery Poetry Club for those who wish take the stage and share a story of remembrance, a poem, a song or dance, or anything of your choosing, in honor of Steve.

We ask that all who take the stage keep their artistic remembrances to under three minutes in length, respecting the large number of people who will wish to share.

RIP Steve Cannon

[Image via Facebook]

Update: A gathering to remember Steve Cannon and collectively mourn his loss is set for Sunday, July 14 at the Bowery Poetry Club from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Steve Cannon, a local cultural icon who founded the East Village-based A Gathering of the Tribes, died this past weekend. He was 84. A cause of death was not immediately known.

Cannon, who was born in New Orleans in 1935, had been recovering at the VillageCare Rehabilitation and Nursing Center on West Houston Street for a broken hip, according to The Villager.

In 1991, Cannon founded A Gathering Of The Tribes as an arts and cultural organization "dedicated to excellence in the arts from a diverse perspective." It started as a print magazine at the time that he lost his eyesight to glaucoma. Through the years, A Gathering of the Tribes evolved into a salon of sorts in Cannon's East Third Street apartment for artists to meet and exchange ideas.

As The New York Times Style Magazine described it in a February 2018 feature: "It was a living monument to Lower Manhattan’s lineage of multicultural artists and thinkers — people who often get overlooked in favor of narratives of and by successive generations of self-destructing, gentrifying white bohemians — but it was also an all-hours open house, where all were welcome (even the gentrifying white bohemians) and an essential site of Lower Manhattan’s last gasp as the center of the avant-garde."

Here's more on Cannon from that Times piece:

Cannon ... came to New York in 1962, and even before he founded Tribes, he played such a role in New York’s counterculture that he has become a kind of oracular figure to those who have encountered him. In the early ’60s, he convened informal discussions about music and literature with writers like [writer David] Henderson and [his friend Ishmael] Reed and other members of Umbra.

In the 1970s, Cannon ran a publishing house with Reed and the poet Joe Johnson that was one of the first independent presses to focus on multicultural literature. The painter Gerald Jackson once saved him from drowning in the Hudson River. Sun Ra used to seek him out to tell stories about flying around in space. (“If he says he flew into space, then I guess he flew into space,” Cannon says.) He helped integrate the public university school system in New York by becoming an early faculty member at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, where he taught humanities. The composer Butch Morris refined his ideas of improvised music in his living room.

After a lengthy legal battle with his landlord, Cannon moved out of his longtime Third Street home in 2014, relocating to East Sixth Street.

Cannon's friends and followers have been leaving tributes these past 48 hours...

View this post on Instagram

Steve Cannon R.I.P😎🙏🏽🕊 I remember him always sitting at the corner of the bar at the NuyoricanPoets Cafe smoking a cigarette, long ash refusing to drop. A young poet prepares to take the stage to read/slam/spit his/her poem...but first begins to explain what the poem is about. Steve, the blind ogre with a heart of gold yells out from his sacred corner of the bar "Read the goddamn poem!" He seemed mean but he made us (me) better, made us (me) sharper less afraid to take the stage and just "read the goddamn poem" without apology or explanation. He loved us poets. He toughened us. He is gone. There are more stories more memories... more than more, much more. This is just one of the so many more that popped in my mind. For you Steve I will READ THE GODDAMN POEM #stevecannon #nuyoricalpoetscafe #tribes #blackpoet #apoetsangel #readthedamnpoem

A post shared by Liza Jessie Peterson (@lizajessiepeterson) on Jul 7, 2019 at 9:14am PDT

View this post on Instagram

we love you madly Steve Cannon. Poet. Professor. cultural leader. Gatherer of souls. you did everything imaginable for artists and for our city. you showed us that Magic was still here, despite the new york changes, showing us what yesterday was Like and what today could be. your Space fostered countless new relationships, visions, creations. I found my way to the Tribes doorstep as a wandering 18 year old artist looking for something real.. it changed and illuminated everything. we Honor you by the continuation of generations that Thrived because of your selfless work and your love. we love you madly madly madly. (photographs © No Land, one by @chavisawoods and one by Gaia squarci) @a_gathering_of_the_tribes @bobholman @illybeats #stevecannon #gatheringofthetribes #tribesgallery #umbrapoets #lowereastsidenyc

A post shared by No Land (@nolandtapes) on Jul 7, 2019 at 9:44am PDT

We'll update the post when more details are available, including news of a memorial.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Musical interludes: Steve Cannon plays piano at Tribes Gallery

A Gathering of Tribes faces an uncertain future on East Third Street

Musical interludes: Steve Cannon plays piano at Tribes Gallery

Love the ending. Video by Jim Flynn. Learn more about Steve Cannon and A Gathering of the Tribes on East Third Street here.