Happy New Year 2009 from the Ibbetson Street Press

( Original Ibbetson home at 33 Ibbetson Street-- Poets from the "City of Poets Anthology"--the first anthology Ibbetson Street Press published---2000)

The Ibbetson Street Press and the Ibbetson Street Journal have been around more than 10 years now. Back in 1998, while sharing bagels at the Breuger Bagels in Porter Square Cambridge, arts/editor Richard Wilhelm, and my wife poet Dianne Robitaille decided to start the Ibbetson Street Press. We started as only a magazine, but eventually started to publish books and chapbooks of poetry. Our first collections were authored by Don DiVecchio "Earth Song," "The Life of All Worlds," by Marc Widershien,among others. Now in 2009 we have published over 50 collections.

"Ibbetson Street" the magazine, has published folks like the late Sarah Hannah, Mark Doty, Afaa Michael Weaver, Diana Der- Hovanessian, Danielle Georges, Ed Sanders and others over the years. Our books, magazines, and poets have been featured in The Boston Globe, Small Press Review, Verse Daily, WGBH, WBZ(Radio), NPR (Writers Almanac), The Boston Herald, Mass Book Award, and many other places. Our books have been praised by Howard Zinn, sam Cornish, Victor Howes, Afaa Michael Weaver, Dzvinia Orlosky, Lyn Lifshin, Fred Marchant, Matha Collins, Kevin Bowen, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and other notables. Ibbetson books and magazines are subscribed to and or collected by such libraries as: Yeshiva University, Brown University, Yale University, Poet's House (NYC), University at Buffalo (SUNY),Harvard University, Stanford University, to name just a few. Ibbetson Street was represented on panels at workshops at the Cape Cod Writers Center, Mass. Poetry Festival, Endicott College, UMass Boston, and in April it will be part of a panel on Small Press Publishing at Harvard University. Because of the reputation of Ibbetson Street I was invited by the Israeli literary organization "Voices Israel" to lead workshops, and read from my work in Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. ( Dec 2007) It is a pleasure to see Ibbetson Street listed in people's credits in many literary journals. Just the other day I saw it listed in the American Poetry Review, Bloomsbury Review, Poets Market and other publications.

Since 2001 we moved to 25 School St in Somerville, Mass. This has been an incredibly productive time for us. Thanks to our landlords Patricia Wild and David Myers, we have had a great place to live and write, and we thank our lucky stars we can live in such a creative place as Somerville, Mass. I must say, Somerville is a truly unique community, and the town has been very good to me and the press.

Our satellite organization the "Bagel Bards" has taken off, and we have established a community of writers, who range from the highly accomplished to the aspiring. There are so many people but I can't list them all--I thank all the Bagel Bards of course.... my long time friend and big brother Harris Gardner, our thick-skinned designer and editor Steve Glines, Robert K. Johnson--our retiring poetry editor, Linda and Ray Conte, website gurus, Tim Gager (co-founder of the Somerville News Writers Festival)," The Somerville News, Dorian Brooks ( our wonderful copyeditor and great poet), Sam Cornish, Richard Wilhelm, Gloria Mindock (fellow holy fool), Hugh Fox (My small press mentor and crazy and brilliant uncle!) Afaa Michael Weaver, Irene Koronas ( new poetry editor), and the list goes on...

Hey money is tight...I still have a great gig at McLean Hospital, but I don't take anything for granted these days. But I want to thank you all for these great years!