Poet Tino Villanueva to read at The Somerville News Writers Festival Nov. 14, 2009

Poet Tino Villanueva to read at The Somerville News Writers Festival November 14, 2009 7pm at the Armory Arts Center

By Doug Holder

The Somerville News Writers Festival is hitting its seventh year thanks to the folks at The Somerville News, Tim Gager, and the spanking new Armory Arts Center in Somerville. This year Tim has secured the services of such writers as Rick Moody, John Buffalo Mailer (that’s right Norman’s son), Steve Almond, Margo Livesey, and Kim Chuinquee. I had the pleasure of booking poets Sam Cornish, Richard Hoffman, Tam Lin Neville, Frank Bidart, and Tino Villanueva. Villanueva is a Senior Lecturer of Romance Languages at Boston University, and recognized as one of the most important Chicano voices today, according to the The Texas Observer. The noted poet Martín Espada opined that Villanueva was “…central to the vibrant Hispanic literary scene that began flourishing in Boston during the 8o’s.” Indeed Villanueva has no doubt influenced a whole generation of Latino writers.

Villanueva, who had youthful aspirations to be a baseball player, published in Boston in the 1980s an influential internationally focused literary magazine Imagine, and has published a number of critically acclaimed poetry collections, as well as works of criticism on Spanish poetry. His collection Scene from the Movie GIANT won a 1994 American Book Award. His other books include: Primera causa/First Cause (translated by Lisa Horowitz) Shaking off the Dark, Chronicle of My Worst Years, and others. I had the opportunity to catch up with Villanueva before he started his busy teaching schedule at Boston University.

DOUG HOLDER: You have completed a set of thirty-two poems titled: So Spoke Penelope (poems based on Homer's Odyssey) that is written from the point of view of Queen Penelope, Odysseus's wife. Penelope waited 20 years for Odysseus' return from the Trojan War. Do you think there are contemporary applications for the modern woman today considering we are in a constant of war in Iraq and Afghanistan?

TINO VILLANUEVA: In a couple of places Penelope does comment on the war--you bet there's a connection with our current involvement in two wars. In the final analysis, she holds an anti-war attitude which is also part of her agony and lament, asking at one point: “Cannot the gods bring on all-out peace? / Enough with this madness." And a bit later: "people have not always relished war, / and the rage of armies clashing gives me pain."

Beyond that, the book is about absence, and having to wait twenty years makes her--for all intents and purposes--a war widow, and Odysseus an M. I. A. These are, certainly, two consequences of war, and it's my belief American readers will identify with Penelope's predicament, especially those whose memory runs from the Korean War onward to this moment of Iraq and Afghanistan. In Penelope's case, she's quite fortunate her husband returns.

DH: You really dig deep into the mind of Penelope--her dream state, mind vs. body, what she prays for, etc. You wrote that Homer only gives us glimpses into her mind set. Was this because during this era in history a woman's mind was not deemed worthy of a lengthy exegesis?

TV: This may be true, but not so fast--give Homer some credit. In The Odyssey, Penelope is regarded as "wise Penelope." She is shrewd, smart, and wily, I would say, enough to match wits with Odysseus when he finally shows up (disguised as an old man) at the palace in Ithaca.

Now then, I was being very specific: what I said is that Homer does not reveal much about Penelope's ideas on weaving. It would've been quite extraordinary if the poet had given us a glimpse into her views on the craft on working with wool--Penelope as weaver, Penelope as artist, as it were. In more than a couple of my poems she launches into this facet of herself, especially in these two: "In Color and in Cloth" and "A Width of Cloth."

DH: You said in The Texas Observer that you didn't want to live in a literary ghetto. At any time in your career were you being forced into that direction?

TV: The quote actually says, "literary barrio." And it's true that, in the past several magazines / journals have asked me to contribute to their "Chicano Issue," let's say, or their "Latino Issue," when, really--if my work is of any merit--they should simply invite me to the mainstream pages they publish the rest of the time. I appreciate that a journal would want to showcase my poems, but I bristle a bit when editors try to pigeon-hole me. I don't always write about the Chicano reality, you know. As a poet, I write on many subjects; I'm not a one-trick pony. Not unlike Denise Levertov's strong conviction of wanting to be invited to read her work for being a poet, not for being a woman.

DH: You are an accomplished artist. I have seen your prints in a number of lit mags. How did this art develop? Is it in confluence with your poetry? Whom are you influenced by?

TV: I don't know if I deserve the "accomplished artist" label, but for me it started summer of 1973 when I went to see an exhibit of William Blake's watercolors at the Museum of Fine Arts here in Boston. I had seen several ads around town for the exhibit, and was curious as to this Blake fellow who had the same name as the poet I'd read as an undergraduate at Southwest Texas State University. Could it be the same person, I wondered. That drew me to the MFA one day in August, and what a surprise--a poet whose poems I admired turned out to be a painter as well. That opened my mind to the idea one could possess two creative outlets, could be a writer "and" a painter at the same time. Quite a revelation that was, believe me--it changed the direction of my creative life, to be sure.

So I went out and purchased a watercolor set, some brushes and the appropriate paper, but soon thereafter, to my dismay, I discovered that watercolors are not that easy to master. All the more respect I poured on Mr. Blake. But what a let down for me. I have to say I squarely faced what could've been a ego-busting setback by promptly promoting myself to acrylics, and then to oils, the results of my efforts with these media being more satisfactory. Then I moved on to pastels, and wound up working with collage, and my own mixed-media of sorts: a combination of watercolors, crayon, and pencil and pen. Journals such as Green Mountains Review, and TriQuarterly have displayed my art work on their covers. And in 2003 Parnassus published one of my drawings in its inside pages. TriQuarterly, I remember, wanted to buy Dreamscape (1989), the painting they'd published, but I declined. It hangs proudly in my livingroom. As to the painters I mostly gravitate towards, and whose work holds my undivided attention: Kandinsky, Klee, Miró, any of the Futurists, plus Picasso and Braque for their Cubist view of life.


IN COLOR AND IN CLOTH


It’s done…finished.
Three days ago, as an impatient sun was dropping fast
behind the sea,
and a starlit sky appeared, I finished it—
a piece of cloth in wool that took too long to weave.
Half a year dragged on, but at last I have it:
the likeness of Odysseus,
splendid husband and gentle father to his infant son.
One day I managed from early dawn to dusk,
then until the brightness of the morning shone again
to keep on weaving, to get it right. And there it is
folded up across the bed in color and in cloth.

Now, when the sting of absence is too much,
when the weariness of why-keep-waiting wears me out,
I reach for it to satisfy my love-struck eyes.
The background: I’ve simply made it dark,
against which stands Odysseus looking rapt into my eyes.
Beside us—our longest table in the palace hall, and
because he’s speaking to me,
I gave him speaking lips. He’s telling me he doesn’t
care for war, that he loves me “to the Pleiades and back.”
In turn, I’m offering wine to him from my wooden bowl.
A long pose from each of us,
standing there,
is what I remember most: he and I glowing
from two bowls of sweet and mellow wine.

Need I say I pleasure in bringing out this piece of cloth—
such felicity unfolding it,
running my hands over it, and embracing
both ourselves each time.

—Tino Villanueva

Appleseeds--- Poetry anthology from Sacred Fools Press

Appleseeds
$10.00
Sacred Fools Press
Johnston, RI
www.sacredfoolspress.wordpress.com

Review by Renee Schwiesow


Anchored by poems honoring Johnny Appleseed, the anthology “Appleseeds,” a Sacred Fools Press book edited by Melissa Guillet, germinates scattered seeds page by page which offer us blossoms of poetry that produce the fruit of Americana.

The compilation weaves its way across our nation with highways of words that speak to the many, varied and honored traditions and cultures that have become part of our nation’s quilt. Our American family is represented in a patchwork of color, much as Michele Sackman posits in “The Quilting Bee.”

These small pieces of cloth pieced and sown onto a white
cotton top

creating memories. . .

Guillet has artfully chosen the pieces needed to fashion this quilt on paper. And a beautiful quilt of talented poets “Appleseeds” is. What remains with me are the people showcased in the lines and stanzas of the work, the people who are at the heart of every American hour. John Flynn takes us back to the North End of Boston in the early 60’s with his “In Praise of Boston Aunts.”

In The European restaurant
Perry Como and Vaughn Monroe
croon out of the jukebox.
Aunts Louise, Etta, and Anna play hopscotch.
I trace them back to Holy Days,
Monsignors and hopeful pews,
Masses in Latin when weddings were easier
to trust.

Lewis Gardner relates another Boston aunt story in the humorous “A Gift from Great-Aunt Prudence.” In the mid-60’s, during a period of “liberated consciousness,” Great-Aunt Prudence innocently makes a purchase of hand-carved hands with their middle-finger upraised:

One night a little old lady –
since this was Boston, a very Bostonian
old lady – brought six of them
to my counter. “Such lovely ring holders,”
she said to me, “just the thing
for my grandnephews this Christmas.”

While aunts and mothers, grandmothers and sisters-in-law star the pages of the book, it is not only the members of biological family that swell our emotions: Sheila Mullen Twyman breaks our heart only as Sheila Mullen Twyman can with her soulful, “On the Fourth Day,” a southern Spiritual sang to the tune of the New Orleans Flood in 2005.

He was always amazed his lips could blow his horn
as sweet and easy as spitting out cherry pits.
He marveled at the way his long fingers
could flutter endlessly, effortlessly
up and down on the valves
redirecting his breath from the lead pipe
through the brass innards and out the flared bell.

But now his lips are cracked, his hands shaky
from too long sitting in putrid waters,
in the heavy, humid air that takes his breath away.
Not like those nights he used to sit for hours
playing through clouds of weed
smelling smoldering tobacco and
spilled bourbon drying on tabletops.
Lord, I been sitting in this tree
like a parrot on a perch for days now. . .
ain’t nobody coming for me?

And through Sheila’s empathic understanding, we take him; we take his plight to the bosom of “family” too.

I cannot end without giving Laura Lee Washburn’s ode, entitled “S & H Green Stamps,” a mention. A must read for those of us whose tongues have not forgotten the bitter taste of the glue that was tolerated happily as the book pages swelled with the stamps and the promise of iron stone dishes or Teflon pans came closer to reality. Yes, those S & H stamps are, too, an oft-remembered part of what makes this land, the land that was made for you and me, America.

Transcending the Dilemma, Blowing out the Moon, the poetry of Philip Hasouris

Transcending the Dilemma, Blowing out the Moon, the poetry of Philip Hasouris


article by Michael T. Steffen


There is something to be said, in this age of great technical production, of an art that sinks through the concern for its production to attain the primary language of human thought in crisis, the self-doubt and humility exemplified in the poems of Philip Hasouris in his new book Blow out the Moon.

Fred Marchant has called Hasouris “unflinching, devoted and determined,” and indeed Hasouris’s approach is that of a documentary film maker, close inside, though not literary like James Joyce and T.S. Eliot, reminiscent of those masters of Modernism in his side-stepping of conventional written language to trace the stream of his thoughts as they come in their anti-heroic uncertainty, contradiction and even exacerbation at the limits of comprehending experience.

In the middle of the night
I felt you leave,
the pillow empty,
hollow sound of the clock echoed time.

It was just me crying.
It was just you closing the door.

The morning wept on the outside world
no rainbows,
empty sound of nothing
edged through my body.

It was just me walking into walls,
trying to find my way
stumbling graceless into the unknown,
demanding to make sense.

Again and again thrown into similar dilemmas of the spirit [of a particular context clarified by commentary from other scholars and writers throughout the book] Hasouris copes and abides with admirable dedication to his difficult inspiration, by putting words to his pain and wonder, regardless of expectations or satisfaction.

Readers find fruit in breaking down predeterminations on any author they read and live with for a time. The survival of a love documented by Blow out the Moon ultimately attests to how Hasouris’s special moments with poetry, that mirror he sits at, is near and intimate and binding to us all, transcending the permutations of our lives to the ground fact and mystery of our being.

Philip Hasouris “has been featured at many local and national venues. He was founder of the performance group, Spiritous, which combined poetry, music, and movement. He has performed with a variety of musicians in improvisational jazz/poetry, collaborated in the making of the CD, Dreams and Schemes, and a second CD with music by Adam Mujica, Cross the Double Line, and published a chapbook, Swimming Alone.

“With fellow poet, James G.H. Moore, Philip coproduced the poetry video series P.L.A.C.E.S. (Poetic Language Artful Communication Elemental Speech), filming poets in their homes, creative space and natural surroundings, giving the audience a virtual tour of the inner workings of poetry.

“Philip is the Co-host of the Brockton Library Poetry Series, www.gbspa.org.”

Blowing out the Moon by Philip Hasouris is available for $15 from
Beachcomber Press
27 Strawberry Lane
Scituate, MA 02066

A Cup of Comfort for Breast Cancer Survivors

A Cup of Comfort for Breast Cancer Survivors
$9.95
Adams Media, Avon, MA
www.adamsmedia.com and www.cupofcomfort.com


Review by Rene Schwiesow

It is a yearly inconvenience, the mammogram. First one, then the other breast clamped in between cold plates, flattened, not into a pancake, but a crepe. Yet it is this yearly inconvenience that offers the authors of “A Cup of Comfort for Breast Cancer Survivors,” the opportunity to share their stories. As the subtitle says, the book is full of inspiring words that celebrate the courage and triumph of woman, man, family and friends over breast cancer. Here, the saying it takes a village to raise a child expands itself into it takes a village to birth a new life, to grow in ways previously unimagined as these woman have.

My initial reaction to the first few stories was fearful and sad and sitting in the doctor’s office waiting for a routine check-up, I wondered if bringing the book to read had been a grave mistake. I mean who wants to read about long-term illness, about loss of hair, about painful recovery when waiting to see a doctor? Indeed, who wants to read such material anytime? Yet, though tears leaked their way out and rolled down my cheeks despite my attempts at swiping them away, it only took those first few tales to uncover the real story and the depth of honesty brought realization. The depth of honesty made it very clear that the common bond those diagnosed with breast cancer have is one that will never be severed. These are soul sisters who can and do show us how to live.

A few years ago, I was excited to have two out-of-state girlfriends visit me. We spent a couple of relatively sleepless days in laughter, playing tourist, rehashing old parties, sharing stories about our children in preschool, then elementary school and beyond. On the last of our evenings together while we sat on my screen porch, each wrapped in a blanket on a crisp October evening, two of us received the news that the third had breast cancer. She was clear and articulate in her goal of overcoming the dreaded diagnosis. Her breast cancer had been detected in the very early stages and treatment allowed us to be together again, just two years ago. This book is a legacy for the millions of women who share her story.

Maria Judge, who was born in Germany and raised in Ireland, Chili and India, is a Boston area writer and survivor of breast cancer. In her story, between the covers of this Cup of Comfort book, Maria writes with conviction and courage. She tells the tale experienced by many who sit in the chemo chair, while red poison flows into them, killing deadly cancer cells but leaving them weak and without hair. Maria speaks candidly but with humor about confronting her hair loss, preparing herself to let go of her tresses bit by bit, about the process of acceptance and the vulnerability and insecurity one goes through to get there. She not only writes it, but also lived it admirably. With love, support, Dove bars and Dolly Parton wigs, Maria survived her deepest fears and while she may sport a few physical scars, she spins any psychological trauma into reminders that she has endured, and that not even the tears, could scar her survivor spirit.

But before you write this off as a chick-book, the men that have put pen to the page in this book will set you off on another swell of emotion. These men are the wind beneath the wings of their cancer diagnosed wives, mothers or girlfriends. And they are a reminder to all of us that breast cancer is not just a woman’s disease. It is a disease that affects all members of a person’s family as well as their co-workers and friends. It does, indeed, take a village and what an inspiration these stories are for us to embrace those who are part of our lives. What an inspiration for all of us to live now, in the moment, when it counts.

Rene Schwiesow, co-owns an online poetry forum (www.poemtrain.com) and is a co-host for The Art of Words: Mike Amado Memorial Poetry Series in Plymouth, MA. Rene can be reached at duetsdove@yahoo.com

What Americans can learn from Gypsy culture: A talk by Sonia Meyer

What Americans can learn from Gypsy culture









Littleton Massachusetts – September 1 2009 –Wilderness House Literary Review is pleased to announce a one hour lecture by noted Gypsy (Roma) scholar Sonia Meyer at 7:00 P. M. on October 14 2009 at the Out of the Blue Gallery in Cambridge Massachusetts. Tickets are $5.00 at the door.

Sonia Meyer will speak about the Roma (Gypsy) culture and what we can learn from them in this high tech, money-worshipping society. She hopes the audience look inside the Gypsies self-exiled world, and come to realize that their freedom is available to all of us.

Sonia Meyer was born in Cologne, Germany in 1938 and spent her formative years living in the woods among partisan and Gypsy fighters during WWII. She has been fascinated by Gypsies, or the Roma people ever since becoming a self-educated scholar of Roma (Gypsy) culture.

Meyer, who may indeed be part Gypsy herself has been intrigued by the freedom, the art, and the celebration of magic and mysticism of the Roma people. She encountered them throughout her travels in Europe, and struck up fascinating conversations with these enigmatic vagabonds. She lived much of her life like a Gypsy, moving from city to city across Europe, and eventually landing in the states. In Geneva she worked with Jewish refugees, she spent time with the Bedouins in the Negev desert, eventually moving to the States.

In the narrow and winding stacks of the Widener Library at Harvard she discovered a translation by Matteo Maximoff, Russian Gypsy, which concerned Russian nomadic Gypsies. She visited him, and traveled to Macedonia to visit the so-called “Queen of the Gypsies,” and lived with a family in the Gypsy section of Skopje where the Gypsies were well off.

She is the author of a novel to be published in the Summer of 2010. “Dosha” is about a Gypsy girl. The novel spans her childhood spent with Russian partisans in Polish forests to her defection during Khrushchev’s visit to Helsinki on June 6, 1957 “Dosha” will be published by Wilderness House Press (www.wildernesshousepress.com) and will be excerpted in the spring issue of Wilderness House Literary Review (www.whlreview.com ). For further information see www.soniameyer.com.

For further information contact Steve Glines (sglines@industrialmyth.com ) 978-800-1625 – Industrial Myth & Magic (www.industrialmyth.com ) is a public relations firm specializing in literary persona and events.

The Soil of Industry by Ezra Ben-Meir

The Soil of Industry
by: Ezra Ben-Meir
Reviewed by: E. Hanson

Ezra Ben-Meir is, I am ashamed to admit the first Israeli poet I have read. His book, The Soil of Industry, is of interest on many levels. First, it is about a finite space of time (1978-1991); this said, these thirteen years of themed poetry deal with his great love of his work and with his day-to-day living.
I would like to compare a visual artist to a word artist because of their very different approaches to their art. Henri Rousseau who was a provincial man, (termed 'a primitive' by most), was a great visual artist; who worked as a postal worker in Paris. His day-to-day existance was, one can only imagine, to be repetitive and deadening. Rousseau used escapism as a theme for his art. ie. The Dream (the lady and the tiger painting at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City)
Unlike Rousseau, Mr. Ben-Meir hunkers down and in this book of verse doesn't try to escape, but he does quite the reverse, he pays homage to his life as a metal worker.
Walt Whitman has written volumes on this theme of the common man. So I would say that this loyalty and his struggle to accurately convey in poetry these thirteen years is admirable, this is what I like about him.
He is a traditionalist in his approach, trying out many different forms as a vehicle for this homage. He writes about what he knows on an intense and intimate level.
I enjoyed the last poem in this collection, "The Hardness Tester", because, like E.E. Cummings, Mr. Ben-Meir uses the visual form of concrete poetry to reinforce his poem. He has woven technical information with the lyric. ie. And I quote:

"...A world never to
glisten lustre on human hands
ordered and reordered
properties, seg-
regated and
aggregated
by the
Standard Hardness
Tests"

In conclusion, this reviewer would like to state that Mr. Ben-Meir juxtaposes human vulnerability with the power of metal and I will be very interested to read more than this "five percent" of his poetry. I had an e-mail correspondence between myself and Ezra Ben-Meir in which Mr. Ben-Meir states that he is "contemporary". However I will still stick to my original statement that I feel Mr Ben-Meir is a traditionalist. ie. On his web site one can find some haiku such as (281) haiku, "The Earth Cried", because not only in form, but also in content and in the heart of the matter, Ezra is a traditionalist in the finest form.

Reviewed by: Elizabeth Hanson