The Sunday Poet: Michael C. Keith

Michael C. Keith

Michael C. Keith is the author/coauthor of 30 book volumes and dozens of articles on the subject of radio and broadcast studies. In addition to his non-fiction titles, Keith has published over a dozen creative works, including an acclaimed memoir: The Next Better Place––a young adult novel: Life is Falling Sideways––and several short story collections: most recently Slow Train and Perspective Drifts Like a Log on a River. Mad Hat Press will publish his next story collection, Let Us Now Speak of Extinction. His fiction has been nominated for several awards, among them the Pen/O.Henry Award, the Pushcart Prize, the National Indie Excellence Award, and the International Book Award. He is professor emeritus at Boston College.

After 


He’s deeply disturbed but has concealed that fact well enough to keep from drawing unwanted attention. He wonders what it is that has him clenching his fists and feeling the rise of his heartbeat? Is it the sudden darkness in the room or the icy air that seeps through a break in the windowpane that makes him so jumpy? He smells something, too, which puts him off . . . churns his stomach. A scent that rose from the freshly severed arm of an Afghan villager he rushed to aid as an army medic. Then there’s the rose-colored water that trickles onto his shoes as he slumps at the basin’s edge. Clare, he thinks, you shouldn’t have done it. His lover’s hand twitches in a postmortem spasm and he screams for her out of habit

Newton Free Library Poetry Series Feb. 13. 2018 Georges, Orlowsky, and Aguero

2018 JEWISH POETRY FESTIVAL SUNDAY FEB 4

 Deborah Leipziger (Curator of the Jewish Poetry Festival)

2018 JEWISH POETRY FESTIVAL

Contact: Deborah Leipziger, Curator January 10, 2018

Phone: 617-997-2701

Email: dleipziger@gmail.com

9^th Annual Jewish Poetry Festival at Temple Sinai, Brookline, MA

Sunday, February 4, 2018 from 2:00 to 4:00 P.M.

Deborah Leipziger, curator of the 8^th Annual Jewish Poetry Festival, announced the event will take place Sunday, March 5 from 2-4 p.m. at Temple Sinai’s Ehrenfried Hall, 50 Sewall Avenue, Brookline, MA.

Founded by Ms. Leipziger the Jewish Poetry Festival brings together Jewish poets as well as non-Jewish poets who write on Jewish subjects. Ms. Leipziger said, “Now in its ninth year the Jewish Poetry Festival has grown beyond Brookline’s borders and is a welcoming venue for not only our feature poets, but also for many people both Jewish and non-Jewish who have written poems on the central themes of family, community and Jewish life.

This year’s featured poet is Barbara Helfgott Hyett, a teacher and editor who has published five collections of poetry, most recently “Rift” from the University of Arkansas Press. The book won the Boston Foundation’s Father John Fellowship for Excellence in the Arts. Ms. Helfgott Hyett’s poems have appeared widely in journals and magazines including The New Republic, The Nation, Hudson Review, Agni and Ploughshares as well as in over fifty anthologies. Recipient of many grants, residencies, and fellowships, she works as a professor of English and is also the Director of PoemWorks, The Workshop for Publishing Poets, which was named “One of the Best Workshops in Boston” by the Boston Globe.

Master of Ceremonies for the festival will be Professor Larry Lowenthal.

An open mic will follow Ms. Helfgott Hyett’s reading and readers are asked to bring one original poem on one of the following themes: family, community or Jewish life. There will be a table at the entrance where those wishing to participate may sign up.

Refreshments will be served.

Doug Holder Interviews poet Michael Casey

Doug Holder Interviews writer, media scholar, Michael C. Keith

Boston Poet Walter Howard has passed....

Walter reading at Stone Soup---video from Chad Parenteau
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnF54wOtjho
 
Walter in the Somerville Times
 http://www.thesomervilletimes.com/archives/78768

Dear friends,

With her permission, I'm passing on a message from Joan Kimball, a good friend of Walter Howard. Please feel free to contact her at her email address below.

Dear Friend of Walter Howard,

                I am sad to tell you that we lost Walter today, Sunday, January 14, 2018. His brother Richard and Richard’s wife Pam called me this afternoon to let me know. After a private service, he will be buried in the family plot in Bridgewater, MA.

                I am glad that back in December he was able to enjoy the reading of his manuscript  by so many of his poetry friends.

                Also, just a week ago, Kay and I and some of Kay’s church choir sang to him while Verna held his hand and heard him sing a few notes along with us.

The book of 51 of his poems, “Walter Howard: Reflections in Moonlight,” edited by Debbie Martin and myself, to be published by Wilderness House, is almost ready to print. 

                From the book, here’s a piece toward the end of Walter's poem, “Apples of Immortality."

I am but an old harpsichord

With spine no longer steel.. 

I am but broken keys and spindly legs

A limp, faded old flag,

Father of uncertain notes. 

But I can still play

The old song

The earth sang in its youth.

    *     *     *

And we can flee! West!

West to the Garden of the Hesperides

West to the serpent-guarded gate!

West to the oasis where Christ stands!

Slay the serpent!

Storm the oasis!

Run with Christ!

Steal from the Tree of Paradise

Its apples gold!

In sorrow,

Joan

jawkimball@gmail.com

Artist Robert Goss: Recounts His Story and the Brickbottom Gallery's

Artist Robert Goss: Recounts His Story and the Brickbottom Gallery's

By Doug Holder

Robet Goss met me in the lobby of the Baker Building at the Brickbottom Gallery in Somerville, Ma. The Brickbottom is a noted artist residence, an exhibition space that has been in existence since the mid 1980s. Goss, is a 70ish man, with a full gray/white beard and a genial, folksy manner. He led me to his space, that on first impression looked a bit like a junkyard—but on closer inspection these throw away objects have come together to form Goss' art, and make a statement about his life. I walked around the space and saw disembodied plastic hands sprouting unexpectedly from the walls,  and contraptions like a record player, with a picture of a brain rotating on the turntable. There were old medical records on display, news clippings, heads of dummies staring at me with piercing eyes—all detritus that is essential to Goss' work. He walked around the space like some scholarly docent stooping and squinting at his creations.

Goss is not some isolated bohemian eccentric, but a founding member of the Brickbottom Gallery. He is an accomplished artist who has exhibited locally and nationally. He is the co-director of the Invisible Cities Group that creates large outdoor installations and performances.

Years ago Goss was living in the Fort Point Channel section of Boston—now a high end 'hood with the likes of Amazon and General Electric vying for space. In the 70s and 80s Goss was paying three dollars a foot for his space, but he and others in his community saw the writing on the wall—they knew they would be eventually displaced. So he and his band of artists, with the use of posters, regular mail, word of mouth, made a great grassroots effort to bring the Brickbottom to fruition. The building—in the hinterlands—just outside Union Square was a defunct A&P food plant—and a cold storage warehouse. There were a total of three buildings. After getting together a rather large group, this ragtag army of artists and others managed  to raise 7 million dollars from banks, donations, and the help of the Somerville Arts Council. Goss told me that the place did not look like some sleek Tribeca building. He said, “ It was a mess. Outside the building was a burnt out car, and a lot of discarded bric- a- brac. He, Lisa Bouchard (the office manager), and others worked out of a trailer.

Goss, who lives with his wife Susan, an accomplished artist who teaches at Wellesley, told me that the late Jack McLaughlin—the construction manager was an essential person, liaison, in the nascent process. Goss said, “He was able to deal with the mercurial artist and the bottom line real estate broker, equally well.”

Spaces at the Gallery were determined by a lottery, and of course people had to submit slides and a resume to show that they were serious artists. Predominately comprised of visual artist at first, the gallery now houses theater people and writers.

Goss' archival process is in the infant stages. But he hopes to have the original members of the association tell their stories. Like his collection in his space, he hopes to collect stories, photos and anecdotes, that will create a compelling narrative of this institution.
 

The list of artist who have lived here, and presently live here is impressive. Goss just listed a few prominent folks like Susan Schmidt, Pier Gustasson ( photography), Chris Enos( photography), but this only a grain of sand in the Sahara.

Goss has his own compelling story. He told me that he suffered a traumatic brain injury. As a result of this he suffered from a condition called, Anhedonia. This condition manifests itself with the loss of pleasure with things that usually brought you pleasure. In the case of Goss it was jazz. Goss was steeped in the jazz tradition and witnessed the “Loft” and club scene in New York in the 60s and 70s. He told me he saw Thelonius Monk play as well as Mile Davis and others. During his rehab he went through a MRI. Goss said, the rhythmic knocking, tapping, while he was in the machine, might have jump-started his brain. He remembers hearing a song by King Pleasure on the radio. And suddenly everything came back to him.

Goss is not a pretentious man. He works at his art out of his own passion and interest, and if it communicates something to people—then all the better. He alters photo images, he combines text—he brings back the archaic—and makes it contemporary. He says his art tells the story of his life. And hopefully his band of brothers and sisters will tell the fascinating history of the Brickbottom Gallery.

The Sunday Poet: Tomas O'Leary

Poet Tomas O'Leary

Tomas O'Leary -- poet, translator, music-maker, singer, artist and expressive therapist -- has a volume of New & Selected Poems from Lynx House Press: "In the Wellspring of the Ear."  His previous books of poetry are "Fool at the Funeral,"  "The Devil Take a Crooked House,"  and "A Prayer for Everyone."  His poems have  been published in a wide variety of literary journals. 

    A teacher for many years — (college, high school, elementary, adult ed) — he has worked for the past couple decades with folks who have Alzheimer's, playing Irish accordion and eliciting cognitive and emotional responses through songs, stories, poems, & free-wheeling conversation.

    Tomas grew up in Somerville, a son of Irish immigrant parents, and went from there to South America in the mid-60’s as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia. He unearthed the gist of “Earthquake” from a journal that lay buried 50 years.

Earthquake (Colombia, '67)

Don Chucho loaned me a nice horse

that had no name, nor had the horse

a name for me.  We anonymities

ate breakfast and set out

early one morning from the pueblo

over the  hills and far away.

Magnificent, the air, the vista,

furry clouds that rested softly

on the mountain palms beneath us,

because where we were was high.

A scary-hairy gargantuan spider

gave us pause, but we sidled round it.

My mission was to find the house

of don Miguel, campesino-in-chief,

to drink aguardiente with him and his

cohort of tillers of very steep farms,

and talk of the small school we'd build,

and eat boiled chicken and drink

more aguardiente. It's not hard

to get lost in these hills when you're just

a green gringo from Somerville, Mass.

Unsure where I was, I finally spotted

a house on a distant rise.  It was dancing

crazily, pots and pans clanging

where they hung on the veranda.  Then

the ground beneath my horse

seemed anxious to abandon us.

All credit to the horse, who said

no way, and started back, and I went with it.

Upon return I found

the town had fallen down, at least by half.

The church was gone completely, the bank

and many houses.  My horse was glad

to be free of me, though I sensed

no egregious insult.  I walked

the ruins of the town, Roncesvalles

of Tolima in Colombia, sole gringo

in this pueblo of maybe a thousand,

Peace Corps ruminant looking for work.

Struck dumb by an earthquake, plunged smartly

into rubble with the rest.

                                      --Tomas O'Leary