The Somerville News Writers Festival.
Nov. 12 2006.
Front (center) Elizabeth Doran
Back (right) Dianne Robitaille
Click on pictures to enlarge.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Here is a fine letter by poet Afaa Michael Weaver regarding the Somerville News Writers Festival held Nov. 12 2006... a festival not without controversy...
Hi Doug, Tam, and everyone else here,
I did stay for the second half, and it was fine. David Godine
was visibly pleased.
Overall, I would say the festival was a success, having
organized a few such things in the past. It is impossible to please
everyone. There are things that could be improved, but one of the
major factors for success as I see it was the venue. Jimmy Tingle's
is the perfect place.
If you think it was a wild time, we should reflect on some
wilder times the poetry scene historically has had, and I must
admit that lately I have been a little concerned about a growing
sense of what I call "Wall Street Careerism in Poetry". It is nice
to see a little of what some think is unevenness...or perhaps
the "great growl of a roughened poetry." Call it whatever...
Baltimore's poetry renaissance of the early eighties made the
Somerville festival look tame. & don't forget Ginsberg's unveiling
of his metaphor in San Francisco where Phyllis Diller (sp) was one
of the poets in black.
I am glad there is so much energy, and although I live
on one of the hills here in the town, it is not because I think there
is a place for looking down or looking up.....just looking out over
the landscape of things. I like to curb the Poet Ego whenever
I can....need it as we do...let us not let it bite us in the caesura.
So I say look forward to next year. Give much thanks
to Jimmy Tingle...give much thanks to Doug.
& thanks to Tam and everyone else who wants to add to
all of the "great growling."
best,
--Afaa the Cave Canem Elder Who Lives in a Cave
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Other Investigations. ( Vol. 1, Issue 1) Nov. 2006 http://otherinvestigations.blogspot.com/ $5 investigations @gmail.com
Local writer Ilya Zaychik, and former editor of the defunct magazine “Stationaery,” magazine, has produced with Dave McNamara, Bonnie Rubrecht, and Lauren Macleod, a chapbook ‘zine of poetry: “Other Investigations.” McNamara’s,( the founder of http://www.sunnyoutside.com/), hand in this enterprise is evident, as the production speaks first rate production values. There is also fine art by LauraLee Gulledge , and Michelle Ramirez.
There are a number of essays and some poetry in this first edition. J.D. Smith has an interesting article on that publishing enigma-- the chapbook, titled: “Chapbooks, Why?” Smith does see the value of these little gems—although he admits they are almost always a commercial failure. Tom O’Hare has a very clever poem “ Baby Steps,” that compares getting the right words together to a row of dominoes falling or not falling into place. “Other Investigations” is another interesting addition to the small press scene.
* the editor is looking for submits investigations@gmail.com
Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Monday, November 13, 2006
I want to thank all who attended the festival. It was very touching to see so many of my friends and fellow writers there cheering me on. That applauseI got when I first came on--really meant a lot to me. I want to thank The Somerville News, Grub Street, Porter Square Books, , Steve Glines, Harris Gardner, Tim Gager, Emily Singer, Jimmy Tingle, and others, as well as all the readers for their participation.
The winner of the Ibbetson Street Poetry Award is : Michael Cantor for his poem "Lament"
And the runner up is : Jacob A. Bennett for "Zeffirelli's Lovers"
The winner of the Ibbetson Street Poetry Award is : Michael Cantor for his poem "Lament"
And the runner up is : Jacob A. Bennett for "Zeffirelli's Lovers"
Saturday, November 11, 2006
THE HOLE IN SLEEP
By Corey Mesler
Edition 87 of 410 copies
$9 softbound
Wood Works Press
Review by Lo Galluccio http://logalluccio.com
There is much to commend about this little elegantly made poetry book called, "The Hole in Sleep." In its gray softbound pages lie shortish but deeply felt lyrical elegies to night and its strange ecstasies.
"Being asleep is easy. Being awake is too. But the transitions between the two are ghastly.
--John Bishop
This uneasy declaration of emotional wisdom is inscribed in the opening page. It makes one consider the in between time -- that idea of something missing or absent in the transition into sleep and the subconscious mind from wakefulness.
The packaging includes two finely wood-cut postcards, one the opening poem of Mesler’s called "Night of Desolation," which ends with:
"Electricity recoils. I love you.
‘Who did you say you used to be?"
The other bizarrely enough is a quote from Richard M. Nixon, that deranged and derided President of ours who is known as much for Watergate and impeachment as for "Nixon in China" a post-modern musical.
Nixon declaring the importance of freedom of speech seems to harbor deep irony, but perhaps it is also a token of the good nature of the press.
There is a poem about the Zen Buddhist Ikkyu’s bird. The bird he had killed which he lays at his teacher’s feet. "In the morning the bird was next to Ikkyu’s mat, that morning and many more after. Ikkyu’s bird." So the bird is once again alive, bucking the transition or a ghost who Ikkyu must sleep with.
There are erotic numbers like, "Cock-a-Hoop":
"Your mouth on me like a poem.
Your slim backside bent over
me like a poem. Your sweet vaginal
lips in my mouth like a poem.
And afterwards the holycow feeling
of just being human and
satisfied like a goddamn poem."
I suppose what I like about Corey’s diction is that it’s natural, even corny to him. And for that reason these poems are treats – like slivers of chiffon cake or soda bread; whatever, they are satisfying and mostly very well crafted. I like the modesty of them and the architecture.
He even opens a poem called "Nightwork" with a Tom Waits lyric from his CD Bone Machine, "We’re innocent when we dream." This aligns with the whole hole in the sleep theme of this book. The poem is about a therapist’s transference onto Corey as a patient while he sleeps:
"I feel reprimanded. I want so to please him, don’t you know, he’s that father figure. I go to bed at night trying to dream myself a cure, a way out, a dream that will --- O sing! It’s all I can do to keep from waking."
Most of the poems presented were published previously in different journals and magazines. I think this book, so handsomely put together, and zen-like in its beauty, has been hard earned. I recommend that you read it.
Lo Galluccio
Ibbetson St. Press
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Sweet Curdle. Cathryn Cofell. (Marsh River Editions M233 Marsh Rd. Marshfield, WI. 54449) http://marshrivereditions.com $10.
Cathryn Cofell has written a beautiful and bloody collection of poetry about being a woman, mother and lover. The poems here scream authenticity; the language is evocative, and at times arresting. In the poem “Wrappers” Cofell traces her carnal life with men through the very blood she sheds. In these passages we see a portrait of a young girl’s sexual awakening, and an old woman’s sad/sweet resignation:
“You’re twelve and in love with the boy next door,
only you don’t quite know it yet.
That tingle between your legs
is something you fumble for while your sister sleeps,
while you are awake and dreaming.
You play married, practice that first boy kiss
against your pillow, hide pennies under
your tongue to imagine his taste.
The next day you’re doing laps in the pool
and suddenly blood is everywhere.
You check the water for sharks.
You dead man’s float but no one comes
to save you. This is how you learn
you are a woman: a pool of blood,
underwear packed with toilet paper,
a grocery bag handed over without words,
filled with pads and belts, too many loose ends…
You will bleed through two weddings, one divorce
twelve intrauterine inseminations,
twenty-five pregnant friends,
half a dozen bloated tirades on the way to the movies,
the gas station, through the lipstick aisle at Sears,
a thousand reasons to reject science or God or both
until your done,
done in,
chewed up like a piece of sugarless gum,
bled out like an old brake line,
scooped out like a pumpkin,
all your insides dumped, bagged, tied with a twist,
taken to the curb,
your outside shell washed clean
and grinning.”
In “Expectant Mother” the poet compares her poetry to her life as a doting mother:
“This is my life’s work
a conductor, open and waiting. Limp
from the weight of midnight arias,
afternoon rehearsals. Manic as sheet music,
holding notes like babies. Some will grow
to become riffs, songs, symphonies.
some will not; I will be so full
of the blues I will bang
their small backs until they are still.
None will be what I imagined. At best,
an anthem whistled in gauze, a myth of spittle."
Highly recommended.
Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Grace. John Hodgen. (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pa. 15260 http://www.upress.pitt.edu/ ) $14.
I had the pleasure to hear John Hodgen read at the “Out of the Blue Art Gallery” in Cambridge, Mass., as part of the locally popular “Open Bark” music and poetry series hosted by Deborah M. Priestly. Hodgen impressed me as a humble man with a great talent. Hodgen, is a man who I presume, has experienced a lot of the shit out on the street, and has the good fortune and talent to report back to us. Being a middle-aged man I would have to say I was greatly affected by Hodgen’s poetry. I think behind many of my ilk’s dour and doughy countenances, a visceral battlefield of broken dreams and unrealized ambitions still fester. And Hodgen acts like a spokesperson for our “quiet desperation.”
This brings me to the poem “ Men Lying in Fields.” I remember when I was in my late teens, lying down in the midst of a cornfield in upstate New York, and seeing each stalk wave in a fragrant summer breeze; a sort of pastoral symphony of movement. (I was stoned of course!) In this passage Hodgen wonders if in fact his long-gone grandfather ever took the plunge in a field before life chained him in with so much baggage:
“ And I wonder if in his twenties he ever wished to lie in a field,
simply that, the way Thoreau did, before wandering off to Walden,
if he plucked at sweet grass, whistled through it, wondered what to do with his life,
before giving it over to Allis Chalmers and God,
the promise and swath of eight sons in a row.
I wonder in the arc of his arable dreams if he ever envisioned me,
the way I think of him now, the way Noah thought of places
the sons of his flung birds might find, leafy with dreams and silt.” (5)
And in the poem “Proof,” Hodgen looks at the corpse of his father and imagines it as a work of art:
“ When they brought us to see him one last time,
sheet drawn, draped over his chest like chalice cloth,
da Vinci’s Last Supper, his body swollen, sweet tableau,
his torso, head, like Easter Island, Jobson’s Bay,
the turtle shell that holds the restless world.
Remember the blood vessels that had burst into burgundy,
into hieroglyphs, the blotches like brushstrokes,
like the scrawls of a graffitist stuck in a wrong century,
some tagger spray painting his zodiac sign
on the scrolls of the Houses of the Dead.” (28)
Hodgen has penned a masterful work that has left me deeply moved. Highly Recommended.
Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ Nov. 2006
Thursday, November 02, 2006
I first encountered the work of Somerville writer Patrick Smith through a small press publication he put out. I came across it in a Laundromat on Oxford St. in Cambridge, Mass. during my “rent control” days. Patrick Smith is an erstwhile airline pilot, and author of a popular weekly column on http://www.salon.com “Ask The Pilot.” An adaptation of his columns was recently published by Riverhead Books, “Ask the Pilot.”
Doug Holder: Patrick can you talk about the small press ‘zine you put out in the early 90’s?
Patrick Smith: It was called “Stargreen.” It was a name I made up. It sounded good. It was an indulgent literary ‘zine for lack of a better term. Most of the contributors were “me.” I had an occasional poem and travel essay. It had an airplane story now and then. Some of the same stories I used in that zine back in the early 90’s, the skeleton of them, were used in the book: “Ask The Pilot.” They actually come up in some of articles in Salon.com.
DH: Pagan Kennedy, another Somerville writer, started of by self-publishing her own ’zine. Is this a good way to break into writing—get your feet wet— can it lead to other things?
PS: It’s good practice. For some people it is a compulsion, and it is a release. I always have had a latent interest in writing. It wasn’t anything I necessarily thought that I could use vocationally. So my ‘zine was a way of getting my stuff out there; even though very few people actually saw it. I don’t know if it is a way to get a start. More importantly, being good at what you do, is the main thing. Having a niche you can exploit is important. Writing about air travel was nothing that anybody was doing—at least in the way I was doing it. Being lucky; and knowing a few well-placed people, is good to have too.
DH: What was the first writing gig you were ever paid for?
PS: The first thing I ever was paid for was a music review. It was a review of a long-forgotten jazz band “The Jazz Butcher.” It was for the “Utne Reader.” A friend of mine was an associate editor and he got me the assignment. Once you have one article under your belt…it is easier to get the second and so on.
DH: Do you have any formal education as a writer?
PS: Does going to high school count? I went through flight training school. No formal training in writing.
DH: Are most pilots trained in the military?
PS: About half of overall pilots are from the service. On the major airline level it’s about 70 to 30. This is not true at the smaller, regional carriers.
DH: What is the first question people usually ask the pilot? What is the first question they should ask?
PS: The majority of questions pertain to safety. Most questions I am asked are not about flying. Mostly I am asked about the airlines and their safety records. The airline travel is what excites me. The book is not bogged down with stuff about physics, wing flaps, etc...It’s about the industry. A meditation about air travel to me is a meditation about culture. It is not so much on the plane, but where the plane is going. If I hadn’t hooked up with the airlines I would never have gone to the more than 60 countries that I visited. People today don’t see the airplane as romantic like I do. I try to encourage people to see the airplane as more than just a means to an end. It is not just a way to travel, but part of travel itself.
DH: When I fly I feel that I am in the air held up by tons of metal…a very unnatural act.
PS: Fear of flying is a tricky thing. It comes in two forms. There is a tangible aspect to it like “What if this happens?,” A questions like that is something someone like me can answer. There is the other visceral fear that people have that they can’t even put into words. That is something a psychiatrist should deal with and not a pilot.
People always ask me how a plane gets in the air and stays there. If you supply anything with enough lift and power you can make it fly. A 747 weighs almost a million pounds. It flies pretty effortlessly because it has so much power, and because it is so big it creates a lot of lift.
DH: How safe is it to fly?
PS: Recently they found that flying in 2006 was six times safer than it was 25 years ago. This is with twice as many planes now carrying twice as many passengers. We have better technology, better training—those are the two main things. As a percentage—fewer and fewer flights are crashing. Everyday, around the world, about 5 million people fly a commercial plane. There hasn’t been a catastrophic accident since 2001. These numbers speak for themselves.
DH: When is the most dangerous part of the flight?
PS: If you have to be neurotic and worry—it is the takeoff. That’s when you make the big transition from ground to flight.
DH: How have airlines received your book?
PS: Airlines are strange and paranoid animals. There is a mentality around airlines that goes “When something happens, we’d rather not say anything at all.” This creates a climate of mistrust.
When they do talk they have a habit of talking down to people. It makes the operation seem unprofessional. They don’t talk about safety, or use safety as a marketing tool. Why stir the pot?
DH: Any new projects in the works?
Nothing radically different. There is a second book in the works about air flight, but from a very personal view. It will consist of anecdotes about trips I took around the world, cockpit tales, etc….
DH: The movie “Flight 93,” about the ill-fated flight during the 9/11 fiasco—how accurate was it?
PS: It was very accurate. There was an actual pilot, an actual stewardess in the movie. Technical aspects were true to life. It didn’t portray the passengers as heroes. They were portrayed as a group of people in a horrible situation, and how they did the best they could with it.
Doug Holder
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
McIntyre & Moore Booksellers hosts a reading of Ibbetson Street Press:20th Issue followed by an open micSunday, November 26, 5:00 pm
(Ibbetson Poets at the original 33 Ibbetson Street Location, in Somerville, Mass.) left to right: (front row) Linda Haviland Conte, Askia Toure, Richard Wilhelm, Marc Goldfinger, (2nd row) Rufus Goodwin,, Gloria-Deo Agbasi, Robert K. Johnson, Sue Sullivan (back row) Don DiVecchio, Doug Holder, Aldo Tambellini, Dorian Brooks, Joanne Holdridge, Jack Powers.
(Somerville, MA) McIntyre & Moore Booksellers hosts a reading of Ibbetson Street Press: 20th Issue, followed by an open mic. (open to all)Sunday, November 26, 5:00 pm at McIntyre & Moore Booksellers, 255 Elm St. in Davis Square,
Somerville, near the Red Line. Free and open to all; wheelchair accessible. 15% book discount* for all those attending [*discount available for day of event only]. For information call McIntyre & Moore Booksellers (617) 629-4840 or log onto www.mcintyreandmoore.com.Ibbetson Street Press, an independent press based in Somerville, not only celebrates the release of its 20th issue, but also the fact that it has been a champion of the local literary community since 1998. The magazine has received several picks of the month in The Small Press Review and is included in "The Index of American Periodical Verse." Contributors to this issue are Sarah Hannah, Gloria Mindock, Affa Michael Weaver, Harris Gardner, and many others. The reading will be hosted by Ibbetson’s founder Doug Holder. All past and present contributors are invited to read. For more information on Ibbetson Street Press, log onto www.ibbetsonpress.com.
McIntyre & Moore Booksellerswww.mcintyreandmoore.comOn the Red Line, in the heart of Davis SquareGreater Boston's best source for scholarly used booksOpen for browsing 7 days a week until 11 pm
Monday, October 23, 2006
The Confidence Man. Poems by Michael R. Brown. (Ragged Sky Press 270 Griggs Drive Princeton, NJ 08540) http://michael.brown.name/ $10.
Michael Brown, the resident graybeard of the Boston-area poetry scene has a new collection of verse out: “The Confidence Man.” Brown’s poetry is an interesting mix of jaded wit, irony, and world-weariness. The last poem in the collection: “Jon Shea and Teaching,” made me pause because Shea was the founder of the “South Boston Literary Review,”, and the short-lived “Journal of Modern Literature.” Shea died a couple of years ago at the still fairly tender age of 48. Brown resurrects Shea so he can reflect on his own years of teaching, which he reveals is even more important to him than his writing. In the answer to a question from the always offbeat and colorful Shea, Brown riffs on the classroom, and takes a poetic poke at some posturing colleagues:
“It’s like I told him when he asked earlier about teaching and
writing. If I had to give up one, I’d give up writing. Just like
today, I got some student evaluations for my classes last
semester. They have about thirty questions like,” Is prepared for class” and they score one to five. In each set I get one four and all the rest are all fives.
I thank my supervisor for taking all the bad ones before
he gives them to me, and he thinks he’s a good teacher and I’m a wise-ass. I go to the teacher’s lounge and say it’s time to write
my thank-you note to the registrar. Some of those teachers
have been there 25 years and never get good students. I get
them all the time. (85)’
In an excellent poem “BJ’s Poetry Store” Brown takes a swing at the use of prepackaged or clichéd language in the poetry world. He imagines a discount store, where the merchandise is second hand language for bards:
“ …But this BJ shit has me worried.
Big white sheets of paper announce in blue block letters—
rural American figures of speech/
$5 a dozen/6 dozen minimum,
tough urban images/ 2 for a dollar/ boxes of 10.
Inside, the aisles are littered with case-sized lots
of canned poetry pieces; frozen iambic pentameters
are stacked high in Styrofoam trays;
and anyone can afford them.
Soon open readings will be endless,
and the only real poetry will be the conversations
of those who won’t buy language,
and say nothing while everyone else reads.” (200
Brown’s range is wide and he takes in everything from the sculptor Alexander Calder, to the image of the actor Johnny Weissmuller (“Tarzan”) at the pool at a very pedestrian Motel 6.
Brown offers a thoughtful and engaging read. Recommended.
Doug Holder/Ibbetson Update/Somerville, Mass. /Oct. 2006
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
