June Gross, the widow of Ed Hogan, the founder of Somerville's Aspect Magazine and Zephyr Press, gave me Ed Hogan's small press collection. Here is only a partial list of what's in the collection. I am going to approach several university libraries about starting an Ed Hogan collection. He was a very significant figure in the small press. Doug Holder

William Corbett-cassette tape- ( Zoland Books Cambridge, Mass.) "Readings from On Blue Note."
William Corbett-book- On Blue Note- ( Zoland Books -) 1989.
Country Pleasures. John Gill. ( The Crossing Press 1975)
We, The Generation In The Wilderness. Ricardo Feierstein. ( Ford-Brown&Co. 1989)
Circle Meadow. Gerald Hausman. ( Bookstore Press- 1972)
Winter Bells. W.D. Ehrhart. ( Adastra Press- 1988)
Poems: Wadsworth Handbook and Anthology. ( Wasdworth Publishing Company-1969)
The Testament of Israel Potter. William Doreski. ( Seven Woods Press- 1976)
Gerard Manley Hopkins Meets Walt Whitman In Heaven and Other Poems. P. Dacey. ( Penmaen Press 1982)
War Stories. H. R. Coursen .( with letter from the author to Hogan) ( Cider Mill Press 1985)
Root Song. Cid Corman. (-Potes and Poets Press-1986)
Harmatan. Paul Violi. ( SUN NY-1977)
Morning Passage. Janine Pommy Vega. ( Telephone Books) 1976.
Pocahontas Discovers AmericA. Miriam Sagan. (with announcement from the press: "She belongs to that group of small press poets who have not made it to the poetic 'big time,...' ( Adastra Press- 1993)
Leaving The Temple. Miriam Sagan. (signed by author.) ( Zephyr Press. 1984)
Acequia Madre. Miriam Sagan. (with letter to Hogan from author.) ( Adastra Press. 1988)
Vision's Edge. Miriam Sagan ( with letter to Hogan from author) (Samisdat 1978.)
The Drunken Boat. Eric Greinke. ( Free Press-1975)
Changing Faces Betsy Scholl. (autographed by author.) ( Alice James Books 1974)
Buffalo Poem. Nathan Whiting. (Pym-Randall Press. 1970).
The Adastra Reader. Gary Metras. ( Adastra Press 1987)
World Alone. Mundo A. Solas. Vicente Aleixandre. ( Penmaen Press 1982)
The Outer Banks. W.D. Ehrhart. signed by author. ( Adastra Press-1984)
Evidence of Johnny Appleseed. Robert Dunn. (1975)
The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ. Galway Kinnell. ( Houhton Mifflin- 1974)
After the Storm. Poems of the Persian Gulf War. Edited by Jay Meek& F. D. Reeves ( Maisonneuve Press 1992)
Life According to Motown. Patrica Smith. (with inscription from poet to Hogan.) ( Tia Chucha Press Chicago 1991).
Frank. An International Journal of Cotemporary Writing and Art. Winter 1997/8.
Channel. Barbara Jordan. ( Beacon Press- 1990).
Freeway Problems and Others. Lawrence P. Spingarn. (signed by author. )( Perivale Press. 1970)
Runaway Pond. William Corbett. ( Apple-Wood books 1981)
Rival heavens. Keith Althaus. ( Provincetown Poetry Series-1993.)
Riversongs. Michael Anania. signed by the poet. ( Uni. of illonois Press-1978)
Oriental Woman with Various Flasks. letter from author to Hogan included. (Lennox Blvd Books 1978)
In Baltic Circles Paul Violi (Kulcher Foundation-1973)
Quicksand Through The Hourglass David Morice. ( The Toothpaste Press-1980)
St. Patrick's Day. Wiliam Corbett. (Arion's Dolphin-1976)
Half of the Map. William Doreski. ( Burning Deck Press-1980)
A Cantata for Ground Hog Day. Bob Dunn. (Greenleaf Books-1971)
Hearts In Space. Maureen Owen. (Kulcher foundation-1980)
In The Americas. Robert Bohm ( Panache books, Inc...-1979)
Notes from New York and other Poems. Charles Tomlinson. ( Oxford Univ. Press-1984)
Noise and Smoky Breath. Edited by Hannish Whyte. ( Third Eye center-1983)
Where Rivers Meet. Bob Arnold. ( Mad River Press-1990)
Rafting Quivet Creek. Tom Bridwell (salt-Works Press-1976)
Winning Hearts and Minds. War Poems by Vietnam Vets. (1st Casualty Press-1972)
Willingly. Tess Gallagher (Graywolf press-1984)
Personal Effects. Robin Becker. Helena Minton. Marilyn Zuckerman. ( Alice James-1976)
Cache. Bob Arnold. 9 (Mad River Press-1987)
The Poets's Encyclopedia. (Unmuzzled Ox Editions-1979)
The Bend,The Lip,The kid. Jaimy Gordon. ( Sun NY 1978)
The Outer Banks and Other Poems. W.D. Ehrhart. ( Adastra Press-19840
Hawker. Robert Peters. ( Unicorn Press-1984)
The Gift to be Simple. Robert Peters.( Liveright Press-1973)
Shooting Stars. M. LaBare ( swollen Magpie Press-19820
Beasts in Clothes. Harold Witt. ( The MacMillian Press-1961)
Don't Think: Look William Corbett (signed by Corbett with note to Hogan) (Zoland 1991)
Mondo Barbie. edited by Lucinda Ebersole and Richard Peabody.( st. Martins-1993)
Back Talk. Robin Becker. ( Alice James-1982)
Quarry. Carol Oles ( Univ. of Utah Press-1983.)
Mocking BirdWish Me Luck. Charles Bukowski. (Black Sparrow 1972)
Burning In Water/Drowning In Flame.Charles Bukowski. (Black Sparrow-1974)
I'm In Love With The Morton Salt Girl. Richard Peabody ( Paycock Press)
Just For Laughs. W.D. Ehrhart ( Vietnam Generation Inc&Burning City Press-1990)
Well Spring. Sharon Olds. (Alfred Knoph--1996)
Botulism. Frederic Will. ( Micromegas Chapbooks-1975)
Crossing The River Twice. Stratis Haviara. (Clevland State University Press-1976)
Running Backwards. Barbara A. Holland (signed by Holland) Warthog Press-1983)
Play the Piano Drunk. Charles Bukowski. ( Black Sparrow-1979)
Sure Signs. Ted Kooser. ( with a review by Hogan inserted) ( Univ. of Pittsburgh Press-1980)
Contend with the Dark. Jeff Schwartz. Against That Time. Ron Schrieber. ( with review by Jim Kates enclosed) (Alice James-1978)
A Limerick Rake. Desmond O'Grady. ( Gallery Books-1968)
The Old Chore. John Hildebidle. ( Alice James-1981)
Sounds of the River Narvanjana. Armand Schwerner. ( signed by author with note to Ed Hogan)
Avelaval. Lindsay Hill. (Oyez-1974)
A Local Habitation and a Name. Ted Kosser. (Sole Press-1974)
1990. Michael Klien. ( Provincetown Town Arts Press-1993
Tree Taking Root. David Wilk. ( Truck Press- 1977)
Soon It Will be Morning. Michael Hogan. ( Cold Mountain-1976)

Review by Lo Galluccio http://logalluccio.com

Blood Cocoon, Selected Poems by Connie Fox
Pres :s: Press P.O. Box 792 Rockford, MI 49341
Presapress@aol.com
October 1, 2005
It’s August, that month of hazy zenith summer and the ultimately turning, turning into fall. There are already dead leaves on the sidewalks but we’re not supposed to notice them. Fallen leaves belong to autumn, as so many great jazz singers have intoned. My poet of the month is not a neighborhood maverick, but a far-flung genius from Detroit, MI, who writes up past and present in glorious, strange and tantalizing language.
If Walt Whitman had been a woman, all of nature would have been reconfigured to a different time, zone, place. That is what Connie Fox’s poetry makes me believe. And it’s Whitman who this free verse of gorgeous and engorging poetry reminds me of most.
From the title poem: Blood Cocoon, "small epiphanies you take me into your secrets I’ll take you into mine, rigid white sprouts out of rich decay….Inside Fushia, the world streams, monkeys across the stone faces of god."
The landscape (and inscape) is Brazil, in the first set of poems of the collection. And the modality is intense and sensuous femininity, an exploration of the colors, curves, adornments that make sex both sublime and the life force nocturnal:
"blending red into pink until my lips talk to my eyes red rose on a white door eating strawberries strawberried fingernails…"
The transformations abound, from nature to human, from nature to gods. Again primal sexuality dressed up: "I hitch up her skirt over her sacred black-sueded legs spread sacred black flowers…." From The Dream of the Black Topaz Chamber. And in verse 21 she writes: "Through a plane of crystal and the nipples, peace descends, shroud against Magdalena-Kali face, the image of bloody hands in white…" So she makes reference to two goddesses of Christian and Hindu beliefs, both extreme, both contentious – Kali the destroyer and bringer of life, black mane of hair, many arms and a necklace of men’s skulls around her neck. The Magdalene, who has recently been redeemed – first by Christ and then by scholarly and popular writing as the holy goddess whore and possible partner to Christ. This verse crescendos with: "belief futuring into infinite orgasms of coronary expansion."
And later in this long poem the declaration that: " I believe in legs and disbelieve in wheels, that the elimination of death invites the all-Death to suck the All-Juice out of our world." …"that my glands secret the gods and my closed-eyed inner ecstasy is the why of creation." The poem comes from a sojourn on the Island of Santa Catarina, Brazil.
My favorite poem centers the collection before a devolution into a section on family and scientific cosmic decay. Connie is haunted it seems forever and shaken out of the caresses of ancient earth into the modern realities of time and death…."I pretend to forget for hours, years, but the hum is always there like cosmic microwave background radiation, the deep base HUM…."
Nachtymnen: 1.Night we evolve back into ourselves in veloured liquid sleep, the enemy eyes of the day people attack our DECLARATION OF ANTI-CONSCIOUSNESS…" And more, "I am wrongless, stainless, a shining obelisk of blackvirgindeath tourmaline."
In an end note Connie writes: " So the poetry itself is a kind of Jungian-Freudian Id-history of my entire life, from grandmother to mother to my own adulthood, my own relations with the world around me, more and more inselving until finally, at age 73, I reach a kind of sometimes, not-often ecstatic stasis."
I love this book.
This review was written for The Cambridge Alewife and the Ibbetson Press Review.

LYRICAL SOMERILLE: JENNIFER MATTHEWS
The Somerville News
"Somerville's Most Widely Read Newspaper!"
July 27, 2005

With the frantic pace of contemporary life it is increasingly rare that we have the time to sit back and reflect, and just let things happen to us. In "Silver Waves of Mercury," poet Jennifer Matthews creates a space, sets an atmosphere and lets the reader enjoy the solitude and silent beauty of a Japanese garden. To find out more about Jennifer go to: http://www.jennifermatthews.com/. To have your work considered for the Lyrical send it to: (Doug Holder 25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143) dougholder@post.harvard.edu


Silver Waves of Mercury



Japanese garden
Palace of Zen
Mother of Lotus
And blossoming wind...
She passes no judgment
But glides easy like spirit
Over each silken plume...
In this place of solitude
Where contemplation is at it's best...
Answers come inevitably like morning and sun...
I find a seat in the mossy moonlight
Where heaven reflects stillness
On soft water pond

*This article originally appeared in http://www.someothermagazine.com

Off the Shelf with Doug Holder/ The Somerville News/ Interview With Spare Change News

One of the many newspapers hawked on the streets of Somerville and the surrounding area is Spare Change News. What’s unique about Spare Change News is that it is sold by a unique population: the homeless. Founded in 1992 as one of the nations’ first street newspapers to benefit the homeless, Spare Change News’ headquarters is located in the basement of the Old Baptist Church just outside Harvard Square and publishes a twice-a-month paper with a circulation of 8,000. Spare Change’s mission is to provide income and skill development to people who are either homeless themselves or are on the brink of homelessness. Through the writing, production and sale of the paper, participants in this enterprise will hopefully be able to acquire the skills to realize an independent life in the community. Spare Change News provides an avenue for expression and a forum for advocacy for the homeless population. So often the homeless are viewed as unmotivated misfits. Working for Spare Change News can only help change this image of this population. I spoke with Samuel J. Scott , the editor, and Kate E. Bush, the poetry editor, about their experiences with the paper on my Somerville Community Access TV show “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
One of the many newspapers hawked on the streets of Somerville and the surrounding area is Spare Change News. What’s unique about Spare Change News is that it is sold by a unique population: the homeless. Founded in 1992 as one of the nations’ first street newspapers to benefit the homeless, Spare Change News’ headquarters is located in the basement of the Old Baptist Church just outside Harvard Square and publishes a twice-a-month paper with a circulation of 8,000.
Spare Change’s mission is to provide income and skill development to people who are either homeless themselves or are on the brink of homelessness. Through the writing, production and sale of the paper, participants in this enterprise will hopefully be able to acquire the skills to realize an independent life in the community.
Spare Change News provides an avenue for expression and a forum for advocacy for the homeless population. So often the homeless are viewed as unmotivated misfits. Working for Spare Change News can only help change this image of this population.
I spoke with Samuel J. Scott , the editor, and Kate E. Bush, the poetry editor, about their experiences with the paper on my Somerville Community Access TV show “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: Samuel, we discussed the mission of the Spare Change News (SCN). What is your mission as an editor? What’s your vision for the future of the paper?
Samuel J. Scott: One of our purposes is to report on homelessness and poverty in the area, nationally and worldwide. How do I do this? Our offices get press releases, we get tips from sources and we talk to people about what’s going on. We write about about how the governor’s budget might affect homelessness, will Bush cut the HUD budget, things like that. We use our news sources to get a picture of what’s going on. Then I send our reporters out to investigate story.
DH: What’s your vision for SCN?
SC: I have been editor for about a year now. When I came on board I revamped it. I wanted to make it more professional. I wanted it to jump out at you. When you walk down the street I want you to want to buy it. What I want SPN to be is the paper people read when they want to read news about homelessness and poverty. If you read the Herald you are not getting anything. The Globe covers it to an extent. But we have a niche market here. We just cover a certain set of issues. I would like to think we do it better than any newspaper in the area.
DH: Kate, you are the poetry editor who succeeded Don DiVecchio. Do you look for any particular, style or theme in the poetry you review?
Kate E. Bush: Poetry is the ultimate subjective art. My job is difficult because I have to judge something that doesn’t lend itself to judgment. I tend to look at things that deal with homelessness, poverty, and economic injustice. I tend to prefer these themes on a certain level, but I prize quality, and craft over the subject matter.
DH: Are you a poet? What do you write about?
KB: I write about everything. I’ve actually gotten the opportunity to read a lot of different poets. I have found some wonderful poets locally and around the country that I would like to consider my peers in the community.
DH: Sam, do you have homeless writers on staff?
SC: It depends what you mean by writer. I have different sections in the newspaper. Different people write for different sections. The news sections are written by freelance writers or volunteers. We have a section titled: “Voices from the Street,” that is by people who are homeless. This section is full of essays, and stories from people who are currently homeless. These submissions are selected from the mail. I publish a selection from the batch each issue.
DH: If I was looking for work as a reporter with SCN; how would I go about it?
SC: Just give me a call at the office. We are always looking for new reporters. If you are an intern at the Herald or the Globe you are basically going to be answering the phone. When you come to SPN you are going out there reporting on events, interviewing--you are going to be a reporter!
One of our writers went to graduate school for journalism at Columbia University. She sent us a card and wrote that SCN was her inspiration to pursue journalism.
DH: Is SCN strictly a Boston/Cambridge/Somerville newspaper?
SC: It’s a Boston-area newspaper. We don’t tell our vendors where to sell it. If they take a train out to Newton and sell it there; it’s their choice.
DH: What’s your relationship with the other homeless newspaper Whats Up?
SC: Some people think we are in competition. It’s like we are the Globe and they are the Herald. It’s really not true. We have the same mission. We are both working towards the same end; advocating for the homeless. I think we are more news focused, and they focus more on arts, entertainment and culture. We have the same purposes with different means.
DH: You work in an office in the basement of the Old Baptist Church, just outside Harvard Square. It’s quite a narrow winding warren of agencies, offices, etc... down there. You have to contend with the pounding feet of a ballet company above you, and the constant din from this vibrant subculture that thrives below the streets of Cambridge. How do you manage this?
KB: (laughs) We are across the hall from the “Gay and Lesbian Taskforce,” and the “Ethiopian Women’s” Alliance,” to name a few organizations.
SC: It’s never quiet. But that’s good because in the “News” business you want energy. You want things going on around you.
DH: Kate you are leaving to go to graduate school. What do you feel is your legacy?
KB: I tried really hard not to have a block of poems that was just not one poet. I tried my best to find poems that fit a certain theme. It’s a very difficult artistic process to put a group of poems together. I try to find poems that cohere.
DH: Any memorable poets you want to mention?
KB: A Dorchester poet by the name of Mike Igoe. He is very intense and unusual. His poems are quite out of the ordinary.
Go to http://www.homelessempowerment.org/ for more info.






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----- 10:14 AM
Subject: Ibbetson Update/Ibbetson Poet Rufus Goodwin Passes at age 70.
Rufus Goodwin walked into my apartment on Ibbetson Street some years ago, and asked me, my wife Dianne and my friend Richard Wilhelm ( the staff at Ibbetson St. at the time) if we would like to publish a book of his "Poems from 42nd Street." It was a beautifully illustrated edition that in the words of John Lentilhorn celebrates the memory of the poet as a vagrant, the homeless one who rides the subway into the sunset, who snatches a song from the curb… " Goodwin wanted to turn away from the avant-garde and academic literary magazines and celebrate the simple things: a sandwich, a well-made bed, an ashcan, a street. He was upset with the trend in poetry that he felt was loud, profane and in your face. Goodwin felt by celebrating the simple things larger truths naturally evolve.

Goodwin, was from a patrician background but had a fascination with the everyday workingman. He was a regular contributor to "Spare Change News," and found out about the press through an article the late Cindy Baron wrote about the Ibbetson Street. He offered to help Ibbetson Street, because he felt it would be the next "City Lights."
Over the years he has helped the Press enormously. He was responsible for getting a feature article about us in The Boston Globe Arts/Leisure section in Feb. 2000. He bought a whole slew of ISBN's for our seminal press, and gave me an introduction to the world of small press publishing.

. One year Goodwin invited myself and Dianne to a gala opening event at Lincoln Center for the American Ballet. The tickets must of easily cost a grand or more. After the performance we were having dinner with him and others under a tent outside of the theatre. All kinds of celebs were in attendance…the whole big deal. One of the guys sitting at the table told me that he too was a guest of Goodwin. I asked him if he worked for Rufus. He said "Yes." I asked him what he did. He replied "I am his doorman." So I don't know if I was part of Rufus' experiment to bring culture to the workingman or what, but they sure broke the mold when they made him!

Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Street Press.


Born in New York City, Rufus Goodwin graduated from Yale University and received an advanced degree in Linguistics from Georgetown University. He was a veteran of the Korean War and served as a foreign correspondent with United Press International in the 1960s. He was assigned to the Vatican while working for UPI and covered Pope Paul VI's first papal trip to the Holy Land in 1964. Later he was a freelance writer in Switzerland and England before returning to the U.S. in the 1980s. He published poetry (praised by James Tate, John Updike, and Mark Strand), novels, nonfiction, opera, and plays—more than forty titles in all. His work in religion led to the books The Story of Prayer and Who Killed the Holy Ghost? Other works include, Mr. President, a prestige bestseller in Germany, and Valentine for a Waitress, which appeared on stage in England. He collaborated with composer and performer Stephen Scotti for Blue Vagabond, Poets Opera, and other works that were performed in New York, Boston, and Martha's Vineyard. He died July 10, 2005 at the age of seventy.
Doug Holder http://www.authorsden.com/douglasholder

List of interviews, books, etc...at Harvard University Libraries

(Doug Holder) Here is a partial list of some of my interviews with poets, my own books, and books that I edited that are archived at the Lamont Poetry Room ( Harvard University) and the Harvard Libraries.
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1
Holder, Doug.


Of all the meals I had before : poems about food and eating /
2007
Book
Holder, Doug.



No one dies at the Au Bon Pain /
2007
Book
Doug Holder



Louisa Solano : the Grolier Poetry Bookshop.
2006
Book
Edited by Doug Holder/Steve Glines


Ames, Lois.
[Interview] [videorecording] /
2005
Visual
Interviewed by Doug Holder


Chase, Naomi Feigelson.
[Interview] [videorecording] /
Interviewed by Doug Holder

Wrestling with my father /
2005
Book
Doug Holder

Houlihan, Joan.
[Interview] [videorecording] /
2005
with Doug Holder

Cramer, Steven, 1953-
[Interview] [videorecording] /
2004
Interview with Doug Holder

Der Hovanessian, Diana
[Interview] / [sound recording]
2004
Interview with Doug Holder

[Interview] [videorecording] /
2004
Visual
Galluccio, Lo.
Interviewed by Doug Holder

[Interview] [videorecording] /
2004
Visual

Slavitt, David R., 1935-
Interview with Doug Holder

[Interview] / [sound recording]
2004
Audio
Solano, Louisa.
Interview with Doug Holder

[Interview] / [sound recording]
2004
Audio
Solano, Louisa.
Interviewed by Doug Holder

[Interview] [videorecording] /
2004
Visual
Fox, Hugh, 1932-
Interviewed by Doug Holder

Boston : a long poem /
2002
Book
Doug Holder

City of poets /
2000
Book

Holder, Doug.

Dreams at the Au bon pain /
2000
Book
Doug Holder

Lifshin, Lyn.
Interview] / [sound recording] 2000
Interviewed by Doug Holder

Poems of Boston and just beyond : from the Back Bay to the back ward /
by Doug Holder

Doug Worth is a Cambridge poet who is member of our "Breakfast With The Bards," group that meets every Saturday in the basement of Finagle-a-Bagel in Harvard Square. (9AM)

CATCH THE LIGHT: Selected Poems (1963-2003)
By Douglas Worth
Higganum Hill Books; 2004
Reviewed by Richard Wilhelm, Art Editor, Ibbetson Street Press. $18

During the course of a reader’s life, she or he may come across a handful of books that have such a transformative effect that one remembers them the rest of one’s life, often giving them multiple readings. Such books are remembered because they have made a reader see the world differently, understand things in a new way. They may be works of fiction, non-fiction, drama, or poetry. Douglas Worth’s CATCH THE LIGHT is a marvelous book and I suspect not a few people will remember where they were living and what they were doing when they first encountered this book. And for those readers who have, thanks to the academics and language poets, written off poetry as incomprehensible jottings of those with too much time on their hands, Mr. Worth’s book will serve as an elixir.
Forget for now his astounding craft and control; these will be apparent. Look instead at what these poems actually bring to the reader. Mr. Worth gives his readers food for the senses and the soul. And like Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman, to name a representative few, Mr. Worth offers “soul food” to his country, not that many of the gang of cretinous thugs currently running the country would have much of an ear for what Mr. Worth or anyone of any real spiritual depth has to say. And Mr. Worth has real spiritual depth. But he has great analytical depth as well. He addresses, in the poems of his 1987 collection, ONCE AROUND BULLOUGH’S POND, the primal trauma that, along with slavery, gnaws at the core of the American psyche: the genocide of the Native people. But he takes on his subject imaginatively, eschewing political rants and instead showing contemporary readers what America has really lost by allowing this tragedy to occur and then repressing the guilt as we continue to do. In the poem dated (titled really; all of the Bullough’s Pond collection have dates as titles, as if they are journal entries) “February 27“, Mr. Worth muses about the pond:
I wonder what its real name is--or the one
it had for thousands of years before we arrived
with our charters and wigs and arrogance and ambition
to build a new town and put Newton on the map--
Great Spirit’s Eye? Gull’s Wing? Kingfisher’s Mirror?
The Bullough’s Pond poems develop a narrative of sorts whereby the early poems describe Mr. Worth’s library investigations of indigenous American culture and his musings about the natural landscape before him. Then the magic begins as Mr. Worth, like a poet-shaman, conjures up from his imagination Native characters who speak to us of their lives and the values they hold. This reviewer is not qualified to speak as to the anthropological veracity of his depictions, but as poetry and as myth these poems give us much to savor and meditate upon. “March 19” is about one’s relationship to the animal that is killed for meat and will be familiar terrain to readers of Joseph Campbell. The poem talks about the solemnity and respect that indigenous people had (have?) for the animals they kill. The last tercet reads:
A curse upon him who slaughters with pride for sport
lugging the head home, leaving the carcass to rot!
Come, we will eat you now, properly, with respect.
“March 7” begins
Sometimes I imagine someone running before me
ahead a few paces, and a few hundred years,
The poem goes on to imagine
--people living more simply in a time
when humans were closer to birds and trees and water
and profits were edible, and bits of seashell
were crafted and strung in patterns as gifts to wear:
wampum, before we dulled that term with trade.
Mr. Worth’s work has many tender moments especially in poems dedicated to lovers, family and friends. In “A Purple Rose”, he tells his lover:
No one before ever lay with me all morning
naked, belly to belly, mouth to mouth
without thinking it must be time
to turn away to more important things--
the news, pilling bills, the phone,
brushing their shrill urgency aside
for some future Now,
Many of the poems in the book find Mr. Worth outdoors, contemplating nature. Like most writers of the Romantic-Transcendental tradition, Mr. Worth finds in nature a keyhole through which we, if we are quiet and focused, can catch a glimpse of divinity. But divinity is not seen as a force that always looks approvingly on all that has been wrought by the species that views itself as the crown of creation. In “Osprey”, a poem from the 2003 book ECHOES IN HEMLOCK GORGE, Mr. Worth describes an encounter with an osprey. The final stanza reads:
I stood for a while
eyeball to eyeball with Nature,
then slowly backed off, turned
and came away
with his message concerning
this fisher king’s toxic wasteland
and his question for all of us:
What’s keeping Galahad?
CATCH THE LIGHT features selections from seven of Mr. Worth’s books, the first OF EARTH, having been published in 1974 (though some of the poems from that collection apparently were written as early as 1963) and the most recent, ECHOES IN HEMLOCK GORGE, came out in 2003. Mr. Worth’s books of poetry have garnered praise from the likes of Denise Levertov, Richard Wilbur, and A.R. Ammons. Poet-activist Daniel Berrigan has said that that “Like good wine, Douglas worth excels with age.” Historian Howard Zinn has called him “a visionary dream-weaver of the future global tribe.”
There are many fine books of poetry out there for poetry lovers to spend their money on. CATCH THE LIGHT is a superb volume that represents 40 years of Douglas worth’s poems. But this book is something more than just a lot of good poems. It is a visionary work, or more accurately, a selection from seven visionary works of art and it is a book that will astound and inspire readers for many years to come. Perhaps other readers will find themselves rushing into another room, looking for a spouse, paramour, or roommate, as I have during the course of reading this book, startling my wife, crying, “Oh my God, oh my God, let me read you this poem!”
Richard N. Wilhelm/ Ibbetson Update/ Somerville

Susie Davidson








“I Refused to Die: Stories of Boston Area Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers who Liberated the Concentration Camps of World War ll. Susie Davidson. ( Ibbetson Street Press 25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143 ibbetsonpress@msn.com http://www.ibbetsonpress.com ) $13.

Susie Davidson, correspondent for the “Jewish Advocate,” award-winning poet, and political activist, was awarded a Mass. Cultural Council Grant in 2004 to help her complete the book she was working on: “I Refused to Die: Stories of Boston Area Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers who Liberated the Concentration Camps of World War ll.” ( Ibbetson Press 2005) Davidson writes in her introduction: “ This compendium for the Boston area, which includes contributions from Holocaust community leaders and poets; is not about the profound legacies left by those imprisoned in death camps: the secret theatre troupes, the hunger study,...the musical compositions resurrected in modern concert halls, the clandestine letters, poetry, journals and other writing... It is rather a portrait of the ongoing legacies of the still among us, those without even the graves of loved ones to visit, those who courageously continue to live their best...inside the walls and the chains of the stark, unforgiving past.”
“I Refused to Die...” includes poetry from well-known local poets, essays from community leaders and supporters, articles on Holocaust community topics, Boston-area Holocaust survivors’ stories, testimony from World War ll liberating military units, and many more areas of interest.
Davidson worked for three years on this project. This is not a book for the beach or to kill time between flights. It is testimony to something that is very likely to happen again if we forget. Given the short memory of contemporary culture; a book like this is essential as an elixir to our collective senility.
In a book as comprehensive as this, it is difficult to give a fully-fleshed picture in a short review. But even within these confines the terrible flavor of the camps are resoundingly clear. In this harrowing account by survivor Sylvia Hack; we get a nefarious slice-of-life in the Auschwitz concentration camp:
“I had malaria at the time. Malaria is a terrible disease which leaves you horribly hot and thirsty. I would step on the bodies of the dead at night when I went down below to urinate. I would envy them, because they didn’t have to see the things I was seeing. I prayed to G-D to take me then.... One time I was so overcome with thirst and burning, I was forced to actually drink my own urine. I never knew it was so salty...” (120)
In this poem by asurvivor Sonia Schreiber Weitz, the poet hails a black solider liberator, a welcomed and unexpected messiah who arrives at her camp:
‘” A black messiah came for me...
He stared with eyes that didn’t see,
He never heard a single word
Which hung absurd upon my tongue.
And then he simply froze in place
The shock, the horror on his face,
He didn’t weep, he didn’t cry
But deep within his gentle eyes
...a flood of devastating pain,
His innocence forever slain.
But there’s a special bond we share
Which has grown strong because we dare
To live, to hope, to smile...and yet
We vow not ever to forget.” (217).
In a conversation I had with Davidson she told me that in her role as a journalist she has written about other people’s accomplishments over the years. She said she has reached a point in her life in which she wants to contribute something herself; of herself...her mark.
Davidson has compiled a collection that should be read in the classroom, and in the home. It is an antidote to a malignant amnesia that seems to have been draped over us, as we experience Holocausts on a lesser scale, but Holocausts nonetheless, in many parts of the world.
Doug Holder is a writer living in Somerville, Mass.

Ibbetson poet Jennifer Matthews will be in NYC this weekend performing at "The Living Room." I am told that high level record company execs are checking her out, and are very impressed with her writing. We published Jen's "Fairytales and Misdemeanor" in Sept of 2003.
Jennifer has released a new CD "The Wheel," that is getting great notice. Jen will be featured in "Metronome" next month, and she will be on the front cover...that oughta increase readership!
See her play at Toad this Wednesday, (10PM) and find out what went down in NYC. We wish her the best of luck! http://www.jennifermatthews.com

This article is in the July issue of "Some Other Magazine" http://www.someothermagazine.com ( Vol.2) 2005.

Do You Have To Be Crazy To Write Poetry?by Doug Holder dougholder@someothermagazine.com
For as long as I can remember, there has always been the romantic notion of the mad, or divinely inspired, poet floating around in the ether. While working at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility, for the past 23 years, I have heard and read about the legendary poets who paced the wards. Poets of the stature of Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Sexton suffered from severe mental illness, and were hospitalized at different points in their mercurial careers. Plath and Sexton met their end through suicide, and Lowell died in the back seat of a cab he was taking to visit his ex-wife in New York City. Some never recover from their illness.
Since I have often worked with manic and clinically depressed patients over the years, and therefore have an intimate knowledge of the affliction, I can only write that the toil and the turmoil of depression is not worth the creative insight one might lay within. In a Boston Globe review of The Letters of Robert Lowell, edited by Saskia Hamilton, I read part of a letter that Lowell wrote to the poet Robert Fitzgerald about his experience with mental illness: “...terrific lifts, insights, pourings in of new energy, but no work on my part, only more and more self-indulgence, lack of objectivity; and so, into literal madness i.e. I had to be locked up.” As with any experience in our lives, we can bring it back into our own writing. But my question is, is it worth it?
In the midst of mental illness, or a severe depression, the ability to concentrate, think straight, or even take care of one’s most basic needs is severely impaired. Peter D. Kramer, the author of Against Depression and a clinical professor of psychiatry at Brown University, writes that depression takes an actual, tangible toll on the brain. Indeed, MRI studies at McLean have shown that the actual structure of the brain can be altered due to past abuse and mental illness. It has been speculated that depression can cause the hippocampus (part of the brain) to shrink, and may have a big role in the course of heart and other related diseases, as well as cancer.
Part of my job over the years at the hospital was to run poetry groups on some of the locked wards. For the most part, the poetry that was shared from psychotic and clinically depressed patients in the midst of their illness was impoverished. Often when they were on the mend and or recovered, they were writing much better and even inspired poetry.
They wrote equally well about their experience with their illness, as well as nature and other less oppressive aspects of their lives. The experience of mental illness can be very good fodder for poetry, but I think if you asked these patient/writers if they would like to go the depths of depression to mine material for their creative work, the answer would be a resounding no.
Thomas J. Cottle, a Boston-area psychologist, writes in a review of Kramer’s book that “first, there is no evidence to suggest that depression is the cause of the enriched imagination, the basis, in other words, of the creative fount. People paint and write poetry in spite of their illness.”
To me, that is the most inspiring aspect of writing and mental illness. I have seen folks ravaged by the disease, barely able to put a spoon to their mouths, pick up a pen, and write. When they do write, the illness loses, and humanity wins.
Douglas Holder is a writer in Somerville. For more about him and his work, please visit his homepage, www.authorsden.com/douglasholder.

I got word from Harris Gardner that the Boston National Poetry Festival is on , yet again, at the main branch of the Boston Public Library the weekend of April 8, 2006.
We were worried that it wouldn't be approved for its sixth year, but it came through. Look for further announcements!

Presa :s: Press of Rockford Michigan is releasing an anthology in the coming months of avant-garde poetry. ( "Inside the Outside") Hugh Fox was instrumental in advising Eric Greinke, the publisher, about poets to include in this anthology. I am proud to say I am included along with some very big names from the small press.

I just got a letter from my friend and poet Ed Galing. Ed is 88 years old. He has published in hundreds of magazines over the years, including Ibbetson Street. I published a collection of his poetry "Prayers on a Tenement Rooftop," some years ago. It dealt with his childhood in the Lower East Side of New York City in the 1920's. I call Ed every few weeks. He is an inspiration. In spite of his advanced years; an infirm wife, and all the aches and pains of age; he still churns the stuff out and more often than not finds a home for his poems. I am of the belief that his work keeps him alive...literally. His poetry deals with his experiences in World War ll, his years working in the Burlesque business, his family, growing up Jewish, the characters he meets at Jack 's Deli in Philadelphia...well, you name it. Ed is the poet-laureate of Hatboro, PA, he plays a mean harmonica, and he never tires of writing. He has the voice of a carnival barker, and he often alternates between being sweetly avancular and severely pissed off.I was suppose to film Ed this summer, but as fate would have it, my plans fell through. I hope to still do it, and if anyone out there is interested, I'll give you his contact info. Ed doesn't write for money, and at this point in the game he realizes he won't be a poet laureate. He writes because he has to. Ed is a true poet, and will be writing up till his last breath. There ain't too many better ways to go! Ed wrote me a letter recently. I'd like to share some of his thoughts.
"My wife turns 88, how time is going by Doug. Nobody wants to think of death being around the corner...but sooner or later...we will all have to face it bravely...not yet...not yet."" I am not so interested in posterity...nobody really remembers unless you are really famous...and so what?""There is no rhyme or reason to what I write. I have a habit of writing rapidly...and then putting it away overnight...if it still reads ok; I take a chance and send it out..."" I began to write around high school. I lived in poverty back then. I thought writing was a way out, and I found out it's not an easy way to get rich.."" A genius I am not. No James Joyce, Richard Wright, or any of the Jewish writers I love. But I try to have my own style, and write the way my personality declares I must write."Ed invited me down to his house stating: "I would sure like to meet you in person. If you do don't expect much. I am now just an old man, with a small Cape Cod house. But we are friendly and loving, and I play harmonica. That might entice you to come. Take care Doug. Write me a letter sometime. It lasts longer."--Posted by Doug to Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene at 7/04/2005 02:01:00

Well... the Ibbetson Street Press is working on three books presently. Two are from Cambridge poets Ann Carhart, and Philip Burnham, Jr. The other is from Hugh Fox...that we hope to have out this summer.

The new issue of Poesy is out, with an interview with Lyn Lifshin by Pablo Teasdale. Check it out on http://www.poesy.org

Steve Glines, the head of The Wilderness House Literary Retreat tells me the poet Franz Wright will be our guest in Aug 2005...stay tuned! http://www.wildernesshouse.org

I pretty much have next season's Newton Free Library Poetry Series booked. We are scheduled to have such poets as Frannie Lindsay, Laurie Rosenblatt, Tam Lin Neville, CD Collins, Dick Lourie and more... Starts on the second Tues. in Sept...

Susie Davidson will be reading at the Toast Lounge from her book "I Refused to Die"That's July 10 2005 3PM 70 Union Square, Somerville.

Neil W. McCabe resigned as editor of The Somerville news http://www.thesomervillenews.com We wish him well. We also welcome George Hassett as the new editor.

I am still awaiting word from Harris Gardner about the fate of the "Boston National Poetry Festival." http://tapestryofvoices.com We hope it can be salvaged for next April (2006)

Doug Holder 

The new issue of Ibbetson Street has come out (17) with fine cover art by Richard Wilhelm and Harold Cunniff, and poetry from Robert K. Johnson, Michael Estabrook, Mike James, Freddie Frankel, Lainie Senechal, Ed Galing, Mid Walsh, James Kernochan, Stephen Morse, Linda Haviland Conte and many others.

Louisa Solano, owner of the "Grolier Poetry Book Shop," will be the recipient of the third annual "Ibbetson Street Press Life Time Achievement Award," at "The Somerville News Writers Festival," Nov. 13. Previous recipients were Jack Powers and Robert K. Johnson.

Harris Gardner's brainchild the "Boston National Poetry Marathon Festival" is in danger of being cut because of fiscal difficulties at the library. This five year old festival has been a great success, and a real important part of our community. Send emails in support of the festival to Harris, so he can alert the library to what a mistake it would be to axe this unique event. Send to: tapestryofvoices@yahoo.com

Susie Davidson's Holocaust book "I Refused to Die..." that includes poetry, essays, oral testimony, etc...had its first reading in Brookline and it was standing room only. We have other events planned such as radio appearences, readings at McIntyre and Moore Books, Newton Free Library, Newton Community Education, The Somerville News at Toast Poetry Series, and more to be announced. You can purchase a book through the Ibbetson Street Press 25 School St. Somerville, Ma. 02143 $11 with postage.

Our next guest at the "Wilderness House Literary Retreat" will be the former literary secretary to Anne Sexton Suzzane Berger.

Susie Davidson, author of "I Refused to Die...." (Ibbetson 2005) will be releasing her book on Boston-area Holocaust survivors May 6. There will be a reading at 100Centre Street Brookline, Mass at 6PM Oct. 5

Well -there was a good showing for the "Celebration of the Small Press " reading at Adams House-Harvard. Both the Ibbetson Street press and Cafe Review folks read.

Ibbetson 17 will be going to the printer in the next few weeks. June 26 at McIntyre and Moore Books in Somerville 3PM will be the releasing reading.

There are some exciting developments for the next "The Somerville News Writers Festival" in November--stay tuned.

I will be interviewing the new head of the "Iowa Writers Workshop," Lan Samantha Chang, for The Somerville News.

Ibbetson Poet, Jennifer Matthews has released a new CD "The Wheel" Not only is she a great poet, but she is a great singer/songwriter. To get a copy go to: http://www.jennifermatthews.com

Our April 9th Wilderness House Literary Retreat http://www.wildernesshouse.org was a success. Our guest was Lois Ames, a confidant to Anne Sexton.

Poetry submissions for Ibbetson Street 17 are closed...the issue should be out in June 2005.

Sadly, Robert Creeley died shortly after his appearence at Wilderness House Literary Retreat in Dec. 2004. We were lucky to meet the man. A tape of the event is available for viewing (by appointment) at the Lamont Library Poetry Room-Harvard University.

I just found out that Cait Collins, the founder of http://www.the-hold.com passed-away...my condolences...

Marc Widershien, author of the lyrical memoir of Boston "The Life of All Worlds," ( Ibbetson 2001) http://marccreate.com has now released a CD version of the book. He appeared on the "Jordan Rich" show on WBZ AM recently.

Linda Haviland Conte and Mary Buchinger Bodwell recieved a Somerville Arts Council grant for a poetry workshop. It will start in April at the main branch of the Somerville, Mass. library.

Programs were just released for the "Boston National Poetry Month Festival" http://www.tapestryofvoices.com slated for April2 and 3 at the Copley Branch of the Boston Public Library.

My friends Timothy Gager and Maria McCarthy, founders of the Heat City Review tell me the print version will be out this month. http://heatcityreview.com

"The Somerville News" has gone weekly and so has the "Lyrical Somerville" So check out poetry every week. http://thesomervillenews.com

Doug Holder 

I just interviewed "Mothra" and Matt, two principals involved in creating the new 'zine library in Cambridge, Mass. They hope to have it opened in April 2005, at 54 Mt. Auburn St. in Harvard Square.

Yellow Pepper Press ( Pittsburg, PA.) has agreed to publish my book "Wrestling With My Father" It should be released in the Fall of 2005.

Lois Ames, confidant of Anne Sexton, will be a guest at the Wilderness House Literary Retreat April 9. http://wildernesshouse.org

Next month in Poesy Magazine, I will have an article about Robert Creeley's visit to the Wilderness House...

Lo Galluccio, and "The Alewife," a North Cambridge newspaper founded by Neil W. McCabe, will be having a poetry venue starting in March at "Spirits" outside of Porter Square, Cambridge, on Mass. Ave.

Word has it that The Somerville News http://thesomervillenews.com will go weekly in March. That means I will need more poetry for the "Lyrical" Somerville.

Ibbetson poets Linda Haviland Conte, Deborah M. Priestly and Doug Holder will be reading April 21 as part of the "Grolier Poetry Reading Series," Small Press Celebration with Maine's "Cafe Review." That will be At Adams House 8PM.

Harris Gardner is working feverishly to get the "Boston National Poetry Festival Marathon" up and running April 2-3 at the Boston Public Library. For more info go to: http://www.tapestryofvoices.com

Deborah M. Priestly of the "Out of the Blue Art Gallery" fame got a wonderful review of her book "The Woman Has A Voice" in this month's "Small Press Review" She will be reading in the "Grolier Poetry Series" in April with other Ibbetson Street Poets.

I have been asked by Diana Der-Hovanessian, the president of the New England Poetry Club to read with Frannie Lindsay and Liz McKim at Harvard April 9th. I will be reading from my book "Dreams at the Au Bon Pain."

At "Finagle-A-Bagel" in Harvard Square ( in the basement) at 9am most Saturdays, poets will (hopefully) be gathering, chatting, networking, and eating in a group called "Breaking Bagels With The Bards," founded by Harris Gardner and Doug Holder. It is just an informal gathering, stay as long as you like, or as little, we hope that it will have a life of its own. Feb 12 is the kick-off.

Ibbetson 16 was a "Pick of the Month" in the most recent issue of the Small Press Review.

I am told by writer, poet and journalist Susie Davidson that her Holocaust book "I Refused to Die" which consists of oral testimony of Boston-area Holocaust survivors, should be out in April.

Let's see... a lot of time to think with all this snow. A new paper is in town "The Alewife"(Cambridge, Mass.) And poet Lo Galluccio is the poetry editor for this new kid on the block. She is accepting poetry for possible publication: logalluccio@aol.com right now it is a free monthly. Founded by Neil W. McCabe, also of "The Somerville News."

I was chatting with Louisa Solano of the "The Grolier Poetry Book Shop" in Cambridge, Mass. She tells me there will be a joint reading with the "Cafe Review," and "Ibbetson Street" in the spring at Harvard...nice work if you can get it....

Susie Davidson, that red-headed firebrand of "The Jewish Advocate" fame is slated to have a book out in April "I Refused To Die." (Ibbetson Street) that consists of oral testimony of Holocaust ( Boston-area) survivors.

I released a new,and better looking edition of my collection of poetry "Dreams At the Au Bon Pain." Only four bucks... contact me at dougholder@post.harvard.edu

I went to a fairly new reading venue the other night. It was held at the "Cambridge Co-Housing" development on 175 Richdale St. in Cambridge. Nice surroundings, people, great poets, plus a roaring fire and munchies. Harris Gardner read that night, along with another great local bard whose name escapes me. The name of this event is the '"Fireside" series. It meets the last Tuesday of every month--7:30PM.

" Pressed Wafer"press editor Joe Torra gave me a new chapbook of poetry from veteran Boston bard Jim Dunn--friend to the late John Weiners, and long-time pal of Jack Powers of Stone soup Poetry fame. Joe Torra and Dunn will be reading at the "Toast Poetry Series" in the Spring. This great series is sponsored by that great newspaper "The Somerville News" http://thesomervillenews.com

Brian Morrisey of Poesy Magazine http://poesy.org will be in town for a reading at the "Out of the Blue Art Gallery" today. 8PM I will also have dinner with him at the Middle East beforehand. The new issue should be in the mailbox soon.

I am proud to announce my interview with Robert Creeley is going to be translated into Chinese. It seems that Afaa Michael Weaver, a poet and professor at Simmons College in Boston, is at the Univ. of Taiwan teaching, and he got wind of the interview. Weaver, is on the faculty board of "The Wilderness House Literary Retreat" http://wildernesshouse.org where Creeley spoke. Weaver told me he will
have the interview translated and distributed among students and faculty.

The Newton Free Libray Poetry series will open up again in Feb. (2005) with poets: Don Share, Art Nahill, and Deborah DeNicola.

Brian Morrisey, founder of Poesy Magazine, will be reading at the Out of the Blue Art Gallery, at 8PM in Cambridge Dec. 27. You can join us for at the Middle East rest. in Central Square, Cambridge for dinner beforehand.

Well... let's see... a lot of stuff coming up. Dec 11 The Wilderness House Literary Retreat will host Robert Creeley go to http://wildernesshouse.org The Ibbetson Street Press will have a reading at Somerville's McIntyre and Moore Books the same day at 5PM. Jan 20. Poetic muses Deb Priestly and Jennifer Matthews will read at Squawk in Harvard Square. The Somerville News@Toast at Toast series is going swimmingly. Our next guests will Gary Duehr and J. Pope Dec 17 8PM http://toastboston.com My friend and former Somerville News editor Neil W. McCabe is forming his own newspaper "The Cambridge Alewife" It should hit the streets Dec. 1. And guess who the poetry editor is ? Lo Galluccio. Brian Morrisey, founder of Poesy Magazine http://www.poesy.org is slated to read at the Out of the Blue Gallery http://outoftheblueartgallery.com Dec 27. More later...

I just interviewed the folks at "Porter Square Books" in Cambridge for THE SOMERVILLE NEWS. It is good to have an independent in the area, and I hope they make a go of it...as you know it ain't easy. They are located in the Porter Square Shopping Center on White Street. A good location on the Somerville/Cambridge border.

Poet Lo Gallucio of "Hot Rain" fame tells me her book is now on the shelves of the "Gotham" in NYC. Way to go LO!

The Wilderness House Literary Retreat has a website http://www.wildernesshouse.org. We have a faculty advisory board, and a few faculty members to be announced. We hope to have a special program in the next few months.

Remember The Somerville News Writers Festival--Nov. 14--Jimmy Tingle Theater--255 Elm St. Davis Square, Somerville

The new issue of Ibbetson Street should be at the printers the first of the month. It should hit the streets by mid-month.

On Tues Oct. 5 2004 Steve Glines, Harris Gardner, Diana Der-Hovanessian, Barbara H. Hyett, Jean Houlihan, Steven Cramer, Tim Gager, Charles Coe and myself formed an advisory board for the "Wilderness House Literary Retreat". The meeting was held at Harvard, and lasted a couple of hours. We hope to have a working operation by next August. I will keep you posted!

I just had breakfast with Timothy Gager and Maria McCarthy. They told me the new online edition of the "Heat City Review" will be up Oct 15. There will be work from A.D. Winans, Steve Almond, and others... Check it out...

Also : Work proceeds on the SomervilleNews Writers Festival 2 slated for Nov 14 7PM at the Jimmy Tingle Theatre in Davis Square, Somerville, Andre Dubus lll, Steve Almond, Tom Perrotta, Regie Gibson, Robert K. Johnson, and others will be reading.

Stone Soup To City Lights: Jack Powers on Lawrence Ferlinghetti
with Doug Holder

* this excerpt originally published in Poesy Magazine (2000)

Jack Powers is the founder of Stone Soup Poets, a venue of readings and publishing in the Boston and Cambridge area for over thirty years. He has provided a space for open poetry readings from poets from all walks of life. He has also published poetry books for a variety of known and unknown poets, including: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who was a major player in the Beat Poetry Movement on the West Coast in the 50's. Jack recently visited Ferlinghetti in San Francisco where he still runs City Light Books. City Lights, the first all paperback bookstore, was founded by Ferlinghetti in 1953. Shortly after he formed a publishing house, creating his renowned Pocket Poet Series. Among the poets he published were: Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, Dianne DiPrima, to name just a few. I spoke with Powers about his recollections and his recent meeting with this legendary poet.


Doug Holder: Jack, you have told me more than once that Lawrence Ferlinghetti brought you back to poetry. What is it about the man that drew you to him?

Jack Powers: I think people of my generation were scared into a stasis in post-war America. I was turned on to Ferlinghetti when I read one of his books from the Pocket Poet Series Howl and other Poems by Allen Ginsberg. I came across it in a little bookstore at the corner of Mass. Ave and Huntington in Boston. In the late 50's I went out to San Francisco with a dear friend and discovered Ferlinghetti's City Lights Bookstore. I didn't actually meet Ferlinghetti until 1975. I was attracted to Ferlinghetti's poetry because it was written in the vernacular; he wrote about "high" things in the common tongue. Now in his 80's, he is still a very formidable presence. I feel he will be recognized as a great poet in his own right, beyond his role as a guru of the Beat Movement.

Doug Holder: Ferlinghetti, along with Peter Martin, launched the first all-paperback bookstore in 1953, and later formed a publishing house, starting with their Pocket Poet Series in 1955. Was your own publishing house, Stone Soup Publishing, modeled after Ferlinghetti's and Martin's efforts?

Jack Powers: It was impossible not to be influenced by something so beautiful. When I went out to "Frisco", and City Lights, I loved the feel of Grant St. ( home of City Lights), and the crazy people. When I say "crazy' I mean the label that mainstream society gave them. Here were these creative people spreading their wings, amidst the stifling conformity of 1950's America. The energy that came from that little bookstore in North Beach was inspiring. Ferlinghetti kept his "tire in track" simply put: he didn't kill himself with booze and drugs, like so many others. Kerouac, for instance drank himself to distraction and died in his 40's. Ginsberg bathed in the Ganges and was a master of histrionics. Ferlinghetti remained the solid core. Ferlinghetti was and is the model of the sober, committed artist. People could depend on him. He was the co-founder of the Beat Movement, but he was solidly planted like a tree. Every time I see Ferlinghetti I feel born again, flushed with new energy.

Doug Holder: Ferlinghetti published Ginsberg's "Howl" You published Ferlinghetti's "Jack of Hearts" Were there any similarities between the books?

Jack Powers: Ferlinghetti publishing "Howl" was a very natural development. He even wrote a poem "The Dog" in his book "Coney Island of the Mind", that was based on the poetical persona of Ginsberg:

The Dog trots freely in the street
and sees reality
and the things he sees
are bigger than himself
and the things he sees are his reality
Drunks in doorways
moons on trees

I believe Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg belong together. Like two dogs they walked the street and wrote about the stark reality...the wino, the aging drag queen, the ethereal shine of the moon on a tree. They were both living question marks, searching for a common truth.

Doug Holder: During your trip to the Coast you told me that Ferlinghetti showed you the cottage that he let Kerouac use to dry out and concentrate on his writing. Describe the setting, the feeling, the sense of place or presence there.

Jack Powers: I remember touching the desk Kerouac did his writing on. I wondered how many words flowed from here. How incredibly privileged I was to be there. I followed a nearby creek to the Pacific. I stood in the ocean and said: "Thank you, I understand." Just like the creek, we start out as a mere trickle and make that universal passage to the sea, the world at large, the cosmos, what have you. The shore puts you in contact with constant reality, like a heartbeat.

After I got back to Boston, I had the most remarkable thing happen: I saw my own aura around my arms and legs. I feel Kerouac gave me this gift.

Doug Holder: Ferlinghetti is in his 80's now and you are in your 60's. Will you be able to carry the torch for him?

Jack Powers: I feel that I have to continue to carry the torch. I owe Lawrence for teaching me that each individual life means something. You don't have to be a Yale Younger Poet in order to say something. Lawrence believes as I do, that Americans are too into titillation, they don't read things that challenge them. I think the idea of producing challenging art forms is a common goal.

Wilderness House Literary Retreat

Right now, me and several members from the Boston-area literary community are involved in recruiting for the board and faculty of this new literary retreat
scheduled to be in operation next Summer. It is owned and managed by the New England Foresty Service in cooperation with the Littleton Rotary Club ( contact: Steven Glines sglines@is-cs.com 617-549-7274)
"Wilderness House" is 7-bedroom cabins built in the early 20th Century as a sportsman retreat by a large and wealthy family. Situated deep within several hundred acres of forest, it also is near Littleton's Long Lake, where a private dock
is located.

The Literary Retreat offers a series of intense literary workshops lead by an acknowledged literary master of their genre. Each week a different literary genre will be presented. There may be poets one week, playwrights the next, etc... There will never be more than 15 participants.

Currently we have contacted poets and writers with national reputations to be on our board. Already several have agreed to serve on our board and or our faculty.
Currently the "Wilderness House" is being renovated, and we anticipate having a reception there in the Fall. If you are interesting about getting more information or attending this retreat contact: Steven Glines 1-978-952-6340

Doug Holder/ Wilderness House Literary Retreat.

Lo Galluccio is a multi-talented artist. Her career includes stints in the theatre, a songwriter and vocalist with Roy Nathanson and "The Jazz Passengers", and a vocal artist who released CD's with the "Knitting Factory" label in NYC. Galluccio worked with John Zorn, the renowned avant- garde Jazz saxophonist, and had a track on one of his compilations. Most recently Galluccio has released a collection of poetry with the "Ibbetson Street Press" of Somerville, Mass. titled: "Hot
Rain."

Lo is from a prominent Cambridge, Mass. political family. She recently recited her poetry at the "Toast Lounge" in Somerville, Mass. as part of "The Somerville News at Toast" series. Lo has read at the Warwick Art Museum, Boston University Barnes and Noble, The Out of the Blue Art Gallery, and other venues around the Boston area. I talked with her on my show Poet To Poet/ Writer To Writer.

Doug Holder: Lo you told me that two major influences on you are the Rocker/Poet Patti Smith and performance artist Laurie Anderson. In fact Smith approached you once and told you
that you have a beautiful voice. Do you take anything from Smith's and Anderson's work, and incorporate and use it in your own alchemy?

Lo Galluccio: Laurie Anderson was someone who influenced me to stop being an actress, and start wanting to have an original voice, and speak my own words in a certain way. I studied at the "Goodman Theatre" in Chicago. My acting teacher talked about the performance artist Laurie Anderson, and how she had such a weird, and "right" perspective on things. I was like:" Hmm..., who is she?" I was interested in her pieces " Big Science" and "Strange Angels," and eventually I just feel in love with her. The reason was because she took the spoken word and made it into music. She is an architect of music and sound. She is also a conceptualist person.

Patti Smith is a totally different animal. To me she is the saint of Rock'n Roll. She is a brilliant lyricist. When I encountered her, I was surprised to see that she was at my show at St. Mark's church in NYC. But there she was, wearing a ski cap, and she had these blazing black eyes. She looked like a little crazy crow. She came up to me and said" You have a beautiful voice." I was just speechless, becuase she meant that much to me. Patti Smith is like a saint. That record "Horses" really inspired me because she does a stream of consciousness that's mixed in with Rock 'n Roll riffs. There are expansive piano chords as well. My first record has been compared to hers a bit.

Doug Holder: You have a beautiful, fey voice. I noted that in some ways your singing reminds me of the brilliant and doomed horn player Chet Baker? Is he an influence?

Lo Galluccio: I was turned on to a Chet Baker documentary "Let's Get Lost" I got into how beautiful Baker was as a young man. Roy Nathanson use to call me the "ethereal girl" in the East Village. Roy, is the lead saxophonist and band leader of the "Passengers," and he is tremendous. His voice is so quirky, and his phrasing is so original. I was lucky to have him play on a demo for me. I was stunned by his voice. He said to me: "When you start singing in your own words you are not going to want it the other way again. "

Doug Holder: You told me you were discovered by Roy when you were watching your underwear revolve in a washing machine at as laundromat you frequented.

Lo Galluccio: I moved to the East Village because someone said that is where the "weed" trees grow. In other words, where the outsiders, where the wild things are. I was in a laundromat on Second Ave. and Roy lived in a dumpy place around the corner. He saw me staring at my laundry and said: "You got to be an artist because no one stares at their underwear as long as you have. Do you have anything to show me." I said: "Yeah, I do, I have this collection of poems: "Hot Rain" I gave it to him and he said" Wow...this stuff is really incredible. I want you to write a song with me for the "In Love" record that the "Jazz Passengers" are making for Windam Hill. That was my first professional gig as a lyricist. It was a thrill. Roy was old school...that way. If he saw you, and read you, he would take a chance on you.

Doug Holder: So many artists live hardscrabble lives. It is rare that I meet one who hasn't suffered the "black dogs" of depression, drug addiction, or some bout of mental illness. Can you talk about this?

Lo Galluccio: A friend of mine, a Soul singer Kore, said" " Everyone goes crazy at least once in their life." Maybe "other" people are afraid to enter the sanctuary that madness provides for some artists. For me, I probably made it tougher on myself than I needed in some ways. I took one hit inNew York that was really rough. I broke up with someone who mentored me. He was a partner and a lover, and we had a band "Fish Pistol" together. We had an alchemy. And when that fell apart I was devastated. It was tragic because we really loved each other, and we were really good together artistically. I made a mild suicide attempt. I was put in St. Vincent's Hospital psychiatric unit. At the time I fought like hell not to go in there. I really spent three hours in the E. R. saying you can not put me in the locked ward! They said " Yes we can."

Doug Holder: Do you think meds and hospitalization compromise the creative process?

Lo Galluccio: Not completely. I think it is good for some people to spend time away from the pressures of the world; whatever is hurting them. Being around other people and being supported by people, when that happens, and medication, when it works, is a good thing. At the time I was a raging bull about it.

Doug Holder: How much of "Hot Rain" is fictional, and how much is "autobiographical?

Lo Galluccio: It is not fictional. I am a highly subjective person and I like a high degree of subjectivity in Poetry. I like Sexton, Lowell--the "Confessional" poets. Some of my poems play with identity, and wild imagery. In those cases the images take over the place of a rational narrative.

Doug Holder: You told me that you were inspired by a voice you heard while taking a bath?

Lo Galluccio: After I broke up with my boyfriend, I was in a lot of grief. So I went to a Yoga center in New York. I went religiously , because I didn't know how to heal myself. When I started to do Yoga I heard about the Elephant-headed god: "Ganesha. I really worshipped his shrine. So I think that's where the voice came from. It was like an echo of my own subconscious. It said" Pale blue eyes." 'Wow'" I thought. " What is this...is this voice coming from outside of me?' I was enamored with " Ganesha" He is a dreamer's God. I still have this voice with me. When I got to NYC it is more pronounced because of the energy of the city. I think Gods are protecting all of us, somewhere and somehow, in different cultures and traditions.

for more ino about Lo go to: http://www.logalluccio.com

Interview with New England Poetry Club President: Diana Der -Hovanessian with Doug Holder.

Diana Der- Hovanessian is the president of the venerable literary organization: The New England Poetry Club. Based in Cambridge, Mass., it was founded by Amy Lowell, Robert Frost and Conrad Aiken almost ninety years ago. Lowell's vision was to bring well-known poets to large audiences. In the 1960's through the 1980's the club became insular and provincial, with meetings held at the Brahmin enclaves of Beacon Hill and the Harvard Faculty Club. Der-Hovanessian changed this by inviting Russian poets such as: Andrei Voznesenky and Yevtushenko to read at the club. And since then scores of South American and Latin American Poets have visited and read there, as well as prominent American poets such as: Robert Creeley, X.J. Kennedy, Robert Pinsky, and many others. I spoke to Diana Der- Hovanessian on my Somerville Community Access TV show: Poet To Poet/Writer To Writer.

Doug Holder: How did you become involved with the club?

Diana Der-Hovanessian: I joined it when Victor Howes was running things. He asked me to be secretary. I said " I don't do shorthand." (laughs) He said: " No...No. Not that kind of secretary." So for eight years he had me do programming. I became president in 1980. It's been a long time
we are due for another election!

DH: Amy Lowell started the club. She was quite an eccentric character, wasn't she?

DDH: When I first went into the club we had people who actually knew her. They had interesting stories about the early days. She started the club in 1915, when she came back from England. She was under the influence of Imagists, like Ezra Pound. But Robert Frost and a group of Formalist poets took it away from her. Frost, who was the second or third president , got into big fights with the Imagists, in those days.

DH: Lowell's goal was to reach a large audience through poetry and poetry readings. Has this been your goal?

DDH: This vision of expansion had stopped for awhile when I came around. I felt like we should expand. Now we bring in name poets to make it more exciting. We also have our own members read. We also have free workshops for members.

DH: What is the mission of the Club?

DDH: To expand poetry. To bring people into the art. To show off the best. To be a forum for an exchange of ideas.

DH: Can you talk a bit about the poets who have read for you over the years?

DDH: We had an Irish festival some years ago with the help of Seamus Heaney, who is on our board. He brought a lot of poets from Ireland, like: Evan Boland. Some of the Club's other readers over the years have been: Robert Lowell, Robert Creeley Stanley Kunitz, James Merrill, to name just a few.

DH: Did you have a relationship with the Beat poets?

DDH: We did sponsor a reading by Allen Ginsberg. Once I went to the airport to meet a visiting poet, and Ginsberg was there with him. Ginsberg was wearing a tie. He told me that he was dressed up for the Club. I told him that he didn't have to do it. He turned his tie over and said" Brooks Brothers. I got it at Good Will."

DH: What do you think of the Slam poets and the Hip-Hoppers?

DDH: We had a program for them at the Boston Globe Book Festival. There was someone on the Globe who wanted it: Patricia Smith. I thought it was fun. I love the fact that they memorize their poems. I envy them. I could do that when I was young.

DH: Your are a respected poet in your own right. I believe you are a Fulbright Scholar, and have written extensively about the Armenian Holocaust. Can you talk about your education, and early influences?

DDH: I've been a Fulbright Scholar twice. I went to Boston University as an undergraduate. I studied with Robert Lowell at Harvard. I took his last workshop. It was really great. They said he wouldn't show up. But he did. He was there every single week. It was one hour of teaching poetry, and one hour of going over student poems.

I completed nine volumes of translations from the Armenian. I have always been interested in the Armenian Holocaust. When the Turks started the genocide against the Armenians in 1915 they started by murdering the leaders. You wouldn't think that poets were the leaders. But they started out by killing two hundred poets.

DH: How did you start the Longfellow House readings in Cambridge?

DDH: Erica Mumford was a board member. She and I were walking down Brattle St.. We looked over at the Longfellow House and said" Wouldn't this be a perfect place for a reading." We walked in and said: " Don't you want poetry too?" ( they had concerts) And they replied:" Sure, if you want to do it." And that's how it started. It's been going on for almost twenty five years now.

DH: Any plans for the 90th anniversary?

DDH: Depends on the funding. We want to bring our Golden Rose prize winners together for a big celebration. We are the oldest reading series in the country.

Interview With Small Press Legend Hugh Fox with Doug Holder

For the last forty years or so, poet, scholar, and critic Hugh Fox, has played an integral role in the small press. Like Lifshin, Winans, and Len Fulton, Fox's name is an ubiquitous presence in the national small literary magazines scene. Fox was the first to write critical studies of Charles Bukowski and the prolific poet-queen Lyn Lifshin. He was a founding member of COSMEP, the seminal small press organization founded in the 1970's. He served on the board of directors for over twenty years.
Fox was also the publisher of his own little magazine "Ghost Dancer" that ran for twenty years and is now archived at Harvard University, Brown University and other institutions. Fox has reviewed countless books, chapbooks and magazines, and has published eighty of his own works. I had the pleasure to talk with him ( along with my friend and poet Harris Gardner), at the bustling Au Bon Pain cafe in the heart of Harvard Square.

Doug Holder: How did you meet Charles Bukowski?

Hugh Fox: Here I was out in L.A., and I go into this bookstore, "Pickwick Bookstore" I found a copy of a Bukowski book. Up until this time I read T.S. Eliot. I was all T.S. Eliot, and all this kind of stuff. I got Bukowski's book " Crucifixation and the Deadman" This was in 1967. When I read it I said: " Holy shit, this is a whole different way of approaching the language isn't, it?
I really enjoyed it, and I started writing like that. So I got all of his books. I read everything he wrote. I wrote to his publisher in New Orleans. I asked them if I could get Bukowski's phone number. They told me to look in the L.A. phone book. So I looked him up, and there he was. I said " Hello, Charles Bukowski, this is Hugh Fox, I'd like to meet you."
He said: " OK Fox, here's my address." I went over to his place. I said: "I want to do a book about you. I'm really impressed by your stuff."
He said" OK. I am going to give you everything I ever wrote in my life. " He goes into all of his bookcases, and all of his closets and everything else, and takes copies of everything. He said: "If you find any doubles, you keep it." He was living in a Hollywood motel. He was working at the post office at the time. So I had all of his stuff, and then he tried to make out with my wife, the Peruvian. He told me "How about you leave her with me tonight. You got all the books, at least you could leave me your wife for the night." She said "I don't think SO!' He wasn't joking. He would of done it--she was very attractive. I saw Bukowski quite a few times since then. I did a book on him, and it was the first critical book about him. That got reviewed every place.

Doug Holder: What was your opinion of his poetry?

Hugh Fox: Oh, I think he was great. A lot of people misunderstood him. They think he was a drunken bum that wrote scary stuff. He was very subtle. He was very literary--you'd be surprised. Some of his stuff is blah, but a lot isn't. The documentary that just came out, made A.D. Winans pissed- off! He wrote a book on Bukowski " The Holy Grail' ( Dustbooks). The movie didn't even mention me or him. They could of mentioned us, not a word--as if we didn't exist!

Doug Holder: Can you talk about your role with COSMEP, the seminal small press organization?

Hugh Fox: I got invited to the last big roundup of poets from the 60's. I was in L.A., and every poet that existed was there. It was exciting. I never read in public. I was all nervous, but they started clapping, and the whole place went crazy. It was the best experience I had in my life. Afterwards they put me on a panel. That panel became the first board of directors at COSMEP. So all of a sudden I found myself on the board of directors of a new organization. Isn't that crazy though?

Doug Holder: What was the mission of COSMEP?

Hugh Fox: It was to get small press and literary poets out everywhere, We use to have annual meetings; sometimes on the West Coast, Minnesota, NY. We made it accessible for everybody. I was on the board for twenty years. Richard Morris became the director of COSMEP.

Doug Holder: It fell apart eventually?

Hugh Fox; I don't remember the people. There was some asshole on the board of directors that decided he was going to bomb the whole thing out. There is always somebody. He started checking all the books, and it fell apart.

Doug Holder: How many book have you published?

Hugh Fox: About eighty. I put out a magazine "Ghost Dancer". I put it out for twenty years. It's at Harvard, The Library of Congress, Brown, everything. Everyone was in it.

Doug Holder: Can you talk about your literary relationship with poet Lyn Lifshin?

Hugh Fox: I did the first critical book about Lifshin. She was kind of like a female Bukowski. She told it like it was. She took the most everyday banal events and turned them into high poetry.

Doug Holder: How did you become such a prolific book reviewer?

Hugh Fox: I got to be good friends with Len Fulton of the "Small Press Review" I used to visit him at his home in Paradise, California. He just turned seventy.

Doug Holder http://authorsden.com/douglasholder

I am pleased to announce that my April 2004 interview with Lynn Lifshin at a busy North End ( Boston) restaurant is now archived at the Harvard Libraries. Also: My video and audio tapes of my interview with Louisa Solano, owner of the Grolier Poetry Bookshop has also been archived there.
Others poets slated to be archived: Marc Widershien, Jack Powers, Afaa Michael Weaver, Joe Torra, and more to come...

Harris Gardner and myself had coffee with visiting small press legend poet Hugh Fox at the Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square. I taped our conversation. Fox had some interesting things to say about Bukowski.

The Somerville News has received money to start its own lit mag Northeast Corridor stay tuned http://www.somervillenews.com

I conducted an interview with Louisa Solano the owner of The Grolier Poetry Bookshop. The bookshop is being sold, Louisa has been connected with it for over 40 years. She had a lot of interesting anecdotes about Kerouac, Ginsberg, Donald Hall, and more. If you want an audio tape send $3 to Doug Holder 25 School St. Somerville, Ma. 02143

Well I am pleased to have talked to Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Franz Wright, and secured him to read at the April 2005 Poetry Festival at the Newton Free Library Poetry Series. Joining him will be Steve Almond and Nancy Kassel.

Poet Robert K. Johnson will be the recipient of the next Ibbetson Street Press Life-Time Achievement award in Nov 2004. ( Jimmy Tingle Theatre-Davis sq)

The Somerville News Writers Festival is coming along well. Thanks to cofounder Timothy Gager, we have secured Tom Perrotta and Andre Dubus lll as featured readers.

Ibbetson Street 15 will be released June 12 at the celebratory reading at the Out of the Blue Art Gallery in Cambridge.

Louisa Solano, the owner of the Grolier Poetry Bookshop in Harvard square tells me she is near ready to sell. She will be my guest May 25 on Poet To Poet/ Writer To Writer.

Jennifer Matthews, a good friend of mine, a Rock vocalist, and poet is going to be hosting a poetry/music series at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Inman Sq. Cambridge. Two of her feature poets will be: Susie D, and Chad P. That's May 18 7:30PM contact: jmchickenbaby@aol.com
Word has it that Susie Davidson ( she did a chap with us Selected Poetry: Susie D) has a freelance gig writing for the Boston Globe...send her your pitches! Tim Gager has released a book Short Street, I'll be reading with him at the B.U. Bookstore Kenmore Square Boston 8PM.

Well... it was great to be manning the book table with poets Lisa Beatman and Harris Gardner at the Boston National Poetry Month Festival at the Boston Public Library on Saturday. ( April 3 2004) It was a lively crowd, and I got to talk to many of my fellow poets and friends like: Marc Goldfinger, Diana Saenz ( Boston Poet), Marc Widershien ( "The Life of All Worlds"), L. Schwartz ("Goodnight Gracie"), Michael Brown ( "Poetry Off Broadway"), Robert K. Johnson ( "The Latest News), Rhina Espillat ( Pow Wow River Poets) Barbara Helfgott Hyett ( Poem Works), Rosanna Warren, and many others. A lot of books were sold, as folks supported their favorite poets. Today we take the party to Northeastern--Dodge Hall 1PM--hope to see you there!

I just meet with Deborah Priestly and Lynne Sticklor about Deb's long awaited book The Woman Has A Voice. Lynne, who is designing and editing the book hopes to have it at the printers by Friday March 26. Deb is the cofounder of The Out of the Blue Art Gallery in Cambridge. This book is wonderfully illustrated L. Geharty and C. Fahey , and deals with women in all stages of their lives...

Also Ibbetson has a book by blind poet Joanna Nealon, that we hope to have out some time in April 2004 LIVING IT

Susie Davidson also has a book due out, so Ibbetson Street is quite busy.

Tim Gager is organizing a reading for poets and writers at the Boston University Bookstore on the evening of May 4. Such poets as: Jack Powers, Deborah Priestly and Yours Truly will be reading...

I will be heading for NYC for a literary dinner for the new renaissance magazine. We hope to raise funds for this fine literary journal. I have an interview with street poet Marc Goldfinger in the issue coming up. Also included is the poetry of Stephen Todd Booker, and the artwork of Arthur Polonsky.

The Spare Change Annual All Poetry Issue will be out April 1. There will be an interview with Afaa Michael Weaver, and one with poet/mime James Van Looy, not to mention selections of the best poetry of the year to appear on SPN's pages.

Well...Harris Gardner of Tapestry of Voices is gearing up for the Boston National Poetry Festival April 3 and 4 at the Boston Public Library and Northeastern Univeristy, respectively. Over 50 poets, open mics and more...it's free too!

Joanna Nealon is working with Ibbetson Street to get out her new, perfect-bound poetry collection LIVING IT. Joanna is an accomplished blind poet and a presence in the area poetry community.

Jennifer Matthews, poet/vocalist, tells me she will be hosting a poetry and music venue at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Inman Square Cambridge, contact: jmchickenbaby@aol.com for more info.

Gearing up for the Cambridge Poetry Award this Sunday at Lesley University...

Well The Cambridge Poetry Awards will be announced at Lesley University Sunday March 7 2Pm A lot of my friens were nominated like: Tim Gagaer, Susie Davidson,
Mary Bodwell, Susan Landon, Jennifer Matthews, irene Koronas and others... www.cambridgepoetryawards.org

Glad that David Kirschenbaum, bookdealer and editor of Boog Lit Magazine, put my piece about my late uncle Dave Kirschenbaum on his blog. Both he and my uncle are and were bookdealers in NYC, ah sweet mystery of life!

Well, the editorship of Spare Change News has changed hands. Holly Hand resigned and was replaced by Susan Horton. The poetry editorship is still not filled. Don DiVecchio had resigned not too long ago.

Poets Deborah Priestly and Joanna Nealon are slated to have poetry collections released by Somerville's Ibbetson Street Press.

Sophia Lintz, a poet for the magazine and Arts Organization 96Inc will be reading at the Newton Free Library Poetry Series March 9 2004 330 Homer St. Newton Free Library 7PM Also reading: Jennifer Matthews and Elizabeth Doran.

Michael Brown's Poetry-Off-Broadway continues to play at the Jimmy Tingle Theatre in Davis Square Somerville...

Next month March 7 at Lesley University the Cambridge Poetry Awards will be presented. Jeff Robinson is passing off the leadership to poet regie Gibson.

Gibson tells me he's studying at Simmons College with poet Afaa Michael Weaver.

I am pleased to announce that singer/songwriter, not to mention poet Jennifer Matthews was nominated for a spoken word award by the Cambridge Poetry Award Committee....

On Feb 7-8 at the Cambridge Adult Education Center, Harvard Square,
many of the nominnees will perform.

Jack Powers, founder of the Stone Soup Poets, was profiled in an article by Linda Lerner, on poetry.about.com, a major site for poetry...

Deborah Priestly, of the Out of the Blue Gallery in Cambridge, is planning to release a poetry collection through the Ibbetson Press...it's due out this month.

Harris Gardner, of Tapestry of Voices ( Boston) is feverishly planning the Boston Poetry Festival, to be held at the Boston Public Library ( Copley) and Northeastern University.

Poet Marc Goldfinger, former editor of Spare Change News, will be profiled, in the next issue of the New Renaissance Magazine due out
in April.

Jennifer Matthews will be reading at the Dire Reader Series from her poetry book Fairytales and Misdemeanors ( Ibbetson 2003) Matthews
is a Boston singer/songwriter, who just finished a residency at the legendary Kendall Cafe. Out of the Blue Gallery 106 Prospect St. Cambridge 8Pm Jan. 2 Friday

A lot of exciting stuff around the small press scene here in the HUB. This month the Out of the Blue Gallery poetry and prose anthology will be released, go to www.timothygager.com for more info. I am told that the next issue of Poesy magazine is delayed, but should be out shortly after the first of the year...the website will be up before Christmas. www.poesy.org PLOUGHSHARES
the lit. mag has an emerging writers issue released, that is a showcase for new poetic and fiction talent. I will be writing an article about some of the local contributors for the SOMERVILLE NEWS. By-the-way, the NEWS will feature two poets who work in local eateries, stay tuned for more...around Dec. 18!

The Somerville News Writers Festival was a success. We had a good audience, and the performers were top rate. The Out of the Blue Gallery Writers anthology is about ready to come out go to: www.timothygager.com for mor info. Jack Powers got a Life Time Achievement award from the Ibbetson Street Press. This is well-deserved award for this founder of Stone Soup Poets.
Ibbetson 14 will be released ...Jan 11 2004 at McIntyre and Moore Books will be the reading davis sq. Somerville 5PM... My good friend Don DiVecchio has resigned as poetry editor for Spare Change News, to work on a new book: PEACE WORKS. This will be an anthology of poetry and prose from writers on WAR/PEACE.

Well two unsung heroes of the small press are Erin Gumbel and Lynne Sticklor. Lynne has designed a number of books for the Ibbetson Street Press and is now working on the Out of the Blue Gallery Poetry Anthology. She will also be working on a new poetry chap by Cambridge poet Deborah Priestly, due to be released by Ibbetson in the Winter of 2004.

Erin Gumble, a co-founder of Boston University's lit. mag CLARION, is now working on editing and designing her second issue of the Ibbetson Street Press. The first Issue she did (no. 13 ) was a pick of the month in the Small Press Review. http://www.dustbooks.com What a fine addition to our staff!

Well-- CHRONICLE the channel five news show filmed Stone Soup Poets at the Out of the Blue Gallery last monday 11/2003 Heard there was a full house....

The last issue of Ibbetson was a pick for the month in the Small Press Review....

Brickbottom gallery Poetry Series in Somerville will restart on Dec 18 with Doug Holder, Marc Goldfinger, Jennifer Matthews and Tim gager reading from their work. 7:30PM

Newton Free Library presents poets, Michael Brown, Jean Trounstine and Pam Bernard at 7:00 PM Nov. 18

Well...Tim Gager with the help of Jimmy Tingle, secured Michael McDonald, the author of ALL SOULS, as our guest speaker for the Somerville News Writers Festival. MacDonald's book concerns growing up on the means street of South Boston...

Newton Free Library Poetry Reading Series will host Michael Brown, Pam Bernard and Jean Trounstine, Nov. 18 at 7PM 330 Homer St. Newton, Ma.

I was pleased to get a Lucid Moon Poetry Award for hardest working editor in the small press, from founder of http://www.lucidmoonpoetry.com Ralph Haselmann, Jr.

I am excited that Deborah Priestly co-founder of the Out of the Blue Gallery in Cambridge will be releasing a poetry collection with Ibbetson Street in the Winter...

Well, I remember calling Louise Gluck, the soon-to-become new Poet Laureate, to ask for an interview and poetry spread for Spare Change Newspaper. She agreed to the spread and its in the Oct 16 issue...

Spare Change, thanks to Holly Hand, got Robert Pinsky to do a spread awhile back. Both are local poets.

I went to the Boston Globe Book Festival at the Boston Public Library to listen to the publishing panel. Frank Bidart, Diana-Der-Hovanessian, Helen Rees, Tony Rose and Alice Quinn spoke. Bidart had some good tips about putting together a poetry manuscript for publication. I jotted down a few of his points: Make sure you have a coherent theme to the collection, keep in mind what you are doing, isn't different from what other poets are doing?, put your best poems at the begining and end,
there should be a calculated order to the poems, you must have the experience of reading the manuscript fromcover to cover, the TITLE is crucial, but it does not have to be the same as a tiltled poem in the collection.

There will be other events throughout the month...

Tim Gager and Doug Holder are producing the Somerville News Writers Festival, sponsored by the Somervill News ( not the Journal!)--Nov 23 7Pm Jimmy Tingle Theatre Davis Sq. Somerville $15/ticket. We are going to have a lot of local talent like: Steve Almond ( My Life in Heavy Metal) Jennifer Matthews ( Fairy Tales and Misdemeanors), Patricia Wild, Marc Goldfinger ( Relationships), Deborah Priestly ( Buy a Camera: You Ain't That Ugly), Doug Holder ( On Either Side of the Charles), Elizabeth Graver and others! Tingle is going to host!

The New Renaissance Magazine is going to have a 35th Birthday party at McIntyre and Moore Books in Davis Square Somerville 7:30 PM Oct 9 Readers will be Steve Almond, Doug Holder, Marc Widershien,
and others!