Somerville Poet Harris Gardner: Bringing his poetic passion to the Paris of New England

Somerville, Mass. Poet Harris Gardner: Bringing his poetic passion to the Paris of New England

By Doug Holder

Somerville poet Harris Gardner is many things. This fairly recent transplant to our town is a substitute teacher at Somerville High, a real estate broker, and founder of the much lauded poetry organization “Tapestry of Voices” that has put on the Boston National Poetry Festival for the last decade at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square.

Many of Gardner’s students at Somerville High refer to him as Einstein because of his curly halo of gray curls, and he is a genius in his own way. Since 1999 he has created a literary community of readings that span from the soon to be defunct Borders Books in downtown Boston, to the Liberty Hotel, the former home of the infamous Charles Street Prison. Currently he and Somerville poet/publisher Gloria Mindock host a poetry series that meets every third Tuesday of each month at the Arts Armory on Highland Ave. ( 6:30 PM) in our burg. The readers of the series has included many Somerville poets like Lloyd Schwartz, Ifeanyi Menkiti, yours truly, and others.

Gardner who has lived on Beacon Hill for many years has not only organized poetry readings but he is a well-published poet with credits in the Harvard Review, Midstream, Ibbetson Street, Aurorean and many others. He has a number of collections under his belt, the most recent: “Among Us” published by Somerville’s Cervena Barva Press.

I asked Gardner what he thinks about the lack of interest of the powers-that-be about creating a Poet Laureate in Somerville. Gardner opined: “I think Somerville is slow to pick up on what 23 cities in Massachusetts have already. I was on the Committee for the Poet Laureate in Boston that selected Sam Cornish, as well as working with the city of Cambridge to establish their Populist Poet. This is a very worthwhile… to bad the city can’t realize it.”

Gardner, like me, bemoans the fact that a number of independent bookstores have closed in our city—most notably McIntyre and Moore Used Books—a long time icon in Davis Square. Gardner believes that Porter Square Books is a great store, but it is really in Cambridge, and they don’t sell used books. “I really think we could use a bookstore in Somerville that sells new as well as used books”, he said.

Gardner is also a co-founder of Somerville’s Bagel Bards, a literary group that meets every Saturday at 9A.M. at the Au Bon pain in Davis Square. I asked him if he writes when he is at the group. Gardner smiled: “I wrote a poem while coming up from the Davis Square subway. I write everywhere. If I did write in a café regularly I think Bloc 11 in Union Square would have the right atmosphere.” I pointed out that Sherman Café in Union square was equally as good a writing spot—he took notes.

Gardner has recently been appointed the Poetry Editor of Somerville’s Ibbetson Street Press, and in that capacity he has attracted such noted poets as Diana der Hovanessian, Richard Hoffman, X.J. Kennedy, Maxine Kumin and others. So even though Gardner has been in the Paris of New England a short while; he has already accomplished more than some have in a lifetime in our city—welcome aboard!



Who?

This stoned cat puffs fragile rings
in my face. He’s pretty pushy, he is.
Asks imperiously, “ Who are you?”
You better believe that stops me on the spot !

Who am I? Starts right off with the tough question.
Am I in jeopardy if I reply? I stall to buy a number.
He starts to do a fade, already bored.
He blinks, yawns, ready for a snooze.

I volley it right back, barely clearing the net.
Who are you to ask who am I?
What’s next, “where are you?”
That should be my question.

Only his face hovers, can’t see the strings;
the rest is buried in a billow
of deconstructing rings.
Aging memories bruise like pinched fruit.

“Who are you?” Seems simple enough;
however, it’s complicated.
Who will I be when I remember?
If I could answer that riddle,

It would prove my genius,
like solving the sphinx..
Whose family lives under my roof?
What is my proof?

Who am I, a part of your dream?
When I pinch you awake, I fear
that I, a wraith, shall simply disappear.

Harris Gardner

Review of IN THE CARNIVAL OF BREATHING, a poetry chapbook by Lisa Fay Coutley

Review of IN THE CARNIVAL OF BREATHING, a poetry chapbook by Lisa Fay Coutley, Black Lawrence Press, Aspinwall, Pennsylvania, www.blacklanternpress.com,, 31 pages, $9, 2011

Review by Barbara Bialick

Every now and then I read a baffling book that has the unique complexity of a droll and yet lyrical voice. This volume, winner of the Black River Chapbook Competition, is composed of 24 poems whose lines transform into disparate oppositions of themselves, from the beginning of each poem to the end. You may think you got it right away, but don’t be disappointed that you didn’t. This is a book that would appeal to people who like demanding poems you have to figure out, yet which has poems with such interesting images, you can also just like it as it is.

For example, the poem, “Transplant”: “These aren’t his slippers, and this isn’t his/robe or his morning, its dark shade hung/against wet brick, against a TV’s low-sung/story of an uptown subway burning/…Let my wrecked lung be swaddled in hay./In this chest: tangerines, a fistful of lilacs./Today is purple, today is orange. Today/a subway caught fire and I wasn’t on it.”

I also like the imagery in “Errata”: It begins “As the story goes, the raven’s wings/aren’t black. They’re waves, capping /dark omens. Crows with curtained throats/…and continues, “I’m sorry you won’t see your son, his skin/peeling its white scarf through blizzards…” and ends up as: “Listen: my heart’s a gutter of ravens tugging at the firmament.” Interesting book. You may want to read it…

And one last example: The poem “My Lake”, which was included in BEST NEW POETS 2010, and begins: “My lake has many rooms and one, which is red/with a door that’s always open but chained./My lake owns boxing gloves. She owns lingerie./…She has been classically trained in lovemaking./…She freezes just before she murders her own shore…”

Lisa Fay Coutley had another award-winning chapbook from Articles Press in 2010,
BACK-TALK, in the ROOMS Chapbook Contest. She holds an MFA from Northern Michigan University, where she was poetry editor of “Passages North”. She lives with her sons in Salt Lake City, where she is a doctoral fellow and poetry editor for “Quarterly West” at the University of Utah.

Poet Kathleen Spivack: Boston as a Literary City

Boston as a Literary City

By Kathleen Spivack

Boston is a historically literary city. The beauty of Boston for writers today is that it is manageable, friendly, diverse, and non-hierarchical. I am sure the reverse is equally true, of course.

Whether you are a young aspiring student or an established writer it is easy to meet and speak, read your work and share ideas. Boston is non-intimidating and, despite its variety of poets, very democratic actually. There are numerous presses and as well as many writing centers that encourage our work. Our long winters help: we huddle together around the metaphoric campfires and warm our hands on writing.

In 1959 I came to Boston on a fellowship to study with poet Robert Lowell, both in his famous workshop and in private tutorial. He introduced me to other poets. They included Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz, Basil Bunting, Jonathan Griffin, and others. Later, writers Frank Bidart, Andrew Wylie, Robert Pinsky, Jonathan Galassi, Lloyd Schwartz, Fanny Howe, Gail Mazur and James Atlas; to name only a few, gravitated to Lowell as well. Lowell championed his writers, and the experience of working with him changed lives.

The Grolier Poetry Bookshop has always been a historic center for poetry, and survives today under its new owner, Ifeanyi Menkiti. Founded by Gordon Cairney, it was a home for the young T.S Eliot, E.E. Cummings, Archibald MacLeish, Richard Wilbur, and later for Margaret Atwood, Robert Creeley, Gerard Malanga, James Alan McPherson and many others. Its roster of patrons mirrors aspects of our literary heritage. It is lined with photographs.

The young Louisa Solano who had worked at the Grolier took over the store when Gordon died. She brought it into the 21st century. One of the legendary dedicated great booksellers in America, Louisa’s knowledge, taste, passion, width of book buying, and her reading series reflected the whole span of American poetry. She also sponsored prizes for young poets.

Seamus Heaney was in Boston during that time and often at the Grolier. He inspired us with his poetry and also with his open generous nature. The Woodberry Poetry Room, at Lamont Library, Harvard University grew under the directorship of Straits Haviarias. The Woodberry Poetry Room opened to all members of the writing community and had a vast collection of recordings, books and little magazines. The Voices and Visions series was one of their projects. Christina Thompson, Don Share, Christina Davis and others continued with the Woodberry Poetry Room to make its archival material available. The Henry Wadsworth Longfellow House in conjunction with the New England Poetry Club, sponsors readings on its patrician grounds. The Boston Public Library hosts several festivals for writing.

And on the grassroots level, the Bagel Bards as well as many other community writing groups welcome local writers, editors, and publishers to weekly networking sessions. There are similar groups in other parts of Boston. Our city is small and multicultural and there are many opportunities for writers of diversity to come together. First Night, a city wide New Year’s celebration, began in Boston in 1976 under Clara Wainwright and Zaren Earles. It opened its doors to literary readings from writers from every community.Later Patricia Smith was instrumental in bringing the Poetry Slam here, which helped youth of all backgrounds to hone skills in writing and performance. Poets in the Schools started in the 70’s as well, and linked writers working in schools with each other, and with the diversity of Boston’s school population. Sam Cornish, Boston’s current Poet Laureate, a writer and scholar teacher and former bookstore owner, has been tireless in his efforts to encourage poetry. We’ve seen many Boston area literary festivals blossom.

Under its recent ownership of the Grolier, the warm and wonderful Ifeanyi and Carol Menkiti have brought a specifically multicultural approach to the store and it is once again a lively magnet for the poetic community, with its own ambiance. Theirs is a labor of love indeed and we love them for keeping this historic bookstore alive. We also cite the presses of Steve Glines, Doug Holder, J. Kates, and others. The work of Harris Gardner and Jack Powers. Sajed Kamal at the Fenway. There are many links between the writing circles in Boston. We are lucky to have the resources, the dedicated bookstore owners and teachers and administrators, the open heartedness of our poetic institutions, the diversity of community, and the manageable size of greater Boston’s literary landscape to support our writing life. Generosity is the word that best describes Boston’s literary scene.


*******Kathleen Spivack is the author of A History of Yearning, Winner of the Sows Ear International Poetry Prize 2010, first runner up in the New England Book Festival, and winner of the London Book Festival; Moments of Past Happiness (Earthwinds/Grolier Editions 2007); The Beds We Lie In (Scarecrow 1986), nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; The Honeymoon (Graywolf 1986); Swimmer in the Spreading Dawn (Applewood 1981); The Jane Poems (Doubleday 1973); Flying Inland (Doubleday 1971); Robert Lowell, A Personal Memoir; (forthcoming 2011) and a novel, Unspeakable Things. She is a recipient of the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award 2010, the 2010 Erica Mumford Award, and the 2010 Paumanok Award. Published in numerous magazines and anthologies, some of her work has been translated into French. Other publications include The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, Massachusetts Review, Virginia Quarterly, The Southern Review, Harvard Review, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Agni, New Letters, and others. Her work is featured in numerous anthologies. She has also won several International Solas Prizes for “Best Essays.”

Kathleen Spivack has been a visiting professor of American Literature/Creative Writing (one semester annually) in France since 1990. She has held posts at the University of Paris VII-VIII, the University of Francoise Rabelais, Tours, the University of Versailles, and at the Ecole Superieure (Polytechnique). She was a Fulbright Senior Artist/Professor in Creative Writing in France (1993-95). Her poetry has been featured at festivals in France and in the U.S. She reads and performs in theatres, and she also works with composers. Her song cycles and longer pieces have been performed worldwide.

-Kathleen Spivack-_--

Review of Dead Beats by Sam Cornish

(A Young Sam Cornish)







Dead Beats by Sam Cornish, Ibbetson Street Press, 2011. $14



To order send $16 includes postage and handling to Ibbetson Street Press 25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143 or go to http://lulu.com/ibbetsonpress



Review by Hugh Fox







Dead Beats is a vivid trip back into the world of the Beats. I mean you’re there, Cornish brings them back as alive as they’ve ever been, all the little personal details, here come William Burroughs, John Wieners, Robert Creeley, Margaret Lockwood,William Carlos Williams, Kerouac and Ginsberg….tons more. The little details are what really get to you: “the Poet looking for cigarette butts/in the gutters of Common//wealth Avenue is not a bum living alone on Joy/Street he’s John Wieners//his friends in poetry will speak well/of him after he’s dead at MIT the Blacksmith reading/reciting//but see him now and then/out of his fucking mind//he will be okay he’s dying his poems are collected/in a signed limited edition//that poets cannot afford.” (“Dead Respectability,” p.41).



I mean you’re there, all the wildness, the rule-breaking, the interior word/feeling wars surrounding you. Let’s get liberated, free, say what we want to say, feel what we want to feel, and screw the restrictions of the world around us. You want to get inside the wild sanity of the Beat world, this is the best place to begin. It’s the world Cornish grew up in and it totally and forever dominated his whole world-view: “These were the days of my young/America in the pages of City Lights//and the Evergreen Review/ Allen Ginsberg recalling the days/of his naked youth being policed by Time/ Magazine the lovers of J Edgar Hoover//America Sacco and Vanzetti/ the Scottsboro Boys rotting//in history Ginsberg lost/in his poems…” (“My Young America,” p.9).







And there’s another special touch here too, Cornish being black, seeing the white world through black visioning: “the jazz/man beats//his drum/like he whips//his women his/black face//purple with rage//my jazz



man/ with his nigger/face//wants to/marry//me my horn/player//jazz man/plays a sunny/day/something back//blows /his horn//like he/got/his thing/in me//his music/is he/jungle/in the city/bars/stompin’/his blues/into me.” (“My Man,” pp.14-15).





One of the most powerful books of poetry ever, ever written. In the Ginsberg-Kerouac mode, telling it as it is, but somehow, with ALL the academic writing-rules tossed away, you’re there, it’s not just writing but time-travelling back into Cornish’s reality that we can all identify with because we were all back there too, even if we never got so totally inside it as he did.





**** Hugh Fox is a founding editor of the Pushcart Prize.

Margaret Young: A poet who uses all the trappings of the world as material.

Margaret Young: A poet who uses all the trappings of the world as material.

By Doug Holder

Poet Margaret Young uses costumes, food, old pop songs, as well as nature, and just about everything else on this world stage for material for her writing. Nothing is too insignificant or marginal: she gives a voice to it all. As her mentor the poet Gary Snyder taught her, poets should give voice to that cannot be voiced; this includes everything in the human world.

Young is a poet and a professor at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass. Her latest book of poetry is “Almond Town.” She earned an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of California, Davis, and co-founded the Open Door Theatre Company. I talked with her on my Somerville Community Access TV show “Poet to Poet Writer to Writer.”


Doug Holder: You have an extensive background in theater. Does this inform your work?

Margaret Young: I kind of grew up with poetry everywhere. My father is a poet, editor; he is a theater teacher, and Shakespeare professor. We went to plays all the time and it was really when I started teaching theatre myself that I started to feel as though I was an artist. I was good at writing and other aspects of the theater. But something happened when I was doing children’s plays. I was working with little kids that didn’t have a lot of stuff in their lives. It was sort of out of the comfort zone for me. But I started to do it and it gave me all the belief in the power of art to change lives. In a way this is what I wasn’t able to achieve as a poet for many years. This maybe because there are not as many opportunities.

DH: Has your theater background helped you when you read from your work?

MY: When I first started reading I was at UC/DAVIS. We had a reading series. As things turned out I signed up to read last and I saw all my friends and colleagues read before me. And they would do what beginners do. They would get up and read their work, and they would sound a little scared. And it finally hit me—of course they were scared. Of course you don’t have confidence, etc… So I learned to use my acting skills and pretended that I had all this confidence. And I got up there and everyone said “Wow!” I tell my students about this. As you know teaching is all about acting too.

DH: You got an M.A. in Creative Writing not an MFA. What is the difference?

MY: I wish someone told me about the difference. I know now it is considered a less complete degree. But this was the early 90’s, there was an internet, but I didn’t have access. I really didn’t know anyone studying in these programs. So I got some brochures from three or four places. I didn’t notice which one had the “F” and which one didn’t have the “F.” The program I chose might have had more an English emphasis than the MFA programs. We wrote a creative thesis. Each thesis had to be grounded in reading. I was taking classes with English students, which made for a richer experience for me.

DH: You have written about clothes and costumes. Do you feel the role of the poet is to strip away facades such as these and get to the meat of the matter?

MY: He or she can. But the poet can also pay close attention to what the clothes mean. We all pretend that they are meaningless and invisible. The essays I wrote about this subject took certain theatrical costumes that were associated with characters. One of the jobs of poetry is to look at the overlooked. Poetry should reexamine and refocus.

DH: You teach a course on Popular Culture at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass. Tell me about it.

MY: It is the trivia. It is the frivolous stuff. It is what surrounds us all the time. Examining this stuff is important in any undergraduate’s education. Why are we surrounded and obsessed with all these trappings of pop culture?

DH: You seem to have affection for food in your writing.

MY: Yeah, I always figured why not study the stuff you consume every day. When I write about food I am writing about love, connection, and place.

DH: In the poem “Pastoral” in your new collection “Almond Town” you seem to imply that we separate ourselves from nature. Does poetry help you connect?

MY: To me one of the primary acts of poetry is to reconnect. So it always deepens my connection to it.

DH: Now… you lived the Boheme life and now you are a mother and wife. How has domesticity affected your creative life?

MY: I was very relieved when I had my first book -child before my first child-child. I felt I was ready. I had two books to mess around with while I was learning to be a mother. It would have been hard to balance them both earlier. It is a different life. But I also have new subject matter. For instance I can use the concept of ‘play’ and how that is aligned with the creative process.

DH: Your husband is a philosophy professor. Do you two complement each other in terms of each other’s work?

MY: We read poetry together. And when we encounter art works together I like having that very different prospective. It is one that is logical. We think differently. I am glad that he spends his thought time in a different place. When we do come together we have great conversations. He is a better poet than I am a philosopher.

Reunion by Lois Ames

A few years back Lois Ames gave me a chapbook of her poetry titled Reunion. I had the privilege to interview Ames, and she is a fascinating study. Ames is the editor of Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters (with Lois Ames, 1992), and wrote the introduction to Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar. She was a confidante to both Sexton and Plath. I never got a chance to review this book, but Emilly Braille an English major at Endicott College where I teach reviewed this fine chapbook of poetry by Ames. This is part of a series of reviews by English and Creative Writing majors at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass.

Reunion by Lois Ames Something Fishie Publications Acton, MA. (1997) No Price.

Review by Emily Braile

Reunion by Lois Ames is a short collection of poetry that reads like a meditation on the world that surrounds Ames, her relationship with that world, with other people, and with herself. Ames writes in a style that is both contemplative yet concrete, reminiscent of Rumi and Lydia Davis all at once. She extracts the essence of a situation or conversation, and then translates it into an assortment of words both romantic and simplistic.

In “Haiku for a College Reunion,” Ames manages to pinpoint the strange, time-warping experience of returning to people and places from one’s past that have, in and of themselves, moved forward:

My seventeen year old self
goes back to confront
all of those aging ladies (4).

In the poem “Last Days,” Ames conveys a love of, and preference for, summer above the other seasons, or at the very least above autumn. She writes:

I try to hold
on to summer
grasping
at the edges
in the same way
I seize
at the eiderdown
slipping
from the bed
in the cool
autumn night (32).

There is no obvious reflection within the language of this poem on how Ames feels with the approach of autumn and the inevitable loss of summer. However, she takes an experience everyone is familiar with, the “slipping” of blankets from the bed, to illustrate the emotions she experiences with the last days of summer. With this simple, relatable image, she is able to capture and illuminate the sensation of the sudden loss of comfort and warmth; something summer brings to her and autumn takes away. This is a sentiment I can relate to and agree with. In twenty-nine words, Ames has told me something about herself, how she views the world around her, and established common ground with me and other summer-favoring readers.


Scattered throughout Reunion are poems, often short and tightly written, reflecting on Ames’s relationship with herself. In the poem “The Scrapbook of a Farm Woman: Portraits, Receipts, Herbs & Seasonings,” she writes:

The task
for everyone
is to find
a way of being
oneself
in one’s own time (10).

In Meditation 2, she writes:

I shed selves
like snakeskins
trying to forget
self trying to melt
into the Self (13).

Ideas like these are not new, yet Ames manages to get to the bones of them. She is a poet who finds the skeletal structure of both simple and complex ideas and draws them to the surface. She does away with extravagance and focuses on the heart of her experiences.

Throughout Reunion, but especially within her poems about self, is an inspiring sense of inner strength and self-reliance, which are cornerstones of many Eastern philosophies. This theme is not surprising when the reader realizes there is a Zen quality to Ames’s poems, specifically the poems similar to those quoted above. The easy connection is gracefully, seemingly unconsciously made, giving Ames’s work an aura of elemental wisdom. It’s clear that Ames is a writer who has spent many years honing her literary skills, casting aside the excess and keeping only the essentials. She is a talented modern writer, and a joy to read.


Emily Braile is an English major with a concentration in creative writing at Endicott College. Over the years she's had relationships with art and theater, but writing has proved to be a constant, understated companion. She hopes to someday be a published poet, and no matter what she does or where she goes, to always have time to write.

Hugh Fox Remembers Small Press Legend Len Fulton

I asked my old pal Hugh Fox to write a piece for Len Fulton, the founder of the Small Press Review, who died at 77, July 24, 2011 in Paradise, CA.

(Hugh Fox)

(Len Fulton)









Hugh Fox remembers legendary small press publisher/writer Len Fulton


Like saying goodbye to Debussy or Hemingway or H.G. Wells. I
first met Fulton in Berkeley in 1968 when we founded COSMEP, a small press org. that had yearly conventions here, there and everywhere: St. Paul, Minnesota, New Orleans, New York, you name it. And everyone would be there, all the editors of small presses and lit mags. And poets and other writers. Always reading-shows, and I'd always read.

I got to know EVERYONE in the literary scene. And visited Fulton up in
his place in Paradise, California, way in the middle of nowhere, or everywhere, if what you loved was California wilderness.



Tall dark-haired, a little moustache, always bright, on the ball, kind of Harvard professorish, but at the same time a kind of exploratory cowboy explorer always moving further into the essence of Nature itself. For years, two or three times a year I'd get a huge envelope filled with books and literary reviews to review for SMALL PRESS REVIEW, and he slowly turned me into a kind of central writer for the mag. Which I loved. Sadly COSMEP slowly disappeared over the years. Run by Richard Morris in San Francisco, it's a book in itself that would go through the slow decapitations of all our dreams and hopes. But Morris died from cancer and COSMEP kind of died with him.There's a huge file over in Special Collections at the Michigan State University library dealing with my connections with the death of COSMEP.


A couple of years back Fulton turned SPR into an on-line mag, which I wasn't crazy about. But he'd always send me a printed copy too, and I've got this huge file in my bookcases, years and years and years of copies with my reviews in them.


In the last few years he became increasingly solitary.
Suffering from lung cancer, but not aware that was what was going
on. When I recently told him that I'm dying from cancer, he wrote a
beautiful letter back and mentioned he wasn't "quite up to it" either.
But I don't think he was aware it was lung cancer.


He was/is a central figure in the development of literary
culture in the U.S. He published an INTERNATIONAL DIRECTORY OF LITTLE MAGAZINES AND SMALL PRESSES which I always found of central importance in finding publishers for my books and articles. An odd name for a press -- Dustbooks. Always aware of the transience of life and everything surrounding him/us. Always Señor High Concentration, High Seriousness. I couldn't believe the size of the library in his Paradise ranchhouse. I asked him "Any of my stuff here?," and he walked over the showed me volume after volume after volume, almost everything I'd ever written, the whole library a veritable treasure house of literary treasures.


His death is a huge loss. Will his son, Tim, continue the
SMALL PRESS REVIEW and all the rest of it?
No words from him.


Hard to believe Fulton is really "gone." I always
thought of him, and still think of him, as an IMMORTAL.



*Hugh Fox is a founding editor of the Pushcart Prize, and has been widely published in the small press.

Len Fulton, publisher of The Small Press Review Dies, 76

Please click on the tile immediately below for an introduction to an interview of Fulton by A.D. Winans and some words from Fulton himself in his interview in Poesy Magazine.

(CLICK ON PICTURE TO READ)

( AD WINANS LEFT -- LEN FULTON RIGHT)

Environmental Novelist Kitty Beer: Writing of a time when Boston is underwater.

Environmental Novelist Kitty Beer: Writing of a time when Boston is underwater.

Kitty Beer, a member of the Somerville Bagel Bards, sets her new novel “Human Scale” in 2062, a time in which Boston is under water and the suburban town of Arlington, Mass has become a seaside community. Beer, a graduate of Harvard University and Cornell University, has been an environmental journalist for many years and to her a scenario such as this is far from farfetched. I talked with Beers on my Somerville Community Access TV show “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”

Doug Holder: Was the book “Silent Spring” a big influence on you as an environmental journalist?

Kitty Beer: Well—‘Silent Spring” is very inspiring. But also, I was working on the the nuclear arms race, and I wrote a booklet some years ago that was sold all over the world—there was a huge demand for it. After I finished this, me, and a lot of people switched over to the environment. I think Carl Sagan was very influential with his concept of Nuclear Winter. He said that humans can actually destroy the earth. So the environmental movement was coming up strong at that time. So that is how I got into environmental activism—it started with the nuclear arms race.

DH: In your novel it is 2062 and Boston is basically underwater. Arlington, Mass –miles inland is a seaside community. How likely is this scenario?

KB: Well, I don’t view my novel as a prediction. I view it as a warning. And I am hoping very much that it does not come true. But every time you hear a report from an environmental scientist, they say” Oh, this is happening a lot faster than I thought.” The glacier melt and everything is accelerating, the sea is rising. The temperature has risen one degree Fahrenheit in 30 years. If it raises four degrees –which sounds small- well, it would have a catastrophic effect. I think it is very possible that Boston can be under water. There would be so much water in the city it would be unusable.

Every time I listen to the news there is something dire happening with the weather. The New York Times today talked about 14 states that are affected by this extreme weather. A few weeks ago there were wild fires, and floods, not to mention earthquakes. The earth is going out of balance. And it is going out of balance faster and faster. In a way the earth is fighting back—but I think this is only the beginning. Even if we stop using fossil fuel now, the effect will still go on. I have been an environmental journalist for some years and I am up on the science.

DH: In the novel a totalitarian state arises from the chaos the weather brings. Is this form of government another logical scenario?

KB: When you have all these catastrophes at the same time you will have a huge influx of refugees fleeing to other parts of the country. When chaos comes, historically governments shrink and are displaced. The center does not hold. Tribal enclaves form. So these local governments take over, which makes a totalitarian state more likely.

DH: Basically in the novel priests sort of run things. One of their duties is to deflower under aged girls. What is your personal review of religion?
KB: I think people turn to religion when they are scared. It is very likely that people are going to wrap themselves in religion. It would be very appealing to them—to be told that the earth is in trouble because of God and their sin. If they don’t sin and find God—and obey the priests—then everything will be O.K. So it would be very easy for people like the Priests to take over. If you have total power it corrupts.

DH: But as you told me the story concerns much more than the environment. In fact it is still the same old story --the fight for love—for glory—as time goes by. I mean there is love, lust and violence between these characters—this isn’t a clinical piece of writing.

KB: I write stories about love and glory. My first novel took place in the 2040’s: “What Love Can’t Do.” I shocked my friends with my first novel—but they enjoyed all the lust, and passion—just the same. My new novel is about Global Warming, but more so—the effect on people.

DH: There is an interesting cast of characters in your novel. Some sympathetic, some not so much, and some are despicable. How do you feel about your characters?

KB: I love them all. I even love the evil priest Father Rose. I don’t love them personally, but I love their characters.



*** http://kittybeer.net

beautifully alien refraction by Miriam E. Walsh

Review by Reza Tokaloo
7/11/11
Poetry Book Review

Book 1: Random Series

By Miriam E. Walsh

Ardornata Publishing (2011)



Miriam Walsh’s first book (*in a series of 4 books of her poetry) in her Random Book series titled: “beautifully alien refraction,” is a smattering of various poetic forms that are both visual and audible. The title of the book is taken from her poem “dispel 96” (p.14) and displays many of the themes that occur throughout this lengthy volume (140 pages).

In the first 15-20 pages of her work, Ms. Walsh hangs her poems like paintings, as they take on familiar patterns found in much modern poetry: spirals, donuts, steps, diamonds, words descending, and words ascending, etc... Much of this geometric visual art evaporates in favor of long prose in multiple stanza forms with stanzas between 3 and 7 lines long.

Thematically, Ms. Walsh sets her sights on much religious and philosophical metaphors in poems such as: “Of Gods 02,” “Mayan Amidst 00,” “Spirit Walk,” and “Leaving Eden 99.” The pervading imagery derives itself from a Catholic background that might be explained by Ms. Walsh’s residency in the southern Massachusetts town of Bridgewater.

Much of this work feels derivative as certain phrases and words appear consistently in many of her pieces such as: “I am,” “halos,””soul,” and celestial bodies appear play a heavy role in a quasi-mystic imagery: the sun, stars, universe, etc..

Overall, this volume of poetry display most of the common forms and musicality found in the greater body of work coming out of southern Massachusetts over the last 12-15 years. What I found to be frustrating at times (as a reader) was that Ms. Walsh was not ending her work properly. Her pen seemed to want to keep going, looking for that special phrase to captivate and enlighten when her poems had already made their justice fruitful enough. A good example is the last 3 lines of her poem “the quietening 97” (yes that is the title of this piece): “it is the quietening/ and it is anything/but quiet.”

Ms. Walsh has obviously amassed a large body of poetic work over the course of her life. Publishing 4 books of poetry attests to a high level of dedication to writing while working in industries ranging from the arts and health care. And it is not surprising the influence and exposure to these parts of her life have nurtured the stories and poems she has compiled into this collection. To me, it is not whether a poem is simply good or bad, it is what the poet leaves the reader (and the listener) with afterward that has relevance.

The Broadsider

The Broadsider
A Subsidiary of Yossarian Universal News Service
http://yunews.com/broadsider.html
Limited Edition Issue (numbered and signed) $50.00
Regular Issue (unsigned) $20.00
Individual Broadside signed: $5.00
Individual Broadside unsigned: $3.00

Review by Rene Schwiesow

“The Broadsider” only prints previously published work. Yes, you heard me correctly. Everything that “The Broadsider” publishes has already been found in print or online publications. The concept allows more exposure for a poet’s work and in a unique way. Each work solicited by “The Broadsider” is paired with a graphic and produced as a broadside on 65# paper. The collection of broadsides is unbound.

Broadsides come with their distinct advantages. Incorporating poetics into a poster-style piece of art often creates a wonderful presentation. However, the nature of combing print with a graphic can be a tricky situation for readability. While I found some of the broadsides to be very easy to read, many of them contained sections where letters and words blended into the graphic behind them. Thus, those sections of the poem were more difficult to decipher.

The edition I read re-published notable authors such as Hugh Fox with a work entitled “Dad at 73.” The broadside features a photo of a service man as the graphic, the stock is light blue and, for this particular work, black ink was chosen. The design allows the work to be read easily and Fox finishes up the poetics with wonderful phrases like “crickets like crazy, moon out.”

A piece entitled “teddy,” by leah angstman (No, that is not a typo. I am told she does not capitalize her name), is printed in green ink on a beige-toned paper. The shadowing of the graphic photo behind the poem means that one must expend a little more effort to read sections of the work if the lighting is not “just right.” The poem, however, is fabulous:

maybe now the windmills of
Nantucket can be spinning
on the hills of the sound
where the richies can see

blowin out there with
your legacy your depth
your final great roar as
the last congressional lion

Another notable, poet laureate of West Virginia Irene McKinney, gets my vote for her work entitled “Homage to Roy Orbison.” The piece is printed in black ink over a graphic of the legendary Orbison and, despite the shadowing of his sunglasses in the graphic, the work is very readable.


I think that in the voice’s rise
and wail we finally wake and hear the voice
of an angel, “Sweet dreams baby” Roy throbs.

The sheaf of broadsides makes for interesting reading and visual stimulation and if one or more really strike your fancy – put them on the refrigerator with a poetic-looking magnet, or pin it to the bulletin board above your writing desk. Check out their website at the above url link to read more of “The Broadsider” online.

Rene Schwiesow is a co-host for the popular South Shore poetry venue: The Art of Words. You can reach Rene at duetsdove@yahoo.com

Primitive Awe By Miriam E. Walsh

Primitive Awe
By Miriam E. Walsh
Ardornata Publishing, 2011
142 pages

Reviewed by Pam Rosenblatt

Miriam E. Walsh’s Primitive Awe published on June 4, 2011 is 142 pages of fantastical along with experimental poetry that intrigues and arouses curiosity. A former mental health worker at a detox unit, a drafter in the field of engineering, and a graphic designer, Walsh has written a series of four books released in 2011. Primitive Awe is the second book of her random series. Her cover of the book is her own design of a body, complicated yet simple at the same time.


A complex poet, Walsh rarely makes the read simple. But it is a read well the while, though straight answers may never develop, even after analysis of the poems.
In the beginning pages of Primitive Awe, Walsh uses words that may require a dictionary to decipher and often refers to Greek mythological gods. The “difficult” words slowly ease into “easier” words as the book develops. Her metaphors and use of description through economy of words are articulate and wonderful, as seen in the poem, “eros of thanatos 03”.


For better understanding of this poem, “Eros” is the Greek mythological god of sexual love and beauty as well as a god of fertility. He’s known as “Cupid” in Roman mythology. His father is “Ares”, the Greek god of war; his mother is “Aphrodite”, the Greek goddess of love and beauty.


“Thanatos” is a less recognized Greek mythological figure who “was the daemon personification of death.” Throughout ancient Greek literature, “Thanatos” was often implied to but rarely seen. He’s the son of “Nyx” (night) and “Erebos” (Darkness). His brother “Hypnos” (Sleep) is a twin to “Thanatos”.


Now, in “eros of thanatos”, Walsh combines Eros, Thanatos, Aphrodite, Ares, Nyx, and Hypnos to create a somewhat confusing and vividly descriptive work. For instance, Walsh writes:

I am picking upon
a wound again,
licking upon this cut
just to feel it,
just to taste it,
just to bleed
and make sure my heart
is still beating.
Here Walsh suggests Ares and his calling for war, while in the poem’s final stanza Walsh implies that Nyx, the god of night, Erebos, the god of darkness, and Hypnos, the god of Sleep “exist” through economy of word and precise, simple word usage:

to exist
as if it never happened
to glow
when it would be
too easy,
to grow dim,
to stop,
to disappear
to sleep.

As the poems progress in this 142 page poetry book, the poems tend to be clearer, though sometimes they center around the world of the poet herself and are still not easily understood.

this 03

a rebellion
against the hope
imposed upon us.

it is a quiet honesty
that makes a cavern
of your throat
for all it wants to say;
complete
with its quiet
worshipping,
fire-lit paintings;
its primitive awe.

it is an empty place
for that
which will never form.
a space that is
a memory
of a shape
it had imagined
and decided
remembering
will do just as well.

but it is also
acceptance.


a hollow
that breathes,
a grass
receiving snow.

and it is the
only place
where threat
has no echo.

like all things
in life,
merely a ritual
to forget dying

and daily prepare for it.

In “this 03”, Walsh uses the words “primitive awe”, two words that make up the title of her book. Perhaps this poem is filled with “awe”, a word that gently explains the whole meaning of the book. Yet, perhaps not.

small lucidities Book four: random series by Miriam Walsh

small lucidities
Book four: random series
Copyright 2011 by Miriam E. Walsh
ardornata publishing
ISBN978093659839
142 pages, softbound, no price

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

This poetry book is the fourth in a series, the other, to be reviewed by other reviewers are entitled beautifully alien refraction, primitive awe and forced continuity. If the others are anything like this book they should be quite enthralling.

small lucidities has images one may not to read, as in “to breathe 07” in which you can find the following: today was a bad day/to breathe./I should have stopped/that last breath/and the one that came after/but my lungs demanded/and I acquiesced,/from habit.

Ms. Walsh’s images are not pleasant ones, the poems are not happy and a reader feels the Lucidity has been wherever the voice was institutionalized, but ah, there is not indication she ever was, though her bio states she was a health worker at a detox unit and held a number of other positions thus her poems in this volume at least were composed during lunch breaks, poetry readings, train and car rides. As you read this volume, and perhaps the other ones, you will feel that she is indeed prolific, profound and maybe even possessed. Most of the pages have two columns, indicating who directions, two thoughts, too much. Who knows.

Here are samples from two of the poems:

this deep 10: this deep,/this ache/is an ocean I swim under/ warm,/close/pressing/in every inch/a swaddling/that releases/me/from my obligation/to move

no more 08: a rage/I am trying/not to have,/a pain/I am condemned to;/I will be/no more

Some might be repulsed by the concepts behind the whole poem, but they work, they are enthralling, and to be honest makes one wonder whether Ms. Walsh worked in a detox center or was a patient there. Yet having said that, small lucidities has some big lucid thoughts and taken in small doses is a fascinating book (and a reminder there are three others I have not read). Give it a shot and see what you think.

Somerville Poet Julia Story: A Writer with 'Moxie'

Somerville Poet Julia Story: A Writer with "Moxie”

By Doug Holder

Somerville poet Julia Story walked into the Sherman Café to meet with yours truly on a hot July morning. She looked like a poet. Tall and willowy, long, blondish hair with the requisite tattoo on her naked shoulder—she had all the trappings. One could imagine her burning the midnight oil in some Somerville garret, or playing the role of the hip teacher leading a seminar at some MFA program. I say Story has “Moxie” because her first collection of poetry is titled “Post Moxie,” and because she also has courage. It takes guts to live the life of a writer: all the uncertainty, the hustling for jobs, publishing or perishing, and all that sort of rot.



Story, like many Somerville artists, poets, etc… I have interviewed is a transplant. She hails from Indiana, and later got her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of New Hampshire. Her adviser was the much lauded poet Charles Simic.



Story is a friend of the former Somerville Poet Heather Madden (Who defected to Providence, RI), who I had the pleasure to interview a few years back. Story heard about the artistic vibe in Somerville from Madden as well as others. She now lives in the Winter Hill Section of the city.



Like many a poet and writer of my acquaintance she works and has worked at a number of jobs to pay the bills. She has been employed by a non-profit, taught high school, tutored, and was a reader for the prestigious Emerson College–based lit mag “Ploughshares.” She loves teaching creative writing—but most of all she likes to have time for her own work.



I asked Story about her first publication credits. She recalled being published by the “Painted Bride" lit mag in 2000, which at the time was solely online. Online was not in vogue 10 years or so ago—-so her excitement was a bit dampened by that. Story said "Today there would be no problem with an online magazine; they are well-accepted in the literary community. My first published work (In print) was in the “Iowa Review” which I was really thrilled with.”



Story’s first collection of poetry “Post Moxie” was the recipient of Sarabande Books 2009 Kathryn A. Morton Prize and the 2010 John C. Zacharis First Book Award. Her work has appeared in “Ploughshares,” “The Paris Review,” “Octopus,” “Salt Hill” and others.



Story conceives her poems within the context of a series. She never has a preconceived plan when she writes a poem—the ideas seem to come to her, and she goes with the flow. Story retains a good measure of childhood innocence in her work despite being in her late 30’s. She feels it is necessary for a poet view the world with fresh eyes.



Story told me her next collection in progress is titled “Red Town.” She is using the concept of a town as an organizing principle for her work ,and perhaps one day she will use “Our Town” (Excuse me Mr. Wilder) for new inspiration for a new book.

*************************************************************************************



Its Plastic Light"


I make the travel plans. When two ghosts
cross each other, a sky is born. Two
skies try to exist together, one in the
background while the other takes the
credit. Or one underneath the other,
coiled like the furnace in a pretend
hideout, waiting until it can be something
else. The birds honking or in silent lines.
This sound steadfast as a face.



Copyright © 2009 Julia Story All rights reserved
from Post Moxie
Sarabande Books

Ibbetson Street #29

Ibbetson Street #29
Publisher: Doug Holder
Managing Editor: Dorian Brooks
Poetry Editors: Mary Rice, Harris Gardner
Consulting Editors: Robert K. Johnson, Dianne Robitaille
Art Consultant: Richard Wilhelm
Design: Steve Glines
Website Managers: Linda Haviland Conte, Ray Conte
Front Cover: Dianne Robitaille
Back Cover: Dianne Robitaille

50 pages, $8, softbound
The Ibbetson Street Press is supported by and formally affiliated
With Endicott College, Beverly, MA http://www.endicott.edu



Review by Zvi A. Sesling

Somerville poet Doug Holder, the “Johnny Appleseed of Boston area poetry” has done much for the poetic community, including his Bagel Bards (co-founded with Harris Gardner) a group of poets and writers who meet weekly in Somerville, MA and his
publishing house, Ibbetson Street Press which issue poetry books from unknown writers to well known ones. In this latest offering there is a wide selection of excellent poems presented by (to name only a few) Lawrence Kessenich, Ed Galing, Adrienne Drobnies, Richard Hoffman, Dan Sklar, Barbara Helfgott Hyett, Lyn Lifshin and A.D. Winans.

Wendy Drexler’s “Voodoo Donuts” is clever both in its writing and artistic verbal layout which needs to be seen and read. Lawrence Kessenich’s “Writer In Residence” is a nostalgic explanation of a beginning and a veteran’s writer love for pen and paper. Richard Hoffman’s “Long Enough” carries a memory for years. Dan Sklar’s “Of Time And "The Beauty Contest” is a bittersweet poem of love and Alzheimer’s. All the poems in this volume have something to say, are worth a read while the selections provide a diversity of styles.

If The Potter’s Hands Shake by Renee Summers

If The Potter’s Hands Shake
Renee Summers
Converpage

Review by Rene Schwiesow

Poet Renee Summers is no stranger to publishing. Her work has appeared in “Spare Change News,” “Ibbetson Street Press,” “The Aurorean,” and “West Crooke Review,” as well as in other presses. Summers has a love for the written and spoken word and enjoys the time she spends reading poetry for the blind on The Talking Information Center, based at WATD Radio Station in Marshfield, MA. She is always looking for those who may be willing join her in the studio to donate a half hour of their time reading on her show.

“If the Potter’s Hands Shake” is Summers second collection of poetry. The work is filled with nature, family, war, and accepting the personal responsibility for “molding the clay,” rather than projecting all blame onto the Divine. If the Divine is the Potter, Summers feels that we are the hands:

He is the Potter, His craft is infinite;
we are his hands that conceive
on life’s wheel the passion,
the adjectives of countless mores
destructed from individual flaws.

She remembers the Holocaust in works such as “Butterflies of Thieresenstadt” and “To Every One There is a Name,” and speaks to terrorism in “Terror:”

Terror
came over the boundaries
snarling
with snake eyes glazed.

Though Summers addresses the difficult subject of war and the gut-wrenching losses we endure as a result of war, the book is not only a treatise for putting down arms. No, Summers blends all of life together, turning the clay of her experience with a deft hand, knowing the paradox of taking the “bad” along with the “good.” In the first section of the book entitled, “Nature,” Summers addresses nature from gardening to the cosmos:

As the year ends
the cold blue moon
wearing a halo of angelic dust,
a necklace of jewels,
rises in the darkening firmament
to sit upon the edge of the universe.

I am not a winter person, but the visuals in the above strophe from “Colors,” almost give me cause to reconsider my dislike for winter.

The book is separated into three sections. In the final section, “family and other collected poems” Summers has penned a touching, nostalgic work entitled “The Portrait.” The poem is in honor of her grandparents and reading it was a beautiful reminder of all generations that have gone before us.

The sepia photo on the wall
grows to let me step inside

For information on “If the Potter’s Hands Shake” as well as for information on the Talking Information Center, Renee Summers can be contacted at: Renee.Summers@umb.edu

Rene Schwiesow is co-host of the popular South Shore venue, The Art of Words. You can reach Rene at duetsdove@yahoo.com

Review of OUR SACRED JOURNEYS, by Linda M. Duncum

Review of OUR SACRED JOURNEYS, by Linda M. Duncum, illustrated by Susan (Mojo) Dixon, Author House, 1663 Liberty Drive, Bloomington, IN 47403, www.authorhouse.com, 2010, $10.50, 50 pages

Review by Barbara Bialick

From a spiritual point of view, OUR SACRED JOURNEYS is almost a religious tract, but more than that it gives some of the ancient philosophy of the Metis aboriginal people who come from Canada and trace their descent back to mixed European and First Nation parentage, according to Wikipedia. Their homeland is Canada and parts of the northern United States (Montana, North Dakota, and northwest Minnesota).

The fact that I had to look this up on my own, is frustrating, though one could read her spiritual journey poems just on face value as a metaphorical travel experience through Nature. The path she was apparently on she called “the Red Road”—which means, again according to Wikipedia, a “pan-Indian and new age concept of the right path of life, as inspired by the beliefs found in a variety of Native American religions.”

It would be futile to try to explain her religious poetry as religion without more information, but poetically speaking some good lines include:

“What the world would look like”: …”If we actually treated our Mother Earth/as a loving gift, as well as a sacred home/…And if we all saw each other as equal and in the/same light, would we finally have a world/of peace, with no actual reason left to fight?”

“When the world is silent”…”What do I hear when the world is silent,/when all man made sounds do not exist?/I hear the cry of an eagle calling me to a secret place/high in the mountains/…where the sounds of silence are deafening to untrained ears/…to man,/silence is the absence of sound./To the eagle silence is the absence of man…”

“Dreams”: “A young boy quietly leaves the comfort/and safety of his home to climb a lone/pecan tree…/When he finally reaches the top…/it is here, he is cradled in the arms of God…”

Finally, “God’s Mirror”: “Water is the purest reflection of God’s work/a true mirror of how the Creator views his world./…From the water’s stillness lies the true meaning/of serenity…/As with the spirit of God, the waters bring us life;/for it continuously cleanses and heals, all that it touches.”

Linda M. Duncum grew up in New England where she “developed a strong relationship with Mother Earth and the outdoors,” her news release says. Retired from the military,
she has worked as a registered nurse in Alpine, Texas, where she lives in a mountain home.

Somerville Artist Resa Blatman: Where Beauty and Ugly Meet

(Scintillating Swamp, 2011
oil, glitter, beads, graphite, and acrylic on cut-edge panel
39½h x 59w inches)




Somerville Artist Resa Blatman: Where Beauty and Ugly Meet



By Doug Holder


This year I taught the once controversial book "Black Spring" by Henry Miller in my college writing courses. This work deals with the mean streets of Miller's Brooklyn youth: the sweaty press of the flesh, the cast of ner-do-wells, the street urchins, the duplicity of the swells and the hucksters and all that ugliness that Miller found beauty in. This is similar to the work of Somerville artist Resa Blatman. She sees beauty and ugliness and they live next door to each other. In fact much of her work is informed with the duality of the world.



On her website Blatman states: “ Through my work, I attempt to show nature at odds with itself by playing with the contradictions of lush versus barren and rapture vesus displeasure. My compositions are inspired by the Renaissance, Baroque, Victorian, decorative art and botanical imagery to create a visual feast of fruit, wildlife and pattern." This artist takes these out of their natural context and conjures up a surrealistic landscape that gives the reader a take on an enigmatic life cycle. Animals and insects are in this fecund mix and some pretty threatening pieces of fruit which according to Blatman creates: "Undertones of want and dismay."



Blatman happens to have a space at the Vernon Street Studios in Somerville, and lives with her husband in the Magoun Square section of our town. She was born in Long Beach, N.Y., lived in New York City, Italy, and has lived in Somerville for a long while. She loves the Somervillian environs and runs into many artists who are just dying to get a piece of the action and a plot of land here.





Blatman likes to push boundaries: she paints raging tornadoes as well as dead birds. ( Maybe they are related!) She said: " My goal is to make paintings that are sometimes over-the-top." She feels good about pushing things too much, after all too much beauty can be repulsive--the very dichotomy that the painter dwells in.



You might say Blatman's paintings are cutting edge-literally--because she uses cut-edge surfaces. She explains on her website:



"The digitally designed, intricately cut-edge surfaces are new since 2008. The various edges, which may include animals, insects, and flourishes, are an extension of the patterns within the paintings. These cut forms, along with the shadows made by the cuts, encourage a three-dimensionality to the work, and by doing so, the paintings become more experiential and boundless."


Blatman made sure to remind me that she has a solo exhibition at the Ellen Miller Gallery Sept. 9-Oct. 18 36 Newbury St. in Boston. It will be beautiful./It will be ugly./ You will be repulsed/You will love it.


http://resablatman.com

Making A Life by Charles H. Harper

Making A Life
Charles H. Harper
Powder Horn Press, Inc.
Soft cover: $12.00
Hard cover: $22.00


Charles Harper’s second full-length book of poetry weaves the interconnectedness of Being throughout the work – the words as weft and the intention behind the use of the Chinese symbol pronounced “tee-an” as warp. While the symbol cannot be exactly translated into English, it is known to represent a “totality of reality” – all aspects of being: manifest, intuition, and that which goes beyond human intuition.

The use of the symbol intrigued me and each time it appeared in the book along with a short poem, I was offered a moment to meditate on the group of poems that preceded each printing of the symbol. In keeping with the possibilities inherent within interconnectedness, Harper has penned a poem entitled, “Is.” The epigraph is a phrase from Czeslaw Milosz – “they walk contemplating the holy word: Is.” Harper begins by saying:

I’m dancing on the rim of IS: Blue sky
above backdrops the sheen of sun that holds
our planet in its thrall –

In “Disquietude,” Harper looks at the suffering of our interconnectedness, the helplessness that may set in when we perceive there is nothing that we can do to lessen others’ pain:

What good is my bitter lament
for ragged refugee lines
staggering across endless
wastelands of our world?

Indeed.

For Harper interconnectedness does not end with the Oneness of humanity. No, he also addresses our connection to nature – to earth herself.

Gaia trembles beneath our piles
of gadgets, greed, and war.
She weeps a mother’s darkest grief. . .

In a nod to the poetic life the work “Three or Four” brought me a smile:

A Poet
may have three
or four things to say,
hardly ever more


It can take many years,
hundreds of yards of pencil,
paper and eraser,
as well as millions
of wadded up words
tossed in the wastebasket
before you finally figure out
what these three
or four things are

Jean Mellichamp Milliken, editor of “The Lyric,” says “This poetry pulls us away from our duty-filled days and reminds us of the miracles of our presence here on this spinning ball as we whirl through the universe.

Bill Moyers of PBS writes, “These poems cut deep, but not like a knife. They are the slow coming of dawn, until we see all at once what had been there in the dark.

Harper’s book is like wading into a clear tidepool and finding spirituality, nature, the human condition, love, despair, wonder, struggle, hope and, above all, gratitude cohabitating within the eco-system, each embracing and understanding the other.

And isn’t that the way the world should be?

“Making a Life” can be purchased through Charles Harper by contacting him via email at: chatharper@comcast.net.

Rene Schwiesow is a co-host for the popular South Shore venue: The Art of Words. She can be contacted at duetsdove@yahoo.com

Bagel Bards Appear at Stone Soup Poets: July 25, 2011 8PM

July 25th (2011): The Bagel Bards Invade Stone Soup Poets--- Out of the Blue Gallery-- 106 Prospect St. Cambridge, Mass. 8PM



Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On July 25th, we welcome the local writers group The Bagel Bards as they celebrate the 6th volume of their annual anthology.

Infamous Somerville Bagel Bards to invade Stone Soup!

Article by Chad Parenteau

A host of well-known, well-published Boston area writers will be reading from the recently published Bagel Bards #6. The Bagel Bards, founded in 2004 in the basement of the Finagle-A- Bagel in Harvard Square by Doug Holder and Harris Gardner, who meet every Saturday morning at the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square, are a group of writers and poets and other folks of that ilk. Award-winning poet, Lawrence Kessenich was this year’s editor. The introduction to the phenomenal work was written by Kathleen Spivack, also an award winning poet! The Bagel Bards are a group of wonderful, eclectic poets that you will not want to miss!

Kitty Beer
Molly Bennett
Barbara Bialick
Heather Campbell
Louisa Clerici
Adrienne Drobnes
Timothy Gager
Harris Gardner
Elizabeth Hanson
Doug Holder
Abbott Ikeler
Anne Ipsen
Irene Koronas
Linda Larson
Limin Mo
Luke Salisbury
Jack Scully
Zvi Sesling
Manson Solomon
Bert Stern
Paul Stone
Barbara Thomas
Amy Tighe
Chris Warner
Dan Lynn Watt
Molly Lynn Watt
and others...

http://bagelbards.com

Purchase a copy before the reading.

Counting Blessing by Morris Berman

Counting Blessings
Morris Berman
Cervena Barva Press
$16.00

Review by Rene Schwiesow
As a general rule I am a believer in things happening for a reason. On the day I received “Counting Blessings” for review there were two books on the table. Doug Holder handed me “Counting Blessings.” Considering the way in which the work spoke to me, I know I was given the right book. The cover of “Counting Blessings,” is a peaceful courtyard that invites the reader to sit for a while and to become immersed in the poetry. But the real meat begins when you start to read the in-depth and informative forward by Paul Christiensen. I was hooked in the first paragraph and knew I would not put the book down until I was finished. And I didn’t.

Christensen talks about how Berman’s work “The Reenchantment of the World” became a guide in his classroom. After reading two more intriguing paragraphs that included such things as “Einstein’s relativity and the mysterious interactions with quantum physics” and a nod to James Hillman’s work, “Healing Fiction,” I was ready to dig into the poetry. Then just when I didn’t think Christensen could say anything to inspire me further to begin the book, I read this quote by Bob Herbert: “. . .A country that refuses to properly educate its young or to maintain its physical plant is one that has clearly lost its way.” “Berman,” Christensen says, “had already been there, said that.”

Morris Berman is an essayist, novelist, social critic, and cultural historian. He writes a fine blog, entitled “Dark Ages America,” which you can find at: www.morrisberman.blogspot.com/. In “Counting Blessings” he has penned his gratitude for a “life lived away from the maddening crowd.” Berman now resides in Mexico. It was in Mexico that he found the stillness necessary to rejuvenate his creative spirit.

They told me to stop and smell the roses. . .

A complicated, delicate insect
crawling along the edge of a pot in my garden
delicate feelers, large green eyes
absorbed in what it was doing.
I can do that, once in a while:
three seconds every month, perhaps.

It is clear that Berman has taken more than three seconds a month, however, to become absorbed in the observation of the world around him. In “Light,” Berman makes note of observations over a lifetime, including a “cosmic” moment at the age of seven:

and the light was all around me
as though I were in heaven

“Light” ends with these powerhouse lines:

Exodus says it guided the Jews through the desert,
but I’m not looking for the Promised Land,
Oh no –
wandering in the desert is the Promised Land.

I could quote more stop-and-ponder lines from wonderful poems like “The Dodo Bird,” “Ahora,” “Lalo,” and “Doctora Susana,” but I will leave the discovery to you. “Counting Blessings” is a book well worth your reading. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy today!

Rene Schwiesow is co-host of the popular South Shore poetry venue, The Art of Words, held in Plymouth the second Sunday of the month, October through June

SOMERVILLE ARTIST BARBARA CONE ‘WAXES “ POETIC ABOUT HER ART

SOMERVILLE ARTIST BARBARA CONE ‘WAXES “ POETIC ABOUT HER ART

BY DOUG HOLDER

Somerville artist Barbara Cone met me one recent morning at the Bloc 11 Café in Union Square to wax poetic about her work as an Encaustic artist. I say poetic because the woman apologized more than once about being too enthusiastic about her art, and it was evident she was brimming with passion; something you have to bring into play in writing a good poem, or working with wax as she does.

Cone has a studio in the Davis Square section of the city and recently moved to the Republic of Cambridge—but I won’t hold that against her! Encaustic Art is one of the oldest art forms, dating back to the ancient Greeks, and was often used by contemporary artists like Jasper Johns. Cone told me artists of this ilk use beeswax infused with pigment, resin and other substances.

Cone said her process involves procuring melted beeswax which comes pigmented in a vial. Melted wax has to be spread on something that is strong enough to hold its weight like a wood panel. Cone said she use metal and natural bristle brushes to apply the wax and uses a heat gun to fuse the wax into layers. She often creates many layers of wax that become semi-translucent.

Cone, who trained at the Museum School in Boston has been inspied by her studies of molten lava and water as represented in her Aqueous Series. She is also an accomplished printmaker, and co-leads the professional association Mass Wax-a home for encaustic artists of all stripes.

Cone’s work has been widely exhibited and critically acclaimed. Most recently her work has appeared at the Fort Point Art Association Gallery in Boston, the IEA National exhibition Art Center Morro, Bay, Ca., Fairfield Arts Council in Fairfield Connecticut, and elsewhere. Her work is also well-represented in private collections.

Cone said Somerville reminds her of her old haunt Berkeley, California. She reflected: “I think Somerville is like Berkeley in that it is open to artistic experimentation, and it is a vibrant arts center in general with movies, open studios, and festivals held on a regular basis.” Cone concluded by saying that she wants her work to touch people deeply and to be technically challenging. After petting a friendly canine, Cone left Bloc 11 and disappeared down the long winding streets of the Paris of New England: Somerville, Mass.

For more info go to http://www.coneart.com

Emergency Room Wrestling by the dirty poet

Emergency Room Wrestling
the dirty poet
Words Like Kudzu Press
ISBN 978-0-9753862-1-7
$10.00 2011


The reality of this poetry book is…, all the phrases that come to mind
have been said so many times that they have lost their meaning…I'll say,
the poems are profound in a wrenching sort of way, 'sort of way,' is not
how these poems come across, it's more like…lifting, "400 pounds." And
I for one, have not been trained to lift 400 pounds. My superhuman
abilities are pushing too many abstract thoughts through a straw… "oh
no-the rectal trumpet popped out again, there she blows"…:

"hospitals exist; misery is real
this book is imagination
driving a lamborghini of experience"

Hell, I didn't know what was going on beyond my safe haven, behind
the door where I sit, writing on paper…after reading a few poems from,
"Emergency Room Wrestling," I'm ready to slit open a vein and bleed
on the rug where the cat took a leak. The reality in this book leads to
the 'truth' and the truth is humor helps when nothing else doses (does):

"as these things go, it's a happy ending
he tried shooting his girlfriend in the face
the gun jammed so he turned it around
aimed it under his chin and pulled the trigger
surprise -- it unjammed
the bullet tore through the mouth
and exited the left eye, missing the brain entirely
and even though he arrested thrice
before we got a breathing tube in
a week later we're shuffling him out of intensive care
"hey look, Sure Shot's leaving," I say to my partner jeff
to which he responds, "you mean Old Dead Eye:

How does the dirty poet fit into the books I live in or the life I live as
a reviewer? We already have Bukowski, Rimbaud, and now we have to
try to get through the backroom door into the alley where the dirty poet
remains faithful to his own existence. I'm operating on what is present but
I get to put my feet up, sip my latte and make choices about what to say…
and so does the poet and he does it so well it takes my breath:

"in the ICUs people are so fucked up
so gone, ventilated, sedated, deficit
that they're ghosts lying there
only afterwards, if they survive
are they reborn as people
strolling though the units
thanking medicos they don't remember"

The book would be impossible to read without the poet's sense of humor.
His humor saves the poems, lifts like a limp noodle gone stiff after days
on the floor. I say halleluiah and praise the Lord. Even though the author
might not enjoy reading that praise, I repeat, raise your glass, clink praises
for a work well done. I'm voting for the dirty poet for president or a
book award, but I don't have that kind of power:

"holy shit"
"heard about the doctor running for the hospital elevator?
the doors were closing so he stuck his head in
decapitated
which is shocking enough
but imagine the folks inside the elevator"

"an easy night"
"last night I got my ass kicked in trauma
juggling bodies, crises, bloody tracheas
wall-to-wall patients gasping for air
tonight's different: seems like a light evening
i'm rendering treatments to acceptable ill folks
go in this room here, full of family
it's a cheerful scene
the old fellow seems fine
oh shit
no toes on either foot"


Irene Koronas
Poetry Editor:
Wilderness House Literary Review
Reviewer:
Ibbetson Street Press

Review of CTREVIEW, Spring 2011 edition

Review of CTREVIEW, Spring 2011 edition, Vol. XXXIII No. 1; 204 pages; send submissions September 1 to May 15 to Connecticut Review, Connecticut State University System, 39 Woodland Street, Hartford, CT 06105-2337. Check their website at www.ctstateu.edu/ctreview.

By Barbara Bialick



The CTREVIEW, a perfect-bound literary journal from the four universities in the Connecticut State University System, has a board of several editors, including one editor from each university: JP Briggs (Western Connecticut State University), Mary Collins (Central Connecticut State University), Jian-Zhong Lin (Eastern Connecticut State University), and Vivian Shipley (Southern Connecticut State University). There are also several other editors and a group of eight interns who put together this twice-yearly powerhouse of sophisticated poetry, fiction, essays, translations, an interview, fine artwork, and four award-winning works.

Acknowledging their own opinion of this quality journal, the editors note on their website: “The journal publishes the best in contemporary literature and essays. The selection process focuses on bringing to general readers cutting edge work that is both thought provoking and accessible.”

The first thing that captures the reader’s attention is the colorful, surrealistic cover art, “Kwanzaa Mothers, 2010” by Jerry Butler. He is also featured with two other fine artists on the inside of the book—Peter Selgin and Tino Villanueva, who is also a noted poet from Boston University.

There are so many good poems, it’s hard to pull quotes. While reading especially the second half of the book, the poems followed strongly one after another. Here are some lines from a few of them: “Indigo”, by Will Wells, “…one evening in Santa Cruz, you/led me to a bin of Moroccan cloth/and traced my fingers over dust devils/of dye until they were smudged with musk, an aromatic print of North Africa./Wedded to desert sweat, indigo rules/the pores in ways no French soap can subdue—a nomad’s irreducible essence…”

“Frankie Minh” by Susan Kinsolving: “In the Vietnamese orphanage, her eyes became infected; without anesthesia they were gouged out…At age five, she was adopted/by an American acress and renamed to honor Sinatra./…once at a grand house party full/of adult celebrities, she wore the (glass) eyes. When one fell out/and into a bowl of caviar, kindly laughter filled her ears/…She was…a star/…After the eye was /washed off, she held it in her hand, perceiving its elusive/charm and how clearly she could be the life of the party.”

Jennifer Purrine’s “I’ve Never Swum with Dolphins”: “But once I plunged headlong into a pool/of jellyfish, ten million pulsing medusae/ushering me under the waterline,/where I buried my face in the sheer miracle,/…a living garb/that kissed my skin with its milk, with its sting.”
Instead of having a pizza for twelve dollars, you might want to buy this book. The featured award-winners include:

CSU Essay Award, “Blackberry Redux” by Jan Tomas: “The last time I ate a blackberry pie, the wild, tangy flavor transported me into a thorny bramble buried deep in a forest of Missouri scrub oak…”.

CSU Fiction Award to Nancy Antle for “Waiting”: “What a beautiful necklace,” a stranger exclaims. “Thank you. My mother made it for me,” I say. “Years ago.” I am in the airport waiting—on my way to visit my mother across the country. I always wear her gift to me when I go. The necklace is my talisman…”

Pat Mottola won the Leslie Leeds Poetry Prize for “Room in New York, 1932.” Christine Beck won the Leo Connellan Poetry Prize for “Sometimes He Comes Home Bloody.”

I think the Connecticut Review is certainly fulfilling its stated purpose: “a public service contribution to the national literary and intellectual discourse.”

Rosie’s Place founder Kip Tiernan dies at 85

Kip Tiernan Died at 85. I met her once--a thoroughly charming woman, at a 70th birthday party I helped organize for the late poet Jack Powers (Founder of Stone Soup Poets) with Sidewalk Sam and others. Here is a picture:






( CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE)





(Left to Right) Doug Holder, Deb Priestly ( Out of the Blue Art Gallery), Kip Tiernan, Rose Gardina ( Boston Girl Guide)

Excerpt from the Boston Globe:


Rosie’s Place founder Kip Tiernan dies at 85


“The lives she saved were untold,’’ Mayor Menino said of Kip Tiernan, who died Saturday. “The lives she saved were untold,’’ Mayor Menino said of Kip Tiernan, who died Saturday. (Bill Brett/ File 2005)


By Bryan Marquard
Globe Staff / July 4, 2011

Kip Tiernan, who founded Rosie’s Place, the nation’s first shelter for homeless women, and whose persistent, raspy voice echoed from the streets to the State House as she advocated for the poor, died of cancer Saturday in her South End apartment.

Jodi Colella: An artist who is never at a loss for new material.

Jodi Colella: An artist who is never at a loss for new material.
By Doug Holder



While I was intensely reading a book at the Sherman Café in Union Square, Somerville artist Jodi Colella startled me when she simply stated,(behind my back) “Hello.” She laughed as she brings the same intensity and focus to her own work as I did to my book. And a big part of this work according to the Somerville artist's mission statement is to transform ordinary material into “unexpected expressions.”

Colella has moved to Somerville from Wellesley, Mass with her husband. She now has a studio at the Joy St. Studios situated in Somerville as well. She has a home in the Winter Hill neighborhood; so she has established firm roots in our burg. She said she feels right at home, “The city is vibrant, diverse and full of fresh ideas.” Colella also added that she is pleased with the support she has received from the Somerville Arts Council.


The artist, who has a degree in Biology from Boston University was originally a researcher at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, but did not feel the career was the right fit for her. She got a certificate in Graphic Design in 2000, and worked in the field for a while before she gave that up to pursue her own art. Colella describes herself as an intuitive artist, and trusts that intuition implicitly.

I joked with Collela that we would have plenty of material to write about. And indeed Colella has worked with everything from plastic newspaper sleeves, fleece, an assortment of textiles, and she is even considering using sausage casings.

One project that Colella told me about was based at the Fiber Arts Network at Eastern Michigan University and the Textile Center in Minneapolis. She worked with plastic newspaper delivery sleeves. Now—I was a paper boy at one time, slinging the old Long Island Press from door to suburban door, but I never thought of them as fodder for artistic projects. But Colella pulled the sleeves apart, shredded them, and spun them into plastic yarn—“plarn.” The sleeves took on various colors and other depths when they were stretched and compressed. So beauty is evidently in the banal.

In her project ‘Undercurrent” she uses fleece in the development of a window screen—the work she said deals with: “Barriers and duplicity."

Like many artists in our creative environs she wears many hats. She teaches at the deCordova museum in Lincoln, Mass, working with students with fiber art and sculptural jewelry. She loves teaching, although it can be exhausting, she related.

Colella left Sherman’s with a brisk gait, undoubtedly anxious to get a firm grip on her next batch of material.


For more information go to: http://jodicolella.com