Anne Frank Lives: A Play by Lawrence Kessenich

(Lawrence Kessenich--playwright)














Anne Frank Lives
A Play by Lawrence Kessenich
Reading at Boston Playwrights’ Theater
Boston MA

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

When I first heard of the idea behind the play: Anne Frank survived the Holocaust and was alive in New York circa 1962, I had grave doubts about one of the iconic symbols of the six million who died at the hands of the Nazis being misused or misrepresented by a modern day writer, not Jewish, for the sake of a play. After attending this reading, however, I can attest that playwright/poet Lawrence Kessenich has achieved a marvelous play that brings life – on stage – a double faceted view of what might happened, or not.

The Anne Frank as Kessenich conceives her is also Ann Franklin resident of a mental institution in New York. She claims to be Anna Frank, but her psychiatrist tells her she is Anna Franklin. She does her best to try and convince him, she goes back and forth between her two personae and the audience wonders is she, or isn’t she? Even Anna Frank’s father is torn when he visit’s her at the hospital and she asks, “Why don’t you hug me?” But of course he cannot because he does not believe it can really be her.

The play is interspersed with characters at the hospital who include a patients who believes she is Marie Antoinette, a man who says he is Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
and the ghost of Anne’s mother, who died in a concentration camp.

In the end, Anne Frank’s father comes to accept her, even though the audience probably does not. Is his acceptance mere hope, a desire to have his daughter back or an illusion?

The answers are not always clear, though in one of her final monologues Anne/Ann says she must remain dead because, “It is the least I can do for my people.” She is afraid the Holocaust will be considered a fraud if she is alive. But perhaps it could also be said then that she is doing it for the world, whether real or not.

It is a play I look forward to seeing in full production where it will be worthy of a wide audience.

Ploughshares 40th Anniversary Edition

Ploughshares 40th Anniversary Edition

Ploughshares
Emerson College
120 Boylston St.
Boston, MA 02116
(617) 824-3757
pshares@emerson.edu
$14.




Review by Alice Weiss




DeWitt Henry, founder and longtime editor of Ploughshares, has made the adventure of contemporary writing synonymous with his name. 1970’s criticism by conservative critics claimed contemporary literary magazines like Ploughshares served only to promote an institutionalized outlet for mediocrity rather than the Modernist innovation of the magazines of the 1920’s. Dewitt Henry responded: “the question is less one of providing sanctuary for Avant Garde than it is of providing access and recognition for a whole new generation of writers remarkable for their diversity of directions.” That diversity posed deep issues about standards of taste. An audience had to be created that would be able to appreciate not only particular new writers but also the plenitude of new writing. The way the founders established to do this was that each issue would have different guest editor who in choosing the works appearing in his or her issue would indeed create that audience for his or her own work. The assumption is that by choosing a variety of writings that each one likes, honors, learns from or teaches, readers join the adventure of apprehending the guest’s work understanding more deeply his/her concerns and creativity, the work itself.


The 40th anniversary issue reflects this model exquisitely. Henry has made this issue a working summary of the last forty years of Ploughshares. Twenty-five former guest editors--of which Alice Hoffman, Sue Miller, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Lloyd Schwartz, James A. McPherson are only a few--nominated and introduced an emerging writer, gave an account of a turning point in their careers, or contributed a new work. Largely a collection of short stories, parts of novels, poems, memoir, only one of the contributors, Richard Tillinghast, in his essay “Turning Points” provides such an account. It is a quiet piece, episodic, it does not claim a great deal for itself, but I find it a lens for many of the other voices and yearnings that show up in this edition. Tillinghast’s turning point relies on maps, a summer in Turkey, a late permanent residence in Ireland, learning new languages, living in new old environments, all of which give him the chance to create anew, to return, as it were, to the starting point to see who he is now, to start over as often as possible, to produce vigorously perceived art.


It is not just individuals that start over, generations do and culture, as well.The conjunction of introductions by established writers and the new writers they introduce suggests one generation scooping up the following to toss it in the air like a toddler, laughing. In a brief, sort of tossed up in the air introduction, James A. McPherson offers us Nicholas Butler’s story “Apples,” to which Dewitt Henry gives pride of place. An an explicit account of what it’s like to have to start over, it’s the first story in the magazine. The protagonist has lost his job as an appliance salesman and suffers through the shame, the listlessness, the sense of distance from his wife. We observe him working his way through his misery, encountering disappointments along the way. Jobs his brothers hand him run out. Yet there are rituals of engagement he maintains, baseball games, etc. which lead to a job picking apples alone in an orchard and finally an encounter with man whose sense of loss mirrors his own. Except that man’s misery is not about losing a job, rather the wife he loved all his life. It is at this point that we realize that the wife has been the underlying energy in the story and provides the occasion for an unanticipated recovery. It is, incidentally, a wonderful read. Further by placing this story as the first story in the magazine, the editor is using his considerable editorial genius to point to our contemporary losses, really, if you think about it the most pressing issue as we all encounter the loss of jobs, our children’s despair and dislocation at the turn things have taken.


Elizabeth Spires’ introduction to Lindsay Stuart Hill’s poems, is a further example of what I take to be the two implicit themes of the issue: the ongoing attempt to create a taste by which new work can be appreciated, and the exploration of dealing with loss and starting over. Spires points to the loss, especially in “Nanquan Kills a Cat,” but also explains how the poem works in illustrating the ‘fundamental tension between Buddist compassionate detachment and the basic human need to attach.” She does indeed teach us how to read an American poem from a Buddhist perspective. And if you assume that learning something new, starting over, inevitably involves slowing down perception while the world goes on at the same pace, as of course it must, then Susan Falco’s memoir, “Catcher’s Hang,” about learning the art of trapeze, adds further depth to the development of the overriding theme of the collection. Dan Wakefield’s introduction to this piece is quietly the best introduction in the issue; he associates the metaphor of the acrobat with his own yearning for grace, in short, he tells us what the work means to him.
Readers interested in following the theme of loss through the issue should not miss Jynne Dillling Martin’s “Dropped Things Are Bound to Sink.” Beginning with an image of a cricket against “this enormous planet/ attesting to a cosmic order,” the poem sweeps like desert wind through images of nature and history. It is a really smart “Ozymandius” that, in graceful edgy syntactically complex couplets arrives at an image of the end of the world.


Beneath a hot sun that offers nothing I do not already own,
I suck the meat off a great seabird, kick sand over his crooked bones.

Ms. Martin’s poem bears no similarity to the work of Alice Hoffman, yet Hoffman’s piece, published here, ”Treasure,” partakes in a similar aesthetic: twisting a father-daughter relationship such that irrevocable damage is done by the character of the father’s cruelty and longing for the things of science, a father whose avarice “left him charred” in a world where much else is charred beyond recognition. Hoffman is the guest editor of an upcoming issue. This story suggests that issue will be edgier and uncompromising in ways we have not seen in this writer before.


The exerpt from Sue Miller’s new novel, “Burning Summer” about a woman married to a man who is fast losing his mental faculties, also addresses issues of loss and getting by with some sense of self intact, despite the day to day compromises. Howard Norman’s piece “Next Life Might be Kinder” in a background that includes a vivdly if succinctly described exhibit of Robert Frank Photographs, against a story told by a truculent, but ultimately comic, unreliable narrator. Jay Neubegorn’s “Tag Sale” from his novel, The Other Side of World also deals with impending loss, this time though, through the mind of a character convinced of his mediocrity, almost unable to see how funny his version of events is.


Suffice it to say this is an issue with many pleasures and challenges. It is clear to me that whatever else DeWitt Henry is, teacher, writer, innovator, he is a brilliant and exciting editor and that is reflected by the work in this issue.

Somerville Artist Hope Ricciardi: Paints the Painful Past of her Ancestors

Somerville Artist Hope Ricciardi: Paints the Painful Past of her Ancestors

By Doug Holder

To know what we are, we must know where we come from. The past is often muddled, memory fails us, often familial histories are selective and leave out the painful moments. Somerville artist Hope Ricciardi addresses her ancestral past through her evocative art. Sadly, past generations of her clan were victims of the Armenian Genocide. This tragic event occurred in the early part of the last century when many Armenians were slaughtered or thrown into a diaspora by the Turks. Often this tragedy has been overshadowed by the Jewish Holocaust that was engineered by the nefarious forces of Nazi Germany. Ricciardi's art brings the Genocide in the forefront with her skillful brush, and unique sensibility.

Ricciardi, who has a space at the Joy Street Studios states on her website: " My ancestry and roots in Armenian history are the catalyst for my current work." In 2011 her exhibition "History Ignored" that dealt with her roots in Armenian history was presented at Galatea Fine Art Gallery in Boston. She works in photo transfers and plaster gesso (fluid white coating, composed of plaster of paris, chalk, gypsum, or other whiting mixed with glue, applied to smooth surfaces such as wood panels, plaster, stone, or canvas to provide the ground for tempera and oil painting ) on various surfaces including canvas, linen and panels. She has an exhibit of her work at Arsenal Center of the Arts in Watertown, Mass that will run through Jan. 2, 2011.

Ricciardi lives in Franklin, Mass and commutes to her studio in Somerville. The Joy Street Studios building is a converted factory where a diverse group of artists work. Ricciardi reflected on working in the suburbs, like Franklin as opposed to a city like Somerville: " Working in Franklin is like working in a vacuum. I once tried to exhibit some abstract nudes in the Town Hall and they wound up in some closet. I really need the artistic energy of place like Somerville to keep me going."


Ricciardi trained at the Museum School in Boston and has taught in a number of private schools. She was Dean of Admissions at the tony Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick, Mass. She left that position to devote herself to her art.


Her paintings are haunting and in many cases she uses photographs she has seen as the basis for her work. In one painting " Lost Youth," we see a long table of spectral children sitting in the midst of a surreal landscape. The painting depicts the 5,000 or so children who were orphaned and found in the desert in Turkey in 1915--victims of the Armenian Genocide.


Ricciardi who joined me for a famed scone at the Sherman Cafe in Union Square seems like a dedicated artist, who wants to recover her past and move on with a clear eye to the future.

The American Eye by Eric Hoffman

The American Eye
by Eric Hoffman
Copyright 2011 by Dos Madres Press inc.
Dos Madres Press
Loveland OH 45140
Softbound, 71 pages, no price
ISBN 978-1-933675-65-7

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

Found poetry has become a favorite tool for a number of poets. Search through writings of those who not always closely associate with poetry and find in their prose something
akin to poetry and use as poetry. The next best thing is to find someone’s writing and make them into your own poetry.

Eric Hoffman has succeeded admirably with this book in which Hoffman lends his voice and vision to both Ralph Waldo Emerson and his godson William James. In the first set
of poems, “Emerson in Europe,” we find him looking at he ocean, thinking back:

My eye is American.
Like a chemist assembling substances
I bring myself to sea
In search of affinities –

The bubble –
By its birthright – expands –
& my American eye
Is like a child’s again


Later, in Malta, Hoffman envisions Emerson’s view of native women, adding a touch of humanity to his otherwise staid image as a man of the cloth, man of Victorian sensibilities:

A few beautiful faces in the dancing crowd
& a beautiful face is worth going far to see

That which is finest in beauty is moral
& the attraction of a long descended maiden

Is a sort of wild virtue, wild & fragrant
As the violets that surprise the mind
Meeting divinity amidst flowers and trifles

The initial section of the book, therefore, deals with not only Hoffman’s interpretations
of Emerson’s journals, but his poetic view of the emotional Emerson. We also see
Italy through words culled from Emerson’s writings and transposed into the poetic. For example:

In the Sistine Chapel
To see the Pope
Bless his palms
& hear his choir
Chaunt the passion

The second part of the book is entitles “The Vast Practical Engine” in which Hoffman presents various thoughts on philosophy of our innermost self:

what are the physics
of violence? or

are we the embodiment
of need, our tenderness

merely an apparition
approximate

to appetite’s defeat?

“There is no certainty,
only those who are certain”

that the heart is small

that the world
cradles and destroys

that the triumph of breathing
rescues
and buries

In another poem (10.) we find:

nothing is so precise
as imagination
but what demon

hides in the most
precise equations
what infinitesimally

small loss occurs
at that invisible edge
maps the distance

between the mind of God
and the limits of
absolute reason

There is nothing new in Hoffman’s inventions of past writings, however, what he has accomplished is a deep reading of many concepts, the poetry more philosophical and cobbled into ideas that will make readers think twice, go back to the book to discover new ideas, theories, philosophies and changes which he has superbly succeeded in conveying.

Bards,Bagels and Co-Existence

I never thought of this when Harris Gardner and I started the Bagel Bards at Finagle- A- Bagel in Harvard Square in 2004. But I happened to be teaching a Creative Writing class at Endicott College and we were studying the poetry of San Francisco poet A.D. Winans. In an interview I conducted with him (that I used for a class discussion) he mentioned a hangout of his: the Co-Existence Bagel Shop. Bagels, Bards and poetry do have an illustrious history. The Co-Existence Bagel Shop in the 1950's and 60's North Beach section of San Francisco was a big hangout for the likes of Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Kaufman, Spicer, Winans, and countless other Beat poets, and poets of other schools. So the Bagel Bards, a group of poets and writers that now meets in the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square, Somerville, Mass (Finagle-A Bagel closed years ago)is a sort of a small coda to this...


Here is a description from a Beat travel guide I found:


"Continue along to 1398 Grant Avenue which is Stop 10. This is the former site of the Co-Existence Bagel shop where a delicatessen "collided" with a beer-joint-hangout and news center. It was immortalized by Bob Kaufman in Bagel Shop Jazz who describing its regulars as "shadow people, blueberry-eyed girls in black stockings, smelling vaguely of mint jelly, turtle neck angel guys, coffee-faced ivy Leaguers..."

Review of THE HALLELUJAH OF LISTENING by Preston H. Hood

Review of THE HALLELUJAH OF LISTENING by Preston H. Hood, Cervena Barva Press, PO Box 440357, W. Somerville, MA 02144-3222, www.cervenabarvapress.com, 59 pages, $7, 2011

Review by Barbara Bialick, author of TIME LEAVES

Preston H. Hood’s writing is in a rolling rhythmic voice. Some of his images are powerful, while others are plain and every day. Is he the American Every Man veteran soldier? In some ways yes, but in other ways I doubt it. He has some very strange lines such as in “Opening in the Sky”: “Before the dead crawl out I stitch it up/with the white line of my thinking…” Or, in “Hazy Light”: “For too long you hoarded/two dollar bills of nothing/like the no-light forest/triple canopy of grief…”

Sometimes he loves his grandson or some woman, we assume. But there’s little about human relationships. There’s more about the voices of nature and the ghosts of veterans past. In “To Shadow” he writes “To shadow go the wounded & scarred, each/of their kills smeared in blood…Gone to shadow the cawing crows flapping/with the walking dead/those/dark wings of war.”

In “First Born” he concludes, he’s “dropped from the shared womb of his mother’s drinking/incubated three months/time shafts through him, down-pointing/what’s next/the rain/fog/purification of lather sky…go back/listen/know the fear of his deepest self/talk to it like it’s him, which it is/find what’s lost.”

But what he claims he’ll most remember are his experiences in the Viet Nam War, such as he writes in “Boats Near Hue”: “A sail luffs & I imagine these men, their boats,/bobbing on the South China Sea, Dark clouds shoulder into a gathering storm/Shift of wind, push of boat./One false move might trigger a mine.”

Hood was born in Fall River, MA and grew up in Swansea, MA. He served in Viet Nam with Seal Team2 (1970). He has a BA from UMass-Boston, a BS from the University of Southern, Maine, and an ME from the University of Maine, Orono. After attending the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences for nine years, he co-edited “Summer Home Review” with Jacqueline Loring and Gary Rafferty. He’s currently a retired teacher and administrator

Choir of Day: New and Selected Poems By Robert K. Johnson

Choir of Day: New and Selected Poems

By Robert K. Johnson

ISBN: 978-0-979-5313-3-0

Ibbetson Street Press

$14.00

Review by Dennis Daly



If you like taut moments, touching scenes and wings of sunlight, these tempered yet beautifully written poems are for you. In a Morning to Remember Johnson takes a very ordinary Norman Rockwell-like slice of life memory and injects it with devastating future- knowledge. He describes the arrival and sing-song Halloo of a little boy outside his kitchen door, who

Holds up his ball and mitt—

ready to play catch—

the week before he drowned.

In My View of a New England Autumn, the poet relates the deaths of both his parents with a graphic realism very unlike the details of the gorgeous deepening blaze of his present autumn, “dying/ a few leaves at a time,”

My father waved back to me

as I left his hospital room;

and, a minute later, gasped

in pain and died.

He describes his mother as steadily looking worse until,

while I bent over her bed,

her eyes hardened

like blue water turning to ice.

After portraying his nine year old first-born son making his way through the ordinary world of delivering newspapers and bike riding in his poem, While Driving, the poet loses himself in an instinctual, yet touching moment when he celebrates,

And my brain and pumping blood—

Every part of me says,

That’s my son. My son.

In the poem, Our Daughter’s First Time Away From Home, there is another deceptively simple scene, in which the poet’s daughter discovers a little gesture,

… when we start to drive

away, an impulse leads you

to discover what it feels like

to blow someone a kiss.

In The Speck the winged protests of a fly unable to breech the seasonal impediments are compared to the vain protests of a poet trying to make straight-line sense out of the world’s circularity,

And though, unlike the fly,

I have a mind and it tells me

“In vain,” I—too—protest: despite

the chills of age, I keep

circling—in these straight lines I write.

Choir of Day is filled with sunlight, much of it falling on wings. In The Lecture the poet juxtaposes the techniques of teaching poetry with an actual moment of inspiration,

… And, glancing outside, you see

the sunlight splash a swooping bluejay’s wings

gold-bright… and know no word your students heard

roused what, in you, that flash of sunlight stirred.

In Parvane, a haunting poem, the moment of knowledge comes with winged sunlight this way:

and you will see a distant bird

gliding with sunlight on its wings

across a shining field

where the tip of a tree’s low branch

waits for the bird to alight.

The poem Lover’s Words starts off this way:

Each gliding gull that tips sunlight

across its tilting wings will die

and so will love. …

For Johnson love seems to be yet another poetic moment or time or inspiration only more so. Therefore true love, like poetry’s moment, is fleeting, does not survive death, and possibly not even our life spans, since whenever the gods decree,

the love we share will be as dead

as flowers frozen by an early frost

Johnson’s Choir of Day is chock-full of troubling, touching poems like these and well worth the read.

Ralph Pennel: From the Twin Cities to the Paris of New England

Ralph Pennel: From the Twin Cities to the Paris of New England

By Doug Holder

Poet and writer Ralph Pennel met me in the comforting confines of the Bloc 11 Café in Union Square, Somerville to talk about the writing life. Pennel has moved from his home in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Somerville, Mass. He lives in the hinterlands of our town, where the Spanish eatery Dali looks across the street to the Wine Cask. Pennel reflected on the differences of the Midwest to that of New England:

“Everything in the Midwest is laid out in a grid—I find the winding and at times irrationally plotted streets in Somerville give it a looser or open vibe. There is a rigidity to the Midwest that I am not comfortable with. The writing community in Somerville is very welcoming. It seems the writing that happens in Minnesota stays in Minnesota—it doesn’t seem to leak out to the greater literary world.”

Pennel views himself equally as a poet and a writer. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University, and has taught on the college level for a number of years.

While in Minnesota, he founded with a few other folks, an online literary magazine titled The Midway Journal, coined after a section of Minneapolis that he resided in. He told me the journal publishes work that pushes boundaries— and accepts work in the genres of poetry and flash fiction. The current issue has work from noted local writer Timothy Gager, and past issues have had such Boston area wordsmiths as Steve Almond, Tara Masih and Alden Jones.

For Pennel a poem gets it start with an idea that sparks his agile mind, and then hopefully flames into a working poem.

Pennel most assuredly lives the writer’s life. He resides in a small, inexpensive apartment and edits his journal and teaches an online course or two. He also hits the open mics around town including Stone Soup in the Out of the Blue Gallery in Cambridge, Mass., and Somerville’s First and Last Word Reading Series held at the Arts Armory.

Pennel is planting roots in the community, and where there are roots, hopefully poetry flowers.



CONFIDING IN THE PRISON GUARD

“After me comes one more powerful than I . . . I baptize you with water,

but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” -Mark 1:7-8

You see these garments? I made them.

With these hands. See here? This is the very place

I cut myself on the blade of my knife.

See how it has healed, how the flesh

has closed itself again, grown together, pink and new?

And this belt. I tanned it from the same beast.

She brought me to within sight of these city walls.

Then collapsed. I held her head in my lap,

stroking her neck until the sun set low,

and the night was filled with fire. It is true

what they say about the death of the day.

My soul, too, will rise above the parting sun soon enough.

No doubt you will be the one to set it free.

Ah, these hands. They have touched his head. His hair

filled my palms, slipped over and through my fingers,

until my hands were hidden, as if they, too, grew peaceably from his skin.

He said nothing when I lowered him into the river, his body weightless.

I was afraid I’d lose him to the current, his body swept downstream.

What would come of me then? I swear, when he stood, the water swimming

down his face and plunking into the river around him like fingers

on a harp, the day gave way to night, the sun smeared across

the edge of the earth, then raced across the sky in rivers of light.

I understand I am to lose my head. Will you grant me this then,

that I might wash my face and hair? And would you also share

what I have told you? Not now. But after Herodias has slipped her fingers

through my mane and lifted my bodiless head above her own,

into the light, my blood dripping to the floor, the shadow of night

drifting calmly over everything.




.

Four Elements: Reflections on Nature by John Donohue

Four Elements

Reflections on Nature

John Donohue

ISBN 978-0-307-71760-3

Harmony Books, a Division of Random House

Contact: Nora O’Malley 212-782-8370

Review By Dennis Daly

As a rule, books categorized by their publishers as inspirational cause me to avert my eyes and hold onto my wallet. Four Elements by John O’Donohue is not one of those. It is rather a series of beautifully crafted essays tapping in to fourteenth century mysticism and twenty-first century environmental concerns.

O’Donohue, a Gaelic-speaking poet and priest from a remote parish in the west of Ireland, uses the ancient metaphor of the four elements—air, water, fire, and earth (stone) as the prism to explore the nature of man and his world. This is not cutesy new age drivel. Although simply written, it has a hard philosophical core. O’Donohue, by the way, had a PHD in Hegelian philosophy. That said, he does use Irish culture, including the likes of Yeats, Joyce, and Becket to support his points and charm the hell out of us.

In the first of the four sections of his book, O’Donohue meditates on air as the breath of God, which in a sense welcomes us as we enter the world and gives us the timespan of our lives. He speaks of breaths as prayers. Not the silly techniques taught by self-aggrandizing gurus, but real straightforward connections with the divine. He seems able to rework older religious myths into a new understanding of spiritual reality. In his poem In Praise of Air he says,

In the name of the air

The breeze

And the wind

May our souls

Stay in rhythm

With eternal

Breath

In this first section there is also a wonderful discussion of Michelangelo’s Prisoners in Stone, a series of sculptures I saw years ago in Florence. The lower half of each figure is still part of the stone, while the upper half is a fully formed human being. “This is the tension of emergence,” say O’Donohue, “such sculpture awakens one’s eyes to the power of encounter that is permanently going on between the air and each shape that allows it.” O’Donohue parlays this encounter into a discourse on life’s possibilities.

The next element, water, is used as a metaphor for spiritual need or thirst with a poetic exposition on “the gift of tears.” O’Donohue’s poem, In Praise of Water, touches on this,

Water: voice of grief

Cry of love

In the flowing tear

Rites from the Catholic faith like the sacrament of baptism and the tradition of holy water are put in a larger and lovely continuum that is nothing if not pantheistic.

Fire, the third element that O’Donohue muses on, encompasses man’s endless passions originating in the fire of creation. Here is the opening of O’Donohue’s In Praise of Fire:

In the beginning

The word was red

And the sound was thunder

And the wound in the unseen

Spilled forth the red weather of being.

An association is also developed between fear and fire. Children, who play with fire, get burned. Heretics and witches were for a time burned at the stake. Hell is eternal burning according to Church teachings. But here O’Donohue rejects his church’s darker vision as a grave misinterpretation and he even suggests some papal penance for past injustices committed in the name of his faith. Donohue, himself, retired from his priestly duties in 2000 to devout full time to writing and lecturing.

According to O’Donohue, stone, the fourth element, is a Zen-like presence, a repository of memory. Limestone contains the memories of the sea. Igneous rock contains memories of fire. Coal is organic rock. And so on. His concept of stone expands to landscapes, which he sees as having selfhoods, which interact in some interesting ways with humans. In fact he sees humans as expressions of the earth, sentries with an especial responsibility. The earth becomes a comforter, a great conclusion.

O’Donohue’s submergence of religious myth into a much larger pantheistic system rivals Francis of Assisi for nerve. In another age O’Donohue might have been one of those heretics burned at the stake that he so poignantly laments.

John O’Donohue died at the age of 52 in 2010. He wrote a number of books including two international best sellers, Anam Cara and To Bless the Space Between Us. The essays comprising Four Elements were written early in his career and are a perfect introduction into the wonders of this visionary’s later works.

Somerville Writer Janet Mendelsohn: Bringing her passion to the passion of her subjects.

(Picture by Stu Rosner)




Somerville Writer Janet Mendelsohn: Bringing her passion to the passion of her subjects.

By Doug Holder

Janet Mendelsohn is a passionate writer who writes about other people’s passions. This Davis Square resident has the ability to hone in on her subject like some predatory literary bird, and peck out what makes them tick—to strain an analogy. I met Mendelsohn on a warm October morning in one of my favorite haunts in Union Square, the Sherman Cafe.

Mendelsohn told me she and her husband love Somerville. Their children live next door in Arlington; her husband likes the quick commute into Boston, and they both love the stimulation and diversity that the Paris of New England generously provides.

Mendelsohn has had many roles in her impressive career. She has worked for a number of non-profits, and was more often than not a Public Relations person. Now she is a freelance writer and writes for the Boston Globe Travel Section, the Wellesley /Weston Magazine, Maine Boat, and other publications. She writes about people as diverse as a group of needlepointers in Wellesley, Mass. or an artist and his timber- framed home in the wilds of Maine.

Mendelsohn has a degree in Journalism, and an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She describes Creative Non-Fiction as a genre in which the writer becomes part of the story. The writer does not have to be as objective as he or she would in a standard journalistic piece.

I asked Mendelsohn about her work on a book about the history of Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass. This was an in-house publication that she worked on during her tenure there some years ago. She told me about the hospital that lies in the shadow of Mass. General and other behemoths:


“Mt. Auburn has a very fascinating past. It was founded by a Civil War nurse, Emily Parson. It has a strong connection to the literary community—Longfellow was an early supporter of the hospital and Robert Lowell contributed his work to a book that was used as part of a fundraiser for the hospital.”

Mendelsohn makes no bones about the valuable work she did as a PR person. I asked her how she would answer people who would say that this line of work was all about hype—sizzle with very little steak. She said:

“This makes me mad. When I was working for non-profits, hospitals, Wellesley College,etc.... I always felt it was my job to tell the stories about the institutions, and get the reporters to report about them. The press is too often fixated on scandals. I wanted them to know about the projects, the faculty, students, doctors, etc… were working on.”

As we ended our interview, Mendelsohn started to informally interview me about my Bagel Bards literary group. It is obvious her passion for people and their stories plays a defining role in her life.


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

Macbeth// Music by Guiseppe Verdi Libretto by Maria Piave and Andrea Maffei// after William Shakespeare’s drama// Shubert Theater, Boston MA.

Macbeth
Opera by Verdi
Shubert Theater, Boston MA.
November 4 -13, 2011

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

If Shakespeare is the ultimate dramatist, Verdi is arguably his counterpart in opera. In his earlier years Verdi’s La Traviata, Rigoletto and Il Trovatore have become standards of opera company repertoire, while his later operas, considered by many his greatest works include Otello, Faust and Macbeth. This latter one is currently being staged at Boston’s Shubert Theater by the Boston Lyric Opera.

Having previously attended BLO renditions of other operas, including performances by the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico, this Macbeth can hold its own with any of them.

John Conklin’s set designs are a brilliant depiction of the hell that the characters have made of their own choosing. Off kilter sets reflect the twisted, murderous lives they lead, with lighting used to set mood and props used as ghosts, hands, forests and death.

While knives are the weapon of choice, the appearance of a gun and contemporary clothes reminds us this staging is a modern version of Verdi, not unlike Santa Fe’s production of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore updated to a World War II setting.

As for the performances, there is little negative to be said for singers. Daniel Sutin in his BLO debut brings the increasingly insane Macbeth to chilling life. His voice is strong, clear and powerful, his acting well matched to the role, particularly in dealing with the ghost of Banquo, who is amply sung and acted by Darren K. Stokes. Carter Scott, also in her BLO debut as Lady Macbeth, is convincing as the “behind every king there is an ambitious woman” and like her husband grows increasingly insane, unable to get the blood off her hands. Her voice is of top operatic quality, her pronunciations flawless and her ability to convey her insanity emphasize her acting ability.

A highlight of the opera is sung by Richard Crawley who as Macduff garnered a well deserved ovation with his stirring aria bemoaning the murder of his family and his determination to bring down Macbeth.

In fairness to the other singers, tenors rather than baritones always seem to gather more applause and cheers. And that is a shame because both Sutin and Stokes have excellent voices and display them well. And Stokes makes one scary ghost.


As for the score, Conductor David Angus elicits the maximum from his orchestra. While Verdi’s score is at times, well, Verdi, meaning at times a bit light for the drama, Angus manages to keep the music in tempo with the action, trauma and drama of this wonderful opera.

The Boston audiences was enthusiastic about this opera performance and by the end there
wereloud sustained applause, well deserved by the cast, conductor and everyone who made this opening night performance a success.

Sipping Memories: Poetic Journal to Morocco: Poems by Michal Mahgerefteh

Sipping Memories
Poetic Journal to Morocco
Poems by Michal Mahgerefteh
Poetica Publishing Co.
Copyright © 2011 by Michal Mahgerefteh
ISBN: 978-0-9836410-1-8
Softbound, 31 pages, $15

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

The opening welcome is provided by “a large woman flashes gold teeth/offers fresh round bread topped with pecan butter/walnut and pistachio cookies and hot green tea”

She takes you to the shuk in Rabat where “I stroll down narrow alleys/of mud covered pebble stones/faint must odor of carpets and urine/persists of the scent of fresh tangerines/stored in wood boxes/pushed by ragged men and worn-out donkey”

The way it is written you can see yourself there, or at least it will hark back one movie
or another one has seen that was filmed in this shuk in Rabat or another one.

This book, while poetic is also educational. There is a recipe for Moroccan tea, another for Couscous with Vegetables and a lesson on rosewater as a hydrating toner.

Her poetry takes you to Evening Prayer at Hassan II Mosque where:

I following the growing crowd
take off my boots walk under rounded arches
stepping down several feet on to a tiled floor
paved in blue

a group of women all in white
veils up to the bridge of their noses
sit on carpets adorned in blue-yellow vines
verses from the Quran

Ms. Mahgerefteh takes you on visit to the “Beggar on the Corner of Blvd de al Corniche” and “On the Road to Marrakesh.” At “The Sheep Market” you discover that “life hangs heavy over the women/inside fabric tens sweaty anchored/between large bags of raw wool/brought steaming after shearing/sorting colors in to piles/letting it fluff and dry before the endless/spinning and weaving”

You will also encounter “The Henna Artist” and “The Fabric Market” a Moroccon bride and you will hear “The Sounds of Morocco” from the school girls laughing to water sellers and cars, trucks, motorbikes and taxi cabs and, of course, Muezzin prayer calls.

If you are an adventurer or one who likes to read travel books, this poetry journey in
Morocco will fill the bill.

What’s Left Behind: Poems by Michal Mahgerefteh

What’s Left Behind
Poems by Michal Mahgerefteh
Poetica Publishing Co.
Copyright © 2011 by Michal Mahgerefteh
ISBN: 978-0-9836410-2-5
Softbound, 31 pages, $15

Review by Zvi A. Sesling



This book is dedicated by the author “to my father, for his unconditional love and support of my mother.” It is a book about the author’s mother who was diagnosed with breast cancer a the age of 41 and supported by her husband for the next 25 years. It is a book of poetry titles such as “For Twenty-Five Years,” “The Dy of Mother’s Passing,” “Things She Left Behind,” “The Agony of Looking Back” and “Portrait of a Man.” It is a book of grief and grieving and no happy ending except just reality as in “The Day of Mother’s Passing:”

edgy conversations erupt around the room
Mother’s sisters assess her display of bodily decline
over the years their strong bond easily tested
by tender emotions but tonight stitched to perfection

the light of life fades from Father’s face
as he prepares to accept the inevitable
staring at his swollen diabetic feet
wishing he could command this moment

Or in the poem “During the Shivah”

our house
holds its breath in mourning

Father in his bereavement
speaks only when necessary

he just sits there
stiff against the rough Mediterranean

till the mist rolls in
softening the sharp edges of the shoreline

with a slow sway
turning to blue—black bowl of night sky


These are raw emotional images of death and mourning that fill this book, no moments of happiness, right to the end of the book with “No More Hurt” in her father’s voice:

they want me to cover the mirrors
with black cloth
to avoid my mournful reflection
to think about you

the last twenty-five years
were all about you
no, I no longer care about cancer and death
Your Cancer—Your Death

all I want is to flee from your dark days
that sealed My Book of Life
until the hurt no longer
bears your name


Yes, this is a sad book, but one that may help others whose family has suffered the terrible effects of terminal illness that has extended itself for many years and affected family members. It may not provide the hope or the answers people seek, but it will help them cope when they see others have gone through their anguish.

PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINEES "IBBETSON STREET" 2011

PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINEES

“Ibbetson Street” 2011

(Nominators: Kim Triedman, Robert K. Johnson and Harris Gardner)


“Town Park, Late Autumn”- Author: Ted Kooser
“Creation” - Author: Bonny Barry Sanders


"Amish Country" - Author: Joyce Wilson
"New Hire Orientation" – Author: Patricia L. Hamilton


"From Stars" – Author:- Donna Johnson
"The Impressionists Indoors”-Author: Jennifer Barber

Gifts of Nature, Gifts of Grace. . . Linda Thayer

Gifts of Nature, Gifts of Grace. . .
Linda Thayer
Cat’s Paw Press
$5.00

Review by Rene Schwiesow


If you lived anywhere near Boston during 2004 you could not miss the fairy tale season of the Red Sox. Thayer’s section of “Gifts of Nature, Gifts of Grace. . .” entitled “real faith,” is dedicated to the Red Sox and their miraculous season. A season that ended with their winning the World Series, their first World Series Title in 86 years.

last night i laughed
today i cried
a gray bearded man
held a young boy’s hand
their bright red B’s
on caps of blue
a pledge, a promise
now and forever
that sometimes dreams come true
last night i laughed
today i cried

Thayer then swings into a rendition of “psalm 2004”

Schilling is my pitcher
I shall not want
he leads us into deep innings
in pennant races
for his team’s sake

she ends with a chant, that despite the Sox record this year, lives in the heart of every die-hard Red Sox fan:

i will dwell in Red Sox Nation forever
Amen

Of course the “real faith” works comprise only a small portion of the book, but I could not help but to allow readers the opportunity to relive that glorious 2004 season!

The section that precedes Thayer’s vocalization of “real faith” Red Sox allegiance is entitled simply “faith.” As a fan of coffee, I enjoyed the title poem of the section:

I’ve tasted my share
of this bitter old coffee
right from the bottom of the pot

but I’ve always believed
there’s sugar somewhere. . .

Me too!

Other notable works include a poem entitled “the conversation” that takes place between two people on a Sunday morning where “church” was found in the strangest place and a moving piece about a man and his dog in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, entitled “Lou’siana man, on not leaving his dog behind.”

From questioning the right of weeds, to nurturing relationship, to waving Red Sox banners, Thayer’s book offers us food for thought on finding those gifts of grace in the most unlikely places. Linda Thayer can be reached at lthayerm@aol.com

Review of UNEXPECTED SHINY THINGS, poems by Bruce Dethlefsen

UNEXPECTED SHINY THINGS, poems by Bruce Dethlefsen, Cowfeather Press, PO Box 620216, Middleton, WI 53562, cowfeatherpress.org, , 103 pages, $16, 2011

Review by Barbara Bialick, author of TIME LEAVES

A new book by the Poet Laureate of Wisconsin for 2011/2012 speaks with shininess of the plain-spoken yet profound things in life.

You can sense the influence of midwestern scenery in such poems as “Cross My Heart”: “I hope to die by water/not actually at the hands of water/but next to water…/ferns dripping with golden coffee sunlight/that would be fine/really that would be just fine”.

Or in the rhythmic poem “Hummingbirds”: “Hummingbirds know that we are dead/we mostly think the trees are dead/the trees think the water’s dead/…/the rocks think the mountains and the world are dead/the world thinks the universe is dead/the universe thinks god is dead/and god who knows what god thinks…”

The images of family in his work show up in such poems as “Superglue”: “Sometimes I superglue my catcher’s mitt/to my left hand two hours before sunset/and superglue my dad across the street/who smells like oiled leather and cigars/under a superglued sun in the kansas city sky…”

But family can also have tragedy. One of his sons died in 2010 in a moped accident. That feeling is reflected in “A Cell Phone Rings during Matthew Dickman’s Reading”:
“please answer that/no I’m serious/it may be the call/you’ve always waited for/the one that will/change your life forever…”

Bruce Dethlefsen was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1948 and moved to Wisconsin in 1966. He has written two previous chapbooks, A DECENT REED and SOMETHING NEAR THE DANCE FLOOR. His first full-length book was BREATHER (Fireweed Press 2009). It received an Outstanding Achievement Award in Poetry from the Wisconsin Library Association. Some of his poems have been featured on Garrison Keillor’s THE WRITER’S ALMANAC and YOUR DAILY POEM. A retired educator and public library director, he also performs with Bill Orth as OBVIOUS DOG on Cathryn Cofell’s CD LIP. Dethlefsen lives with his partner of twenty years, Sue Rose Allen in Westfield, Wisconsin

Madness at the Grolier: In spite of Trials and Travails Poetry Prevails.

Madness at the Grolier
Bloc 11
11 Bow St. Union Square, Somerville.
Nov. 6, 2011
3:30PM


Madness at the Grolier: In spite of Trials and Travails Poetry Prevails.

By Doug Holder

Ifeanyi Menkiti, Lo Galluccio, Paul Steven Stone, Alice Weiss and I have organized the literary event “Madness at the Grolier” for a number of reasons. We want to inaugurate a new Grolier Poetry Book Shop poetry room in Somerville, Mass.; we want to celebrate poets Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Lowell, and John Berryman, who were all affected by mental illness, and in spite of this terrible affliction created groundbreaking art. We also want to raise funds for an endangered species, this all- poetry bookstore located in Harvard Square.

During the program we will have dramatic presentations, film clips, sound recordings of Sexton singing with her folk/rock band, as well as Allen Ginsberg reading “ Howl”, confidantes of Sexton, Plath and Lowell talking about their experience with these poets, poetry put to original music, as well as readings from other well-know local poets and writers.

I have worked at McLean Hospital for close to 30 years, and for much of that time I have run poetry workshops in one form or the other. Many of the poets presented during the program were once hospitalized at McLean—so I am well-aware of the legacy. I am also well- aware of the tragedy of mental illness, and the great creativity that can be associated with it.


Readers and Performers:

Kathleen Spivack-- Condfidane to Lowell

Lo Galluccio- Poet, Vocalist, Performer

Lois Ames-- Wrote introduction to " Bell Jar."

Bob Clawson- Band manager of Sexton's " Anne Sexton and her Kind."

Paul Steven Stone- Novelist, co-founder of Madness at the Grolier.

Michael Mack-Performance Artist

Doug Holder-- Author of "From the Back Bay to the Back Ward" and poetry workshop leader at McLean Hospital.

Alice Weiss- Poet, Civil Rights Activist.

A Chinaman's Chance: New and Selected Poems 1960-2010 by Alex Kuo

A Chinaman's Chance
New and Selected Poems 1960-2010
Alex Kuo
Wordcraft of Oregon Publisher
ISBN 978-1-877655-71-5
$15.00 2011


"It was another Asian body
Its brains blown out by necessity
Splattered on TV's evening news
Almost twenty years ago

We wondered then if color returned
To his face under the moon
And if his firebombed village
Had a prayer to move next to

Never again such nights
We said that night

We were determined
To make the line shorter
But colonel after colonel
Thirteen knots around our neck
Reach out to Central America now

Again brown bodies tagged and tallied by history
While we think "Never again!"
In the neighboring sunlight startled..."

A Chinaman's chance, is a timely look back and forward at human
nature and the nature of mass fear, fear as applied to 'others.' Kuo
shows the greed that hides in men's heads, somewhere it grasps and
causes expected destructions, again. Sherman Alexie says, "His (Kuo)
vision is sure and uncompromising." This collection starts with
a poem named, "gathering children" and the book ends with "in the
vicinity of spring" and all the actions taken or not taken, are in the
verse:

"It begins
with parchment of aspen
and it is grief
drifting in early arrival.

It is more than think:
a deer skull a rabbit's
winter coat the thicket
of spruce cones a boar's
tooth the lynx's skulking
and the suffering quail
the sun's escarpment
and the mind's winter coping
the summer tick.

Do not believe it is Less
than late.

And it ends
with the idea of pain
slicing up the deep cold
without eyes.

Look at it
look at it falling
from the alphabet."

Alex Kuo has given us, the reader, a book we can
be with for many years, and that is the kind of
book that feeds my mind and touches my spiritual life.
this book deserves a Pulitzer Prize:

"I do not remember its name
But when I think of what little
It takes to remember that old lie

Because of the way it bent
Its shadows deeper over dust
The perpetual scaffolding of wishes..."



irene koronas
poetry editor:
Wilderness House Literary Review
www.whlreview.com
Reviewer:
Ibbetson Street Press

Poems for Somerville: Akshay Ahuja brings poetry to the people.

By Doug Holder


It was an odd day at the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square. An October snowstorm was at the cusp of the Boston Area, and for several days before the weather was decidedly winter-like, even before the ghouls of Halloween pounded the mean streets. On this morning I met Somerville writer Akshay Ahuja, to talk about a new literary project he is engaged in.

Ahuja is a new arrival to our burg, and he and his wife put down roots in the Powder House Square section of our city. Ahuja has a varied background. He has an MFA from Emerson College in Boston; he used to work at the prestigious publishing house Houghton Mifflin, and he is currently the production manager for the much lauded literary magazine PLOUGHSHARES based at Emerson College and founded by DeWitt Henry, who I interviewed recently.

Ahuja says he loves Somerville—its diverse community, its writers, the community gardens, and the writing group he is part of.

Ahuja landed an artist fellowship from the Somerville Arts Council for a project he is about to birth in the Paris of New England. It is a chapbook of poetry titled POEMS FOR SOMERVILLE. He conceived it as a free anthology of poetry to read, contribute to and pass on. It includes poems from the public domain as to avoid permission issues, etc…. The list of poets is impressive, including: Sara Teasdale, John Keats, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and A.E. Houseman— to name a few. Included in this booklet are empty pages in which a reader could fill in with their own favorite words, or another writer’s.

Ahuja plans to distribute the free books throughout the city, and hopes they will form a literary virus of sorts—spreading from one reader to another.


Ahuja, early on, was not a lover of poetry. He said, “In school we were taught meter, rhyme—all the mechanical aspects. There was no real discussion of imagery and symbolism.” As he got older Ahuja started reading poetry on his own, and started enjoying it. He made friends little collections of poetry that he copied into school boy composition books.

Ahuja has a populist bent. When he lived in the Washington, D.C. area he noticed the Washington Post had a poetry corner—much like, well… the LYRICAL SOMERVILLE. They used to feature work by the then current Poet Laureate and other folks. He took from this the need to bring poetry to the people.

Ahuja is a man who likes to get the word out—so what followed was this innovative project. His press run is small, but he hopes the message about poetry and the power of the written word will be a large one indeed.



To contact: somervillepoetry@gmail.com

The Anthology of Rap: Adam Bradley, Andrew DuBois, editors

The Anthology of Rap

Adam Bradley, Andrew DuBois, editors

Yale University Press

$25.00

Review by Rene Schwiesow

I know, long ago you wrote off Rap as a musical movement that had only minor impact. Perhaps that was at its inception during the 70’s or, perhaps, more recent than that. Rap, however, has clearly had an influence on both music and poetry and “The Anthology of Rap” is here to show you exactly why. Many of us bemoan the fact that kids these days do not appreciate the poetics of poetry. We discuss alliteration, rhyme, metaphor, and allegory at length; and we believe that young people have little interest in understanding their use.

I have a number of young people as friends on facebook. Very often the status they display is a line or two from a song. On occasion they break into a thread of discussion regarding those lyrics. They may not discuss the poetry as the older generation does, but they certainly do discuss it. Rap music and the hip-hop culture have gone a long way toward creating and inspiring an interest in poetry. Rap’s poetic form contains organized verses, generally sixteen lines in length and rhyme is a distinctive feature. Rhyme in Rap is used full, slant, monosyllabic, and multisyllabic. Rappers use their rhyme both at the end of lines and within the lines of their poetry. And you thought they were simply throwing words together without clear poetic intention.

The anthology is broken into three parts: Old School Rap, 1978-1984; The Golden Age, 1985-1992; and Rap Goes Mainstream, 1993-1999. Each section includes Rap musicians whose names have become household words. Artists such as Ice-T, Busta Rhymes, Ice Cube, Lauren Hill, Snoop Dogg, 2Pac, Eminem, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West are well-known on the music scene and their work has had great impact within our world.

When I showed my 21-year-old son the anthology he was delighted to see that Rap was being given credence in a literary context. As he opened the book to browse through the artists, Lil’ Kim jumped out at him and he smiled broadly – “I love Lil’ Kim,” he said. He added that he felt she was misunderstood. The anthology agrees. In a world where documentaries like the new film “Miss Representation” question the way in which society views females, Lil’ Kim’s hardcore, sexual, erotic lyrics have drawn criticism. Lil’ Kim and many of her listeners, however, understand that her lyrics are “radical acts of female empowerment.”

Queen Latifah holds a prominent place in Rap’s Golden Age. I was fortunate enough to meet Queen Latifah in San Francisco during the early 90’s and I have to agree with the anthology’s description of her “dignified demeanor and commanding presence.” She is known for lyrics such as “Evil that Men Do,” a gender disparity in structural poverty piece.

Tell me don’t you think it’s a shame

When someone could put a quarter in a video game

But when a homeless person approaches you on the street

You can’t treat him the same?

It’s time to teach the deaf, the dumb, the blind

That black-on-black crime only shackles and binds

You to a doom, a fate worse than death

But there’s still time left

To stop putting your conscience on cease

And bring about some type of peace. . .

And then there is Eminem. 50-Cent said, “Eminem was made for hip-hop.” In 2002 Eminem starred in the movie 8 Mile. My son was then 12 years old and begged me to allow him to see the movie. He had just received a new Eminem CD, the cleaned up version, and he was taken with his lyrical ability. I may never have seen 8 Mile if it weren’t for my son’s begging, so I went to the theater by myself to see the movie first – and much to my surprise I was amazed at the way in which the poetry of the rappers was brought to life. While Rap was created by the brown and black skinned, the white-skinned Eminem was becoming known and highly respected for his lyrical skill. He plays with persona and is known as three distinct personalities: Eminem, Slim Shady, and Marshall Mathers.

This is lyrical combat – gentlemen, hold your pistols

And since birth I’ve been cursed with this curse to just curse

And just to blurt this berserk and bizarre shit that works

And it sells and it helps in itself to relieve

All this tension dispensin these sentences, getting this

Stress that’s been eatin me recently off of this chest

And I rest again peacefully (peacefully). . .

And more:

And I just do not got the patience (got the patience). . .

To deal with these cocky Caucasians who think

I’m some wigger who just tries to be Black ‘cause I talk

With an accent. . .

“The Anthology of Rap” is considered a landmark text. Rap, hip-hop, is more than just a phase, a passing fad. Rap is now a permanent part of our world culture. Rap is the words that the artists employ and those words reach deep, go far, and make statements that have the power to rock foundations. In the afterward, Chuck D states this about Rap: “For me, it taught different spiritualities, different aspects of culture and history, different languages and modes of speech. I hope this book will help more people get back to that.”

A worthy read for those who wish to expand their poetic horizons and to understand a genre that has lent itself to people for decades now, a genre that has no intention of fading away.

All of the Above by Jim Daniels

All of the Above

Jim Daniels

Adastra Press

ISBN 978-0-9838238-2-7

2011 $18.00





The poems in All of the Above loosely follow Jim Daniel's definition of ghazals in Outlier and Ghazels. He writes, "I have not adhered to the strictness of metrics and structure of the ancient practitioners, with the exception of using a minimum of five couplets. The couplets are not related by reason or logic and their only continuity is made by a metaphoric jump.”



2.

“Buddy, he called, buddy. Speech oozed out

his infected eye. I knew the rest – kept walking.



I picked at the scab, but still it quickly healed.

No comfort in old scars.



Don't scuff those new shoes. The old familiar oops.

Stop hurrying and fix me something good.



You can't get a sunburn from a red moon;

nevertheless, don't stay out too long.



No matter how much I shadowbox,

the gravediggers still blow on their hands.”



The ghazels take me in, roll me in flour and pat me flat. Each poem brings me home and I’m immediately reminded of Virgilio's haiku, raw, sensitive and so so contemporary:



3.

“The thermometer on the porch fell

the day they came to kick my brother's ass.



I never showed up behind the school

where Luckman waited with his friends.



Norman's boots sang down the hall,

a song memorized by Chilton's face.



A rose broke out above one eye, then his nose,

his lips, a bouquet I walked away from.



Kill-the-guy-with-the-ball was our favorite game.

Any ball would do.”



Now, this is what I'm talking about; poems that are not self-conscious, not revised to death (burnt). The whole book satisfies visually, the tactile paper, the intelligent design, and the clarity,

“sometimes I fall in love just watching someone chew gum.”



24.

“My kite is loose. I chase a ball of string

unraveling in the street.



Village of the Damned was the first

movie I saw with a girl.



By closing my bedroom door until it clicked,

I kept my sick grandmother alive for years.



I once thought I had a lot of power

but it was only a handful of red kisses.



There's only one set of rules:

Hold on. Let go.”



All of the Above, by Jim Daniels, is the perfect book to give to any one you care about. This book is a 'keeper'.



Irene Koronas

Poetry Editor:

Wilderness House Literary Review

Reviewer:

Ibbetson Street Press
Web Site: Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene

“The Whore’s Child” by: Richard Russo-- Review by Samille Taylor

Endicott College Literature major Samille Taylor has reviewed a booklet put out this year by the Boston Book Festival: "The Whore's Child" by Richard Russo. "The Whore's Child" is a short story from a collection of stories by Russo of the same title. This is one of a series of reviews by Endicott College English /Creative Writing Majors for the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene.

One City One Story:(The Boston Book Festival Publishing)
“The Whore’s Child” by Richard Russo
2 Canal Park
Cambridge, MA 02141

Review by: Samille Taylor

The short story "The Whore's Child" that Richard Russo has created is one that I shall never forget. With only seventeen pages Russo takes readers on a journey, that of Sister Ursula, a Belgian nun, in a college fiction writing class. The narrator of this story is the professor. The entire concept is absolutely brilliant, an extremely old nun in a writing class, full of young, emerging writers. At first I thought that this short story would be very comical and not at all serious. However, the journey was so much deeper than I first anticipated. By creating a story within a story the reader is submerged into the world of not only the professor who is reading Sister Ursula’s story, but also, the world, of Sister Ursula herself.

In this fiction writing class Sister Ursula lets the professor into her non-fiction story; that of her life-- a life the class thinks is purely fictional. At this point the story is a quick read simply because once started each page turns itself.

As the professor reads each of Sister Ursula’s submissions, I impatiently read for the page that described, in great detail, her next submission.

The first installment weighed in at a robust twenty-five pages, which detailed the suffering of a young girl taken to live in a Belgian convent school where the treatment of the children was determined by the social and financial status of the parents who had abandoned them there. As a charity case and the daughter of a prostitute, young Sister Ursula (there could be no doubt that she was the first-person narrator) found herself at the very bottom of the ecclesiastical food chain (Russo 7).

The fact that the students in the class do not know that Sister Ursula’s story was non-fiction makes what Russo has created even more intriguing. Here is a scne in the classroom where the students do a dissection of the sister's life:

““I would like to see more of the mother, though,” one young woman conceded. “It was a major cop-out for her to die before they could get to the hospital.”

“You wanted a deathbed scene?” said another. “Wouldn’t that be sort of melodramatic?”

Here the discussion faltered. Melodrama was a bad thing, almost as bad a misogyny.

“Why was the daughter sent for?” wondered someone else. “If the mother didn’t love her, why send for her” (Russo 17)?

Their criticism of her story frustrated me because she can’t just change the story; it’s non-fiction, it’s her life. However, as stated before, I enjoyed the fact that the students did not know this. When I finished reading I didn’t want the short story to be over; I wanted more from Russo, the professor and Sister Ursula.

One of the most enjoyable moments of the short story, for me, were the final pages:

“This was her first college course, she explained, and she wanted the other students to know that she had enjoyed meeting them and reading their stories, and thanked them for helping her with hers” (Russo 18).

In this section it became clear to me that Sister Ursula did not take the class to learn how to write but, rather, to learn how to tell her story; a story that had never been listened to. Through Richard Russo’s short story "The Whore’s Child" readers are left with the lesson: you may be able to revise fiction but one can never revise one’s past.

Samille Taylor is a 20 years old English Literature major at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass. She is a writer, and a poet. She told the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene: " My life is a metaphor waiting to be explored"

Review of DRIVE-BY VIGILS poems by R. Zamora Linmark

Review of DRIVE-BY VIGILS poems by R. Zamora Linmark, Hanging Loose Press, 231 Wyckoff Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217, http://hangingloosepress.com, 82 pages, January 2012, $18

Review by Barbara Bialick, author of TIME LEAVES

This novelist-playwright-poet has a voice that I have not personally heard of until now—that of a Filipino-American who was born in Manila, educated in Honolulu, Hawaii, and has lived in Madrid and Tokyo. A well-regarded writer, his bio can be found in the Wikipedia. He was the recipient of U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission and NEA fellowships, and two Fulbrights. He has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Hawaii and the University of Miami. He lives between Manila and Honolulu.

Unfortunately no birth date is given, so it’s difficult to pigeonhole his generation. He would be difficult to pigeonhole anyway, being that he has distinctively sad, satirical, sardonic and angry poetry that could certainly expand into novels or plays that must be, well, a bit weird, but certainly interesting and well-done.

An urban sort and possibly gay, consider his poem “Some Kind of Wonderful”:
“I wanted to save my dandruff for winter./I wanted the school’s most-wanted truant to give me his stud earring then French kiss me in the library./I wanted my heart to break out and lip synch to “Try a Little Tenderness”/I wanted Psychedelic Furs to accompany my pink, beat-up imaginary Karmann Ghia to the Senior Prom./I drove a secondhand white Ford Escort./I gave my prom date a Swatch watch in lieu of a corsage….”
And on it goes. Just open up the book anywhere and read. It’s sure to intrigue you.

Since the title refers to vigils, take a look at the poem “Reunion”: “Before Jessica sent back the chicken,/the black widow dropped by to show/off her latest husband. Then Ching arrived/bringing the latest typhoon body count/from the motherland we sometimes call/home…/I kept on/and on about sleep-deprived evenings/in the Hamptons hitting me so hard it felt/like ten thousand vigils…”. What this is really about eludes me. If you don’t get something, just keep on reading. Something like “steel and aluminum” will be “slowly shining/Into pots and pans…”

R. Zamora Linmark wrote two prior poetry collections, PRIME TIME APPARITIONS and THE EVOLUTION OF A SIGH (both from Hanging Loose Press), and two novels, the best-selling ROLLING THE R’S, which he adapted for the stage, and the just-published LECHE. He is working on another novel and a play BUT BEAUTIFUL.

The Front and Back Cover for Ibbetson Street 30 due out in late Nov. 2011

Front Cover Art for the new Ibbetson 30 is by the artist Bridget Galway. Both front and back covers were designed by Steve Glines; the back cover art is by artist Irene Koronas- The issue should be out in late November.

(Click on picture to enlarge)

(Click on to enlarge picture)

Review of The Book of Arrows by Mike Amado

The Book of Arrows by Mike Amado


Review by Pam Rosenblatt



In 2011, The Book of Arrows by Mike Amado, edited by Jack Scully and Nancy Brady Cunningham, was published by Cervena Barva Press, Somerville, Massachusetts. A sixty-two page book, The Book of Arrows is a well-written, well-edited, well-published, and well-designed poetry book. Even the cover with its bright turquoise color and its thirteen white-gray-black feathers welcomes you into this sometimes humorous, sometimes painful, sometimes witty, sometimes sad, and always honest read.

Poet Mike Amado passed away on January 2, 2009 after a twenty-one year long battle with kidney disease. He was thirty-three years old. An active member of the Bagel Bards, Somerville, Massachusetts, Amado also headed Poetry: The Art of Words and The Poetry Showcase, in Plymouth, Massachusetts with Jack Scully who currently continues these two poetry happenings.

The Book of Arrows is about Mike‘s life and how he dealt with everyday situations, especially his physical illness. His descriptions, metaphors, changing tone of voice, and use of rhythm make this book worthy for repeated readings. But it‘s his use of ―color throughout the book that makes this book very special.

Early in the book, in ―I Love Rock-N-Roll…‖, Amado writes, ―There are many colors in the spectrum./I‘m playing around with colors in words/until I can find the color I own.‖ Throughout The Book of Arrows, Amado uses actual ―colors in words‖ as well as metaphoric ―colors in words‖ to find out who the ―I‖, the speaker of these poems, is. Amado seems to suggest that once the speaker discovers his favorite color or colors, he will find himself as individual. He uses color in words tactfully and effectively, as seen in ―Old School Ways:

A boy is going to give himself a Mohawk.
For a summer, he lets his hair grow long.
He shaves the sides with his dad‘s razor
then dyes it purple,
[the only color of photo ink he could steal].

The colorful image of a boy with a purple Mohawk is vividly described here. Amado has the boy testing out his cultural identity.
In ―Denim-jacket Back Patch‖, Amado writes about a jacket:
Charcoal-gray with slashes of acid wash
was my first jacket. Badass by itself.
But with the Number of the Beast
patched on the back…
total freakin‘ metal.

Here Amado suggests the darkness and worn out value of the jacket is something to be cherished, admired. The ―charcoal-gray with slashes of acid wash implies the tough guy image.
Are these the colors in words that the speaker wants to own – or just kid around with - as Amado creates?

Amado‘s visual color in words is seen in ―His Body Lies – But Still He Roams where the speaker says, ―the autumn sky burned a blaze of orange.Amado paints with words here.

In ―In Prayer‖, Amado‘s sky hues change from orange to ―blue-yellow‖. He seems to like to have a variety of sky colors.

The word ―orange‖ appears once again in ―You‘ll Never Be a Pro Powwow Dancer‖. The speaker recalls:

All my regalia is gifted.
My breastplate is Crow, my elk-skin war shirt
is Lakota/Sioux.
And my ribbon shirts were made from table cloths
of red and gingham, but no one would ever guess.
All I have is my stoic, camera-hating glare
and high cheek bones to carry the look.
Those Fancy-dancers have regalia that cost thousands,
(or so they say). They have big feathers and tingle-bells
that sound like fire alarms when they walk into
the quiet men‘s room.
And all the colors match. Turquoise and orange belt
with turquoise and orange arm bands and matching
ribbons that dangle from the head band
and never get caught in their feather earrings
when they do the Grass Dance.

Amado has articulately described a Powwow dance scene, with all the trimmings. This long stanza poem works effectively because of Amado‘s colors in words! The lines ―And my ribbon shirts were made from table cloths/of red and gingham… and ―And all the colors match. Turquoise and orange belt/with turquoise and orange arm bands and matching ribbons…
Sparkle. Without the ―red and gingham‖ and ―turquoise and orange‖ color words, the situation would be difficult to imagine.
In the poem, ―She Who Gave Me Words‖, the color ―orange‖ again mentioned:

Mother is a mystery.
She styled her hair herself; even after
Two kids.
She would sway her neck when a man
Gave her a compliment,
A demure giggle, intentional coolness.
She walked me to school on that first day
Wearing an orange miniskirt
And a psychedelic blouse.

Here Amado writes playfully and skillfully. The words seem to flow gently and then twists into a lively image. Is orange the color the speaker wants to ―own‖, or call his own? Maybe or maybe not.

In ―Tea and Ghosts‖, Amado describes a cup of ―strong tea settling ―In coffee-brown mug/drizzled with half & half, white cube dissolving all the/ words that failed to make the radar or just failed‖. The colors of ―coffee-brown‖, ―half & half and a ―white cube‖ are again visual.
The images seem so real that perhaps they are actually are.

Later in ―Tea and Ghosts‖, Amado writes:

I felt a sunless chill one cold morning, five years old.
I asked my nana for a cup of tea. Churning hot yet
fragile as peacock butterflies, it held the scent of
blossoms from Ceylon, and its history of laborers
sweating in line rooms, specters separating leaf from stem.
Amado has captured those ―hot yet fragile as peacock butterflies and created an image almost as colorful as a rainbow. Perhaps the speaker‘s fragility reflects upon Amado‘s own physical health.
And the phrase ―it held the scent of blossoms from Ceylon‖ is brilliant.

Throughout the book, Amado uses the word ―white‖ as well as the word ―burning‖. In ―Watch Over Me‖, he brings these two words together:

I developed IBS
when I was 17—
I thought the dead
were watching me.

Grandma said
when the floor creaks 4
and walls seem to
push like lungs,
that‘s my Grandpa
whom I never met.

I have his features,
his hair line.
He‘d recognize
my skin tone—

White maple, newly split—
burning
before becoming
fire wood.

The ―White maple‖ going up in flames is a strong image, as is its ―burning‖. The color imagery is there. In a later poem, ―The Poet‘s Fire‖, Amado writes that he would rather be cremated than buried. Perhaps this wish is what the speaker is implying.

Near the end of The Book of Arrows, in the poem, ―November 7, 2008‖, Amado writes, ―The world is beautiful colors. Even mauve and lime-green can have their say./It took a lot of coloring to make this mural./Even a rainbow over rooftops/can change the cloud.// ‗Free at last?‘ Maybe./But we‘re here; black, white, Native,/Chicano, and queer; and with the audacity to be./At last change.

It seems that Amado‘s speaker has found that the color(s) that he would like to own aren‘t stagnant. And that there are many different colors that make up his world. What a wonderful outlook on life, especially with all the obstacles Amado faced because of his physical illness.

The Book of Arrows is probably autobiographical yet it has literary value as well. Amado‘s use of color in words indicates such prowess. This book is an excellent read!

To obtain a copy of the book go to www.thelostbookshelf.com