All in Good Time by Paul Hudon

All in Good Time
Paul Hudon
Poems 2005-2006
Loom Press 2011
ISBN 078-0-931507-29-8

It takes me awhile to get beyond the formatting of dates and lines that separate the poems kept in liturgical order, sorry i mean in calendar, patch work, starting with 1 October-26 September.

"It was none of the bones in the poet's bag of tricks.
It wasn't meter or metaphor or simile. It wasn't me
pretending to know what it is to be a salmon,
and setting it down for others to read. No shaman
identification. None of that. It was me only being
me inside the fish,..."

This poetic journal, poetic journey, Hudon journalizes, "all in good time" is an epic poem,it scans in epic proportions, in sometimes surreal feel, political epilogues, and landscape proportion.

"That one with the stucco crap over the door.
Used to be one enormous wrought iron gate
between the courtyard and the street,..."

Paul Hudon's writing, his poems are open, contemporary, they inspire, invite the reader in. His language resolves, intimate interiors and at the same time his language denotes exterior happenings. His language lets the reader except their own language.

" Was a time your mother wouldn't
talk to me. Ignored me like I was
wallpaper. Just plain foolish,
she finally said, sniffy
as a schoolmarm. Was when
I promised to be her kind of
fool. Plain is fine, I told her,
but allow me a little I, would you?
Otherwise, I'm just an other pain.

She rolled her eyes and I was in."

Hudon's time textures new meanings, weaving days into a year, tying influences into,

"A syntactic con
she called it
a fabulation
the singular
the unparalleled original
fixture
she went on
of our trinitarian
infatuation
the simplest
declarative
sentence
ever
excised from
our endless blather..."

An obvious master, the reader will take what is a given. The reader can read the poems in part or as a whole.

"Stuffed animals
marble gods
given life
yours & mine"



irene koronas
poetry editor:
Wilderness House Literary Review
www.whlreview.com

Reviewer

Ibbetson Street Press

Feed My Sheep by Sharon L. Brown

Feed My Sheep
Sharon L. Brown
CrossBooks
www.crossbooks.com
$13.95

Review by Rene Schwiesow

As a child Sharon Brown enjoyed drawing. The time she spent with her art became a source of comfort throughout her life. While in the hospital receiving radioactive iodine treatments for thyroid cancer, she developed a character, which she named Patty. In her time of hospitalized isolation, she drew Patty in many situations, feeling that others may identify with Patty in their time of struggle as she had.

Brown received her certificate in women’s ministry from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. It was there that she realized she should add messages to her drawings of Patty. When I initially received the book, I perceived it as a children’s story. The cover is a brightly hued, animated drawing of Patty sitting on a rock and surrounded by a flock of sheep. She holds a shepherd’s crook in her hand. The book is only 19 pages, printed in an 8 ½ x 8 ½ inch format, and filled with colorful Patty illustrations.

It was not until I began to read the back cover that I realized “Feed My Sheep” was written for women of all ages. The messages in the Patty stories are intended to inspire, encourage, and offer the opportunity for reflection.

From understanding personal spiritual gifts, to weathering life’s storms, to faith, prayer and finding wisdom within, Brown’s messages look to help facilitate growth, healing, and a release from life’s everyday stresses through practicing meditations on biblical scripture.

“Feed My Sheep” is an easy-to-read book with a devotional slant. It can be read straight through in less than a half hour and read many times over when encouragement is needed. Christian women looking for a moment to brighten a stressful day will find respite in Brown’s Patty stories.

Rene Schwiesow is co-host of the popular South Shore poetry venue: The Art of Words in Plymouth, MA.

Lummox in the Library ( Click on title for more info)

Lummox in the Library - an ongoing fundraiser


www.lummoxpress.com/lummox_in_the_Libraries.htm


Donate $25 (via Pay Pal) and Lummox will send a book from our catalog (either you pick or I will) to a library of your choice. World donors please add $10 to cover extra postage if your choice is outside the US. A sticker designating that "this book has been donated by (name)" will be attached to the inside cover.

Two ‘Queer’ Somerville Playwrights Examine ‘The Nitty Gritty’

(Katie Liesener)

(Erica Berman)









Two Queer Somerville Playwrights Examine ‘The Nitty Gritty’


By Doug Holder



You know when two people have a good working relationship. Like any good friendship they finish each other’s sentences; they laugh at private jokes; the chemistry is hard to miss. This is true of Somerville Playwrights Erica Berman and Katie Liesener. These two women are co-producing a play “The Nitty Gritty” that will showcase on June 25th at Cambridge’s YMCA Theater at 7:30PM.

I met the pair at one of my favorite Union Square hangouts Bloc 11 (The other being the Sherman Cafe), on a cool June morning. Both women agreed that for them Somerville is truly “The Paris of New England.” They are constantly inspired by our creative burg. Although they met in Brookline, Mass. their shared Somerville backgrounds gave them an immediate connection.

Liesener said she hopes their play will present a different aspect of the “Queer Conversation.” Both women feel that Gay Theater is often a lot of sizzle but not enough steak. Liesener opined “It is full of glam, glitter, Gay Pride, undressing, but the everyday “Nitty Gritty” of day to day life has not been adequately addressed.” Issues of Gay community, and yes even the use of a dildoe, will be part of the conversation among the different women portrayed in the play.

Katie Liesener was a journalist for a number of years, writing for The Boston Globe, and the Community Newspaper Corporation. Although she thinks journalism is very valuable training for a writer, it sort of straightjacketed her. She said: “I always had to be objective; I couldn’t tell my own story—I could not interject myself into the article.” So she gave up journalism and gained the “Freedom to talk about my own experiences for once,” she said.


Berman, a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and Emerson College, runs the Watertown Children’s Theater, where she currently directs 60 kids under the age of 13in main stage shows. Berman said” I work six days a week. I am involved with the full artistic vision—lighting, costumes, sets, etc… I love it and I love working with children.”

Liesener and Berman count as their role models the playwright Lisa Kron and the Five Lesbian Brothers. Even so their own work smacks of their own original signature.

Liesener who teaches writing at Emmanuel College, said teaching does not detract from her own work. She reflected: “I find that when I teach I rediscover what’s important in writing. I become more aware.”

Both artists are clear that they have to hustle to keep those wolves from the door. Berman also teaches at a private school, and Liesener said she lives cheaply, but quite happily.

As I left Bloc 11 and walked by the café’s window, I noticed the playwrights still talking animatedly, creative sparks flying—I hope they turned the fire alarm off.


*** For more info go to http://thenittygrittyshow.com

SMALL PRESS COLLECTION AT ENDICOTT COLLEGE ( Click on title for link to collection)

BEVERLY, MASS.


Doug Holder, Adjunct Instructor of English and head of the office of the Ibbetson Street Press at Endicott College (Beverly, Mass.) has started a small press book collection with the help of Brian Courtemanche Director of Endicott's Halle Library, and his staff: Audrey Koke and Kristyl Roderiques. Holder, a widely published poet, and arts editor of The Somerville News, has long run his own lauded independent small press and literary magazine "Ibbetson Street" from his home in Somerville, Mass. Holder has long admired the great small press collections at the University of Buffalo and Brown University, and has always wanted to bring books of poetry, novels, etc..from the vast and eclectic sea of independent presses from this country and abroad to Endicott College. The Library's website now has a link to the collection: http://www.endicott.edu/Academics/AcadResources/~/media/LibraryMediaLibrary/PDFs/Ibbetson.ashx and it will be updated twice a year. The books listed so far are only a small portion of the books received.




We hope to have an extensive collection and we would love for you to be part of it. Send your donations to :


Endicott College
Halle Library
ATTN: Brian Courtemanche
376 Hale St.
Beverly, Mass.
01915

Review of ATOMIC ROMANCES, MOLECULAR DANCES by Mala L. Radhakrishnan

Review of ATOMIC ROMANCES, MOLECULAR DANCES by Mala L. Radhakrishnan, illustrated by Mary O’Reilly, copyright 2011, ISBN 978-14583-3192-2, paperback, 144 pages, $14.95

Review by Barbara Bialick

This book of “Chemistry Poetry” as the author calls it, is a clever compilation of word play fun for scientists, poets who find science fun to study, as well as a tool for science teachers. It is packed with rhymes on such topics as “The Atoms’ Family”, (Periodic Trends), “The Proton Personals” (Quantum Mechanics and Orbitals), “Ethanol, My Children”, and “The Alpha Personality” (Biochemistry and Cellular Biology)—“The loveliest partner that I could find/Is waiting right here for me to bind…”

I dived right into the Quantum Mechanics section to see what I could see. In “Guiding Light” it begins, “Hello there, good Doctor. My name is Leon,/emitted last night by an atom of neon. Because I am light, I’ve got reason to rave,/For I can exist in both particle and wave…/But I’ll get to the point, Doc, ‘cause you’re in a rush./My problem is simple: I’ve got a huge crush/on an atom whose life I could make a lot brighter/if only she’d let in my light to excite her!”

After all, “Many say love’s got strange dynamics--/Not so if you know your quantum mechanics!”

The author, Mala L. Radhakrishnan is a biophysical chemist and a faculty member in the Chemistry Department at Wellesley College. She earned her A.B. in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard College and her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from M.I.T. She does research in the field of computational biomolecular analysis and design and has a great interest in the teaching of chemistry.

The illustrator, Mary O’Reilly is a freelance science illustrator and adjunct faculty member in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of San Diego. She earned her B.S. in Chemistry from Purdue University and her Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry from M.I.T. Her “dual career” involves teaching and illustration.

As we learn, potential love is always nearby if the right forces, atoms, and chemicals come together, so don’t give up if this sounds like you…”I’d rather just end it all now with a pistol/Than live out the rest of my life in this crystal/…”

Longing for the Mother Tongue by Joseph Farley

Longing for the Mother Tongue by Joseph Farley, March Street Press, Greensboro NC, 2010.

Review by Carol Hamilton

On my first read-through of LONGING FOR THE MOTHER TONGUE, I experienced the satisfaction felt when I hear another articulate feelings I have had. Joseph Farley, longtime editor of AXE FACTORY, has released this slim volume of 16 poems with March Street Press. In it, he has found a graceful and deeply felt way to express his reactions to life's disorienting changes.


These poems will speak especially to those who have lived in two worlds. The author writes of living inside his past ( home, native tongue, a known self and comfort) while living a new life with its excitement, exoticism, freshness, but also with its frustrations and even incomprehensibility.


The first poem of this series is a simple love poem which works to set up the contrasting realities the poems explore. The poem speaks of black and white photographs of the beloved from an earlier era seen against the
full-color, flesh and blood, aging but present reality. The two images are held together by love, but in a tension that struggles to understand how these two realities are truly one.


From this universal emotion, so clearly and simply evoked, Farley moves into his theme in the next poem, "Welcome to Ji'an." Complex events and backgrounds are shared in this narrative piece presented with Oriental understatement and slender line breaks to create an Eastern feel to the pages. The ex-pat tells of being saved, while trying to save his own son, by Lao Wai Po, great grandmother of 90 years, while being attacked by a gang of construction workers angry at his:

"jintofa"
golden hair,
among a sea
of black hair.

The author comes away from the encounter feeling he must be very ugly to cause this violent anger, though he knows he has done nothing wrong. Still, he found:

I stayed away
from mirrors
for the rest of my stay
uncertain
what I might find
looking back at me.


Farley's title poem, "Longing for the Mother Tongue," expresses the yearning the ex-pat feels for the comfort and the rhythms of one's language heard in the womb, the quicksilver understandings so little appreciated until its facile use is of no use:


Stammering idiot
babbling nonsense
to the locals,
they cannot understand
my words.

The story becomes even more difficult when he comes to realize that even those closest in this new world, new family, have no understanding of his own beliefs. There is not a world view that can be truly shared. This difficult truth is forced to the surface with the events of Tieneman Square.

In "The Eye of the Beholder" the author realizes how time changes even the common threads of youthful desire for freedom:

Money makes things good,
or so it seems,
and history is a dusty book
sitting on a shelf.

In the end, one understands that there will never be an ideal understanding between different worlds. The father tries to help the son understand the importance of night soil, despite his own disgust.

The child of such unions is the one who finally melds the two worlds, as expressed in the short piece, "East Meets West." But then the same muddling of tongues takes place again, this time between the generations,
which have once again come together from different worlds.

These poems, Oriental in their simplicity and understatement, but full of Western sentiment, express a confusion and near despair which is somehow redeemed by love: love for the old life, love for the new life, and a deep love for the people and places never fully understood. This collection confronts us with our human condition. Farley's work is a sweet way to swallow this bitter pill.

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

***Carol Hamilton is a writer and storyteller born in Enid, Oklahoma and graduated from Midwest City High School. She has a BS degree from Phillips University and an MA in English from the University of Central Oklahoma. She lived in Connecticut, Scotland, New York, West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana before returning to Oklahoma. She taught elementary school in North Haven, Connecticut, Indianapolis Indiana, and Tinker Elementary on Tinker AFB and helped develop and teach for the last 12 years of her public school career in the elementary gifted school for Mid-Del Schools, the Academic Center for Enrichment. She was Teacher of the Year for Mid-Del Schools in 1982.

She taught in the English Department of Rose State College for 10 years and 7 years on the graduate faculty of the Creative Studies Division of the English Department for the University of Central Oklahoma. She has also taught Spanish, astronomy, and creative writing in continuing education programs for Rose State College, Oasis, the Vo-Tech System, and other programs. She translates for an Oklahoma City health clinic for women and children and often goes as a translator for medical teams working in Third World countries. She received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Central Oklahoma for 2007.

Yanafide Founation Presents: Holder, Bishop, Schiesow, Chadbourne to read at Brockton Public Library June 25, 2011 12PM

(CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE)

Unseen Hand By Adam Zagajewski

Unseen Hand
By Adam Zagajewski
Copyright © 2009 by Adam Zagajewski
Translated by Clare Cavanagh
ISBN: 978-0-374-28089-5
Farrar, Strauss and Giroux
Hardbound, 105 pages, $23

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

I have always admired the Eastern European poets, particularly the Polish poets like Adam Zagajewski who is at home with historic, geographic, personal or nature poetry and in his new book he is the master of all these forms. To make this book complete, translator Clare Cavanagh has just the right touch to keep the poetry alive, accessible and a pleasure to read.

Back to Zagajewski whose poem “January 27” references the Holocaust by juxtaposing it with Mozart’s birthday ending thus:

the age of silver wigs and not he gray hair
we knew from Auschwitz,
the age of costumes, not of nakedness,
hope and despair.

Writing about his father and mother he cannot help but touch the reader’s heart and makes one wish they had been able to express their feelings about their parents with the same honesty as
Zagajewski is able to do.

Zagajewski’s poetry is akin to Charles Simic in his comparatively short poems in which can state what needs to be said with emotion, clarity and sincerity. He is also reminiscent of Nobel Prize winner Wislawa Szymborska’s very personal – human – approach to whatever he has chosen to write about.

Having read World Without End: New and Selected Poems and Eternal Enemies, his last two volumes of poetry, I have become an unabashed fan of Zagajewski and his poems provide an inspiration to the writing of some poets I know who seek the style of the Eastern Europeans because of his accessibility, while non-writers enjoy him as much.

What follows are several excerpts from some of the poems which show off his never-ending talent:

From “Luxembourg Gardens”: White boats race the river, pack with crowds/demanding greetings from the shore-bound;/their champagne mood liquidates the past.

From “3 Arkonska Street”: But I wasn’t really grown-up./I didn’t know who I was -/in the mirror I saw only eyes/that didn’t look at me.

From the “Last Stop”: I thought that at the last stop/ the meaning of it all would stand revealed,/but nothing happened, nothing,/the driver ate a roll with cheese/two old women talked quietly/ about prices and diseases.

From “Piano Lesson”: We don’t know who we are – maybe wanderers./Sometimes I think we don’t exist. Only others are./The acoustics are great in our neighbors’ apartment.

What makes Zagajewski one of our great contemporary poets is that even though I have compared him to two other great poets he is his own person. He has returned to past themes in fresh ways, imbued with a unique perspective and voice that explores the often strange and tender ways of people. He is passionate and haunting, elegant and direct. A poet for our time and the ages.

The Women of Beowulf: Faces in the Fire by Donnita L. Rogers

The Women of Beowulf: Faces in the Fire
Donnita L. Rogers
iUniverse
$17.95


By Rene Schwiesow


Most of us are familiar with the epic poem “Beowulf.” Many of us read it as part of our literary studies and some of us have analyzed the work, line by line. But few of us have been driven to go beyond the master manuscript, to dive into the lives of the behind-the-scene characters of the work and put them to the page. Donnita Rogers has done just that in her first book of a series, “The Women of Beowulf: Faces in the Fire.”

Roger’s interest in and love for “Beowulf” served her well in her career as a teacher in Texas, where she inspired her students with her innovative style. Her students did not simply read “Beowulf,” they became involved with “Beowulf,” just as Donnita Rogers was. After retiring from her teaching position, Roger’s embarked on a journey designed to offer her research opportunities for her Beowulf series. For five years Rogers committed herself to the study of Viking culture. This time included travel to Scandinavia, where she experienced a trip on the replica of a Viking ship and climbed funeral mounds. Her goal: to understand what life during the Viking Age was like, particularly for the women.

While some might consider “The Women of Beowulf,” a feminist study, one does not have to be a feminist or even a woman to appreciate the story that Rogers weaves. She crafts a fine tale that depicts the strength of character held by the Viking women, but does not discount their vulnerabilities.

Freawaru, the Danish king’s (Hrothgar) daughter is a focal point of the book. We meet her at the young age of 4 and are soon introduced to the fact that she is marked by the Goddess Freyja – she bears a birthmark in the shape of a feather on her shoulder. It is through Freawaru’s eyes that we meet the principle characters of “Beowulf.” We find ourselves entwined with Hrothgar, Aeschere, Unferth, and Beowulf, himself, on a level that takes steps beyond our previous understanding or discovery. Yes, even the menacing Hrothulf is expanded in his unsavory character and personality.

While we watch Freawaru mature into a beautiful, young woman, we are drawn into the struggles of Heorot and into the way those struggles affect its inhabitants. Years pass with nights spent in fear of the Grendel, the Great Hall abandoned each night to avoid further death. The loss of men is astounding; however, life in the kingdom continues during daylight hours, the women of Beowulf creating close-knit relationships within the community. They are the life-givers, the healers. They are keepers of the Sacred and the rituals performed within their circles are designed to guide and protect – from the shearing of their own locks of hair while skyclad, to ritual circles of healing using herbs, to the reading of Runes, these women are a vital part of their community and an often unrecognized strength.

Donnita Rogers has given us a rich look into the Viking Age culture. Those of us who maintain an interest in culture from an historic perspective will appreciate the research that she accomplished and the way in which her knowledge has enriched the story of Beowulf, offering depth through her exploration of the feminine. This reviewer is looking forward to continuing the saga in Donnita Roger’s next book.


Rene Schwiesow is the co-host of the popular South Shore poetry venue: The Art of Words held in Plymouth, MA.

Snarge by T.P. Perrin

Snarge by T.P. Perrin
Wasteland Press, Shelbyville, Kentucky
www.wastelandpress.net
93 pp, $12

Review by Mary Rice

Snarge is the best kind of experimental poetry: imagination seeking forms to fit it. These include a one-scene play, a passage from Chaucer wittily mangled ("Spellchecking Chaucer"), imaginary dialogues ("Duets from Otherwhen") and a Senate hearing, as well as poems with words crossed out ("Revising Gertrude") and all over the page ("June" and "The Extraterrestrial Ouch"). The ultimate is a 17-page verbal smorgasbord called "A Thanksgiving Garland or Hekkaidekalogia."

Yet there is also respect for tradition. In the last section of "Three Brags":

You'd have us believe Laird Cregar
standing in Betty Grable's doorway,
his face half in shadow, half in

light (effect Ed Cronjager
took a whole hour's shooting to get right),
will be more evil, scarier, even more real,

if the shadow is purple,
and the suit he wears is brown,
and his necktie green? What are you, nuts?

The poems are variously humorous and thought-provoking, concerned with nature and human nature, history and artistry.

First Annual Writers’ Conference. Hunter College.

First Annual Writers’ Conference. Hunter College.

By Doug Holder

As you would expect whenever I am in New York City I do a lot of walking. As it happens I was invited to be on a small press panel at the First Annual Writer’s Conference at Hunter College in NYC, founded by Lewis Burke Frumkes. It was a picture perfect day in June, so I walked from my brother’s apartment on 20th Street in the Chelsea section of the city, to 68th and Lexington—the home of Hunter College. I stopped at my favorite diner on the way—the “Malibu Diner’—an unlikely name for an eatery in the middle of a gritty thoroughfare. I ordered my lox and bagel and listened to the well-honed staccato chatter of a counterman from central casting with a regular:


“What’s it gonnna be sonny-boy?”
“ Sunnyside up- don’t make ‘em weep.”
“ Gotcha. What’s your pick tonight?”
“Yankees.”
“ Not a china man’s chance.”

But I digress. Since my own panel was not until 2PM, I had a veritable literary buffet of speakers and panels to sample from. On the Memoir Panel listing I noticed Malachy McCourt author of: “Singing Him My Song” and other authors were participating. We had McCourt at the Somerville News Writers Festival last year—so I wanted to drop by. Also on the panel were Sidney Offit—curator emeritus of the George Polk Journalism Awards, Patricia Volk author of the memoir “ Stuffed,” Sir Gilbert Levine “The Pope’s Maestro,” and Lucette Lagnado, “The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit.”

As always I found McCourt to be a genuine and inspirational speaker. McCourt offered his advice to memoir writers in the audience. He feels the memoirist should write about what he or she is truly “ashamed of.” All of the panelists agreed on the importance of documentation—the inclusion of dialogue to make a more compelling memoir. McCourt, a fine dramatist in his own right, emphasized that the memoir provides freedom to dramatize; it is all about impressions; it does not have to be strictly factually accurate.

Lunch was held in the faculty dining room that had a panoramic view of the city. The speaker was Nelson DeMille, a popular mystery-action writer, who penned such novels as “The Charm School,” “The Gold Coast,” and many others. In his conversation with the audience he recounted his years as a major player on the literary landscape.

He was asked by an audience member if he ever was involved with screenwriting in Hollywood. He said, “Writers get more respect in New York. Hollywood eats you up. In Hollywood you are simply a writer for hire. You have very little control of your work." When he worked with Dino de Laurentis on a script, he found that after 6 months and all the various interventions by other writers, etc… he didn’t know what he was writing about. He recalled: "When I got back to New York I felt dirty. I felt I needed to take a bath.”

DeMille reads a lot of non-fiction to research his books, but he rarely reads other novels—especially when he is working. “He said, “Reading novels can skew you—really mess up your own work.” The author feels it is best to control his own voice and style when he is writing.

The small press panel was well-attended and presided over by the well-known, New York writer and co-author of “What May Have Been” (Cervena Barva Press) Susan Tepper. On the panel were yours truly, Steve Glines of the ISCS Press and Wilderness House Press, Jim Schuette of the Marion St. Press, and Roa Lynn, author of "Farewell Rio.” We all discussed the opportunities small presses and little magazines offer the author outside of the mainstream publishing industry. There were also frank discussions of self-publishing, and a review some the new publishing technologies.

Finally Susan Tepper and I went to the “Birth of a Book Panel” that was presided over by Jerry Gross, the author of “Editors on Editing.” Also on the panel were Stephanie Abou agent, Foundry Literary & Media, Hilma Wolitzer author of “Summer Reading”, Pamela Dorman, editor of Pamela Dorman Books, and Doug Jones, Senior V.P. of Sales at Harper Collins.

Jerry Gross, the consummate book doctor talked about how editing is more than marking up the page but involves what “could” be on the page. He emphasized the creativity of a good editor.

Abou, the agent, talked about the importance of the query letter—it should be short and sweet and to the point. And make sure you proof it as well as you would your beloved manuscript. A poorly written query letter will stop an agent in his or her tracks.

Jones, the Sales V.P. at Harper Collins talked about the importance of indie bookstores to create a buzz. The book sales they create are secondary—but if the independent likes the book, and gets excited about it—then sales in general will often gain momentum.

Hilma Wolitzer had an interesting anecdote about her start as a writer many years ago. It seems she gave a short story to a friend of hers who slipped into her jacket pocket. The friend was wearing that same jacket at a cocktail party where she was chatting with the agent of John Steinbeck. She handed the agent Wolitzer’s short story—the agent read it-loved it— and eventually she got her first book published.

After the event I had dinner at an Italian joint in the ‘hood with family and friends. Later I saw the sun set amidst a canyon of skyscrapers; I saw a fat guy with a fat cigar argue with a skinny cabdriver sporting a flowing beard and a turban and the wind lifted a beautiful woman’s skirt!—ah yes—New York!

Ibbetson Street Press author Poet Linda Lerner to appear at Grolier Poetry Bookshop June 14, 2011

Takes Guts and Years some time, (NYQ) a poetry book by Linda Lerner has been released. Linda has been previously published by Ibbetson Street "Koan from Samsara." She will be having a book signing at the Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Harvard Square from 2 to 3PM ( June 14)--hope you can attend!




The New York Quarterly Foundation, Inc.
™
New York, New York

www.nyqbooks.org/author/lindalerner • PO Box 2015 • Old Chelsea Station • New York, NY 10113
For Release: Immediately Contact: Raymond Hammond, Editor; 917.843.8825; rhammond@nyquarterly.org
Publication Information: 5.5 x 8.5 in.; 280 Pages; ISBN: 978-1-935520-31-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011926466 Publication Date: June 1, 2011


Website: http://www.nyqbooks.org/author/lindalerner

NYQ Books™ announces the publication of Takes Guts and Years Sometimes
by Linda Lerner



May 1, 2011 - New York, NY - NYQ Books™ is proud to announce the release of Takes Guts and Years Sometimes: New and Selected Poems by Linda Lerner. Linda Lerner’s latest book is a collection ofpoems dating from the early 80’s to the present. An immigrant daughter’s courageous search forher identity, her refusal to compromise who she is for a paycheck or for love is viewed in the backdrop of major public events. Upheavals in her personal life are paralleled by those in the larger world. There’s the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and the subsequent attack in 2001 six blocks from her home. This latter event triggers memories of stories her estranged father told about his escape from Russia. There are the hardships caused by gentrification. The locale is primarily New York City, but it could be any place, where the fault lines of vulnerability in individual lives suddenly give way to tremors outside, and the earth shifts beneath them.



“As one of Whitman’s children, Linda Lerner’s poems are breathless and pulsing, alive with a hunger to taste, devour, smell, witness and embrace. She is insatiable, open, doesn’t want to miss anything.


The poems have an urgency. She is famished for life, is starved for what is hot and spicy, real and she takes risks, refusing to settle. Fascinated by people, she writes movingly not just about her self and her lovers but about her family with its Russian immigrant roots and background and conflict and pain but also about ordinary people in the Bowery, old men and ruined women, the woman in a box, the young with their hormones bursting. She makes the city shimmer with its smells—pastrami and rye and cream soda, smoke, tar, sewer smells, garbage—the beauties and terrors—the World Trade Center attacks, the dangerous streets she refuses to let scare her away. Even the poems of the blues and rawness of life celebrate in
the way the blues celebrate.” —Lyn Lifshin


Linda Lerner is a New York City Poet, born and raised in Brooklyn where she now lives. She is the author of thirteen poetry collections and has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her most recent collections are: Something Is Burning In Brooklyn, (Iniquity Press / Vendetta books, 2009), Living In Dangerous Times (Presa Press, 2007) & City Woman, (March Street Press,2006 ; (The last two
were Small Press Reviews’ Pick of the Month) In 1995, she and Andrew Gettler founded POETS on the line (http://www.echonyc.com/~poets) the first poetry anthology available on the internet.

Somerville musician Audrey Ryan: A singer/songwriter in the Paris of New England

Interview with Doug Holder

Somerville musician Audrey Ryan: A singer/songwriter in the Paris of New England

Well Audrey Ryan thought I meant that the Paris of New England is meant for Boston--but of course I meant Somerville, Mass. But I can see her point. And this multi-talented artist fits well into our creative milieu on the banks of the Mystic River. On Ryan's website it states:




"Audrey Ryan is a one-man-band multi-instrumentalist whose music is quirky and genre-bending. She tours regionally, nationally, and internationally supported by Folkwit Records (UK) . She has opened for Suzanne Vega, They Might be Giants, Josh Ritter, Ra Ra Riot, Grace Potter among many others."

I had the chance to chat with her recently:







You grew up in Mount Desert Island in Maine. Now you live in Somerville...what brought you here? How do you find the "The Paris of New England " in terms of a home for artists of all stripes?

I never knew that Boston was the "Paris of New England" but I like it! That's what I'm going to tell people from now on when I'm touring in Europe...Anyway, I was born and raised in Maine and still spend my summers there, I own a small house there (more like a seasonal camp...), vote there when I can, have my car registered there...I guess you could say I'm still a Mainard in many respects, except that I live here in Somerville 10 months out of the year...But to answer your question: I moved here after college because my father is from Haverhill and I had family, specifically my now deceased paternal grandmother, who wanted me to live nearby. Plus I had a lot of friends already in the area, which helps when you are starting out a new life in a big city, to have a built in base of friends and family. And plus I love Boston, and more specifically the Cambridge & Somerville area. Always have. I actually spent 3 years of high school at a boarding school up in North Andover, MA (Brooks School) and used to take the commuter train in every weekend and jump on the red line and head straight for Harvard Square, sometimes Davis. So I moonlighted here as a teenager and was quite taken with it, considering I'm otherwise a small-town girl from an island off the coast of Maine.

To answer the second part of your questions; I think the Boston area is a great place to be an artist in that there are plenty of us, and you can also get to dozens of smaller markets within a few hours, which is key as a touring musician. Being based out of Boston I can still gig regularly and maintain a fanbase in Portsmouth, Portland, Burlington, NYC, ect...which is ideal. If you live on the West coast or in the Midwest it's a lot harder, as distances are further. One great aspect of living in the congested East Coast...




You traveled through Africa, Asia, and Australia. How important is travel for the maturation for a musician...the lyricist?

I think my early travels in Africa, Asia, and Australia were mostly pertinent to my development of character and as a "worldly" human being, having taught English in a small tribe in Africa for a year and backpacked around dozens of countries in Africa and Southeast Asia. I guess you could say that I have more experiences to draw from than people who have never left the continental USA. Not that that makes me a better songwriter per se. But it has given me the gift of flexibility when it comes to touring, in that I've traveled so much for music and just for the sake of traveling, that it comes easy to me.

Plus I have all these friends who are getting older and have the travel bug because they never traveled when they were younger, I don't really have that issue.

As for lyrics, I recently wrote a song called "Ganges" which is about my experience in Varanasi, India when I took a boat several times out into the Ganges and watched people bath themselves and wash clothes in the river when a few feet away there was a funeral pyre with a body burning as part of a religious tradition. Years later that experience still sticks with me, I'm glad I was finally able to write a song about it...

I know, as a poet I always carry a small book around with me to capture things--fleeting conversations, interesting snippets of things I am reading--and later I revisit it--and maybe get a poem or essay from it. What's your process?

I've filled a few dictators with bits and pieces of songs. Melodies & lyrics. I refer to them later on when I'm writing. I find songs create themselves in my head when I'm least expecting it. Like driving on the highway after a weird weekend in NYC or after a show in the Midwest. Usually it's somewhat nostalgic. I don't always have the right process for capturing those moments, because they are so random. All I know is that I need to record it or write it down before I walk into a store and hear other music that then dilutes what's in my head...it's the oddest thing but it happens to me every time. That is why having a dictator handy is pretty much invaluable for capturing thoughts.

Do you compose the music first..or the lyrics first?

Music. Almost always. I find it fascinating that it's different for each artist. I remember reading something about Sheryl Crow writing lyrics first always, and I was so surprised because she described a process almost opposite to mine. Maybe that it is why my music sounds nothing like hers! Actually, I think it's because I'm more of a multi-instrumentalist when it comes down to it. I work in notes and melodies. The words usually come later when the music stabilizes a bit enough to sing over. Plus I use loops. I mean, it's pretty complicated sometimes to write a loop song you can actually sing over,...so sometimes I'll write a song and can't even figure out how to make a melody over it...then I start over again...

In an interview I read your lyrics were described as "words T.S. Eliot could slur." Was he an influence on your work? Are there any poets or writers that influenced you?

Which interview was that? I have no idea. I remember taking a literature class in college and reading a T.S. Eliot poem where a woman in London was eating out of a tin can, it was kind of depressing, but very powerful. I can't really say he's been a big influence although a lot of writers I've read are probably huge influences on my understanding of words and prose. But when it comes down to it my biggest influence musically and lyrically is Joni Mitchell, hands down. She is a poet and a musician, incredible lyrics, one of the best story tellers out there. After her I'd say Dylan, Neil Young, Bert Jansch. Instrumentally, John Fahey.

All in all I really value storytelling. I love books on tape because I'm always driving around in a car. I've been listening to "Life" which is Keith Richards autobiography. It's so good, I can't believe he remembers as much as he does about the Rolling Stones considering how many drugs his brain has endured. But I love hearing people's life stories. Frank McCourt ("Angela's Ashes") is a favorite story teller. Brings you right into his world. I love when a writer or musician can take you there with them, it's a gift.

You play a number of instruments, and your music is very eclectic. In a highly commercial market that loves to label people- has this presented a problem?

I guess it would be a problem if I was looking to be really successful commercially. Thankfully, I'm not. At this point in life, after almost ten years in the music business in some way shape or form (I started touring in college...) I just don't really care what other people think. I know that sounds bold and cliche, but it's more or less true. I'm not trying to be famous or to write pop songs that a lot of people buy into. I'm just trying to get the music that is inside of me out in the most organic way possible.

I think making art is one of the most important things about being human, if you have the chance to do so. But I think selling it, making money off of it, and being famous, is all pretty much just a pipe dream. It's someone else's definition of success. Not mine. I'm not saying that I never wanted to be really successful, of course I have. But at this point, I'm just satisfied that other people like what I do. I've had famous musicians (Glen Hansard, Suzanne Vega, Leo Kottke, Damien Rice, Beth Orton, They Might be Giants, Ra Ra Riot, Paige McConnell of "Phish",...) hear my music and respond to it more positively than I could ever have dreamed of; personally taking the time to tell me that my music is original and interesting. That's affirming enough for me. I don't need the general public to feel the same way...

Plus I've built my whole adult life around the friends I've made through making music. It's what connects me to other people in many ways, and for me that is the best marker of success.



In your writing,there is a theme of finding simplicity in your world--that at times is decidedly chaotic. Have you found that peace of mind? Have you cut to the chase in your work and life--gotten to the meat of the matter so-to-speak?

This question is the quest of my life: to find a balance. I can't say I've mastered it but I think I'm a lot more centered and happy now than I ever have been. It makes the idea of getting older not as scary, because with age comes a sort of ability to focus on what actually matters the most. I can tell you this: the music business is like high school all over again. Who is the popular cool kid, who is the hip indie hipster band (have you ever been to SXSW?...I've been 5 times...ugghhh....). I'm just not interested in any of that anymore. My simplicity is found mostly when I go back to Maine. But I think there is simplicity here in Somerville too. It's all about feeling connected to a place and people. I think I've lived here long enough to feel like I belong in some way.

It's funny that you say "peace of mind" because my friend Will Dailey has a song titled that and I sing with him on it when we do shows together. I know exactly what he means. My song is called "Simplify" and it's about the same thing. It's about making life less complicated and more focused on what is important. Getting rid of the stress when you can. As far as getting to the meat of the matter, I think as long as I'm challenging myself artistically and making music I think that is good and sharing it with people that care, I feel pretty satisfied. Plus I think love is big. I mean, Freud said this years ago, adult life is about work and love. You need both. You need to love what you do and to have loving relationships. Right now I have both, and they need my constant attention and nurturing to be maintained, so I'm just holding on tight.


* From "Dishes and Pills"

Dishes and pills
are ruining me
gonna smash the piana
and burn the TV.
Something yeah is wrong,
Real life isn't good for you,
real life isn't good for me,
and I don't want to be you, anymore than you want
to be me...





For more info go to http://audreyryan.com






Here are Ryan's upcoming local shows:

Friday, July 8th @Milky Way, JP
(with Coyote Kolb)

Friday, July 22nd @Precinct, Somerville
(with Shoney Lamar)

Review of CRACK WILLOW, POEMS OF TRANSFORMATION, by Shelby Allen

Review of CRACK WILLOW, POEMS OF TRANSFORMATION, by Shelby Allen, Cherry Grove Collections, PO Box 541106, Cincinnati, Ohio 45254, cover art also by Shelby Allen, www.cherry-grove.com, 82 pages, 2011

Review by Barbara Bialick

The poets who wrote back cover lines for this book, speak of nature, survival, metamorphosis…that’s all there, but the poem I want to zoom in on is one about her father in a photograph.—“In an Old Newspaper Photo”. Like this photo, this is a book full of secrets, family secrets, that she tells but doesn’t tell, knows, but doesn’t know:

“…my father stands straight/at the center of men and smiles/…he’s completed a deal/…But I know my father had another smile,/thin as string, bent/like the curve of his hat,…/a smile below sad eyes/the same look his father had/in the photo on my parents’ bureau/My father used to say his father/always wanted to…I don’t remember what…He never did it,/My mother said my father/always wanted to do something too…/I recognize/the little tell-yourself-it-doesn’t-matter smile,/our family caption…”

Allen probably has this smile, too, one of the Radcliff girls overshadowed by the Harvard boys, in the 1966 Yearbook, or the smile of the FAO Schwartz “three-ton teddy bear” in Boston. “Am I still (my mother’s)toy?/Do Not Climb, the sign says,/but children are climbing,/right up to the steel scarf and its fetching bow/…giant F, giant A, my mother’s silenced initials./an O on the third block as wide/as my buried scream.”
I would call this book “a good read,” but I am also waiting for its sequel when she tells me what is going on here and that she has even more fully transformed the past.

Like the skater paper doll, in “A Closed Shop”, captured “in your groove, the slot cut for you/in the lid of the box/Stop, little skater/You don’t even have ice./How will you learn to fall?”

But the poet does tell us what to do in “Any Tree Will Listen”: “If you can’t speak of it,/stand in the embrace of a Norway spruce:/all of Norway will shelter you/in a cloak of boughs filled with fjords of light./,,,If you can’t find a tree/when you need one, all you need/is a crack in the concrete: one green shoot.”

Somerville Poets Patrick Sylvain and Kim Triedman: Words as a balm for disaster.

Somerville Poets Patrick Sylvain and Kim Triedman: Words as a balm for disaster.
Interview with Doug Holder

Poets Kim Triedman and Patrick Sylvain joined me on my Somerville Community Access TV show “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer,” to talk about the acclaimed poetry reading they were part of and the subsequent anthology “Poets for Haiti.” All this was in reaction to the tragic earthquake that brought Haiti to its knees. Triedman, managing editor for the Ibbetson Street Press in Somerville, Mass, edited the anthology and was instrumental in organizing the reading. Sylvain is originally from Haiti and now lives in Somerville. He is a well-regarded poet, educator and activist.


Doug Holder: How do you think poetry has helped people connect with Haitian culture? Did your readings and others like it help people realize what was lost during the earthquakes?

Kim Triedman: I think the enormity of the disaster was enough for people to stand up and take notice. Poetry, at least to my knowledge, had not been used in this way significantly before—in terms of the way the poetry community supported us. I think it was a very valuable model if nothing else. The fact that so many people came out and responded to the poetry, responded to the situation, responded with donations, made the reading a tremendous success. We had five Haitian American poets. I think the situation in Haiti demanded this attention.

Patrick Sylvain: I agree, I was thrilled with it, and when I saw the lineup of all the other poets, I knew it would be a success. But I did not think it would be as successful as it turned out. Even the reading we did at Porter Square Books in Cambridge was great—I think we sold 170 books.

KT: Yes. It really excited us. There was tremendous energy. The whole thing took over two hours. And no one got up to leave.

PS: What impressed me was all the generosity of the poets and Kim in putting it together.
The Arts have been central to Haitian culture. Whether its poetry, fiction, painting, etc… Haiti is known for its artistic expression. After the earthquake we sort of made a pact with the devil. It brought us attention, but also destruction. Haiti has been demonized in so many ways. So I think an event like this to counterbalance that image—is so good for an alternative way to look at things. It provides a way took beyond the fact that Haiti is the poorest country. The language of poetry is universal. And poets speak with one another. The readers at the event and the poetry lovers interacted in a very warm and heartfelt way.

DH: Kim-- there is always a litany of disasters-so why did this particular one—light a fire for you?

KT: I can’t say exactly. But I happened to be in my poetry workshop a couple of days after the incident and one of my colleagues said as we were leaving: “I wish there is more that we can do.” We had all written checks; we all watched the footage. For some reason I couldn’t keep my eyes off of it. And that night it occurred to me that I had a friend who was a poetry organizer. She made me realize I could put something together with poets and artists. I ended up working with Jim Henle of Harvard University who had the same idea. I think what prompted me was that line from my group: “I wish there is more that we can do.” Once we asked people to be part of our reading etc…we had a full roster of poet in two days, etc…

DH: The reading took place Feb. 23, 2010 at the Harvard Ed. School. It has been said that the “Poets owned the evening.” What does that mean?

PS: Our words and emotions took us someplace that was unexpected. It was not a catastrophe reading so to speak, nor was it overwhelmed with emotions. It was sort of a heartfelt literary event that took us to a spot where we understood human frailty, human resilience, but at the same time we talked to each other. Fred Marchant (Director of the Suffolk University Poetry Center) read a poem by a Haitian poet. The poem he read was connected to one of his own poems. There were many of these “interconnections.” Fred read the work of a poet he never met. We had 13 poets, and the audience wanted more!

KT: It almost had a spiritual aspect. People were elated. It was an incidental reading forum. There was no grandstanding. Robert Pinsky (Former U.S. Poet Laureate), as well as an award-winning Haitian High School poet read. Other poets like Rosanna Warren, Gail Mazur read—so we had an amazing group. It took its own shape.

DH: Patrick—in your poem “Boulevard Jean Jacques Dessalines” you write of this famed street in Port-au-Prince. Tell us a bit about the street in its salad days, and how it is now. Who was the man it was named after?

PS:When I grew up was you Port-au-Prince was very small. I left Haiti in 1981. The Boulevard was like Mass. Ave. in Cambridge, Mass. It was a central artery. It had a lot of business going on, and two hundred yards to its right you had the seaport—so literally you could see the sea. I remember when I started to go to school you could see the increase in merchants. And when I went back to Haiti in 1990, I wanted to see some of these places. I wanted to look at people. To me Haiti is theatre. The merchants pressing against each other, all the theatrical battles that took place between them…I wanted to witness this yet again. I had a very specific memory of a very chaotic place. So when I went back, I could see the street was overwhelmed by vendors, and the poverty and desperation was very evident.

Dessalines was one of the founders of Haiti. He became a liberator and later ironically a dictator. Later he was murdered, a little outside Port-au-Prince. So this same thoroughfare named after the great liberator is full of chaos and poverty.

DH: Kim—in your poem “Toil” you write “Spring will come.” Has spring sprung in the aftermath in Haiti?

KT: It’s going very slowly. I hope it will. There is just a relentless of catastrophes these days.

PS: I think we can only be hopeful. People in Haiti don’t believe in suicide—as long there is hope there is life.

Presa 14, spring 2011 Tributes to Hugh Fox

Presa 14, spring 2011
Tributes to Hugh Fox
Presa Press, PO Box 792
Rockford, MI 49341
presapress@aol.com, www.presapress.com
Copyright 2011 Presa Press and Authors
Editor – Roseanne Ritzema

for Ibbetson St. Press

Review by Lo Galluccio

Hugh Fox never stops writing. Right now he has four novels out: “Depths and Dragons” (Skylight Press in the U.K), “The Lord Said Unto Satan” (Post Mortem Press), (On Line) – 'In the Beginning” (Muse it Up Press in Canada) and “Reunion” by Luminous Press. In addition, he's released a Journal of Archeological musings called “Immortal Jaguar” (Skylight Press.)

As stated in the introduction to this tribute issue to Fox, Hugh has been the longtime editor of Ghost Dance and exerted his influence as a founder of COSMEP and The Pushcart Prize. He has written books about Charles Bukowski and Lyn Lifshin and his reviews in the Small Press Review outnumber those of any other reviewer.

For this issue of Presa, Hugh was asked to select favorite poems, including Fox's 180 line collaboration with Eric Greinke “Beyond Our Control.” It's currently under nomination for a Rhysling Award. The issue also includes poems and memoirs about and to Hugh from grateful friends and fellow writers: Kostelanetz, Greinke, Lifshin, Luschei, Lockie, Smith and O'Hearn. Also included in the issue are poems by 30 other poets various subjects.

Word play, striking juxtaposition, musings on the nature of the universe and consciousness, the emblematic presence of mysterious gods – all pervade Fox's verse. A time and space traveler, he leaps from situation to situation, from cultural purview to personal episode like an acrobat. In Section 11 of “Apotheosis of Olde Towne” he writes:

“playspace
eye to eye under glass grass,
wayspace,
chess,
chat
color upflung - - pipe in birds!” p. 5

Broken up into four jagged stanzas, Hugh begins and ends with Unity: “green, the curved eye and the curved mind.”

In a self portrait poem, “Who am I?” from Once, Fox asserts:

“Who am I?,
musico loco/crazy musician


vagabond wind,
fuchsia feathers,
…
Buddha snapping up
from dreams...
the snake twisting of
dragon king Melech-Moloch
God.” p 6


Having been raised staunchly Irish Catholic and then realizing his Jewish lineage, Hugh uncovers and seemingly vaunts many spiritual icons in his poems to form a rich cosmos in which many spirits are at play.

He is equally comfortable in the urbane setting of the Allerton Hotel in Chicago where he would encounter “Le petitie Gourmet where there was this blonde piano player who'd always play “Clair de Lune” when I'd come in after the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Saturday nights....” This was years before and now Fox, rummaging around for old ghosts, finds at the Drake “a beautiful naked-armed harpist (statistically impossible!) playing “Clair de Lune” in the lounge.” Such snapshot moments of coincidence or synchronicity also activate Fox's poetry.

He pays tributes to relics collected on journeys in his Amsterdam ranch house in “Flea Markets.”

“I buy a bunch of Mochica masks
of Hercules, me the only one in the world who
knows that's what they are, my whole house a
flea market museum...” p 8

Comparing it to the garage sale flea markets inhabited by “Koreans and Japanese, Indonesians, Hindus from India” where one finds “a wood carved statue of dancing Siva, a marble carving of Ganesha, the elephant God, my whole sanity/identity revolving around the walls of my rooms that are more me than me these days.”

In a whoosh of hedonistic pleasure, Fox, in “Everything” from Approaching/Acercando, runs down the everything of that moment.

“....NOW, NOW, NOW, slender reed legs
that arrive at almost full-time
rapturous friction, take Crack, dance
in the street, the voices in the internal Caverns
always whispering higher heels, shorter skirts....”

All, it seems the enigmatic feminine presence in humanity “without thinking about death or its equivalents or alternatives.” p. 10



In the brilliant collaboration with Greinke, Fox ebbs and flows in each stanza with a longing for “now defunct deities” and “greasy abandoned keyboards and feeble mountain peaks.” p 11. He writes:

“Trying to slide back into pre-everything
but slipping instead into black holes of
memory, Polish sausaging and
potato-pancaking through memorial
masquerades that mimic lost moments...” p 12

And in the final stanza:

“The spirits of our ancestors waft around us
haunt our whys and why-nots, wherefores and where-nexts,
remind us that soul music is in us all.” p. 15

There is an interlude of poems by Ellaraine Locke, John Mervin, Guy R. Beining and one I'm particularly fond of by Mike Spikes which ends:

“when you are away from me
I am
too.” p. 24

Juxtaposed nicely are two by David Bloomberg and Dean Phelps: “My Dream of Being Pregnant Was” and “The Child Inside,” respectively.

Then the small press luminaries weigh in on the unique and magnetic character of Hugh Fox, part mystical unicorn, part work horse.

“No one else reviewed as much small-press produce as Benny. If only because he acknowledged books and writers ignored everywhere else. Some small press should produce a CD-RROM reprinting those reviews not only to respect him but our movement.”
Richard Kostelanetz

Eric Greinke pens one for Hugh:

“With blue eyes
Why extinguish
Your distinguished self
In the muddy mire?
I turned my back
On poetry, but
Poetry wouldn't tun
Its back on me,
Nor on you, Hugh.” p. 37





The notoriously prolific Lyn Lifshin, in a tribute titled “Amazing” gives gracious thanks to Fox for years of friendship and support as a poet:

“It is hard to believe that the book he wrote about me, “Lyn Lifshin, A Critical Study” was published in 1985. I've always been amazed at the imaginative, perceptive plunges he keeps taking into my work. If I ever feel down about my writing or discouraged, his words always make me feel better. He is one of the sweetest, warmest people I know.” p. 38

Ellaraine Lockie pens a five page travelogue about a week with Hugh, who she dubs Foxy, well worth reading and Jared smith puts one in called, “Do We Not” with the refrain “We get older, do we not?” in three stanzas replete with many beautiful nature images – a serenade to vintage aging and the eyes' inscrutable ability to see on through it all.”

Viva Hugh Fox!

Lo Galluccio, author of “Hot Rain,” “Sarasota VII,” and “Terrible Baubles.”

Mid Drift by Kate Hanson Foster

Mid Drift
by Kate Hanson Foster
Loom Press
Lowell, MA
Copyright © 2011 by Kate Hanson Foster
ISBN: 978-0-931507-27-4
Softbound, 62 pages, $15

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

So let me start by saying I truly enjoyed Kate Hanson Foster’s Mid Drift for its simple complexity – or is it complex simplicity. This book breathes language, image and sun breaking through an overcast sky. It is about Lowell, MA, love, failed love, about prayer for what was, is or will be, it is a memoir of failure and of hope. It is very accessible and a joy to read.

In the opening poem, “Prayer” Ms. Hanson Foster tells us what her life is about:

Dear God:
what should we make
of what has gone wrong with my life?
All day I could watch
dead water. I’m in love
with a lunatic, I drink too much,
and I no longer believe in recovery.
I want back what disappears
into the crook of the canal.

But unhappiness can be combined with a touch of humor that masks a depressed state as in “Riverwalk”

He tells me about his drinking
problem, the prostitute,

his unhappy marriage.
A stickler for facts, he informs me

this is the longest lenticular
truss bridge remaining in the United States

I tell him I can sometimes still see Tom
hanging from the cast iron.

This book reveals people as they are, gloss removed, myth burned off, the fake outside the stadium. It shows urban depression as it really is, not the gleaming glass and steel, but the “deserted floor of that mill building”, the “whorey smell of big cities/a strange flower in some moth/eaten cow town” or she can relate personal sorry when she wants to “...tell you how it feels to be forgotten.”

Hanson Foster gives us images clear, stark, indelible. People are alcoholics, depressed, driven to compulsive or inevitable ends. Yet this is a poetry book that leaves a discarded past and a half acre of hope. Well worth reading.

Almond Town: Poems by Margaret Young.

Almond Town: Poems by Margaret Young. ( Bright Hills Press 94 Church Street POBOX 193 Treadwell, NY.) http://www.brighthillpress.org $16.


Review by Doug Holder



Margaret Young, a fellow faculty member at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass. can define with a skillful selection of words the worlds of sadness and gladness. She can marvel at her youth, but at the same time see the blush turn to a bloom, and foresee its preordained wilt.



I am most struck by her poems about her days in a theatrical troupe she formed decades ago. Here she captures the visceral feel of being young, creative, and supremely alive—but still with a gimlet eye toward the future. Case in point: her poem “Theatrical Residency, Pennsylvania Mining Town,” concerns her life as an actor in a down-at-the heels burg:



“Knelling in the bingo hall

smudges tights with cigarette ash:

this is a church but I’m down

here to rehearse the Wacko Song

as Prince the Wonderdog or plead

that Capulet not marry me to Paris

and its old nunnery next door

is where I knelt once just

inside the entrance to my small

pink room to suck my lover

off: when you’re twenty-five

you think your knees and love

will last forever so you run

up and down slag heaps

in ten dollar sneakers, each tree

younger than you, and back

through street of this slow-

dying town where recorded

Bells wake us every blessed day.”

I loved the image of a young woman running, and running by even younger trees. Fleeting youth framed by a strip of seminal trees-- now why couldn't I think of that!



And in her poem “Movie Set, Pittsburgh” she show us the high holy in the lowly pedestrian:



“Waiting for fake rain

again

we pull blossoms off

the parking lot’s



one

skinny tree.”



Highly Recommended.

Brook Batteau and the New Cosmology: A review (and preview) of a unique “rock/soul/tribal dance” band.

Brook Batteau and the New Cosmology:
A review (and preview) of a unique “rock/soul/tribal dance” band.

(Last seen in April at the Precinct Bar in Union Square; next to be seen on Friday, May 27th, at “the Loft” at Tommy Doyles, 96 Winthrop Street, Harvard Square. FREE admission before 9:30 pm., when Brook’s band is scheduled to hit the stage.)

In the spirit of full disclosure, the three people in this band are friends of mine. The fuller disclosure: they became friends only after I went to a bunch of their shows, hanging around afterwards to ask questions like, “how the heck do you guys do that?”

For me, the most important “that” that they do, is unleash—in every audience I’ve seen—an uncontrollable urge to dance in an energetic state of bliss.

First, some quick history. Brook Batteau was raised in Cambridge, one of four musically gifted siblings. (That’s a whole other story.) Brook developed a utterly unique, compelling lead vocal style while fronting bands in Boston, L.A., and New Orleans. Some compare his singing to a cross between David Byrne and Roy Orbison. There is some truth to this, but it’s more accurate to say that he sounds like someone from another planet. (I mean this as a real compliment to the other planet.)

Brook is also a very fine, original songwriter and guitarist. His wife Kate Hennessey, with whom he’s performed for years, is the “drum goddess” of the group. Rounding out the trio is veteran bassist Frank Rozelle. Frank reminds me of Keith Moon—the legendary drummer for the Who—who had an uncanny ability to anchor the beat of any song, while simultaneously incorporating constant, brilliant embellishments.

I asked Frank how he manages this. “I used to play with a group that had a wild, wild lead guitarist,” he explained. “It took a lot of work and practice, but I figured out how to hold my own on the bass. It was a matter of pride.”

Fortunately, people with credentials (I’m a musician, but usually write reviews of poetry books) also offer glowing comments about this group. “I felt all my cares floating away,” writes Josh Glenn of the Boston Globe. Lucy Holstedt, prof. at Berklee College of Music, exclaims, “I immediately started dancing and didn’t stop. This is GREAT band.”

I moved to Boston in the 1980’s. There have been a handful of bands that I’d always go to see. First, it was “O Positive.” Later, it was “Morphine,” led by the late, great Mark Sandman. For a few years, no one in particular, Now, thankfully, there’s another group that literally makes me jump and gyrate with joy. After each show, I feel I may have added years to my life.

Brook Batteau and the New Cosmology is based in Western MA, so they’re not in the area as often as I’d like. Whenever I hear they’re coming to town, I cancel any previous plans. I explain “something critical” has come up, and it’s “essential” I be there.

And in all honesty, I’m telling the truth.

Kirk Etherton, Union Square, Somerville, May 23, 2011