Time and Other Poems. Hugh Fox. ( Presa:S:Press PO BOX 792 Rockford, MI 49341) presapress@aol.com $6

With Hugh Fox's work I always find an abundance. An abundance of ideas, images Yings, Yangs, births, deaths...you name it. Hugh is not a minimalist, and now in his 70's, he has enjoyed a fascinating and full life, and he is not afraid to tell you about it. Hugh appreciates everything from the highest of brow to the lowest. His poetry in "Time and Other Poems," celebrates the rich and wild cornucopia of life and his despair and regret that he will have to leave it behind at some point. Fox emeshes the reader in a delicious sensory onslaught throughout this collection. In this passage from "Time/Le Temps" Fox paints a portrait of the poet in 'Frisco with his pals A.D. Winans and Richard Morris; all renowned member of the small press. This poem is a wonderful mixture of the passage of time and the desire to stay behind:
" Watching a video tape interview with A.D. Winans
in San Francisco, Vesuvio's restaurant, eight years ago,
..... Richard Morris in the corner,
watching, the camera strays to him once in a while, looking
haggard and frail, dead maybe three years already/ I oughta
say Everyone's gotta die, why not just get used to the idea
...., only what
I want is a forever of fried onions, candied pineapple, soft
beds, Bernadette's ears and eyes, listening, lilacs, and
clematis, my kids and pals and their growing, multiplying
Foreverness. (12)

In the poem "BacK" we are reminded of Fox's fascination with spirituality, myth and primal cultures.
" Going back, back, back
to the clouds and the
cypress and smoke, tress, mouldering twigs
and edge-of dusk bats, skunk-smells, wild turkeys
everythong wild, primal, before guns, torahs
mosques, in the beginning was the sky and you
and I
evolving into the pre- buddhistic-
buddhistic
everything
NOW. (32)

This collection is a rollercoaster ride between life and death, and as Ferlinghetti put it "A Coney Island of the Mind."

Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ Somerville, Mass. 02143Doug Holder
http://www.ibbetsonpress.com
http://dougholder.blogspot.com
http://authorsden.com/douglasholder
http://somervillenewswritersfestival.com

Louisa Solano to be Honored at the Somerville News Writers Festival
By Amy E. Brais


Louisa Solano will receive the Ibbetson Press Lifetime Achievement Award Nov. 13 for her work with the Grolier Poetry Shop over the past three decades. Solano said she came to own the Grolier Poetry Shop – America’s oldest store that sells only poetry and the only store of its kind in Harvard Square- because when she was 15 years old, terribly shy to the point of being almost mute, she walked up the stone steps to the store and “had an epiphany.” She knew she would own the Grolier some day. The store is known to have had copies of Joyce’s Ulysses before it graced the shelf of every bookstore and library, housed greats such as Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg in volume and in voice, and is frequently visited by Donald Hall, Philip Levine, and Seamus Heaney (to name a few) and was run for years by the infamously cantankerous Gordon Carnie, to whom Solano is quick to show her continued respect and admiration. Her first visit to the Grolier Poetry Shop soon turned into a regular occurrence. Solano recalled sitting at the end of Carnie’s couch, taking in the conversation of poets and visitors and eagerly doing whatever she could to help around the store.
“He paid me in tea and cookies and affection,” Solano explains. When Carnie died in August of 1973, Solano was 26 years old. She was selected to read at his memorial service. “You have to remember, I was mute – I didn’t speak then. I went through all of my handkerchiefs…” Solano became the owner of Carnie’s store shortly after that. “A lot of people thought that the store should close down in memory of Gordon. People thought an aspiring poet should run it. People thought I should give books away like Gordon did. The thing is – his account book was meticulously kept,” she said. In other words, Gordon had intended to receive money for his transactions, he just never collected. The store had long been supported by Carnie’s wife, so when Solano took over without the cushion of a benefactor, she had to make a few key decisions. She decided to collect money for the books she sold, and she decided to turn the Grolier into a specialty store to cater to the niche poetry market. “People thought I was insulting Gordon’s memory by making a business out of it,” Solano remarked. She found that the decision to make the store all poetry was a way of showing that “poetry has a space in every day life,” she said. But to mention Carnie is not to say that the life of the Grolier is one of the past. During the last 32 years, Solano has helped the store evolve, survive, and thrive in Harvard Square. From Chaucer to Art Garfunkle, Solano has cultivated a collection of poetry that blends the classic with the obscure and reaches well beyond her personal taste. Solano has become as much a fixture in her store as the volumes on the walls, and photographs of poets that reach up to the ceiling. “Someone once said it was a marriage. And I was deeply offended because I’ve been divorced twice. But the fact is, the love of my life is this store,” she said. Over the years, Solano has used her store as a vehicle for her own beliefs and interests. She made a point of stocking a close to 50/50 ratio of male and female poets in a store that had historically housed an imbalance of male writers. A few years after Gail Mazur initiated her reading series, Solano began her own. She uses her store front window as a place to display provocative frescoes of pertinent topics. She recalled a window from the Gulf War of children walking into the desert holding peace signs, with bombs exploding in the distance, and frescos addressing topics such as feminism and AIDS. Solano never shied away from carrying and distributing her share of controversial or progressive poetry. She mentioned selling the books that openly addressed such issues as heritage, gender, and homosexuality. As Solano spoke, dwarfed by bookcases on all sides, a young journalist made her selections. Solano has been helping her by making suggestions to the girl intermittently throughout our conversation, and I watch as she rings her customer up. She has decided on a book by Denise Levertov, and with Solano’s guidance chooses Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas In Whales. “I’ve sold hundreds of these over the years,” she said. A little while after the girl leaves, a woman comes in. She’s visiting from Maine, and after Solano told her the store is closed for the night, says she will come back tomorrow. After the woman leaves, Solano remarks, “A lot of tourists come through here because this store is what they expected from Harvard Square. It serves as a tribute to intellect.”
For many, the Grolier does serve as a tribute to intellect and to poetry, full of both celebration, and the inevitable loss that comes with caring for something so deeply. “Being in the presence of a great poet, whether or not that person recognizes you, I think it stimulates you to grow. It’s a kind of love. Even if you don’t know them – there’s an exchange going on in the spirit,” she said. Solano remembered the day she heard that Ginsberg had died. “I literally felt the earth moving beneath me. I ran around the corner to the Harvard Bookstore to tell them the news. The store clerk said, ‘thank you for this news, I’ll do a window immediately’. I was horrified – for me this was a personal loss.” She continued, mentioning Robert Creeley, a long-time friend of the store, “When Robert Creeley died, I felt that my relationship to poetry had died as well.” She folded her arms and paused. “I still can’t believe it.”
But Solano seemed focused on the endurance of poetry. When new customers walk in she often warns, “Be careful – you’re going to become a poet if you’re not already.” When asked if she is a poet, she said, “Seamus Heaney once said that ‘anyone who writes one poem a year is a poet’. I used to write poetry, but the main reason I stopped writing was that I didn’t have enough confidence in what I wanted to say. It’s hard when you’re surrounded by all these great voices. I just don’t have that kind of ego,” she said. Still, Solano appreciates the endeavors of other amateur poets. “I love watching the writing process. Even if the ideas are redundant –new generations always push them further,” she said. . Looking back at her time at the Grolier, Solano viewed it as a fulfilling career rife with personal growth. “I feel that year by year I have gotten stronger and stronger in my belief in myself. I had believed that the store was my identity. Coming in here is such a healing process for me. I am one of the most fortunate people in the world. I have done exactly what I wanted to do. Most people’s dreams don’t come true like that,” she said.For more information about the festival go :

to: http://www.somervillenewswitersfestival.com

Poetry Series @ Toast October 9, 2005 ( The Toast Poetry Series meets the Second Sunday each month at 3PM at the Toast Lounge 70 Union Square)

Grey skies but not much rain this past Sunday, when the monthly Somerville Poetry Readings was held at Toast Lounge in Union Square. Toast's backroom set the stage for an afternoon of lyrics and music while the front bar catered to the afternoon sports fans. Chiemi, a local singer-songwriter, opened with a few of her new tunes, creating a whimsical and contemplative atmosphere.

Doug Holder, the founder of this Series in 2004, hosted this month's performance. Doug himself, , has just published a poetry collection entitled "Wrestling With My Father" (Yellow Pepper Press), to favorable reviews by the likes of CD Collins (Winner of a Cambridge Poetry Award and member of the St. Botolph's Club Foundation Board) and other venerable critics.

Philip E. Burnham Jr. and Ann Carhart were featured Sunday. Philip read to the cozy audience situated at candlelit tables from his new Ibbetson Press publication, "Housekeeping: Poems Out of the Ordinary." Ann, who presented some of her works over the Summer at the Out of the Blue Gallery in Cambridge, read from her book, "Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus", also published by the Ibbetson Press. Those in attendance included Ann's eldest daughter, an actress, Patricia Collins. Philip expressed his enthusiasm at being paired with Ann as a featured poet. "I think she frames life in very elegant and succinct pictures," he said.

Also reading Sunday were Chad Parenteau and Lynne Stickler. Chad's recently published work is "Self-Portrait in Fire." Lynne, an editor at the Ibbetson Press, was instrumental in the completion of "Housekeeping." She expressed her enjoyment at the Toast readings, describing the venue as "really up and coming: with "new faces." New faces indicates new ears for the likes of bards who frequent Toast.

Speaking of new faces, Augustine J. Russo, Jr., has stepped onto the Toast stage as the new General Manager. More to come on that in coverage of his anticipated upcoming Somerville news interview. Also, for those you who may crave a bite to eat while lounging in Toast's trendy, modern-medieval lair, such fare is now available from the next door kitchen of The Independent.--

Chiemi

YELLOW PEPPER PRESS IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE PUBLICATION OF
Doug Holder

"Wrestling With My Father"
A Poetry Collection
by Doug Holder



Praise for "Wrestling With My Father"


"In Doug Holder's New Collection, Wrestling With My Father in the Nude digs deep into familial roots, tracing history and blood lines with tenderness and truth. In lean verse, he head straight for difficult content, the clash of cultures, the silences between men, the silenced women, dreams and losses. He holds all these close, preserving what has past and seeing clearly what remains. Holder's metaphors rise so organically from the content... "the bridge to the Bronx/ a spurt of connective tissue/" or "Rows/of ancient Jewish mothers/ like angry crustaceans, perched on lawn chairs/... that they grab you viscerally, draw you in, shake you up, and set your down enriched and satisfied.Go get this book, take it home, savor it."
by CD Collins ( Winner of a Cambridge Poetry Award and member of the "St. Botolph Club"

Foundation Board)"These keys open upon the tabernacles of memory where words as kisses act as resurrection and their poetry engages the forgotten smell of fathers and those lost worlds of words in which they live and still speak."Michael Basinski ( Curator of the Rare Books and Poetry collection at the University of Buffalo.)


----- Wrestling With My Father by Doug Holder. Hugh Fox reacts. " I never cry at films, reading anything, “real” life doesn’t touch me....but reading Wrestling With My Father in the Nude, just a few pages into it, and it really got to me, tears in my eyes, deep emotions. He pushes all the real-world buttons here. Him and New York, the old Jews, old stores on old streets, meeting old pals, Marx Brothers movies, fedoras at rakish angles, ball parks, elevated tracks, hot dogs...he gets all the right, evocative, reality-evoking details, like his mother’s jaw cracking as she (now a widow) has dinner alone, his father’s photo on the refrigerator door “held tenuously/by a cheap magnet.” (“Portrait of My Mother During her Solitary Meal.”) We’re surrounded by all this wealth and run-over of reality, but what Holder has done here is to get the key details that resurrect it all, bring it all back. I felt I was living my own life all over again, and the night after I read Wrestling With My Father in the Nude I stretched out in bed and started thinking about dead friends, dead grandmothers, dead parents and all the streets and stores, the whole ambience of Chicago that somehow merged in my mind with Holder’s Bronx and came back to painfully haunt me: “Which man will know me/from my birth as a bald bawling baby to a balding middle aged man?....Who will make impossibly corny jokes/and impossibly dry Martinis/in front of a fire/on a long winter/Sunday afternoon? //Yes he is dead. And I will miss him./And I will remember/and mark/his passage,/because there will never/be someone quite/like him/who will cross/this stage again.” (“Which Man Will Know Me Now.”)"Hugh Fox, 2005. ( Founding editor of the Pushcart Prize, and founding member of the Committee of Small Magazine Editors/Publishers)




"With words carefully etched into the touchstone of a father’s love, Holder looks back to directly grasp, sans sentimentality, the struggle of men to be fathers and sons. In lines that are spare and piercing, like the thin rays of truth that linger long after the weighing of successes and failures in the lives of men, Holder evokes his father, resurrects him, not as whole phantasm but as whole human, alive in the bonds of trust generated by a son’s love. "

(Afaa M. Weaver is a professor of English Literature at Simmons College in Boston)


There is a universality in his verse and in the pervasive emotional tug of war that Holder threads
neatly throughout this collection; and ,ultimately, the bitter-sweet bonding that occurs when
we all finally discover our fathers. Kudos for this grand effort that makes us wish that we were the authors of these poems.

Harris Gardner/ Tapestry of Voices (Author : LEST THEY BECOME)



Douglas Holder's poetry is strongest when it is reminiscentof days gone by. In "Wrestling With My Father in TheNude", Holder, through the eyes of boyhood, pays homage tothe father of his past. Through the eyes of the present,he is able to look at mortality of father and son. Hispoetry covers the internal, external and if possible, themolecules of life of one man, while giving us the panorama of two.

( Tim Gager-- Founder of the "Dire Series" and cofounder of the "Heat City Review.") Holder has struck a nerve and a chord in constructing a potent, forceful memorial to his father.

"Wrestling With My Father" can now be purchased from the "Ibbetson Street Press," for 6 dollars--post paid. http://www.ibbetsonpress.com

Ibbetson St. Press
25 School St.
Somerville, Ma.
02143
617-628-2313

Review of Lo Galluccio’s HOT RAIN Singing Bone Press, Ibbetson Street Press 2004 $5. http://www.ibbetsonpress.com


Having heard of Lo Galluccio for some time as I frequent the Boston-Cambridge poetry venues, I had the good fortune to hear her read poems at a recent feature at Emack and Bolio’s in Roslindale, MA. I should preface these comments on that reading and her recently published chapbook, HOT RAIN (Ibbetson Street Press) with the fact that I am a tough critic to please. I’ve been doing my own poetry readings and attending nationally and locally known poetry readings on and off for 30 years now, having lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Boston, MA. I’ve heard many “pretenders to the throne” of poetry and music, along with some very good academic and street poets. Lo Galluccio is an original and striking voice, based both on the quality of her work and her lyrically pleasing performance style. Her work is an interesting amalgam of the psychological, mythical and musical. Its content is entertaining and challenging at the same time, weaving in toughness and surrealism.

HOT RAIN is a musical and sustained piece of work. In her Acknowledgments, Lo writes “These poems are about love, loss, identity and just the language out of which they are made.” This is accurate but also an understatement. For Lo Galluccio’s best work is earthy, vivid, painful and haunting. Her style is marked by interesting use of conventional poetic devices like internal rhyme, alliteration, the use of refrain, lending to a distinctive, lyrical style. Her voice is sometimes nonsensical, almost like Dame Edith Sitwell on acid! She makes playful use of rhyming preconscious language in wordplay poems like “The Sweat of His Labor”’s lines: “A mermaid is caught./A mermaid is not.”
The poems occasionally echo poets from another century, while making the subject matter and voice her own:

“The heart pounds in every mask.
Desire burns to ashes of wisdom.
That is passion’s task.” (from “Virtue’s Tongue”)

There’s an oddly medieval tone sometimes from witchcraft, notable in recurrent words like crossbow, flintlock, repeated interest in Puritans, Hansel and Gretel, black bras and rainy days. One of the most interesting aspects of her work in HOT RAIN is how she manages to mix the Catholic/Christian with the pagan in poems like “No Matter What that God Judges”, one of my favorite in this collection:

“And there’s a Godfather looking down saying
That one, if left alone, will find her way to me.
But there is also an Earth Mother looking up
Within me, humming – she hums gorgeously –
No matter what that God judges she or me to be.
We string our necklaces and wash our hair.”

In the poem, “Being Visited”, there’s a kaleidoscope created, containing twists of shifting color, familiar and often violent images of death (bullets, caskets, cancer). There’s the suggestion of living on the edge, quickly scuttling across spiritual underlayers of damaged faith, challenged by being offered a ticket to ride more comfortably in an urban limousine.

In HOT RAIN, Lo Galluccio’s best work combines the eloquent and passionate with a fair amount of discipline. To my mind, this would include the following poems: “No Matter What that God Judges”, “Sarasota I”, “Sarasota IV”, “3 AM Hudson Street”, “The Dream of Life”, and “The Spectre of Guilt”. In all of these poems, fresh diction, highly original imagery, and poetic “shape” predominate. There’s a wide range of feelings explored from the sensual to the angry and cheated “child of ghosts” in “The Dream of Life”. There’s eloquence with mystery and a knack at seeing ghosts in the wallpaper of ordinary rooms (see “The Spectre of Guilt”). When she writes with
tenderness in the two elegies for her dead father, Anthony (“Sarasota I” and “Sarasota IV”), she’s at her best in lines like these:

“I wept into granite to raise you.
Did you drink? Has God
Swallowed like gumdrops your oracle eyes?
Did the morphine blind you like Oedipus?
When will we say our good-byes.”

HOT RAIN is a very good body of work and deserving of a careful reading. There is a lot of energy here, of sense and spirit, a strong sense of place and haunting shadows. It’s a book of poems written by a woman who’s lived, loved, lost and who continues to have a sense of wonder, the wellspring of creativity. In the future, I would like to see her work with historical themes, perhaps use increased narrative diction and move forward from the autobiographical to a larger canvas. I recommend this chapbook and encourage all to attend her next poetry reading in Boston or wherever she roams.


--Carolyn Gregory

PAUSING FOR POETRY (Boston Globe-- Denise Taylor- -Oct 6, 2005)

Call him the pied piper of poets. If Doug Holder isn't busy publishing poets via his Ibbetson Street Press or sharing new finds through newspaper stories or on cable TV, he's running readings, planning slams, organizing writers' festivals, helping patients at McLean Hospital write verse, or editing Poesy magazine.


With his fingers in so many poetry pots, Holder, 50, knows who is writing what and, when he spies talent, he makes sure that voice is heard. Next week, the Somerville-based poet will present three of his picks at the monthly Newton Free Library poetry series, which he took over in 2002. Reading will be Dick Lourie of Somerville, Laurie Rosenblatt of Brookline, and Clara Silverstein of Newton.Lourie impressed Holder with the musicality of his verse. ''He also writes poems about his father that deal with the yin and the yang of relationships with one's father -- the forgiving, the letting go, the getting closer. That really hit a chord with me," said Holder, adding that he also enjoys Lourie's poems about growing up Jewish.

Lourie is noted in poetry circles. He cofounded Hanging Loose Press, which launched many a poet, including Sherman Alexie, popularly known for the film ''Smoke Signals." But Rosenblatt, by day a psychiatrist working with cancer patients, is one of Holder's recent finds.
''She has not had much exposure but she's a very interesting writer," Holder said. ''She writes with an economy of words. Each word is very charged and full of meaning and there's no excess language. She brings a lot of her work and the issues of life and death into her poetry."

Silverstein, an author and food writer for the Boston Herald, caught Holder's attention with her culinary imagery. ''I've had a fascination with food. I believe it can be very evocative -- the smells, the tastes -- and I find that very interesting in her."

More important, all three write poems that perform what Holder sees as an essential service. ''Good poetry freezes a moment in time. It lets you examine it and reflect and maybe notice some beauty in the banality of every day. When we rush to the subway or sit at the computer, we might not notice how the light is striking the window, some plant, your child, your cat -- the beauty of that."

The three poets will read at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Newton Free Library, 330 Homer St . An open-mike session follows. Admission is free. Call 617-796-1360 or visit www.ci.newton.ma.us.

Newton Free Library Poetry Series Oct 11 7PM Lourie, Silverstein, and Rosenblatt

Poetry Reading Series Presents Dick Lourie, Clara Silverstein and Laurie Rosenblatt & Open Mike

The Library's Poetry Reading Series, coordinated by Doug Holder, continues with readings by Dick Lourie, Laura Rosenblatt and Clara Silverstein on Tuesday, Oct 11, at 7:00PM, followed by an Open Mike with a limit of one poem per reader.Lourie is a long-time editor for Hanging Loose Press whose own poetry has appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Massachusetts Review, Verse and other publications. He has released a spoken word and music CD, “Ghost Radio Blues.” Rosenblatt’s poems have been published in such journals as Academic Medicine, Ibbetson Street, Poesy and Bellevue Literary Review. She is a psychiatrist practicing at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and teaches at Harvard Medical School. Silverstein is a food writer for the Boston Herald and author of the book White Girl: A Story of School Desegregation. Her poetry has appeared in the Comstock Review, Patterson Literary Review, Anthology of New England Writers and other publications.The next reading will be held on November 8. The series is coordinated by Doug Holder.

OFF THE SHELF WITH DOUG HOLDER


JIMMY TINGLE HAS A DREAM.


During a performance of “Jimmy Tingle’s American Dream,” at Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway Theatre in Davis Square, Somerville, my wife said to me: “He tells it exactly the way I would want to say it.” And so he does. Jimmy Tingle is a master of the vernacular. With his salt-of-the-earth, blue collar, accent and demeanor; he is able to lay his cards out on the table, just like an old drinking buddy in some dark corner of the Burren Pub. Obviously Tingle is a man -of -the people. Listening to the audience before the show, I overheard snippets of conversations about the “Boston Red Sox,” 9th grade girlfriends, the ‘kids,” etc ... This is exactly what Tingle uses in his humorous performance.... and more.
In any Jimmy Tingle performance that I have seen there is a generous dose of levity, but there is always the subtext of a serious political agenda. Most of the show has the crowd in stitches, but at times the lights lower, and Tingle in a deadpan, addresses issues that are close to his heart. He rails against what he perceives as the hypocrisy of Bush, the duplicity of the Church, and the horror and stupidity of the Iraqi War.
Skillfully directed by Larry Arrick, an accomplished man who has directed Tingle on his “60 Minutes ll,” stint, as well as the direction of over 100 productions on Broadway and around-the-world; Tingle uses the elusive concept of “The American Dream,” as a springboard for his comic riffs. He takes on the myth of Christopher Columbus, and then the Vikings, who he said left the New World when they couldn’t get a resident parking sticker. Tingle talked about cutting his teeth at the Chinese eatery/ Comedy club the “Ding-Ho” back in the 80’s. Tingle recalled he had his own “American Dream” back then, albeit a much more modest one than his colleagues: “I saw myself in Davis Square, in a basement, next to a T stop.” Tingle said once he became an owner of his own theater the “Kennedy” side of his brain and the “Romney” side of his brain came into constant conflict. When deciding about health benefits for his employees, the Kennedy side of his brain was naturally supportive, while the Romney side said: “ Screw-em. Let them get their own health insurance.” Tingle a Roman Catholic, took a shot at the Church; concerning their move to ban all Gay priests. With an elfin twinkle in his blue eyes, he stated: “It will sort of the thin the herd, won’t it, father?”
In the second half of the show Tingle had a short Q and A with the audience. At the end of the performance, the lights dimmed again, and Tingle examined the horrible irony of the Iraqi War. Why is it he asked do we count our own dead, but not the Iraqis? When Tingle ended the show there was a profound silence. Tingle brings his flock on manic laughing highs, but at the same time probes the depths, in this accomplished one-man show.
Doug Holder/ “The Somerville News”
For more info go to: http://www.jtoffbroadway.com

Porter Square Books: A fiercely independent bookstore serves Somerville.


Porter Square Books is a survivor. They not only survived but flourished during their first year in the highly competitive and demanding book business. Dale Szczeblowski, the general manager, Jane Dawson, the operational manager, and Carol Stoltz, the Children’s Books Manager, talked about the success of this small, fiercely independent bookstore located smack dab in the Porter Square Mall, right next to the Shaw’s Market.


These refugees for the Concord Bookstore, in the upscale suburb of Concord, Mass., all agreed that their expectations for the store, and then some, were met in this seminal year. Szczeblowski, the energetic general manager, said they have 13,000 customers on their data- base, and a heap of positive feedback from the bibliophile denizens of the surrounding area.
People in the Somerville and Cambridge neighborhoods that the store borders are pleased that they can get the personal touch here, and not have to deal with the impersonality of a large chain. Jane Dawson stressed that the store will remain “fiercely independent,” and it will continue to listen intently to what customers have to say. All three seem to know that customers appreciate that.


These booksellers find that the many of their customers are in the 25 to 35 age range; recent college graduates, and often in their first job. They say the popular titles among this group are: Zadie Smith’s “On Beauty,” ( Fiction), “ Mountains Beyond Mountains,” Tracey Kidder (Non-Fiction), and they expect Bob Dylan’s memoir “Chronicles,” to experience a resurgence due to the PBS documentary and DVD release.


Szczeblowski said that a bookstore’s success depends on it being part of the community. This involves carrying books by local authors and independent presses. The store carries small literary magazines such as the ‘Heat City Review,” and the “Ibbetson Street Press.” They also carry titles from “Ebb Tide,” a small press in Cambridge. They have nurtured relationships with Steven Cramer the director of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Lesley University, Somerville’s “Kennedy Elementary School,” “Tufts University,” the
“Kennedy School of Government” at Harvard University, the “Blacksmith Poetry Reading Series,” and “New England PEN,” to name a few. They are also a sponsor of “The Somerville News Writers Festival,” to be held Nov. 13 at 7PM at the “Somerville Theatre,” in Davis Square.


Carol Stoltz, (originally from my own stomping grounds of Bronx, NY), said that the Children’s Book Department is very popular. She has nurtured relationships with the Cambridge and Somerville public schools, as well as local public libraries.


When asked about the staff at Porter Square Books Dawson said that all are well-read and have eclectic backgrounds. One bookseller was a former marketing manager at Polaroid, another was in the Antiquarian book business, one is a veteran mountain climber, and a “young fellow,” in receiving is a budding poet.

All three managers were excited about the opening of a café in the front of the store in the coming weeks. This will just add to that down-home, comfy, and decidedly bookish atmosphere Porter Square Books has created, and will most assuredly sustain.


Doug Holder
* Porter Square Books is located in Porter Square at the Mall 25 White St. 617-491-2220 http://www.portersquarebooks.com/
* Bring your toddler to a special party Oct. 5 at 11 AM. 10% discount on all books -- Cake, Prizes, etc...

Jim Kates and the Zephyr Press


Probably the most significant of small presses birthed in Somerville, Mass. is the “Zephyr Press,” (now based in Brookline, Mass.) that was founded by the late Somerville publisher Ed Hogan. Hogan, started the much-heralded “Aspect,” magazine in the 1970’s. In 1980 he and a group of his editors formed “Zephyr,” and for seven years the press published a small but significant list of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. In 1990, Zephyr published its hallmark collection of Russian poetry: “The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova” translated by Judith Hemschemeyer. After this collection of work by this groundbreaking early 20th Century maverick female writer, other titles from Russia followed, as well as the first anthology of Ukrainian writing in English, “From Three Worlds.” With the untimely death of Hogan, Kates, an old friend of Hogan’s, assumed responsibility for the press and relaunched it in 2000. Since then Zephyr has published numerous books of translations, including the work of Nobel-nominated Chinese poet Bei Dao. Zephyr also has an imprint, “Adventures in Poetry,” that publishes fiction and poetry, and they cooperatively publish a British-based journal “Modern Poetry in Translation.

To interview publisher Jim Kates is no problem because he is an affable man, who seems to have an endless supply of information about the “Zephyr Press,” and the literary world at-large. Kates describes “Zephyr,” as an “alternative” press, an alternative to the commercial presses, who Kates feels has all but abandoned serious literature. Kates realizes that running a “small” independent press is usually a money-losing and often all consuming undertaking. He doesn’t make a living running Zephyr, and the press lives “hand to mouth,” from grants, be it state, federal or private. Zephyr only has one paid employee on staff, and now its office is based in Brookline, Mass.; although it makes no secret of its Somerville roots. The late Ed Hogan, the Somerville publisher was according to Kates “...a child of Somerville, and Somerville was an essential part of his vision.” Unfortunately when Hogan died in a freak canoe accident Zephyr was forced to move to Brookline.
Asked to remember what the Somerville literary scene in the 1970’s was like, Kates’ memory was somewhat cloudy. However he did mention his memory of the “100 Flower Bookstore,” and Hogan’s wife June Gross’ lit mag. “Dark Horse.” Somerville in the 70’s and 80’s was not like the gentrified city it is today, Kates said. He remembers one poet who got a Cambridge PO BOX, so it wouldn’t be known that she lived in Somerville. “It just looked better to be in Cambridge,” Kates said.
Since Zephyr published the Akhmatova anthology many subsequent books on the great poet have hit the market. This anthology according to Kates, “opened up the gates,” for the others. Later, June Gross, inspired Kates to publish an anthology of contemporary Russian poets, and more recently Zephyr published the acclaimed Chinese poet Bei Dao. Dao, was a member of the dissident “Misty” poets group in China and has been a champion of Chinese writers. Dao often sends promising Chinese writers ‘Zephyr’s” way. Zephyr published a collection of Dao’s essays concerning his dislocation from his motherland: “Blue House.”
Surprisingly, American readers are buying Chinese poetry. Another popular title of the press is: “Iraqi Poetry Today,” that gives Americans a much needed window into Iraqi culture.
Kates and I could have talked much longer. He had a plethora stories about the fiction titles the press has released, and the translation group he is part of. Kates’ enthusiasm is contagious, and after speaking with him I found myself brainstorming for my own small press. Kates brings me back to my belief that a man or a woman who has a true passion for something, is a very lucky person indeed.


Doug Holder

William Taylor, Jr. (http://www.sunnyoutside.com ) POBOX 441429 Somerville, Mass. 02144.


I know of William Taylor, Jr’s work through the bi-coastal literary journal Poesy Magazine. So when the publisher of the Somerville small press “sunny outside,” Dave McNamara, sent me a broadside of his poetry I dove right in. McNamara, a recent graduate of the Emerson College publishing program, is involved with a lot of different projects, and he likes to experiment with format, paper, etc... This broadside is really a thin chap, with ordinary gray cover stock, and waxy transparent paper inside. This paper makes for faded print. This may be for affect- but I find it a bit distracting. However... the poems are excellent. Taylor paints a well-studied portrait of a stoic old man, as well as a study of the arcane pleasures of an “old man’s bar.” The bar portrayed in “Like Winter,” captures the dark refuge that only a venue like this could provide:
“...inside these walls/ time moves slow/ and we have all/ the necessary things/ smoke, drink,/ and silence/ a little talk and some/ gentle laughter/ all of us hiding/ from something/ waiting for yesterday’s love/ and tomorrow’s unemployment/ checks”/ All I can say is : “Pour me another, Joe,” as I wrote this review in such a place; situated on an undistinguished stretch of Somerville Ave, far from the hip environs of Davis Square in our fair city. I advise you to go to http://www.sunnyoutside.com and keep up with their talented stable of writers.
Doug Holder

This is a poem about the disaster in New Orleans by Ibbetson Street Press Arts Editor Richard Wilhelm that I plan to read at the Katrina Relief Reading Oct. 18 at the Old South Church in Boston at 7PM. --Doug Holder


ELEGY FROM THE SECOND LINE

After the flood—
a bitter drink,
crimson words,
the poor herded at gunpoint—
slack faces of the waiting, waiting
for relief or for death—
sky empty of everything
but the final notes
of a brass band dirge
falling across the lake.

--Richard Wilhelm

Please check out this event my good friend Harris Gardner has organized:



One People- A Benefit for Katrina Relief Fund/American Red Cross

TAPESTRY OF VOICES
Presents:

ONE PEOPLE
A Benefit for Katrina Relief Fund/
American Red Cross

OLD SOUTH CHURCH
(Corner of Dartmouth and Boylston Streets)
Tuesday, October 18th, 2005 - 7:30 P.M.- 9:30 P.M.
Event Coordinators:
Harris Gardner & Ellen Steinbaum

( Each participant will read one poem)

Participants:

American Red Cross (T.B.A.) Elizabeth Lund
Kaji Aso Fred Marchant
Alex Beam Gail Mazur
Lisa Beatman Elizabeth Mckim
Frank Bidarrt Askold Melnyczuk
Kevin Bowen Ifeanyi Menkiti
Bob Buckley Joanna Nealon
Shari Caplan State Rep. Byron Rushing
Charles Coe Diana Saenz
Nguyen Ba Chung Lloyd Schwartz
Diana DerHovanessian Lainie Senechal
Alden DiIanni-Morton Don Share
Elizabeth Doran The Rev. Canon Peter Southwell-Sander
Leslie Epstein Ellen Steinbaum
Harris Gardner Sandra Storey
Regie Gibson T. Michael Sullivan
Carolyn Gregory The Rev. Dr. Nancy S. Taylor
Doug Holder Dan Tobin
Walter Howard Tino Villanueva
Brian Scott Kelley Rosanna Warren
Mel King Afaa M. Weaver
Irene Koronas Carol Weston
Danielle Legros-Georges Marc Widershien
Frannie Lindsay Sam Yoon
Lois Lowry

Special thanks : Old South Church - Ivy Associates, Real Estate- Townsend Associates Real Estate - Ellen Steinbaum- Charles Coe- Pen New England- Lainie Senechal- Doug Holder-Fred Marchant -The William Joiner Center at U. Mass Boston- and The Media.

SUGGESTED DONATION: $10.00 - Whether you donate $1.00 or a $1,000, you are very welcome.

A report from Irene Koronas about "Breaking Bagels With The Bards," a group of poets that meet in Harvard Square every Saturday at 9AM in the basement of Finagle-A- Bagel. Please join us!



carrying our stories in front pockets like baseballcards or marbles; we compare, exchange; the value ofeach exchange depends on the popularity of theplayers, their home runs and with marbles, the unusualmarkings that make a poet's life gleam. we flick ourmarbles into designated holes while clicking othersout of the way. team games played alone.on Saturday we exchange family (and other) influences.my life is not full of extraordinary stuff and i don'ttalk much about my early years. i figure if you readmy poetry it is not hard to come to an understandingof who i am, of my being a first and second generationAmerican. like so many other families who work theirtails off to help their children lean forward, we haveout faults. i prefer expressing my gratitude for beingborn here (yeah, i know it sounds corny and sometimesit is not politically correct) so i may keep my mouthshut when it comes to imperfections. i listen to thepoets exchange stories, their influences spread overthe table, offering us a chance to come to anunderstanding of each other. listening is likecollecting baseball cards or marbles. i keep a jarfull of those old round glass balls in the back of oneof my kitchen cabinets. once in awhile i hold one inthe light to marvel at the reflections. i figure itain't right to discus other people's personal storiesin public, so my childhood and yours are in jacketpockets with lucky stones and pressed flowerswords caught:chaos theory (poetry magazine)bathtub gin (another magazine) cool names)talking in-lawssome kind of fleasbohemian intimacyfinancing the American revolution (hyam soloman)family politics and pornographymiserable failuresbraggingyour as good as your weakest linkshe impressed herselfan exercise in scatology

My Blog: "Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene" just got a ringing endorsement from Karen Wulf Executive Director of the literary organization "PEN NEW ENGLAND."

"Just wanted to say that you're site is great, and thanks for keeping us in the loop..."

Karen Wulf Executive DirectorPEN New England Emerson College 120 Boylston StreetBoston, MA 02116 (617) 824-8820 tel (617) 519-0882 cell

LO GALLUCCIO REVIEWS....

HOUSEKEEPING

Poems out of the ordinary
By Philip E. Burnham, Jr.
63 pages
Ibbetson Street Press

http://www.ibbetsonpress.com/

One of my mentor poets told me as a precautionary note, that writing a poem is a thankless task. He wasn’t bitter about creating beauty, just realistic about how much the world might care. In Philip Burnham's book, "Housekeeping" –"Poems of the Ordinary" we find a poet who is exquisitely thankful for the world and the poetry of it.
For an elegiac book, it is full of warmth and cheer. For a cheerful book, it is remarkably profound about loss, but never tragic. And for a book about the ordinary, Burnham exerts himself to write in extra--ordinary ways.
Thought I tend to like the jagged and surreal, I was easily taken up by the consistently elegant tone of Burnham’s poems. His rhyme schemes and imagery, if sometimes conventional, never fail to inspire. In "How Much Love is There in Laundry?" his last stanza reads:
"With affectionate, gentle knowing hands
Turning each article a careful smooth,
Arranged, drawered away in bureau stands
For naked morning to disclose as love."
There is a lovely ghost in this collection, Burnham’s lost wife, and much of his tribute to the ordinary and to the ethereal is channeled by her memory:
"But you songs for children and for love were
never recorded to be replayed when
You were out of touch, time; their echoes bear
On my hearing as ocean waves wear through
The icy gates of great December’s end
And winter’s opening, songs whisper in
My heart’s good ear where I may often spend
Time’s purse to recall you as I listen."
--Voices of the Dead
We hear inflections of Shakespeare in a poem like this and are captivated.
Perhaps my favorite poem is called, "Birthday Greetings III" which takes its melody from a Mexican Christmas Carol, "Fire in the snow and snow in the fire."
Where I will light small celebratory fire
Candles for you, each one a measure of desire
To hold you, to have kept you still closer to me
So I might not know you within the contraries
You are, fire in the snow, snow in the fire,
You melt, you cool my heart as each season requires
My presence here before some final letting go
Of earth, snow in the fire, fire in the snow."
In his world, there are divine powers in nature and an underlying sense of God. Being a true Boston poet, and on a less serious note, Burnham challenges himself to write about Baseball and God. It reminds me that wonderful Calvinist preacher who described how the world was made with bowling alleys and well, sundry things exalted and mundane I can’t now recall:
"And on the ninth day, God
in his infinite playfulness
Grass green grass, sky blue sky,
Separated the infield from the outfield,
Formed a skin of clay,
Assigned bases of safety
On cardinal points of the compass
Circling the mountain of deliverance,
Fashioned a wandering moon
From a horse, string and a gum tree,
Tempered weapons of ash,
Made gloves from the golden skin of sacrificial bulls,
Set stars alight in the Milky Way,
Divided the descendents of Cain and Abel into contenders,
Declared time out, time in stepped back,
And thundered over all of creation:
"Play Ball"
Yes, indeed. This is a masterful collection for which we should be very thankful.

Lo Galluccio Lo Galluccio is the poetry editor of the Cambridge Alewife. Her work has appeared in Ibbetson
Street, Lungfull, The Somerville News and many others. http://logalluccio.com/

Harris Gardner (Tapestry of Voices) and Ellen Steinbaum ( Boston Globe Columnist) have organized a reading in support of Katrina Relief. It will be Oct 18 at the Old South Church in Copley Square, across from the Boston Public Library. 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM. There will be quite an impressive lineup of readers:

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino
Mel King
Alex Beam ( Boston Globe Columnist)
Frannie Lindsay ( May Swenson Award Winner)
Dianna Der-Hovanessian ( President of New England Poetry Club)
Elizabeth Lund ( Christina Science Monitor Columnist)
Doug Holder ( The Somerville News/Ibbetson Street Press)
Brother Blue
Leslie Epstein ( Director of Creative Writing-Boston University)
Charles Coe( Mass. Cultural Council Award Winner)
Don Share ( Curator Lamont Poetry Room -Harvard)
Steve Cramer ( Director of MFA program Lesley University)
Fred Marchant ( Director of Creative Writing-Suffolk University

Watermark by Jacquelyn Pope (Marsh Hawk Press PO BOX 206 East Rockaway, NY 11518 2005) http://marshhawkpress.com/ $13. Jacquelyn Pope's new collection of poetry "Watermark" ( Marsh Hawk Press) is an undeniably melancholy, haunting, and accomplished collection of poetry. Pope's use of language is fine-tuned, clear, clipped, concise and most of all evocative. I was most impressed with the poems that dealt with human relationships. Her imagery beautifully defines estrangement, and the ultimately unknowable entity the "other." In "Mrs. Robinson," ( I'm assuming modeled after that disaffected, booze-swilling cipher of "The Graduate" fame), Pope paints a portrait of an empty woman with chilling precision: " He's fixed her off the page, where she'sabandoned: mid-century,semi-continential. Cold sunlightstabs the medicated air.Too bored to sitand suck the mentholated tipof her malaise, she wondersat the nerve that led him on" (41) In " By Light," Pope skillfully traces a woman's realization that even in what we feel are the most intimate relationships; we are ultimately strangers to one another. It is impressive how Pope uses the most banal of things such as: lamplight, and shadows on a wall to bring the poem home: " ...I sat/ in my own pool of light,/ still wholly/ untranslated into rooms that had/ learned you long ago. Our shadows/ hovered on their walls, dark forms/ drawn across the future./ Time flickered,/ fading from the room the night/ I saw our boundaries were drawn..." (39) When I read the work of some contemporary poets, often I find that the poems are obscure, inaccessible, and I simply can't relate to them. And just as often when I read small press poets whose work is accessible, I found that the poems are too facile and lack the heightened language a poem requires. Pope has written a collection that most of us non-academic poets can understand, relate to, and go back to in years to come. Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ Somerville, Mass. 2004/ Sept. 2005

"The Art of Writing Poetry." I will be running this workshop starting Oct 18 2005 for six Tuesdays. $105 for single $105 for couple. Call Newton Community Education. 617-559-6999 to register.

Description: Poets want two things: to write compelling poetry, and too see it in print. In this participatory workshop we will develop poetry through creative brainstorming. Feedback will focus on the effective use of language, imagery, and metaphor in the construction of a poem. The instructor will provide leads for publishing and contacts at small presses. Many former students have published their poems for the first time in the course of the workshop. Please bring three poems to each class. Make 5 copies of each. You will have the chance to read your work aloud, and get feedback from other class members.
*** Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press of Somerville, Mass. He is the Arts/Editor for The Somerville News. His own poetry and articles have appeared in: Buckle, The Boston Globe, The Harvard Mosaic, Arts Around Boston, Poetry Motel and many others. His interviews with Contemporary poets are archived at the Harvard University poetry room at the Lamont Library. He curates the poetry series at the Newton Free Library, and is on the faculty board of "The Wilderness House Literary Retreat."Doug Holder
http://www.ibbetsonpress.com
http://dougholder.blogspot.com
http://authorsden.com/douglasholder

McLean recognized as literary landmark * This article has appeared in the McLean Hospital Newsletter



McLean has often been the subject of works of art, including novels, films, poems and song lyrics. Earlier this year, the Academy of American Poets recognized McLean for its contribution to literature, naming it a national literary landmark. The hospital is one of 31 landmarks to be included on the Academy’s list. Other landmarks include poets' birthplaces, poetry museums and libraries, places of poetic inspiration and sites that commemorate poetry.

"We tried to identify places where people can literally walk in a poet's footsteps," said the academy's executive director Tree Swenson. "We received hundreds of poetry landmark nominations, and we heard from people in all fifty states. We are excited to recognize points on our country's physical landscape, from Maine to Georgia to Montana, which are important to the cultural landscape."

McLean was chosen for the inspiration it gave to poets Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton, all of whom had ties to the hospital.
Plath’s The Bell Jar and Lowell’s Walking in the Blue are two works most notably inspired by their time at McLean.

"…This is the way day breaks in Bowditch Hall at McLean’s;
the hooded night lights bring out ‘Bobbie,’
Porcellian ’29,
a replica of Louis XVI…"
~from Lowell’s Waking in the Blue

"The use of poetry and writing can be beneficial for those battling a mental illness," said published poet Douglas Holder, a mental health counselor at McLean. "What you bring to the paper can clarify things." He added that poetry allows a person to see behind the surface and to explore humanity instead of the label of "psychiatric patient."

"In spite of mental illness, creative work can be done," said Holder. "McLean is an inspirational place for many. I’m not surprised it has been named a literary landmark."
The 31 literary landmarks are part of a larger project by the Academy of American Poets called the National Poetry Almanac. It can be viewed at www.poets.org.
Doug Holder http://www.authorsden.com/douglasholder