Interview with Philosopher/Poet Ifeanyi Menkiti



Ifeanyi Menkiti came to this country from Nigeria to study in the 1960’s. Years after he earned a PhD. in Philosophy from Harvard University and since has taught at Wellesley College for more than thirty years. He has penned three books of poetry: “Affirmations,” “The Jubilation of Falling Bodies,” and most recently “Of Altair: The Bright Light.’ His poetry has appeared in journals like “Ploughshares,” “New Directions,” and the “Massachusetts Review.” Menkiti is a recipient of an award by the “National Endowment of the Arts,” and his poetry has been aired on NPR, and other radio stations. I talked with Menkiti on my Somerville Community Access TV show ‘Poet to Poet/Writer to Writer.”

Doug Holder: You are trained as a philosopher. Is there poetry in philosophy and is there philosophy in poetry? Are they a good fit?

Ifeanyi Menkiti: I don’t think we have to make such a rigorous separation between the two. I think there is a connection between the two. There was an interesting observation by this poet who taught physics . He said: “I teach physics to make a living, I write poetry to live.” I don’t know if I would quite put it that way, but it is a sort of a philosophy of mine. Poetry deals with the meaning of life, the meaning of meaning, just like philosophy.



DH: In a press release that concerns your work as a poet, it reads: “… the poet looks deeply into the psyche of individuals, and urges us to look for references beyond our local prejudices, and thereby discover a sense of our shared humanity. Did your experience coming from Nigeria to the United States have a role in developing this goal in your work?

IM: Being born in Africa I had a very strong sense of my own being. I felt comfortable taking on the world. When I came to this country I was with kids from Asia, Sweden, all over, and it was good. I enjoyed it. I like the Global community. We tend to think we can only do the “local thing.” If you really want to protect the local state, you really have to look what’s going on in the rest of the world.

It’s not only American’s trying to open their own minds, it’s other people trying to see behind what’s at the surface. Americans are real human beings struggling to make sense of their lives, they have a lot of sorrow, and yet they keep on moving. In the book: “ Altair…” I am trying to bring this sense of mutuality together.

DH: In your poem from “Altair…” “They Will Rise,” you write: “… the body of Europe,/ but an elongation/ of the body of Africa…. Some deep mystery sprung/ from the soil of this Africa/ & the mystery is not done.” Do you believe Africa will rise from a third world continent to a major player in world affairs? What’s its mystery?

IM: I believe Africa has ancient wisdom. It’s an elder continent. I don’t see the buffoonery of Idi Amin, but I see the Africa of Mandela. There is another side of the continent that has to do with its rich culture, not just its suffering. There is a sense that we all carry that DNA from Eve who walked the grounds of Africa. The body of Europe is then an elongation of Africa.

DH: You like to play with words. In your poem “Hubble…” you describe neutrinos like they are funnily shaped pasta in alphabet soup, or the fact that “white instruments,” often search for “Black Holes”

IM: I am fascinated by the immensity of the night sky. All these wars, they are little, petty battles, like little chickens battling in the backyard, in comparison. I am fascinated by the mystery of the universe—the mystery of matter. Nature is so strange and mysterious that it becomes an inspiration for my work.

DH: In any good work there is a musicality, a particular cadence, inherent in it. Where does yours come from?

IM: My mother used to sing to me as a child. I think as you grow up, you pick these things up. The music of the African languages comes through. Each language has its own music. It is the sound of humanity. It is good to know music in language is not encased in locality, but has huge world wide content.

DH: In your own experience have you experienced poetry as a cohesive or healing force in society?

IM: I believe it has the power to do that. Poetry should not be used to beat up on the other guy, but to explore our common humanity. It comes from our common connection.

I sent my 6 nominations in for the Pushcart Prize from Issue 17 of "Ibbetson Street" So feel free to say in your bios you were nominated for a Pushcart! Best--Doug Holder

"Michelangelo" Doug Worth
"A Cup of Time" Harris Gardner
" Notes From Years of Journal Entries" Robert K. Johnson
"Rosary" Marc Goldfinger
"Professional Man" Mid Walsh
" Hearing Voices" Linda Haviland Conte

Please join us Saturdays at 9AM at "Finagle-A-Bagel" basement in Harvard Sq and talk, kvetch, joke with fellow poets. Come early, late...we usually hang around till 10:30 or 11.. bring a poem, a newspaper, a significant other, someone you just picked up last night or this morning, a current or ex, an academic or a street urchin...just come! Best-Doug Holder To contact Irene: ikoronas@yahoo.com
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with drizzle, constant wet footprints, and the regattaon the charles river; people stumble over each otherto get to where they need to be. my usual morningbagel, had to be postponed for forty-five minutesuntil the crowd waiting in line for coffee and eggbagels, got smaller or thinned out, or just went abouttheir business of watching a bunch of college guys rowin long thin boats on polluted waters. while poorschmucks, like us poets huddle together trying to figureout how to get published. this then is the beginningof an autumn dilemma and the on going soap opera offinding ways to get poems printed, so the public canread our wondrous juxtaposition of thoughts. i tooknotes on how and what to send to where and who. first,it was suggested to send out to at least fortydifferent places, poems in three or four sets of thesame poems. second, don't worry about simultaneoussubmissions. i question this but i probably won't dowhat i'm told or take any of the suggestions since ino longer care if the new yorker or whatever big namemagazine who publishes dribble, (excuse me, i meangreat poetry.) third, make sure you hand write theaddress on the envelope. i like the intimate smallpress releases and they are getting so inundated withsubmissions that its harder to get an acceptance slip.so catch the new presses when they first start out,they are more willing to print poems by people they donot know. there are the on line zines, poetry blogs,poetry venues, poetry mugs, shirts, those oblong padsfor your mouse, hats, and next, poetry will be flashedon all dvd discs at the beginning of a movie. maybe wearen't poor schmucks, but the overlooked green poets whofeel certain about their principles. what are a poetsprinciples? that question needs to be answered by youthe writers. i get my bagel; catch words, phrases andmeditate on whether to have cream cheese or butterslabbed on top. (is slabbed with one b or two?)words caught:cranky poetsmove your poetic feet aroundher 20 yr old voiceread this text backwardthe woes and correctness of submitting poemsshe slushed through the slush pilesometimes getting inspiration is as hard as jumpingthrough hoop earrings

Interview with Judah LeBlang: A Storyteller with a Universal Tale to Tell.

Judah LeBlang is a writer, teacher, storyteller, and a former Somerville resident. In fact he used to have a column with that “other” paper in out fair burg. His stories have been published in “Northern Ohio Live Magazine,” and have been featured on radio. His most recent CD of stories is “Snapshots,” that takes place in his native Cleveland Ohio, and the Boston area where he now resides. His stories explore universal themes: the meaning of names, the trails and travails of being a Jewish gay man, and his mercurial love affair with the Cleveland Indians. He currently works at Lesley University and performs in the area.


Doug Holder: Why have you chosen to work in the medium of storytelling as opposed to poetry?

Judah LeBlang: I don’t differentiate from being a writer and being a storyteller. I think writing, the writing I like, tells a story, has a lot of sensory images and details. It also has a strong sense of place. I have written short fiction that takes place in Cleveland. I feel like when I am thinking of specifics from my life that connect with other people, then I am writing well. I feel that the memoir and the personal essay have the strongest voice. I usually talk about something I experienced, but it usually is something other people can relate to. Even if you are not a Cleveland Indian fan, as a Red Sox fan you know what it is like to suffer. One of the ideas that interests me is the idea that we all have multiple identities. I carry the identity of a Midwesterner even though I have lived here for eighteen years. I have other identities as well. Everyone has a mix. This all informs our voice.

Doug Holder: You do have a good voice. Have you been told this?

Judah LeBlang: I have been told that I have a good voice for radio. Better than being told you have a good face for radio. I have been working on getting some pieces on NPR. There is something to be said about a distinctive voice, and having something to say.

Doug Holder: Most of your stories are about your life. What makes you interesting?

Judah LeBlang: The feedback I am getting from my readings is that people are relating to my specifics. If I was just getting up there and venting about my life, I don’t think that would be interesting. To me great writing is about specifics.

Doug Holder: You talk a lot about getting older in your work.

Judah LeBlang: In my CD “Finding My Place,” I talk about my last name ’Le Blang.” In the old country it means “live long.” It is a little bit of a joke... My father died at 61. Seeing what my father went through with his heart condition I know there are no guarantees. As I grow older I become aware of the preciousness of time, and I want to use it. For me, the writing and storytelling are ways to leave something behind, and impact some people. I think that is a human desire. I think we are wired for storytelling. I want to touch some people through this life.

Doug Holder: Why did you change your name from Bruce to Judah?

Judah LeBlang: Bruce is a Scottish name and there is no Scottish blood in my family. It was an interesting process for me. “Bruce,” carried the story that I carried for 40 plus years, and “Judah,” felt to me like a marker. I didn’t run into a lot of resistance. It wasn’t an intellectual decision, it came from my gut. I feel the name suits me more.

Doug Holder: You had a lot of transitions in your life. You left a good job at Boston University, you left your hometown of Cleveland. Were these transition worthwhile?

Judah LeBlang: When I was in Ohio, I was working in Columbus at the Ohio School for the Deaf. If I knew how hard it would be to adjust to Boston ( it took me 10 years), I might not have had the gumption to do it. But now I have a good life here. I probably wouldn’t be the person I am now if I hadn’t made the move.

When I was at Boston University I was teaching, and I was a career counselor. When I left I spent a year working at a Yoga center. It wasn’t a vacation--it was hard--but I learned a lot. It gave me a broader frame of reference. As you get older you have more material to work with. Up until the time I was 35, other than being gay, I had lived a fairly conventional life. I didn’t realize how many choices were out there. After living “outside of the box,’ my frame of reference became broader. This has helped my writing life. Looking back I am glad I did it. At the time I wasn’t so sure.

Doug Holder: Is it hard to keep an audience’s attention?

Judah LeBlang: I don’t have a lot of formal training. You need material that is engaging. Sometimes I will employ a call and response with the audience. I invite the audience in. Often at the readings I know people in the audience. So it is almost like I have plants, which helps. It’s a matter of putting some energy into that connection. I use my voice and movement.

Doug Holder: You worked with Robert Smyth of Somerville’s “Yellow Moon Press,” a publishing house that specializes in storytelling books. Can you talk a bit about this.

Judah LeBlang: Robert recorded my first CD: “ Finding My Place.” I went into his store, and asked him how I can get my work on the radio. Robert explained to me how the process works. He got me well-prepared.

Doug Holder: Are your stories as good on paper as they are spoken?

Judah LeBlang: I don’t write with the idea of how it sounds. I focus more on the writing. Sometimes I will massage things to get maybe a little more alliteration or rhythm. I want my stories to be as strong on the page as it is vocally.


Doug Holder for more info on Judah go to: http://www.judahleblang.com

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Hymns and rants
By Clara Silverstein, Globe Correspondent October 19, 2005
If you think poets tramp around with their noses pointed up toward their black berets, then you haven’t read ‘‘Formaggio,’’ by Louise Gluck. The Pulitzer Prize winner and former national poet laureate found inspiration ‘‘in the flats of cherries, clementines’’ at Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge. The poem, originally published in The New Yorker, is still posted at the store.

From produce displays to elegant parlors at Harvard, poetry cuts a wide swath through Greater Boston. On any given night, you can find a slam at a café, a reading at a bookstore, or any number of adult-ed poetry workshops. ‘‘There is a great need for people to go out and express themselves,’’ says Doug Holder, a Somerville poet who runs the Ibbetson Street Press and organizes readings at the Newton Free Library and other venues. ‘‘There is a free market in poetry here, with a vibrant community on both sides of the river.’’


That free market offers poetry consumers a lot of choices in the coming days and weeks, starting Friday night with a reading by Waltham resident and Pulitzer Prize winner Franz Wright, sponsored by the Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Cambridge. A longtime gathering spot for poets in Boston, the Grolier is the area’s sole poetry-only bookstore; proprietor Louisa Solano stocks nearly 15,000 volumes. Among them is Wright’s book ‘‘Walking to Martha’s Vineyard,’’ wherein he ponders a variety of existential matters, using an ocean that ‘‘smells like lilacs’’ as a catalyst for the collection’s title poem.

On Sunday, a trio of Boston-area poets share the stage at the Concord Library’s Evening of Poetry. The three address an unusual array of subjects in their recent books: Kevin Young explores the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat in ‘‘To Repel Ghosts,’’ MIT lecturer Erica Funkhouser uses moments of domestic life to reach larger truths in ‘‘Pursuit,’’ and work by Pliny the Elder inspires Dan Chiasson’s ‘‘Natural History.’’ (Chiasson also has a poem called ‘‘Mosaic of a Hare, Corinium’’ in the current New Yorker magazine.) Young reads again Oct. 24 at the Blacksmith House Poetry Series at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, accompanied by Jacquelyn Pope reading from her first collection of poems, ‘‘Watermark.’’

Fans of Allen Ginsberg will want to draw a big pink circle around Nov. 14 on their calendars, which is when Frank Bidart, William Corbett, Gail Mazur, Maureen McLane, David Rivard, Lloyd Schwartz, and Joseph Torra read as part of ‘‘The Poems of Allen Ginsberg’’ at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, another Blacksmith series event.

Ongoing reading series in Boston give other award-winning poets, up-and-comers, and wannabes a chance to be heard. Chapter and Verse, founded 12 years ago by rector and poet Anne Fowler at St. John’s Church in Jamaica Plain, features a mix of neighborhood poets and prose writers, as well as more well-known readers, at its monthly readings; the next event is Nov. 2. The monthly Tapestry of Voices series at Borders bookstore in Boston usually features three to four readers, followed by a freewheeling open mic. (Tapestry of Voices also sponsors the two-day Boston National Poetry Festival each April.) A relative newcomer to the literary scene, the Concord Poetry Center pairs established and emerging poets (often students at local schools and universities) at its occasional Sunday readings. Its next event, slated for Nov. 13, features Steven Cramer and Susan Edwards Richmond, and will introduce Diane Randolph, a graduate of the writing program at Lesley University. !

POETS READ
!Oct. 21 Franz Wright
Harvard University, Adams House, Entry C, 26 Plympton St., Cambridge. 617-547-4648. 8 p.m. Free. www.grolierpoetrybookshop.com!!Oct. 23 An Evening of Poetry with Kevin Young, Erica Funkhouser, and Dan Chiasson
Concord Library, 129 Main St., Concord. 978-318-3347. 7:30 p.m. Free. Part of the Concord Festival of Authors, which runs through Nov. 5.
Oct. 24 Kevin Young and Jacquelyn Pope
Cambridge Center for Adult Education, 56 Brattle St., Harvard Square, Cambridge. 617-547-6789. 8 p.m. Tickets $3.
Nov. 2 Chapter and Verse reading
St. John’s Church, 1 Roanoke Ave., Jamiaca Jamaica Plain. 617-325-8388. 7:30 p.m. Free. Readers include Roslindale poet Peter Bates and the poet Sandee Storey, along with Doug Most, editor of the Boston Globe Magazine.
Nov. 3 Tapestry of Voices reading
Borders bookstore, 10-24 School St., Boston. 617-306-9484. Readings are usually the second Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m., followed by an open mic at 7:30 p.m. Free. The Nov. 3 reading, a variation on the series’ usual schedule, includes Sarah Getty, Irene Koronas, Preston Hood III, and Lamont Steptoe.
Nov. 13 Steven Cramer, Susan Edwards Richmond, and Diane Randolph!Concord Poetry Center at the Emerson Umbrella, 40 Stow St., Concord. 978-371-0820. 3 p.m. $6, $3 students. www.concordpoetry.org!!
Nov. 14 The Poems of Allen Ginsberg
Cambridge Center for Adult Education, 56 Brattle St., Harvard Square, Cambridge. 617-547-6789. 8 p.m. $10, $7 students and seniors. Readers include Frank Bidart, William Corbett, Gail Mazur, Maureen McLane, David Rivard, Lloyd Schwartz, and Joseph Torra. Event benefits the Blacksmith House Poetry Series.!

Interview with The Old Guard: Avant- Garde Artist Aldo Tambellini

by Doug Holder


I first met Aldo Tambelini about five years ago, when we were involved in a group that was putting out a poetry anthology: “City of Poets: 18 Boston Voices.” Tambellini is a poet who has been a longtime political activist, an avant-garde film and video maker, a sculptor, and painter . Tambellini was born in Syracuse, N.Y. 1930, and was taken to Italy to live shortly after. His neighborhood in the Italian village he resided in was bombed during World War ll, and he lost 21 neighbors and friends. In 1946 he returned to Syracuse University to study art, and later got an M.A. in Sculpture from Notre Dame in 1959. After this Tambellini moved to New York City, and founded an artistic group named:" Group Center,” an active counter-culture organization that hosted group exhibits, organized Vietnam War demonstrations, multi-media events, etc... He later founded “The Gate Theatre,” in the East Village of NYC, the only daily public theatre to show alternative, independent films. In the 1960’s he was a pioneer of the “Alternative Video Movement,” and later he went on to teach at the “M.I.T. Center for Advanced Visual Studies.” In 1998 he hosted a poetry venue in Cambridge, Mass. titled “The People’s Poetry,” and he has accrued numerous poetry publication credits over the years. I spoke to him on my Somerville Community Access TV Show, “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Tambellini made it clear that the avant-garde of his salad days in the 50’s and 60’s was different from the avant-garde today. In fact Tambellini dismisses the contemporary avant-garde, and told this writer if there was any worthwhile work he wasn’t aware of it. Tambellini, no fan of Lyrical poetry, has a strong belief in art used as a political tool. Tambellini said that part of being a human being is to interact with society, to challenge the “establishment,” and to fight poverty and oppression. Tambellini, who experienced the horrors of World War ll firsthand, uses his art to address his ghosts. Recently he self-published a book of his poetry that consists of a number of his poems published on the website: “Voices in Times of War”
Tambellini, 75, is certainly not from the computer generation, but is profoundly aware of its significance. Tambellini stated: “It is impossible not to work with the computer. It creates a space to communicate with a very large group of people.” And this, according to Tambellini, is what he is about. Communicating. In his early years in New York City he worked at “St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery” bringing as much artwork as possible to the public without dealing with a gallery or dealer. Computer Science and Science in general are important to Tambellini because he feels it reveals the nature of the world. This “nature,” is what Tambellini explores in the mediums of painting, video, sculpture, and poetry.
The themes in his paintings he described as “circular.” He reflected: "We are all tied up to the universe... we are in a circle, in that we are all connected.”
Tambellini said his poetry is written with the intent to read to an audience. Tambellini, feels his poetry is presented at its best when it is spoken, not lying inert on the page.
Tambellini also talked about his years in the alternative video scene. He has always had a fascination with TV. TV, unlike movies, during the pre-video, DVD days, was ubiquitous. With a movie you had to go to a specific theatre in order to view it. TV was in every home, and Tambellini was well aware of its power. When Tambellini was starting out there was no video work, other than the work being done at the major networks. So he was like a dog on a meat truck, when he discovered this nascent art form. He incorporated light , his own voice, test patterns, news clips, and children’s songs, in a sort of abstract video painting. These videos were devoid of narrative or dialogue.
Tambellini said he always used Afro-American poetry and poets in his video work. He is close friends with esteemed Afro-American poets and writers Ishmael Reed and Askia Toure. He feels Afro-American poets reveal the underside of America, and the American Dream. Tambellini said these poets reveal the “reality of America.”
Tambellini continues to stay active, and participates in the “Howl Festival” in New York’s Lower East Side every year, and his videos are being shown at the New England Video Festival in Coolidge Corner this month. Tambellini feels his work keeps him vital, and he wants to remain nothing less. ---Doug Holder


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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
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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