Poets offer trio of unique voices at Chapter and Verse
Arts and Entertainment Jamaica Plain Gazette

By DOROTHY DERIFIELD October 20, 2006


Chapter and Verse presents its second program of the season on Nov. 1 in its new home, the Loring-Greenough House. Readers that evening will be bilingual poet and JP resident Alan Smith Soto, Lisa Beatman of Roslindale and Doug Holder, a Somerville resident who really needs no introduction in the local poetry scene.

Soto, who writes in both Spanish and English, was born in San Jose, Costa Rica. His work has received international attention, appearing in journals ranging from “Anthropos” in Barcelona and “Cambio” in Lima to the “International Poetry Review” out of the University of North Carolina. In 1998 his book “Fragmentos de Alancia” was published by Asaltoalcielo editors (Cambridge), and in 2000 he published a Spanish translation of Robert Creeley’s “Life and Death” (“Vida y muerte,” Madrid).

Recently, he was the translator and guest editor of the issue “Spain’s Poetry of Conscience” of the “International Poetry Review,” spring, 2006. This is Soto’s first appearance at Chapter and Verse, where he will present a program in English.

Beatman is no stranger to the local poetry community. Author of the prize-winning “Ladies Night at the Blue Hill Spa,” Beatman is an adult education specialist who spent several years teaching factory workers who were mainly Hispanic immigrants. Her forthcoming work, “Songs from the Factory Floor,” grew out of that experience and out of her concern about the loss of manufacturing jobs, historically the economic gateway for immigrants.

Last year Beatman received a fellowship to an artists’ colony in Brazil, where she had the good fortune to be invited to join a local women’s sewing circle, and their creativity in turn nourished her own. Now she will share the results with us.

Everyone in the Boston poetry world knows Holder—poet, editor, impressario—a man who always has time to encourage both beginners and veterans alike. Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press in Somerville, which publishes poetry books and the journal “Ibbetson Street,” (www.ibbetsonpress.com).

He hosts a number of venues from Somerville to Newton, and his poetry has been published in countless journals. He recently released a collection of poems dedicated to the memory of his father entitled, “Wrestling With My Father” (Yellow Paper Press). Holder’s poems are sharp, funny and profound; definitely not to be missed.

Chapter and Verse takes place at 7:30 p.m. on Wed., Nov. 1, at the historic Loring-Greenough House, 12 South St., just across from the Monument in JP Center. The reading is free, open to all, and refreshments will be served. For more information call 325-8388 or e-mail wileysister@yahoo.com or dorothy.derifield@gmail.com.
The writer is the director of Chapter and Verse.