The Bagel Bards Bring Their Poetry and Prose to the Somerville Central Library

The Bagel Bards Bring Their Poetry and Prose to the Somerville Central Library

By Doug Holder


On Monday April 27 at 6:30 PM at the Somerville Central Library (79 Highland Ave.) the Somerville literary group the “Bagel Bards” will read from their work, both poetry and prose. The group was founded four years ago by yours truly and Harris Gardner in the basement of the old Finagle-A-Bagel in Harvard Square. When the joint went south we moved it to the promised land of Somerville. Every Saturday morning from 9AM to 12PM we meet at the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square. We have an online journal the “Wilderness House Literary Review” founded by Steve Glines, and we print yearly anthologies of our work. Our members have also reviewed hundreds of books from the small press on the literary blog: “Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene,” and many have published collections of their own poetry and prose. We have university professors, Pushcart Prize winners, and the unpublished in our group. If you are interested in writing then you are welcomed. I included an introduction to the Bards written by Somerville poet Afaa Michael Weaver, and listed some of our many members and their books below.


“It all came to fruition the day we made our first bagel, after a few energetic drafts of the thing. It got up from the table, shook its rolling shoulders, yawned from the hollow core mouth of itself, and began to dance. At that precise moment, the miracle came as sure as the Matrix Oracle would have predicted from over her pan of cookies. Sunlight hit the bagel, and it became lines on the floor, long lines that would have been perfect for any chorus line, but instead filled themselves with words, words that made promises to all of us. These words spoke the premise. The poet is a baker although he may never have the dough. We looked at each other and knew this was our creation myth, this dance of language on some piece of paper, or in our hearts, or in the burrowed brow of the manager trying to wrap his head around the idea that poets gather in the corner of his place on Saturdays and spend a few hours living, living, living. O bard, a bagel has become a poem.”

-- Afaa Michael Weaver







Some Books by Bagel Bards


"The Wren's Cry" ( Poems) Dorian Brooks

Self-Portrait of a Severed Head ( Poems) CD Collins

Shadow People ( Poems) Molly Lynn Watt

Time Leaves ( Poems) Barbara Bialick

Seven Days in Fiji ( Non-Fiction) Steve Glines

Outpost (Poems) Abbott Ikeler

"Self-Portrait with Severed Head" (Poems) CD Collins

"Rebuilding the Pyramids" ( Poems) Mike Amado

"Hot Rain" (Poems) Lo Galluccio

"The Man in the Booth in the Midtown Tunnel" ( Poems) Doug Holder

"Louisa Solano: The Grolier Poetry Bookshop" ( Non-Fiction) Steve Glines/Doug Holder

"Hollywood and Sunset" ( Fiction) Luke Salisbury

"Or So It Seems" ( Fiction) Paul Stone

"Plum Flower Dance" (Poems) Afaa Michael Weaver

"Lest They Become" ( Poems) Harris Garner

"Way, Way Off The Road" ( Memoir) Hugh Fox

"An Apron Full of Beans" (Poems) Sam Cornish

"Awakenings" (Poems) Richard Wilhelm

"Manufacturing America" (Poems) Lisa Beatman

"Blood Soaked Dresses" (Poems) Gloria Mindock

"Self Portrait Drawn From Many" ( Poems) Irene Koronas

"From Mist to Shadow" ( Poems) Robert K. Johnson

"Dark Opens" ( Poems) Miriam Levine

" On Becoming A Fulltime Poet" ( POEMS) Llyn Clague

"On How to Read The Manual" ( Poems ) Pam Rosenblatt