Ibbetson Street #29

Ibbetson Street #29
Publisher: Doug Holder
Managing Editor: Dorian Brooks
Poetry Editors: Mary Rice, Harris Gardner
Consulting Editors: Robert K. Johnson, Dianne Robitaille
Art Consultant: Richard Wilhelm
Design: Steve Glines
Website Managers: Linda Haviland Conte, Ray Conte
Front Cover: Dianne Robitaille
Back Cover: Dianne Robitaille

50 pages, $8, softbound
The Ibbetson Street Press is supported by and formally affiliated
With Endicott College, Beverly, MA http://www.endicott.edu



Review by Zvi A. Sesling

Somerville poet Doug Holder, the “Johnny Appleseed of Boston area poetry” has done much for the poetic community, including his Bagel Bards (co-founded with Harris Gardner) a group of poets and writers who meet weekly in Somerville, MA and his
publishing house, Ibbetson Street Press which issue poetry books from unknown writers to well known ones. In this latest offering there is a wide selection of excellent poems presented by (to name only a few) Lawrence Kessenich, Ed Galing, Adrienne Drobnies, Richard Hoffman, Dan Sklar, Barbara Helfgott Hyett, Lyn Lifshin and A.D. Winans.

Wendy Drexler’s “Voodoo Donuts” is clever both in its writing and artistic verbal layout which needs to be seen and read. Lawrence Kessenich’s “Writer In Residence” is a nostalgic explanation of a beginning and a veteran’s writer love for pen and paper. Richard Hoffman’s “Long Enough” carries a memory for years. Dan Sklar’s “Of Time And "The Beauty Contest” is a bittersweet poem of love and Alzheimer’s. All the poems in this volume have something to say, are worth a read while the selections provide a diversity of styles.