Roetzheim, William H., _Thoughts I Left Behind_. Jamul, CA : Level 4 Press.
179 Pages. Softcover, Perfect Bound. $14.95 US plus shipping. For
ordering information visit www.level4press.com.

Review of _Thoughts I Left Behind

Fertility Doll

Returning home I brought my wife some gifts,
among them was a carved figure—an ugly
woman with huge breasts and bigger belly.
Hawaiians said her name was Hi’iaka.
She stood beside our bed and watched, her eyes
reflecting red in candlelight, her shadow
dancing with obscene and naked joy
to hear Bolero by Ravel, to hear
the primitive music of need and want.
And in one month my wife told me that she
was pregnant after trying for so long.
We loaned her out to Loni, who was pregnant
that same month. And then the breathless call
when Hi’iaka had the same results
for Betty Lou, after four years of trying,
crying, clinics too. but now my laughing
wasn’t easy, now I found that I
was queasy when I thought of Hi’iaka’s
naked dancing, watching with those eyes
that seemed to glow.
I know, I know she’s just
a doll and not a god, not like my god,
the western god that toppled her and all
her kind two hundred years ago, although
she dances on our wall, her shadow leaps
and falls, and quietly she plants her seeds
of pagan thought, of faith in ancient gods.

Those of you who have followed my reviews by now have most likely learned
that I’m a relatively hard critic. Were I to put a book of my own out into
this shark pit, I’d probably be the last person I would want to write on it.

Another thing that may or may not have been evident in reviews that I have
formerly written is that I seem to have developed somewhat of an abhorrence
toward metered or formal poetry. It often doesn’t have so much to do with
the pieces themselves as it does with having so many momentarily inspired
pieces cross my desk by students who have just been reading Wordsworth’s “I
Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” In three separate classes I have assisted, I
have heard no less that five would-be poets exclaim “I think in rhyme! It
just comes naturally to me.”

So when I open Roetzheim’s _Thoughts I Left Behind_, my initial response is
one of horror. All those old memories of workshop failures come to life,
and a teeny, meter-loving tapeworm starts doubling me over. If I’m to bide
my time reading formal, metric poetry, it had better be damn good.

This book is. Very good in fact.

Roetzheim’s critics have praised the poetry of _Thoughts I Left Behind_ for
its honesty (Gene Auprey), its personal nature (Stephen Scaer), and its
humor (Jackleen Holton), amongst other things. What takes me by surprise
mostly is that in Roetzheim the reader finds perhaps one of the few poets
who has ever picked up a pen and been able to write in form without sounding
trite or forcing rhymes. Where other poets have modified the sonnet form
and called it the “New Sonnet,” and pretty much classified any 14 line poem
as such, Roetzheim is able not only to maintain original Petrarchian form,
but also to do so without making the reader hear somewhere in her head “duh
DAH duh DAH duh DAH duh DAH duh DAH.” It’s subtle, it’s iambic, and in the
few moments where the toughest of critics could go so far as to call it
forced, the emotion and timing is so poignantly accurate, so aptly placed,
that it takes more nitpicking than this reviewer is capable of to point it
out, or let it detract from the poem.

Another thing that greatly impresses me with this book is that Roetzheim
remembers that poetry does not always have to be sullen and serious. There
are two sections of the book titled “Responses to the Dead” that portray the
poet’s reactions to several of those archaic, beastly poems that got us all
writing terrible poetry in high school. Such poems as Rossetti’s “When I am
Dead, My Dearest,” Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty,” and Donne’s “Death be not
Proud” are critiqued and parodied in such accurate and cynical wit that I
found myself quoting them to friends the next day at work. In a response to
Hardy’s “A Broken Appointment,” which is a melancholy piece about the
speaker’s lament that his date never showed up, Roetzheim borrows the meter
and writes:

I mean, I like this piece, its poignant mood,
And poetry to get revenge is cool,
But nowadays we say, “Get past it, dude!”
And real friends tell you when you are a fool, [lines 3 – 6]
I am there with the speaker of this poem. I have my tongue in my cheek
along with him. Moreover, I was thinking the same thing when I read Hardy’s
poem in the first place.

The first notes I took as I began to read this book and prepare for review
read as follows: “Unless you are a lover or meter, specifically iambic, and
are not opposed or put off by rhyming poetry, this book is not the book for
you.” Now having completed reading the book a second time, beginning
through it a third, emailing fragments of the material herein to friends,
jotting down stanzas on the back of notebooks, I can say this: If you buy
one book of poetry this year, make it this one. Tired of being beaten over
the head with Hallmark rhyme? Here’s a book that proves that there is at
least one poet left who can still write in meter without making you feel
like someone’s banging a cast iron pot near your head. But regardless of
your stance on metered poetry, herein lay fine poems of content, emotion,
and universality. The shear grace with which Roetzheim writes proves that
he is a master at this craft. _Thoughts I Left Behind_ is a journey that
you won’t want to miss.

Dave Anderson
Ibbetson Press Update /Somerville, Mass.

Wilderness House Literary Review # 1/1
WHLReview
145 Foster Street
Littleton MA 01460

The Wilderness House Literary Review is a publication devoted to excellence in literature and the arts.

The WHLReview is published online quarterly with a best of annual print edition.

Deadlines are as follows
March 1 - Spring
June 1 - Summer
September 1 - Autumn
December 1 - Winter

The annual edition will be published in May.

Editor & Publisher
Steve Glines

Poetry Editor
Irene Koronas

Fiction Editor
Julia Carlson

Nonfiction Editor
Steve Glines

Book Reviews Editor
Doug Holder

Arts Editor
Steve Glines

Poet in Residence
Tomas O'Leary

The Wilderness House Literary Review
is the result of the cooperation of the
Bagel Bards,
and the
Wilderness House Literary Retreat.

Submissions

Poetry may be submitted in any form.

Short fiction may be submitted in three formats:

1. very short stories less than 500 words in length
2. short stories less than 1000 words in length
3. Short stories that don't fit the above should be less than 5000 words.

Non-Fiction is just that so lets see some interesting footnotes.

Book Reviews should be positive unless the author is a well-known blowhard. Our mission is to encourage literature not discourage it.

Non-fiction should be short, (a lot) less than 5000 words.

Any form of art may be submitted with the constraint that it must be something that can be published in 2 dimensions. It's hard to publish sculpture but illustrations together with some intelligent prose count.

Published works are welcome with proper attribution.

Please submit all works electronically.
Welcome to the first edition of the Wilderness House Literary Review. WHLR is a result of the collaboration between a group of poets and writers who call themselves the Bagel Bards and the Wilderness House Literary Retreat, itself a cooperative effort between the Rotary Club of Littleton Massachusetts and the New England Forestry Foundation. All of the stories, articles, poems and examples of art have been presented as PDF files, Portable Document Format. This is a format that allows for a much cleaner presentation than would otherwise be available on the web. If you don't have an Adobe Reader (used to read a PDF file) on your computer you can download one from the Adobe website. The files are large and we hope you will be patient when downloading but we think the beauty of the words deserver a beautiful presentation. Enough housekeeping.
It's always a pleasure to present a new collection of art and literature. When we started to assemble this issue none of us expected the volume of submissions. It was a pleasure making this selection. Since this is our spring issue and we are hungry for sunshine after the drab confines of winter we begin with a poem by Tomas O'Leary, our poet in residence, titled 'Sermon on Sun Worship.' We hope that warmed you up.
Essays
When you get to a certain age many of us discover that we are living in an age of regrets, not for what we have done but for what we left undone. How many of us wish we could go back and tell our first love what they still mean to us. Charles Campbell tells us in two essays about the first two meaningful relationships of his adult life. He's asked us to post his biography lest some think he is stuck in the past.
Charles Campbell is a man who reached 60 years of life managing to accomplish nothing of note but a happy marriage of 34 years, so considers himself an extremely successful man. He has not written anything except a check for most of those decades. He currently resides in Georgia.. "If Lou Gehrig is the luckiest man on the face of the earth, he must feel my hot breath on the back of his neck."
We start with 'Red Sky at Night' followed by 'Red Sky in the Morning.' We secretly hope he finds a very wide audience.
On the literati of Philadelphia
Meeting at the Pass by Afaa Michael Weaver
Mathematical musings by Irene Koronas
Ellipse and Parabola
Zero begins end
Friends, family and reform school by John Hildebidle
Strict Objectivity
A New Relationship
Mathew
The Class Struggle
Winter musings
Urban Orchard by Steve Glines
Fiction
October Run in Danehy Park
By Sarah Merrow
28th Century Milky Way Conference on Hieroglyph Philology. Paper 27-09:
By Edward Abrahamson
Over life (about my dead aunt)
By Irene Koronas
THE QUIET ROOM
By Doug Holder
Poetry
Modern life is fast. None of us have the time to .... fill in the blank here. Where once the literary inclined might have written a serialized Victorian novel now we find the poet and chapbook. This is not your grandmother's poetry, the standard measures of poetry, meter and verse, still exist and are thrilling to hear when well executed but most modern poetry is what the classic academics might condescendingly call experimental. Filled with blank verse and prose, poetry is illustrative, gestalt filled, post-post modern expressions of short fiction, short essay, short .... It is Picasso to Rembrandt, e. e. cummings to Shakespeare. How often have you read a short work and exclaimed metaphorically, "Wow that's poetry." Today it is poetry. America is experiencing a vibrant literary renaissance. We offer a sampling of it here.
A D Winans
Afaa M Weaver
Alan Catlin
Barbara Bialick
Bill Costley
Carolyn Gregory
Chad Parenteau
Clara Diebold
Deborah Priestly
Diana Der-Hovanessian
Doug Worth
Ellaraine Lockie
Eric Greinke
Francis Lemoine
Harris Gardner
Howard Lee Kilby
Hugh Fox
Jennifer Matthews
Joanne Vyce
John Hildebidle
John Mercui Dooley
Julia Carlson
Kelley J White
Kevin McLellan
Lainie Senechal
Lo Galluccio
Marc D Goldfiner
Matthew Silver Rosenthal
Molly Lynn Watt
Pat Brodie
Patrick Carrington
Philip E Burnham
Richard Wilhelm
Robert K Johnson
Sarah Merrow
Stephen Morse
Taylor Graham
Tomas OLeary
Visual Art
We take pleasure putting our logo on top of interesting works of art. For our arts section we have chosen to place out logo on top of an exceptional work of art by Jenny Lawson Grassl. A version of the original art may be found here.

The masthead (at the top of this page) is our logo placed on a work by Irene Koronas who is also a writer and out poetry editor. If out masthead was a teaser here is a further sampling of Irene's work.
For some reason many poets are also visual artists and Deborah Priestly is one of them. Her poem 'tree of cats' may be found above in the poetry section. We thought it fitting to show off a sampling of her art with a painting of a cat.
We know we said no 3D art but photograph of this sculpture by architect William Turvelle somehow fit.
That is it for out Spring 2006 edition. The deadline for out Summer edition is June 1. No doubt there are errors and omissions. Please bring these to our attention.
As we said when we started this is a joint production of Wilderness House Literary Retreat and the 'bagel bards'. The 'Bagel Bards' have just published their first (and we hope of many) anthology. You may purchase it here:





A new and exciting travelog:



var sc_project=1219946;
var sc_invisible=0;
var sc_partition=10;
var sc_security="0431345a";

Main Channel Voices. Spring 2006. ( POBOX 492) Winona, MN. 55987-0492 Winona, MN. $7.50 mcvsubmissions@mainchannelvoices.com

This is a solid small press poetry magazine with unpretentious production values, put out by Nancy K. Peterson and Carol Borzyskowski. There is a lot of very good poetry on these pages, with poets like: Richard Fein, Karla Houston, Paul Hostovsky, Charles Ries, and Patricia Wellingham-Jones gracing the magazine.

Here is a small gem of a poem by Carol Carpenter “Pushed by Passion,” that equates of all things: dirt with sex:

“Aunt Violet loved the smell of dirt,
the way it felt, the way
it crumbled in her hand.
She said it reminded her of sex…

Aunt Violet knew how those leaves had burst from bulbs,
How they licked nutrients from dirt. Those leaves
Wiggled upward, pushed by passion to reach the light.

Aunt Violet rose from the ground, her knees brown
With dirt, her flesh hot and sweaty. She had waited
Months for the vernal equinox, for that musky smell of love.”

In Charles P. Ries poem: “Below the Floor,” the poet tells how it is live in an “underground,” state of mind, with flights of vivid imagination:


“My ex-wife lives one floor above.
10,000 miles away.
My daughters with wings
Sail between heaven and earth.
Getting honey from the clouds
And iron from the brown soil.

This journal is well-represented by skillful, accessible, and sometimes visionary small press poets. Highly Recommended.

Doug Holder/Ibbetson Update/Somerville, Mass. /April2006.


My possessions are ideas.
My lovers names all rhyme.
My conquests are fictionalized.

The shadow side of home sweet home,
Where a giant prowls naked
Beneath the floor and ideas
Grow during intercourse.

Edward J. Carvalho is a twice nominated Pushcart Prize writer, who has been writing poetry for over 20 years. He is the author of several chapbooks, and is shopping around a manuscript “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” His poetry has been admired by Martin Espada and Nobel-prize winner Elie Wiesel. Carvalho’s poetry has been published in journals around the country. He holds an M.F. A. in Creative writing from Goddard College and will be pursuing his PhD. I spoke with Carvalho on my SCAT TV program: “Poet to Poet/ Writer to Writer.”


Doug Holder: Tell me why you chose the Thomas Hobbes quote for your manuscript “… the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short?” Is it?

Ed Carvalho: I always run the risk when I use a quote like this as coming across as a guy who probably lives a life like this. I chose this quote because there was an ethics class in the early 90’s when I was in college. I was an undergrad and Thomas Hobbes philosophy of mechanistic materialism had a cynical edge to it. I thought he had a very honest appraisal of life. I really do believe in many cases that the life of man is solitary, brutish and short. The philosophy of Hobbes stayed with me. It kind of came out in the poetry manuscript. It has become a theme for me.

Doug Holder: We all “affect,” a style, whatever walk of life we come from. You wear a leather jacket, a formidable goatee, a tight fitting black wool cap…you look like a biker.
What’s the deal?

Ed Carvalho: People always ask me: “Do you have a motorcycle,” and I say: “No, I have a Honda Civic.” I grew up in New England my whole life. I had ski hats since I was a little kid…winters can be brutal. It became how people recognized me. I’d go out to bars…I used to sing in a local band…certain things become part of the consciousness of people.

Doug Holder: Where did you get the title for your literary blog “The Outlaw Goatee??”

Ed Carvalho: I was reading old, old laws that are still on the books in the Commonwealth. One of the laws states that is illegal to have a goatee in the Commonwealth unless it is registered. I thought in a poetic way it was funny. So I refuse to register my goatee!


Doug Holder: In your poem: “sometime boy”, you write:

“what happens to the life of a man,
when it sags, like that toothpick,
from the corner of your lips
is chewn by dentures
to its very end?”

Are you afraid that question will not be answered. That you, yourself, will be trivially defined at the end of your life?

Ed Carvalho: It’s a great question. I do fear not leaving some kind of mark, not living up to my potential. In the poem the observed character, was dreaming about things that he may not have realized. Maybe he was a “sometime boy,” that missed his calling, or opportunity. This was one of the things I was thinking of when I was writing the poem. I am always thinking about if I am on the right track.

Doug Holder: Your work has been described as brutal. Has your life been brutal?

Ed Carvalho: Well... a white kid growing up in suburban Connecticut…it’s hard for me to say that. I think we all have our own “human closet,” or “skeletons.” My mother was very sick when I was a boy and she died when I was in my twenties. These types of personal experiences have left me with a lot of anger. In that respect, yeah, I do bring a lot of my personal things in. I try to reflect on things that are personable as much as possible.

Doug Holder: You have taught poetry workshops at the “Out of the Blue Art Gallery,” in Cambridge, Mass. How do you approach the novice poet?

Ed Carvalho: I will find something that everyone can grab on to. Something from their everyday lives. I use as an example the poet Martin Espada. I think what gives him that mass appeal is that he is very democratic and grabs on to things that the layperson and poet can appreciate.

Doug Holder: What was your experience at Goddard College like? Are MFA programs factories?

Ed Carvalho: I can see how some programs can be factory-like. Goddard celebrated the individual. My work was very different from other poets at the program, but everyone was allowed to create their own little gem. It was a time of heightened inspiration.

Doug Holder: Disparate writers like Martin Espada and Eli Wiesel have admired your work. Why?

Ed Carvalho: I worked with Espada last summer. And I think we hit it off. I did an interview with him for the “Heat City Review.” We have a Whitman connection. He pulled me aside once and said: “You got it.” I got a letter from Wiesel in response to a poem I sent him and he wrote me back and told me he admired the work.

For more info about Ed go to: http://www.edcdwardcarvalho.com/

Doug Holder/ Boston Area Small press and Poetry Scene.

Newton Free LibraryPoetry Festival Features Tino Villanueva, Steve Almond and Frannie Lindsay ( 330 Homer St. Newton Centre, Mass.)


In honor of National Poetry Month and National Library Week April 2 - 8, the Library will present its 33rd Annual Evening of Poetry, sponsored by the Friends of the Library.

Tino Villanueva, Steve Almond and Frannie Lindsay will read their latest poetry on Tuesday, April 11, 7:00PM, followed by an Open Mike with a one-poem/ person limit. Refreshments will be served. This festival and the year-long series are coordinated by Doug Holder, publisher of Ibbetson Street Press..

A writer, editor and translator, Villanueva is the founder of Imagine Publishers and editor of Imagine: International Chicano Poetry Journal. He has published six books of poetry, among them: Shaking Off the Dark; Chronicle of My Worst Years; and Scene from the Movie GIANT, winner of a 1994 American Book Award, now in bilingual format. His paintings and drawings have appeared on the covers of international and national journals such as Nexos (Mexico City), Green Mountains Review, TriQuarterly and Parnassus. He teaches at Boston University.


Lindsay’s volume of poetry, Where She Always Was, received the 2004 May Swenson Award sponsored by Utah State University Press. A former NEA Fellow and twice a Pushcart nominee, she has had work published in The Atlantic Monthly, Quarterly West, Harvard Review, Hunger Mountain, Field, Poet Lore, Salamander, The Yale Review and many others. Her work has been read by Garrison Keillor on NPR’s “Writer’s Almanac” and been featured on the websites “Poetry Daily” and “Verse Daily.”

Almond’s fresh and often provocative stories and poems have beenpublished in many anthologies and literary journals and broadcast on NPR’s “Morning Edition.” Among his honors are a Pushcart Prize, Mass. Book Circle’s Book of the Year, AP Feature Writing Award for Sports Writing (1989-91), fellowship to Bread-loaf Writer’s Conference and twice being published in The Best American Short Stories. He is the author of such popular and acclaimed fiction and non-fiction works as: My Life in Heavy Metal, Candyfreak and The Evil B.B. Chow. He teaches creative writing at Boston College and serves on the faculty of Grub Street Writers.

Charles Ries Reviews books by "Young" Poets

WORDS
By: Nancy Gauquier
12 Poems / 29 Pages / $5
Weird City Publishers
P.O. Box 8245
Santa Cruz, CA 95061

Words by Nancy Gauquier is mind blowingly clever, fast, nimble, insightful and fun. As I read Words, I thought how such new talent could write with this great range and agility? But then I found out this emerging talent was sixty years old and learned she, “flirted with theatre, tried stand-up comedy for a year or two on the gay circuit in San Francisco. They had the best comedy! And they actually let me on the stage!”

She has not been published much in the small press. “I have been published in several mostly local, now defunct, very small circulation literary magazines that very few people have ever heard of. And three publications that are still alive and functioning.” I than asked her how long she’s been writing, “I've written poetry off and on since adolescence, but only in the last few years have I decided to take it "seriously" (only I don't know if that's the right word). To commit to it. To trust myself to just keep writing. To not lose heart.” I asked her how she developed poems in this collection, “Words, Men, and Worried were all developed when I was doing comedy; Get Used To It and Angry Old Women were developed as spoken word at the New College Experimental Performance Institute. Aging Dysgracefully was the first poem I ever read at a slam (The Berkeley Slam, which is totally gung-ho and can be incredibly intense) and it was the first slam I had ever attended (out of curiosity) and I went way overtime, but it was still voted the best poem of the night. So I got reeled right in, and How Are You, The Fence Sitters Ball, My Muse, and Blues for Paul were all performed at slams (along with the other funny stuff, which the slammers love). The thing I love about the slams is -- it is so great to see so many young people caring so passionately about poetry. Any kind of poetry. Or spoken word or humor. It feels so vital and important. I think it has injected some energy into my work.”

Here is one example of her work from Words, it is titled, “Men”: “I just could never understand men! / But then I moved to the Castro, / and I discovered gay men! / Gay men are way easier to understand. / Most gay men actually want their partners / to have equal rights. / Most straight men say, “Oh, I’m all for women’s rights, I just don’t like feminists.” / That’s like saying it’s okay / if you want equal rights, / as long as you don’t think of any way / you might possibly get them.” And further along in the same poem, “I did crazier things than that / when I was young. / I used to wear this black fake-fur mini-dress / with these tight brocade bell-bottoms / and purple high-tops. / And hair down to my ass. / It was so thick, when I wore my glasses, / I looked like It! / I took acid every week! I danced naked in a graveyard in Bolinas. / I lived with a musician. / I fucked a perfect stranger / under the psychedelic puppet stage / at the Avalon Ballroom. / That’s what youth is for! / I should have said, “Yeah, I’m gonna die my pubic hair purple. Why not? No one’s gonna see it. ‘Cept me, and I could use a change.”

Not bad for a young, emerging talent with only a few publication credits

________________________________________________

THE SEEDY UNDERBELLY OF THE HIGH-FALUTIN’ OVERSOUL
By: Steve Henn
15 Poems / 15 Pages (30 Page Book) / $4
THE LAST REDCOAT
By: Oren Wagner
21 Poems / 15 Pages (30 Page Book) / $4
Platonic 3 Way Press
P.O. Box 844
Warsaw, IN 46581

Oren Wagner and Steve Henn are close friends. They are also co-editors along with well known Small Press poet, Don Winter of the new Platonic 3 Way Press. They are 28 and 30 years old respectively. They have been submitting work for about three years and have an average of eight publication credits between them. This is their first book of poetry. They divide the space between the covers; half the book entitled, The Last Redcoat is devoted to Oren Wager’s work and the other half entitled, The Seedy Underbelly of the High-falutin’ Oversoul is devoted to Steve Henn’s work.

I asked Henn about his background, “I don't know that I've started writing in earnest yet. I've been writing a lot more these past three years than ever before, but really I started in high school. There were several years of awful stuff, tho, and then after that several more years of mediocrity. For quite a bit of the last three years I've been thinking of myself as a prose writer who is too busy teaching and schooling to get at the novel I've got about 4/5ths of a complete rough draft of, but lately I've been thinking of myself more as a poet, intentionally trying to expand my abilities and come up with creative subject matter in verse. I don't buy that "find truth and beauty in the mundane" crap. I've always written to entertain, and primarily to entertain myself. Novel subject matter, taking risks with what I write about are what I find stimulating.”

Henn’s poems are direct, narrative, and clear. They are warm hearted and good natured. Here is an example of one of his poems entitled, “Church League Softball”: “Oren and I love softball but we don’t / believe in God, so we decided to collect / a team of atheists to join the church league. / We filed for entry, marking “other” / in the spot for affiliation. Our fake name / was The Church of One, as in one life, / one chance, no soul, nothing to pray / to or for but today and tomorrow until we’re dead. / The rumor spread that we were eastern mystics, / that our experience of Him bordered on the sexual. / Janice, our token woman, got a lot of attention / from opposing men. She’d wave her tight ass / back and forth in the batter’s box, and they / served ‘em up with a slight arc, aiming / for her sweet spot.”

Oren Wagner’s work in The Last Redcoat is equally well written, but has more edge and bite to it then does Henn’s. Wagner writes impressionistically. This may be a bi-product of his years as a musician where song lyrics by their nature are often not linear in structure. I asked Wagner when did he begin writing poetry in earnest? “I've been writing for about twelve years, I was 15 or 16 when I started, you know, sad teenage poetry kind of shit. I was about 21 when I started writing stuff that doesn't make me recoil in shame (retrospectively speaking.)” I asked about his education, “An honor roll student in the school of hard knocks. After high school I was in a couple of touring punk bands. I've lived in Detroit MI, Warsaw IN, Seattle WA, South Bend IN, North Manchester IN, Colorado Springs CO, Zionsville IN and now Indianapolis IN, six of those cities have been in the past eight years, so moving around has been very formative or educational...I spent a year in college in Colorado, and have spent the last three years at a university in Indianapolis. Since I can't go to school full time, I am on the eight year program.”

Here is an example of one of Wagner’s poems entitled, “icons of the virgin”: “icons of the virgin are painted in the etceteras on the wall / surface, texture, erosion. / you don’t know that I can hear assembly line / efforts in your voice. / midnight sky of Braille and Arabic numerals / counting, falling. dot dot dot dash, / immaculate Morse code for V,/not for victory or for varsity / or for virtue. /latitude lines on an uncreated earth / still have their degrees and intervene with longitude / baby born into a cartilage cage / a metaphor for the unspoken / benedictions for the perishing apostle / zodiac, monkey pox , increased rations / assembly line icons of the virgin / etcetera etcetera written on her face.”

This is a very fine set of poetry. Well crafted, clever, mature, visual, surprising – from the minds of two friends, editors and emerging poets.
__________________________________________________

JUST ANOHTER ADOLESCENT BRAGGART
By: Mark Gaudet
28 Poems / 41 Pages / $6.43
Order by going to: www.lulu.com

Just Another Adolescent Braggart is Mark Gaudet’s first print poetry collection. He is 36 and started actively submitting work to small press publications about a year ago. He has a degree in fine art, but no formal training in writing. In his bio he notes his major influences to be Charles Bukowski and William Carlos Williams. His poems are word light and earth bound. I was curious about his use of light-up words such as fuck, sex, cigarettes, booze, blow job, vomit. He told me, “I try not to use a lot of symbolism; usually what you see is what you get. I like it simple, to the point. I want my poetry to stand up, grab a hold of someone and slap them across the face. I like it hard and with an edge, but I also like to mix in some humor.” He went on to tell me, “But my first love is Bukowski. He told it like it was. For some reason his words hold my attention. I'm not reading something and saying to myself what does that mean? Or trying to understand the hidden meaning behind him screwing some woman while watching cockroaches scattering across the floor.”

I asked Gaudet if he could determine a writer’s age by their writing style or themes. I wondered if there was such a thing as young poetry and old poetry. Here is what he told me, “Its hard sometimes; I don't try to make judgments on someone's age. Hell there are kids in High School who write wonderful poetry, and people who've been writing poetry for 40 years, and their stuff is just plain shit. At least that's my opinion. Poetry's a funny thing you could write something half assed in the bathroom stall, and someone can think it's the next Jack Kerouac.” Maybe so, but good or bad writing does not seem to be a function of age.

Here is an example of Gaudet’s writing a poem entitled, “Replacement”: “We met / I found another / cute, naïve, innocent // happy? // Let me peel / her face back / probing through / bone / tissue / bloody pulp // Are you hiding in her?” And here is another example, “Killing Degas”: “Paint / on my pallet // Pretty / yellows / cyan /burnt / sienna // Mash together / biting the brush / not knowing / waiting // Horses over steeple chase / pretty ballerinas glide / across / his paintings // Bourbon and pills / hues / of vomit / green / and yellow / spew / across my / canvas // Voluptuous / women / bathing / in a tub // Slit / wrists / grasp / the shower tiles // French / Impressionist / American / Depressionist “

Gaudet writes in a non-narrative, impressionistic style that is more difficult to master. Some of the poems work and some nearly do. His best work are those poems that don’t push so hard and where he backs off the adverbs and elevator words, allowing his curious world to unfold before us – just as it is. All in all, a solid first book of poetry.

_______________________________________________________________

Charles P. Ries lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews and poetry reviews have appeared in over one hundred and twenty print and electronic publications. He has received three Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing and most recently read his poetry on National Public Radio’s Theme and Variations, a program that is broadcast over seventy NPR affiliates. He is the author of THE FATHERS WE FIND, a novel based on memory. Ries is also the author of five books of poetry — the most recent entitled, The Last Time which was released by The Moon Press in Tucson, Arizona. He is the poetry editor for Word Riot (www.wordriot.org) and on the board of the Woodland Pattern Bookstore in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Most recently he has been appointed to the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. You may find additional samples of his work by going to: http://www.literarti.net/Ries/ .

Simmons College hosts a gathering forthe new renaissance (tnr) celebrating the local literary magazine'snew issuetnr #37

Simmons College hosts a gathering for the new renaissance (tnr) : celebrating the local literary magazine's new issue, tnr #37: a reading with reception following. Wednesday, April 5, 7-9 pm, in the Trustman Art Gallery, 300 The Fenway, 4th floor, Boston. Free and open to all. For more information, contact Rachel Ruggles, Rachel.Ruggles@simmons.edu, 617-521-2220. Featured Readers: Marc Widershien, Doug Holder, Dan Tobin, Doc. Mal Hammond, and Afaa Michael Weaver.

Against all odds, the new renaissance (tnr) insists on upholding its over 37-year tradition of excellence by publishing tnr #37. Full of literary and visually artistic gems that provoke, titillate, satisfy, and/or haunt the senses, tnr #37 vibrates with contributions from the present and the past, pulled from the international, national, and local scene. Where else can Russian poet, Marina Tsvetayeva (1892-1941), Paris-born painter, Zevi Blum, Boston-based poet, Daniel Tobin, East German short story writer, Barbara Honigmann, traditional Chinese poets, Liu Yung and Su Shih (11th century), and an article on “Reigning in on Rainforest Destruction” by the UN’s Indian environmentalist, Ashindu Singh and Virginia-based international forester, Gyde Lund, co-exist?

tnr, established in 1968, has always been grounded in the real world. Each issue contains a lead article that deals with a hot socio-political topic. This is a rare approach in the literary magazine world in the 1960s and still is. tnr also differs from most litmags in its high emphasis on the visual arts. In tnr #37, artist Zevi Blum has eight fantasy-laden etchings and the talented but unpredictable Kai Althoff has nine “paintings” (his preferred term: drawings on canvas). The translations of non-English literary work are also visually engaging: the Chinese calligraphy and Tsvetayeva’s Cyrillic are displayed right alongside their English translations. In 1969, tnr was the first non-scholarly magazine to feature bilingual poetry (which, in 1980, became a tnr standard) and, in 1989, the magazine introduced bilingual fiction.

Some of tnr #37’s other highlights:--“Reigning in on Rainforest Destruction” cautions that “…if deforestation continues at its current rate, the world’s tropical rainforests will be wiped out within 40 years.” The authors conclude their article by suggesting the steps that governments, corporations, and individuals must take to prevent further destruction.--Russian poet Marina Tsvetayeva, who along with her more famous contemporary, Anna Akhmatova, is now considered to be the “other” great Russian woman poet of the last century. Like many Russian writers and artists of the early 20th century, Tsvetayeva led a life of suffering and sorrow – in 1941, she committed suicide.

--Many fine poems from American writers, including Daniel Tobin, a professor at Emerson College in Boston, and winner of many awards including the “Discovery/The Nation Award”; the Robert Penn Warren Award; the Greensboro Review Poetry Prize; and a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.--A satirical essay “The Swoon of the Unknown Soulmate” by Norman Ball, a widely published Glaswegian native, who lives in Virginia.--A review, “Blissful Dreams of Long Ago” by Ruth Moose of Helen Masson Copeland’s memoir “Pill Hill: Growing Up With The Mayo Clinic”. Moose teaches at UNC-Chapel Hill and is the recipient of many awards, including five PEN Awards for Syndicated Fiction, a Robert Ruark Award for Short Story, and a MacDowell Fellowship.--Other contributors: fiction by M.E. McMullen, newcomer, Kenneth Rapoza, Germany’s Barbara Honigmann, and Bruce Reeves; poetry by Karen Braucher, Miriam Vermilya, Lynn Veach Sadler, Thomas Robert Barnes, Myrna Stone, Karl Patten, Thomas Kretz, Alice Jay, Jay Baron Nicorvo, Judy Rowley, Ann Struther, and Marvin Solomon; and color photographs by H. Gyde Lund and Ashbindu Singh. Without a doubt, this tradition of mixing various artistic disciplines makes tnr unique in the litmag world. No matter the medium or the message, tnr “has only one criterion: excellence.” (Library Journal) Other acclaim for tnr’s unusual approach: Magazines for Libraries states that tnr’s writers “…write with a skill and objectivity rarely associated with the traditional little mag genre” and the Christian Science Monitor has proclaimed that tnr “…offers the originality one demands from a small press, without the annoying quirks ….

”An independent, unsponsored literary magazine (itself amazing in an audio/visual age), tnr is the brainchild of Louise T. Reynolds and her teacher at Columbia University, the award-winning short-story writer, Sylvia Shirley. While they were still collecting material for the first issue, Shirley collapsed at The New School and died. More than a year later, Reynolds returned to her home in Arlington, MA, to launch tnr#1 in October 1968. The dream had become real -- and its loyal subscribers have come to expect the unexpected.From the beginning, tnr took a somewhat different turn from traditional litmags. Reynolds and Shirley wanted tnr to be part of the real world, a literary canary as it were, in a universe that is sometimes as dark as coal. Their seeking in-depth lead articles on political/social issues alienated them at once from the world of belles letters, the traditional litmag approach, and it didn’t endear them to the world of the alternative press either. Their insistence on publishing pieces which they might not agree with or support, and on eschewing fashions, fads, and coteries by accepting work only on merit, made them an outsider even among the world of litmag outsiders.But with more than 175 of their writers/artists having received international, national and local awards after being published in tnr and with at least 70 having received such honors and awards before ever submitting to tnr, Reynolds and her talented staff believe they’re doing something right.

The Boston National Poetry Festival: Going on Six Years and Reaching Poetic Heights!

For the last 5 years, in April, (Poetry Month) I have participated in probably the most ambitious poetry event in the area: “The Boston National Poetry Festival.” This brainchild of Boston impresario, and “Tapestry of Voices,” founder Harris Gardner, will take place this year, as it has the last five years, at the Boston Public Library, Copley Square Branch, April8 and 9, 2006. Over fifty established and emerging poets will be reading as well as 15 1st and 2nd Grade students from the “Blessed Mother Theresa School,” of Dorchester, as well as students from the “Boston Latin High School.”

Each year Gardner, a man with a graying Einstein fro, and a generous amount of creative and nervous energy, manages to raise the funds and organize this Herculean effort, much to the admiration of the poetry community.

Gardner told me in a recent conversation we had that he will have several new poets in the lineup such as: James R. Whitley, Simmons College Literature Professor Afaa Michael Weaver, Endicott English Professor Dan Sklar, Stone Soup Poetry Coordinator Chad Parenteau, and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jorie Graham. Somerville will be represented with C. D. Collins, Lesley University lecturer Suzanne E. Berger and yours truly.

Gardner told me that he got a late start this year, but was able to raise the funds to keep the festival alive. He plans to include an open mic, and he is excited about student readings he has planned. As always there will be a book table. Gardner told me that it does a brisk business and people often get the featured poets to sign their books.

Although Gardner is better known as a poetry activist; he is an accomplished poet as well. He was a featured reader at the “Somerville News Writers Festival,” and has a number of collections and magazine publication to his credit such as: The Harvard Review, Ibbetson Street, Vallum, Aurorean, to name just a few… As Gardner told me: “I consider myself a poet first and foremost.”
The Boston National Poetry Festival starts on Saturday at 10A.M. (BPL-Copley sq. Branch) Sunday at 1PM. For more info go to: http://tapestryofvoices.com/

Official Versions. Mark Pawlak. (Hanging Loose Press 231 Wyckoff St. Brooklyn, NY 11217-2208) http://hangingloosepress.com

Mark Pawlak, long-time editor at the “Hanging Loose Press,” reminds me of a lyrical “junk,” man—and I mean this in the best sense of the word. He collects phrases, archaic songs, ephemera from the past, and makes a strong poetic statement. In his poem: “A Boy’s Life, 1960” he pretty much lists things in a way that captures the unique texture of an animated, intellectually curious boy:

Painted candy-red stripe
on model ’56 Mustang; added decals.
Bowled three strings, made 5 strikes.
The Day The Earth Stood Still-scary!
Ice breaking up on Niagara River.

Easter. Bopschu’s sauerkraut pierogies
and duck’s blood soup!
Played charades with cousins.
Learning Latin to be altar boy (ugh.)
30 situps, 16 pushups.”

And how about this well-rendered picture of the owner of a cottage “resort,” on the coast of Maine in: “Hart’s Neck Haibun, Book 1 2000?” I think we all have encountered the type:

The “man of the house,” arrives later—the others, now gone were
relatives down for the weekend. In contrast to his wife’s girth, he
is skinny as a rail, has a nervous tic, and is weighted down by an
enormous ring of keys, dangling on a chain from his belt. (Mary:
Are you sure he is not a speed freak?”)

But anyone who is familiar with Pawlak’s work realizes there is a very strong political component to it. In: “All the News: Sept 23, 2001,” Pawlak has a deliciously ironic poke at the war in Afghanistan:


According to the Times,
Air Force bombers are heading
toward distant airfields
to fight a shadowy foe
flitting through mountains
in a deeply hostile land
already so poor and so ruined
by two decades of war that it is
virtually bereft of targets.

“FORGET THE PAST,”
the headline instructs
“IT’S A WAR UNLIKE ANY OTHER.”

I review a lot of poetry books, and I can say Pawlak has a very quirky, engaging and unique style. Recommended.

Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ March 2006/ Somerville, Mass.

PRESS RELEASE: BOSTON NATIONAL POETRY FESTIVAL APRIL 8 to 9 2006.

THE BOSTON NATIONAL POETRY MONTH FESTIVAL !!
Now in its SUCCESSFUL 6th !!! Year
CO-SPONSORS:
Tapestry of Voices & Kaji Aso Studio in partnership with
The Boston Public Library. Starts Saturday, April 8, 2006 10:00 A.M.
To 5:00 P.M. and Sunday, April 9, 2006, from 1:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M. OPEN MIKE
Sunday: 2:00 to 3:30 P.M. The Festival will be held both days at the library’s main branch in Copley Square.

52 Major and emerging poets will each do a twenty minute reading; also
Featuring 15 elementary school students from Blessed Mother Theresa School (Dorchester). These first and second graders will open the festival with memorized poems by Langston Hughes, Ogden Nash, Carl Sandburg, Shel Silverstein, other poets and their own original poetry. They will be followed by prize winning poets: Alden DiIanni-Morton, a junior at Boston Latin High School and Shari Caplan, a sophomore at Boston Latin Academy. The 53 major and emerging poets will follow with A POETRY MARATHON.
Some of the many luminaries include Jorie Graham, Diana Der Hovanessian, Rhina P. Espaillat, Afaa M. Weaver, Frannie Lindsay, Fred Marchant, Barbara Helfgott-Hyett, Dan Tobin, Charles Coe, Jean Monahan, Regie Gibson, Marc Widershien, Tino Villanueva, and Doug Holder.

In light of the very recent passing of the internationally revered and acclaimed artist/ poet/ opera singer and humanitarian, Kaji Aso, there will be a forty minute tribute during the festival. A number of poets closely affiliated with the Kaji Aso Studio will read Mr. Aso's poetry, both in his scheduled spot
in the Rabb Lecture Hall (Auditorium) and simultaneously in room 5-6 next to the Rabb.

This Festival has it all. A plethora of Professional poets, celebrities, a Pulitzer Prize winner; numerous award winners, student participation. Even more, it is about community, neighborhoods, diversity, BOSTON, and MASSACHUSETTS. This fast-growing tradition is one of the largest events in Boston to kick off National Poetry Month. FREE ADMISSION!!
For Information: Tapestry of Voices: (617)- 306-9484 or
617-723-3716 Library: (617)- 536-5400
Wheelchair accessible. Assistive listening devices available. To request a sign language interpreter or for other special needs, call (617) 536-7055 (TTY) at least two weeks before the program date.

For a complete list and schedule of Festival participants, please go to tapestryofvoices.com. Thank you.
Harris Gardner

The Complete Yiddish Poems of Menke Katz. By Menke Katz. Translated by Benjamin and Barbara Harshav. 2005; 779pp; Hardcover; The Smith, 69 Joralemon St., Brooklyn, NY12201.$35.00.

Here we have another volume that both libraries and readers interested in modern poetry/cultural history/Jewish history/world religion can't really do without. Katz was a Rabbi originally from Lithuania (born in 1906, died in upper NY state in 1991), who came to the U.S. in 1920. He was a mystical kabbalist and spent a few years in Safad in Galilee, the home of kabbalism. For some twenty years I visited him two or three years a year in upper state NY, up in the Catskills, with the publisher of this volume, Harry Smith, and I found him to be a kind of incarnation of Judaism, perhaps the most profound Hebrew scholar I've ever met. Reading through this volume is like taking a time-trip back to old Yiddish-Jewish Europe, to Israel, NY. And to top things off, there is a 134 page expository introduction to Katz and his work by his son, Dovid, who, after years as a professor of Yiddish at Oxford, is now at the Vilnius University in Lithuania. Lots of Yiddish translations in the introduction, so you don't really need them throughout the whole volume, although it would be nice to see another volume perhaps of selected poems with both the Yiddish and English on the same page. Katz's poems about Lithuania evoke the Jewish European past as no one else does: In Michaleshik, a spasm of silence,/The huts huddle in danger.../The ferry raft is moored, the guard has gone.../Over the nearby graveyard they hear/The wind saying Kaddish through the grass. (p. 155, from Bk.1 of Burning Village.) Kaddish, incidentally, is the Hebrew prayer for the dead. But Katz isn't all remembrances of times past. How about his NY poems, before he moved out into the country: in my alleys -- the gray houses/Clamor for light...//Young robbers run/Like sleepwalkers on housetops./In dirty courtyards/Cats are pregnant -- and sick nights hear/The distant, choked rustle/Of half-slaughtered children.You might get the impression that Katz is pure anguish and gore, the incarnation of angst and horror. But the Katz I knew was Rabbi Optimism, more than that, Rabbi Pure Joy, always referring back to the Torah, singing old Jewish songs from the old days, just talking, just being: Wandering at a table is the oldest voyage around the world./A friend at the table is more beautiful than the beauty of all travels./What sunrise can lighten the world like a friend at the table?...//All the good things remain baffled by this dazzle of joy, zest and plenty--/The earth grows young, man is new as Adam's first gaze at Creation. (Friends at a Table, from Midday, 1954,p.671) Maybe he was happiest in Safad, totally immersed in the Kaballah, learning Arabic, not one word ever against the Muslems, who accepted him as if he was one of theirs: All the/alleys of/Safad become in/the sunset holy/meandering paths where/stray angels beg each dying/ray of the sun: O take us with/you, O lead us....back/home to the Garden of Eden. This is a book not simply to read but to immerse yourself in, like reading the work of The Buddha until you finally feel his sanity descend upon you like warm rain, washing everything away but nirvana.

Hugh Fox/Ibbetson Update

Poets Grey Held and Shelby Have A Captive Audience.


(Grey Held)


Grey Held and Shelby Allen are more than just publication -focused writers. Both are accomplished poets, but they don’t spend their time getting their nose-browned in the rarefied groves of the academy. They go the trenches of the poetry world. They run poetry workshops for inmates at the “Northeast Correctional Center,” in Concord, Mass. Grey Held who was the recipient of a NEA grant and a nominee for a Pushcart Prize, and Shelby Allen a 2004 Boston Herald Poetry Prize winner told me that they are constantly surprised about how insightful and bright the inmates are, most of whom lack a formal education.

Shelby Allen told me she came to poetry from acting. She said: “Acting was a way not to write. Poetry came to my life after a period of creative confinement.” Her work in a correctional center was a natural progression. She recalled: “So naturally I responded to people who were literally confined.”

Held got his start with poetry in College. He had a teaching assistantship in Creative Writing at MIT. Held told me: “I work in the business world, but I did drawing and painting on the side for many years. About six or seven years ago I really felt the urge to write again. I took a workshop with Barbara Helfgott-Hyett. I just loved the creative, free-write process they practice there.”

Held met Allen at the workshop, and through literary circles they found about volunteer opportunities in prisons. This lead to their current stint as poetry workshop teachers at the Concord Correctional Center. Both find that poetry is a lifeline for prisoners, and a way for them to come to terms with their inner demons.

This poetic duo uses poems that inmates can relate to, and encourages them to use objects and experiences from their everyday life.. One inmate poem they shared with me concerned the prisoner’s hat, and the symbolic weight it carried.

Allen said what’s interesting about her experience as a workshop leader is: “Once you get into the experience, it feels like any other poetic situation. The prison goes away.”

Both Grey and Held agree that many of the prisoner’s poems they have read would stand on their own merits in the outside poetry world. Held said their work is: “Evocative and pretty amazing.”

The workshop is voluntary so participants really want to be there. The prisoners are not the caricatures you see on the TV prison drama “OZ” Many of the prisoners are self-educated and erudite. There is a complete range of skills, according to Allen.

The inmates according to Grey and Held write because they are in prison and in spite of it. Held speculated that if they were not in prison in the first place they may not have had the opportunity to study poetry. But many of them do turn to self-enrichment courses like poetry at this phase of their lives. Ironically, Held told me that many inmates have told him: “Prison has saved my life.”

Doug Holder

Emily Singer: A Comedian Who Laughs Out Loud!

Emily Singer does not laugh like an ordinary person. Her laugh is such an off-beat chortle that one can only speculate about its origin. Singer, like her laugh, is an original. She is a live-wire, and one can not be quite sure when she is going to subvert your conversation with a verbal whoopee-cushion. Singer is a local comedian, and a spokesperson for Jimmy Tingle’s Off-Broadway Theatre in Davis Square, Somerville. Singer, who writers her own material has been doing stand up since 1997, gravitating to it from acting. She has performed at the Comedy Connection in Boston, The Comedy Studio in Cambridge, at various venues in NYC, and spaces around the country. She also had a part in a documentary about the poet Emily Dickinson. I talked with Emily on my show “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer,” on Somerville Community Access TV.

Doug Holder: Why did you switch to comedy from acting?

Emily Singer: I don’t think I ever gave up acting. It is the same thing in some ways. You are out there on stage interacting with the audience. I got into comedy mainly because of a friend who was a comedian. She was in her mid-40’s and she was hysterically funny. I didn’t know a lot of female comedians at that time. She actually had a terminal illness. We went to a grocery store once and she had her oxygen tank with her. But she had everyone laughing in spite of being very sick. That was an incredible gift. When she died I was very sad. I thought a way to honor her was to try to do comedy.

DH: Are comedians inherently sad people as the cliché goes?

ES: Some of my best jokes are written as a way of healing. For instance: if I break up with someone am I going to cry about it? No. I am going to turn it into my best material. Actually the guy I broke up with wanted to get back with me, I said: “I don’t know…I’ve written so many good jokes about you.” (Laughs) No, I really didn’t say that.

DH: You write your own material is that unusual?

ES: We live in an era where most comedians do write their own stuff. Obviously the bigger names have comedy writers. In the past I think it was more acceptable to go into a joke book. But now it is frowned on if you do. So you are performing and writing.

DH: Are writers like Woody Allen, Fran Leibowitz, Wallace Shawn, inspirations to you?

ES: Woody Allen is obviously an inspiration. Some of the people who inspire me are the local comedians who perform right here at Jimmy Tingle’s and in Boston. I see them over and over again…like Jimmy Tingle for instance. D.J. Hazard, Steven Wright, Lily Tomlin, are great comics. When I teach I tell people to be “who they are,” and in doing so they find their own brand of humor. Everybody’s got a sense of humor.

DH: Can you talk about your training?

ES: I went to Brown University for Studio Art. I always focused on art in college. Then I took acting classes after college in the Boston-area. I studied at the American Repertory Theatre. In fact I will be a teaching-assistant in acting at Harvard this summer. Later, I went to L.A. for three years to study acting with various teachers. I just went where the good teachers were.

DH: How did you support yourself?

ES: I did computer graphics. I went into Public Relations in the mid to late 90’s.

DH: Where do you find your material? Describe your creative process.

ES: I am a very organized person. Everything has to be written down. I’ll come back to it later and read it. If something odd happens I’ll take it and twist it. I get my best jokes when I am in motion. In an airplane, running or walking. I hear little conversations in my head. (Laughs)

DH: I know in the poetry/writing world a lot of folks have skeletons: drug abuse, mental illness, etc… How about comedians?

ES: It depends on the comedian. Some comedians are the most logical people you can meet and others are just piecing it together in a very scary way. The more mature of a comedian I become, the more I am able to use stuff that I can’t stand about myself. I am willing to put myself out there.

DH: How does your PR writing fit with your comedy?

ES: I am doing P. R. about people who are doing comedy. A lot of comedians come through Jimmy Tingle’s that I respect. So this helps me write passionately. I am able to get to the heart of what I am writing be it music or theatre. I try to experience the piece before I write about it.

DH: You said in an interview that comedy is very addictive. Explain.

ES: An incredible thing happens to you when you are laughing at a joke. You are transported and you can’t think about anything else. You don’t know why you are laughing. I am always getting paid in laughter. It is addictive to get out there and make people laugh and get out of their everyday life. The most mysterious things make people laugh. They are so variable. The addiction part is trying to figure it out.

DH: I remember the writer Norman Cousins claimed he cured himself from a terminal illness by watching Marx Brother movies. Can you talk about Comedy as a healing art?

ES: I perform comedy in Rehab. Centers. If you have a bad day, and then put yourself in front of comedy, you are not going to be thinking about your problems. You are going to be transferred somewhere else.

DH: How is it for a woman in comedy? Is it still a man’s game?

ES: I think it varies from region to region, city to city. Different cities have more female comedians than others. I did a women’s comedy event in East Hampton and it was completely sold out. In terms of me being out there as a woman, 9 times out of 10 I don’t pay attention to the sex of a person who is on stage with me. If I know they are funny, good people—I don’t care if they are a man or a woman.

…To find out more about Emily go to: http://www.emilysinger.com

Doug Holder

CITY TYPE

Poets, yes, but these two adept at spreading the words

By Ellen Steinbaum, Globe Correspondent March 5, 2006

On April 8 and 9, when the sixth annual Boston Poetry Festival is held at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square, it will reflect the vision of one poet, Harris Gardner. And, each week when Somerville Community Access Television airs the program Poet to Poet/Writer to Writer, another poet, Doug Holder, brings the written word to a television audience.
I think of Gardner and Holder as the Johnny Appleseeds of Boston-area poetry, planting a reading series here, a publishing venture there, sprinkling poetry from Amesbury to Warwick, R.I. Most of their efforts are concentrated close to home. Holder cofounded the Somerville News Writers Festival and started the monthly poetry series at Somerville's Toast Lounge. With his wife, Dianne, he founded Ibbetson Street Press, which publishes books, a magazine, and an online newsletter. He presided for a time over the legendary Stone Soup Poets and is the current host of the Newton Free Library poetry reading series.

Gardner originated poetry readings at Borders in Downtown Crossing and at Forest Hills Cemetery. He has organized benefit readings after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. His biggest project has been the Poetry Festival which, each year, organizes more than 50 poets into a free weekend marathon reading.

Although they are publishers and venue hosts, the two consider themselves poets first. Each has amassed a solid list of publishing credits. Gardner is author of the collection ''Lest They Become" and coauthor, with Lainie Senechal, of ''Chalice of Eros." Holder's most recent collection is ''Wrestling with my Father."

I catch up with them at yet another event they started. It is 9 o'clock on Saturday morning and I am in Harvard Square with other early-to-rise poets at what Holder and Gardner call ''Bagels and Bards." Open to all poets, it's a place to bring new work, share experiences, and schmooze, which, in the basement of Finagle a Bagel, seems about right.

It's hard for any poet, especially a beginning one, to find an audience, and the city is filled with poets grateful for the audiences these two have helped them find, including at the open mikes their venues often feature.

''I feel I'm in this world to be a catalytic agent," says Gardner, ''to provide space and opportunity for other poets. I'm a bridge builder -- sort of a civil engineer of poetry."

He's enjoyed bringing together poets from both the city's academic and performance communities and is known for venues that combine poets with major reputations and those he calls ''emerging."

''I like the mix of new and established voices," he says. ''I think it encourages beginning poets to push themselves more and bring themselves to the next level."

Holder agrees.''I like showcasing other poets. I like to bring out a new exciting voice. And I like to make a venue lively, not too formal. The poetry should be solid, but I want to have fun. I want it to be eclectic. I like to encourage people who are engaging to put on a show. Poetry should be a joyous thing."

They are clearly having fun. I picture puppies or maybe lion cubs as they talk, tumbling over each other's words, interrupting, finishing each other's sentences, trading verbal jabs over who's younger (Holder), who has more hair (Gardner).

Holder says, ''If we lost everything else, tomorrow we'd still be writing poetry." And maybe organizing a reading series.

Ellen Steinbaum can be reached at citytype@globe.com. Past City Type columns are at http://www.ellensteinbaum.com/.

SPARKS IN THE DARK
Selected Poems by Jacques “thehaitianfirefly” Fleury
2006,

I’ve had the good fortune of knowing “the firefly” for about a year now, featuring him first in my column for the North Cambridge Alewife, “Words & Music”. It was in fact exactly a year ago, March 2005, when we talked about his childhood in Haiti, his mother’s red dress (which almost cost her life to the gangster Ton Ton Macoute) and his profound love for her. Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti he told me that he came to America when he was 13, but not on an immigrant boat, on American Airlines. And there begins the wondrous “zebra stripes” of a maverick poet with Jacques’ humor, fortitude and transition to a new world. He looks back and he looks forward in his latest release of poems with a strikingly passionate Purple Rain cover. The dedication reads:

“For my dear and relatively sainted mother, who is the most intrinsically beautiful woman I have had the pleasure of knowing and will ever know and who knows me better than anyone else alive today! Thanks for believing in your very own, “Garcon MamMam.’

In his opening piece, The Totally Unfabulous World of a Haitian Firefly, he goes through his coming of age, leaving Haiti behind, with his courageous mother insisting:
SNAP OUT OF IT!….Haiti is behind us now.” And then he writes, “Still I sleep in a clamorous still, in nightmares influenced by subversive ideologies….” Yes the poet’s imagination remains haunted by his roots, the exploding guts of a country called, Haiti.

In the next selection he affirms just who he is, in Creole with line by line English translations: “the haitian fire fly that’s me.” “I grew up taking blood baths, basking in the epoch of oppression.” “I am a Creole poet” “but my nation was occupied by the French.” “But still I am a Creole poet.” “My Caribbean spice rack is stock full of flavored stories…”
From The Haitian Fire Fly Speaks!

And indeed Jacques is full of spice and sparks of language about his experience, the world he sees, the light and darkness in it, those he loves, friends he is inclined to practically worship with words…as in A Goddess Intervenes, for Colleen, the Goddess of Love, which I heard him recite at Squawk just a week ago….

Interestingly, Jacques is so empathic the last few lines remind of me of something Colleen herself might write:

“One day she opened her eyes in horror/to see the moon a reddish color!/to see her world of beauty in fury/crumbling around her like a fallen deity/so then she crumbles too;/ having been made of snow,/ with wrath of the wind broke through her window,/then there she lies like the ashes of winter,/succumbed to the intemperate weather/then I watch her die, beautifully die. From A Goddess Intervenes

Jacques is a rarely blessed talent who blends together a strong historical awareness and sensuality and unusual syntax that is both compelling and enlightening. Sometimes his poems are pitched to an almost Shakespearian crescendo, and then there is the child-like brilliance of a poem like, Krik Krak:

“Krik Krak
I am like an almanac
So use me to count your days
War was here and war did play
Bruised bodies are on their way”

Krik Krak
I am like a tic tac
Sweet smelling breath of storms
We are pulled from our roots feeling forlorn
Fallen over knee deep in crap flowers grow thorns…”

Krik Krak
I say you said what?
Werewolves walk around in sight
Creep back in your mother’s womb in fright
But sooner then later all must come out to fight!”

You say you want a revolution, well read Jacques’ poems. He has his eye on the past and the future and his own yearnings. He has his eye on America and Haiti. He has his heart in love with people who sustain and teach him. And Jacques knows in his abundant soul, how to give back.

NB: Also, you will find Jacques’ column on the Alewife website, http://www.thealewife.com/, currently a tribute to Black History month.

His book is available at his readings and at The Out of the Blue Gallery on Prospect St. in Cambridge. Go and buy it! Check him out!

Lo Galluccio
Ibbetson St. Press

Cambridge Chronicle > Arts & Lifestyle
Poets come for coffee, bagels, and community

By Shanti Sadtler/ CorrespondentThursday,


March 2, 2006 An eclectic community of local poets is sprouting in the basement of a local Finagle A Bagel.

"[I] come out of isolation, to connect, make relationships with other creative people," said IRENE KORONAS, a member of Breaking Bagels with the Bards. "It's brought me back to life again."
Koronas is the group's "word catcher," meaning she records interesting words and phrases during the meetings.
Breaking Bagels with the Bards is a group of professors, professionals, artists and writers bonded by their interest in poetry.
Members attend to exchange information on performance venues, new books and upcoming poetry readings. Through the connections made at Finagle, members, such as MATT ROSENTHAL, have had their work published.
"This is my publishing crowd right here, but it wasn't intentional," he said.
Rosenthal, an Internet advertising sales representative, was unpublished when he joined about six months ago, and now his poetry has appeared in contemporary anthologies.
By 10 a.m., a record 24 people squeeze around four pushed-together tables, taking up about half of the otherwise empty basement. Groups between two and four people chat about their most recent projects, such as a book or a Web site. The table quickly becomes a mess of colorful photocopied fliers, newspapers, business cards, books, coffee cups and water bottles. Co-founder HARRIS GARDNER sells an assortment of poetry books out of a plastic shopping bag.
DOUG HOLDER said he founded the group March 2005 with Gardener because the university-centered Cambridge poetry community was exclusive.
"The poetry world here in Cambridge is very cliquish. You're either in the university, or you're out," Holder said.
Holder's group includes all levels of poets, from professors to the unpublished. There are currently about 32 members, 10 of whom attend regularly, and new members join every week.
"It's getting bigger and bigger every week. We're having to move more tables around," Koronas said.
Breaking Bagels with the Bards is open to all and meets every Saturday at 9 a.m. in the Harvard Square Finagle A Bagel basement.

The Beat Face of God: The Beat Generation Writers As Spirit Gudes: Stephen D. Edington with forward by David Amram. ( Trafford Publishing http://www.trafford.com/) $18.





I remember picking up a copy of "On the Road," by Jack Kerouac at a bookstore in Downtown Crossing, Boston 30 years ago, and being unable to put it down. At the time, I was in my early 20's and struggling to define who I was. This book spoke to me like no other. After devouring it I was like an addict, I had to read everything by Kerouac and the "Beats." "On the Road," spurred me on to more reading, and eventually to an advanced degree in literature, poetry publishing, etc... When I read "On the Road" now at 50 I don't feel the same way I did then, but I can remember that seminal rush. Stephen D. Edington's,( who I met at a reading at the Squawk Coffee House in Harvard Square,) new book: "Beat Face of God..." writes:

"On the Road," is a classic coming-of-age novel-whether one attends college or not--in that it speaks to the universal experience of having to define oneself both in relation to, as well as counter to, one's upbringing, with all that upbringing contains. While the exterior landscape of "On the Road," is the geography of America in the late 1940's, the interior landscape is the soul of Sal Paradise as he struggles with the question we all encounter in our coming-of-age years: Who am I?"

Edington, a Unitarian minister in Nashua, New Hampshire, has written a book about the spirituality of Beat writers, and theorizes that the Beat movement may have been be a religious one. Edington defines religion as a reaction against that fact that we live with the knowledge of our own death. Religion tries to bring some meaning to life in light of this. Edington's thesis is that the Beats were the embodiment of this quest for meaning.

Edington provides a credible argument for this, even if at times he stretches a little. He examines the spiritual journey of many of the Beat generation writers such as: Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Diane di Prima, Allen Ginsberg, etc... Kerouac wanted to see the "face of God," hence the title. He was asked why he wrote "On the Road," he replied "Because we are all going to die." And it seems that Beats, whether it was William Burroughs attempting to exorcise his "ugly spirit," Neal Cassady's perpetual manic motion across the country to stay "outside of time," or Diane di Prima's attempts to find transcendence in a 1950's world that confined women to gilded cages, were all in hot pursuit of meaning.

On the subject of "Beat Woman," Edington provides an excellent quote from the poet Gregory Corso. Corso had a keen insight as to why women were marginalized in the movement:

"There were women, they were there, I knew them, their families put them in institutions, they were given electric shock. In the 50's if you were a male you could rebel, but if you were female your families had you locked up..."

There is no paucity of books about the Beats, but Edington brings a fresh and fascinating perspective into view with this fine collection of essays.

Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ March 2006/Somerville, Mass.

Robert Pinsky Reaches New Operatic Heights


Some years ago a letter I wrote about the poet Robert Lowell, and his poem “Waking In The Blue,” was published in the first edition of “America’s Favorite Poems,” that the former poet-laureate of the United States Robert Pinsky edited. So my friend poet Harris Gardner and I jumped at the chance to attend a lecture and private reception at the “MIT Media Lab,” that we were invited to. I have always admired Pinsky for his “Favorite Poem Project,” that has produced anthologies of selected poetry and letters from ordinary, and for the most part non-poet Americans. Pinsky was going to talk about his ambitious, on-going project; as well as his work with Tod Machover of the Media Lab that involved a collaboration on an opera titled: “Death and the Powers: A Robot Pageant.”

The opera, still in development, has robots as its main characters that are in the midst of an enigmatic transformation. Pinsky said he is not that well-versed in contemporary opera, but he is excited about the project. He feels “liberated” working on the libretto, with both rhyme and language.

Pinsky’s eyes took on a new light when he discussed his “Favorite Poem Project.” Pinsky wanted to collect poems that “real” Americans were willing to read and loved. When he showed a video of Americans reading from their favorite poems, (A DVD is included with the latest anthology) his philosophy of bodies and breath as the essential artistic components of poetry took on new meaning. There were animated readings of favorite poems by children—to a construction worker from Quincy, Mass. reciting “Song of Myself,” by Walt Whitman.

Pinsky feels that often when academics read great poems they don’t really hear the poem. They drone on and on during their reading of the poem and the excitement is lost. The Americans who read their poems made it clear that this genre of expression is still alive and kicking.

MIT English professor and Conrad scholar, David Thorburn, an old friend of Pinsky’s from Stanford University, exchanged anecdotes about the old days with the celebrated poet much to the delight of the audience. Thorburn opined that Pinsky’s poetry has changed over the years from conversational to more visionary work. Pinsky replied that he makes no conscious decision to be more visionary in his work; it is just an organic process in his writing.

Pinsky also talked about his new book: “The Life of David,” an account of the biblical poet-king. Pinsky said he was fascinated by David because he was a walking contradiction. He was in Pinsky’s words, “… a great killer and poet, the quintessential hero, and a consummate politician.”

During the Q and A session Pinsky talked about the inaccessible quality of contemporary poetry. He said often young poets don’t want to appear naïve and the inaccessible style protects them from this. Pinsky told the young poets in the audience that they must risk seeming stupid in their work. They must take risks to be authentic.

After the lecture there was a reception at the MIT Stata Center where Pinsky held court to a flock of admirers. He is an affable, approachable man, not to mention a scholar and poet; the perfect person for bringing poetry back home to the ‘people” where it belongs.

Doug Holder. Feb. 2006.

Interview with poet Sarah Hannah: A Poet within “Longing Distance”

Sarah Hannah is an educator, a poet with a PhD from Columbia University, and a sometimes rock musician. Her poems have appeared in “Barrow Street,” “Parnassus,” “Gulf Coast,” “Crab Orchard Review,” and others. Her original manuscript which became her first poetry collection “Longing Distance,” was a semi-finalist for the “Yale Younger Poets Prize,” in 2002. Anne Dillard describes her collection as: “…an extremely moving work. I’m struck by her intelligence of emotion and her unmistakable voice…Sarah Hannah is a true original.” She currently resides with her husband in Cambridge and teaches at Emerson College in Boston. She was a guest on my Somerville Community Access TV show “Poet to Poet/Writer to Writer.”

Doug Holder: Can you tell us about the “Yale Younger Poets Prize” which “Longing Distance,” was a semi-finalist for?

Sarah Hannah: That was a sort of near miss. That was in 2002. That was the year Tupelo Press accepted my book. I found out I was a runner up by phoning the editor, (not the judge) who was W.S. Merwin. The editor told me he remembered the book, and it was a semi-finalist, and it was a strong book.

Doug Holder: A lot of folks claim a PhD can ruin a poet. You learn how to write academic papers, but you forget how to write poetry. This does not seem to be the case with you.

Sarah Hannah: It ruined me in the sense that while I was writing my dissertation, I felt that I didn’t have time to write poetry. But I think the PhD made me a better poet. It forced me to really study poetry deeply. You have to grapple with ideas that are foreign to you. You read more than just contemporary poets. You learn to become a better writer.

Some people become sidetracked. They go into a PhD program and they emerge as critics not poets. There are more people around than you think that are poets and scholars.

Doug Holder: How did you come up with the title for your collection “Longing Distance?”

Sarah Hannah: I was writing a series of sonnets about a messed up love affair. You know “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” an all those clichés. So I came up with a line while I was in the country watching my husband scale a rock. I thought of the line: “I keep you at longing distance.” I thought it was just going to be another sonnet in the sequence. I wrote the sonnet, but then wound up expunging it from the book. I kept “Longing Distance,’ as the title.

Doug Holder: From our email exchanges I get the impression you haven’t had an easy life.

Sarah Hannah: I lived a hardscrabble life. I’ve seen life disintegrate . I wanted to put back my experiences in more metaphysical or formal terms.

I grew up in Newton, Mass., in the Waban section. A lot of neurosis going on there. I would say seven out of my eight high school friends were bulimic. I was not. My mother was hospitalized at the same “summer hotel” Anne Sexton visited.

Doug Holder: How does your teaching at Emerson College fit with your poetry?

Sarah Hannah: It’s fitting beautifully because I am teaching poetry, as opposed to composition. I am teaching traditional form to graduate and undergraduate students. I teach a hybrid literature and writing course.

Doug Holder: Why did you move from the bright lights and big city of New York to the more provincial environs of Boston?

Sarah Hannah: I am a lover of the underdog. Boston is the underdog to New York. I felt I had to come back. You know: “My end is my beginning, my beginning my end.” I have always missed Boston. I am a loyal person that way. My husband and I purchased a house in Cambridge. It’s right in the Central Square area. It’s a very diverse city. I often write at the ‘1369” Coffee Shop or ‘Grendel’s Den,” in Harvard Square. I feel rooted here.

Doug Holder: How does the lit scene here compare to the “Big Apple?”

Sarah Hannah: There are a lot of readings here like N.Y. I lived in N.Y. for 17 years. It took me 8 years to get “out” there. It seems much faster out here. I have a book though, that makes a difference. I was worried. It took a long time for me to establish myself in New York City. But I didn’t loose my contacts because I maintained my connection to the journal “Barrow Street,” and now I am an editor there.”


Eclipse

Every so often I am dilated; the pupilsSwallow everything—a catchall soup,Two cauldrons, stubborn in the bald glare
Of bathroom light. They are hunting sleep—The sea grass, the blue cot rocking;In sleep I am a Spanish dancer,
Awaiting my cue at the velvet curtain,Now and then groping for the sash,Or on horseback, abducted, thumping
Through pampas. I sleep too much;I curl in at midday, sheepish,In strange rooms. Clouds are hurrying by—
The walls, a wash of white; still my eyesAre mazing through their dark gardens,The great lamp shut, the crescents duplicating.
It is only a temporary state of affairs.The sun boils behind the moon.

Sarah Hannah will be reading at the Newton Free Library Poetry Series March 14 7PM. 330 Homer St. Newton Centre, Mass.

I have had the pleasure to have been published and to have read for Anne Hudson, and her online magazine FACETS. This magazine is based at MIT, and publishes some poetry and fiction. Read more below about FACETS:





CONTENTS
CONTRIBUTORS
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
NEWS ABOUT FACETS WRITERS
HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT
WRITERS' RESOURCES
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
ABOUT THE TITLE
SEARCH SITE
PAST ISSUES

Facets
P. O. Box 380915Cambridge, MA 02238facetsmagazine@aol.com http://facets-magazine.com





On October 13, 2005, Facets celebrated five years of publication with its first reading. The event was sponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Artists Behind the Desk and held at MIT’s Stata Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Center is where MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is located; somehow the whimsical building that is home to computer science seemed a fitting setting for an internet-based literary magazine’s first public event. Eight past Facets contributors from the Boston area read from their work to a rapt audience (Kitty Beer, Maura Greene, Kevin Harvey, Doug Holder, Paul Hostovsky, Karyn Crispo Jones, David Surette, and Tom Sheehan). The poems and stories were artful and relatable, and audience members proclaimed the evening “exhilarating” and “inspirational to say the least.” Honoring all the superb and original work we published in 2005, Facets made six nominations for the Pushcart Prize/The Best of the Small Press: “Silvia and Alfredo,” short story by Maura Greene (April 2005)“In Kansas:,” short story by Aaron Hellem (October 2005)“Road Work,” memoir of Iraq war by Jack Lewis (October 2005)“’Shut Up,’ He Explained,” prose poem by Susan Rawlins (October 2005)“Mercies Found in Light,” poem by Tom F. Sheehan (October 2005)“Cicadas,” poem by Donna Spector (October 2005) As we launch our sixth year, we publish work by one of the editors for the first time, William Routhier’s haunting story, “The Writing Hand.” From the beginning Facets has included graphics. In this issue, we introduce the layered, provocative images of multimedia artist, Ilene Segalove (see “Contents” for links to her images in this issue). One of our regular features is “Writers’ Resources,” where we provide information about writing books, writing workshops, writing advice, writing prizes, literary links, and other things we run across of interest to writers. The recommendation of a writing book comes this time from Kathleen Olesky, a Boston-area writer and workshop leader who uses the methods described in Writing Alone and With Others by Pat Schneider.
Thank you for reading Facets. We hope you enjoy it, visit the site again, and share the link with friends.

Anne M. HudsonPoetry Editor
William RouthierFiction Editor
February 23, 2006