Friday, April 27, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
No One Dies At The Au Bon Pain
Reviews and press:
Bio:
Doug Holder was born in Manhattan on July 5, 1955. A small press activist, he founded the Ibbetson Street Press (Somerville, Massachusetts) in 1998. Holder is a co-founder of The Somerville News Writers Festival and is the curator of the Newton Free Library Poetry Series, both in Massachusetts. His work has appeared in such magazines as Rattle, Doubletake, The Boston Globe Magazine, Poesy, Small Press Review, Artword Quarterly, Manifold (UK), The Café Review, the new renaissance, and many others. He holds an MA in Literature from Harvard University.
Blurbs:
“This book is a gift, the silhouette of restlessness as Holder studies the way things end and sees that there is no real ending. He celebrates ‘a standing chant, a prayer for the common man.’ Holder understands compassion as generosity in tender poems carved from the quickened wood of the moment.” —Afaa Michael Weaver, Simmons College
“The images and angles of thought and language are at once familiar and plain and odd. They are flashes of insight and snapshots of time and place and humanity.” —Dan Sklar, Endicott College
“With confidence and occasional flashes of humor, these are poems (lamentations/meditations) on what was, is, and ultimately will be. They are strong and unapologetic in both their rage and acceptance, offering up a clear view of the truth—that no one gets out of here alive.”
—Gloria Mindock, Červená Barva Press
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Of All The Meals I Had Before
"Of All The Meals I Had Before:Poems About Food and Eating"by Doug Holder
...He fills our plate with “unapologetically greasy Egg Foo Young,” “tamed tenderloin,” “a chorus line” of “rotisserie chickens,” and “some fraction of gelatinous liver quivering.”
Mary Buchinger Bodwell, Ph.D.Assistant Professor of EnglishMassachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
These food poems are served up spicy like Italian cousine. Read them before dinner or after dessert, either way like Chinese food, you'll return hungry for more. A.D. Winans
A delightful and delicious collection of poems, whetting the appetite for more. These are the kinds of witty, Jewishy poems I envision Woody Allen would write, should he ever take to writing poetry.Helen Bar-Lev, Artist, PoetEditor-in-Chief Voices Israel Anthology
...A lot of the poetry has a certain edginess mixed with wit and humor that equally provokes to thought while it entertains. Everyone should indulge themselves in this gourmet buffet. This collection, as well as Holder's other published works, belong in every serious collectors library.
Harris GardnerExecutive Director, Tapestry of Voices
Of All The Meals I Had Before: Poems About Food and Eating
$7.00
Shipping
$1.50
Total
$8.50
Send check or money order payable to: Cervena Barva PressP.O. Box 440357,W. Somerville, MA 02144-3222
e-mail: editor@cervenabarvapress.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Send me______copies of "Of All The Meals I Had Before: Poems About Food and Eating" Total enclosed: $______
Name____________________________________________________________________
Street____________________________________________________________________
City___________________________State________________Zip____________________
e-mail_________________________________Phone_____________________________
...He fills our plate with “unapologetically greasy Egg Foo Young,” “tamed tenderloin,” “a chorus line” of “rotisserie chickens,” and “some fraction of gelatinous liver quivering.”
Mary Buchinger Bodwell, Ph.D.Assistant Professor of EnglishMassachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
These food poems are served up spicy like Italian cousine. Read them before dinner or after dessert, either way like Chinese food, you'll return hungry for more. A.D. Winans
A delightful and delicious collection of poems, whetting the appetite for more. These are the kinds of witty, Jewishy poems I envision Woody Allen would write, should he ever take to writing poetry.Helen Bar-Lev, Artist, PoetEditor-in-Chief Voices Israel Anthology
...A lot of the poetry has a certain edginess mixed with wit and humor that equally provokes to thought while it entertains. Everyone should indulge themselves in this gourmet buffet. This collection, as well as Holder's other published works, belong in every serious collectors library.
Harris GardnerExecutive Director, Tapestry of Voices
Of All The Meals I Had Before: Poems About Food and Eating
$7.00
Shipping
$1.50
Total
$8.50
Send check or money order payable to: Cervena Barva PressP.O. Box 440357,W. Somerville, MA 02144-3222
e-mail: editor@cervenabarvapress.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Send me______copies of "Of All The Meals I Had Before: Poems About Food and Eating" Total enclosed: $______
Name____________________________________________________________________
Street____________________________________________________________________
City___________________________State________________Zip____________________
e-mail_________________________________Phone_____________________________
Where Images Become Imbued With Time by Jared Smith
Where Images Become Imbued with Time: New Poems by Jared Smith. (The Puddin’head Press 2007) http://www.puddinheadpress.com $15. http://puddinhousepress.com
This new collection of poetry by Jared Smith is infused with images of light and mortality. Smith, a veteran of the small press scene is erudite, urbane, yet as down-to-earth as the late Conceptualist poet Charles Reznikoff. His work showcases his wide and eclectic reading, but he never seems to be doing it for show, but rather to tip his Stetson hat to the many great artists who preceded him. I particularly enjoyed Smith’s poem “Father,” in which he captures the enigma that all fathers are in one way or another to their sons, and how after awhile we all see the old patriarchs staring back at us in our shaving mirrors.
“The aurora borealis blows through the cells of my bone,
igniting them so that they are torn apart and scattered in the solar wind.
What was it that you wanted to achieve? Why
did we wear our tight shirt collars to expensive hotels
or spend long years sweating our fears into foreign sheets?
I am older now then you were on that day
when you lay down in a blueberry patch and died
on vacation beneath a Minnesota sky.”
Like Auden, Smith realizes that death comes in the most banal of ways, and places. To quote the old master, death is not always appointed to some dramatic backdrop:
“Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
This new collection of poetry by Jared Smith is infused with images of light and mortality. Smith, a veteran of the small press scene is erudite, urbane, yet as down-to-earth as the late Conceptualist poet Charles Reznikoff. His work showcases his wide and eclectic reading, but he never seems to be doing it for show, but rather to tip his Stetson hat to the many great artists who preceded him. I particularly enjoyed Smith’s poem “Father,” in which he captures the enigma that all fathers are in one way or another to their sons, and how after awhile we all see the old patriarchs staring back at us in our shaving mirrors.
“The aurora borealis blows through the cells of my bone,
igniting them so that they are torn apart and scattered in the solar wind.
What was it that you wanted to achieve? Why
did we wear our tight shirt collars to expensive hotels
or spend long years sweating our fears into foreign sheets?
I am older now then you were on that day
when you lay down in a blueberry patch and died
on vacation beneath a Minnesota sky.”
Like Auden, Smith realizes that death comes in the most banal of ways, and places. To quote the old master, death is not always appointed to some dramatic backdrop:
“Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse,
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.”
In Smith’s poem “Stroke” a piece of well-done pot roast could bring the poet’s demise:
“ A piece of fat in the artery
ends it.
The complexity of patterns
recognition of symmetries
echoing of histories;
understanding
a pot roast
becomes a blinding light.”
Certainly food for thought.
Highly Recommended.
Ibbetson Update/ Doug Holder/ Somerville, Mass./ April 2007
In Smith’s poem “Stroke” a piece of well-done pot roast could bring the poet’s demise:
“ A piece of fat in the artery
ends it.
The complexity of patterns
recognition of symmetries
echoing of histories;
understanding
a pot roast
becomes a blinding light.”
Certainly food for thought.
Highly Recommended.
Ibbetson Update/ Doug Holder/ Somerville, Mass./ April 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
The Fathers We Find by Charles Ries. Reviewed by Pablo Teasedale
The Fathers We Find by Charles P. Ries. Available from: Charles P. Ries, 5821 W. Trenton Place, Milwaukee, WI 53213. $13.00 includes postage.
Reviewed by Pablo Teasedale
Pablo Teasdale’s first interview was with Raquel Welch when he was a sailor and she was a new star. Since then, he has interviewed many artists formally and informally. . . both well-know and unknown. Among the notables: Anais Nin, Bob Hope, Lyn Lifshin, James Leo Herlihy and Brian Morissey. His drawings have been published in the U. S. A. and Germany. His synthesizer compositions are used by poets and dancers in live and broadcast productions internationally. Teasdale has been the subject of four documentaries and lives in Santa Cruz, California. He is currently writing a memoir titled, "Let Me Tell You About My Redundancy Again."
It is 3:30 a.m. and I am sitting in my apartment overlooking an empty Pacific Avenue. The St. George is quiet tonight and so is the city of Santa Cruz. I have just finished The Fathers We Find and want to make a few comments about this 118-page novel.
First, it was given to me by poet Nancy Gauquier who had read it and liked it. Second, I met Charles not long ago here in town when he was the featured reader at The Wired Wash Cafe which is an important part of Santa Cruz’s (and California’s) poetry life. It is a noisy laundromat with espresso machines and a dangerous restroom. “What,” I asked myself, “is Charles P. Ries doing here?” At a party later, I learned he had been imported by Christopher Robin (Zen Baby) and Brian Morrisey (Poesy). I barely got to talk with Charles, but I was very interested in his poetry and his thought. Now having read this novel, I understand why he seemed so interesting. He is.
While I was reading I had an awareness occur twice that surprised me: I forgot I was reading. The writing was so clear that it just seemed to be going into my consciousness with no effort on my part. I decided that either Charles Ries is an excellent writer or he had found a hole in my head just the right size to insert a nozzle to pour the information into my brain. I guess it must be that he is an excellent writer.
The novel deals with the difficult subject of fathers. Since I was both born and adopted, I had two fathers, and I am a father now, so I know how confusing and profound both having fathers and being a father can be. (Is!) But here in this memoir we see an iconic father…a successful mink farming pillar of the Catholic Church…a quiet and disturbingly bound up man with very high standards…Charles’s father.
That this highly intelligent, sensitive, and aware poet I met, and this almost scary (yet strangely beautiful) father of his, had at one time almost come to blows did not surprise me. And it really makes me wonder at how we are shaped by strong forces in our childhoods, and at how hard it can be to discover that there is a much different entity coming into being which somehow has to break free of the shapers and shape itself.
This is an age-old story but it is told with such clarity that it is one of the best tellings. I laughed, I cried. I am grateful. Another thing that happened to me (that I also liked) as I read, was that I saw or felt or somehow knew and understood that the word “mink” and the term “blackberry brandy” could be used in one sentence to recreate an exquisite juxtaposition…one I can feel, smell, taste, see and…almost…hear. (There is mud in this story too.)
This is a very, very good novel. A memoir. A difficult love story with many layers. Read it, then give it to a friend. Learn about mink and blackberry brandy… and love.
Ibbetson Update/ April 2007
Reviewed by Pablo Teasedale
Pablo Teasdale’s first interview was with Raquel Welch when he was a sailor and she was a new star. Since then, he has interviewed many artists formally and informally. . . both well-know and unknown. Among the notables: Anais Nin, Bob Hope, Lyn Lifshin, James Leo Herlihy and Brian Morissey. His drawings have been published in the U. S. A. and Germany. His synthesizer compositions are used by poets and dancers in live and broadcast productions internationally. Teasdale has been the subject of four documentaries and lives in Santa Cruz, California. He is currently writing a memoir titled, "Let Me Tell You About My Redundancy Again."
It is 3:30 a.m. and I am sitting in my apartment overlooking an empty Pacific Avenue. The St. George is quiet tonight and so is the city of Santa Cruz. I have just finished The Fathers We Find and want to make a few comments about this 118-page novel.
First, it was given to me by poet Nancy Gauquier who had read it and liked it. Second, I met Charles not long ago here in town when he was the featured reader at The Wired Wash Cafe which is an important part of Santa Cruz’s (and California’s) poetry life. It is a noisy laundromat with espresso machines and a dangerous restroom. “What,” I asked myself, “is Charles P. Ries doing here?” At a party later, I learned he had been imported by Christopher Robin (Zen Baby) and Brian Morrisey (Poesy). I barely got to talk with Charles, but I was very interested in his poetry and his thought. Now having read this novel, I understand why he seemed so interesting. He is.
While I was reading I had an awareness occur twice that surprised me: I forgot I was reading. The writing was so clear that it just seemed to be going into my consciousness with no effort on my part. I decided that either Charles Ries is an excellent writer or he had found a hole in my head just the right size to insert a nozzle to pour the information into my brain. I guess it must be that he is an excellent writer.
The novel deals with the difficult subject of fathers. Since I was both born and adopted, I had two fathers, and I am a father now, so I know how confusing and profound both having fathers and being a father can be. (Is!) But here in this memoir we see an iconic father…a successful mink farming pillar of the Catholic Church…a quiet and disturbingly bound up man with very high standards…Charles’s father.
That this highly intelligent, sensitive, and aware poet I met, and this almost scary (yet strangely beautiful) father of his, had at one time almost come to blows did not surprise me. And it really makes me wonder at how we are shaped by strong forces in our childhoods, and at how hard it can be to discover that there is a much different entity coming into being which somehow has to break free of the shapers and shape itself.
This is an age-old story but it is told with such clarity that it is one of the best tellings. I laughed, I cried. I am grateful. Another thing that happened to me (that I also liked) as I read, was that I saw or felt or somehow knew and understood that the word “mink” and the term “blackberry brandy” could be used in one sentence to recreate an exquisite juxtaposition…one I can feel, smell, taste, see and…almost…hear. (There is mud in this story too.)
This is a very, very good novel. A memoir. A difficult love story with many layers. Read it, then give it to a friend. Learn about mink and blackberry brandy… and love.
Ibbetson Update/ April 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
Molly Lynn Watt: A poet who sheds light on "Shadow People"
Molly Lynn Watt: A poet who sheds light on “Shadow People”
Molly Lynn Watt, the gregarious host of the popular “Fireside Reading Series” in Cambridge, Mass. has recently released a collection of her own poetry “Shadow People” published by the Ibbetson Street Press of Somerville, Mass. Poets such as Fred Marchant (Director of the Poetry Center of Suffolk University—Boston), and Eva Bourke, the author of “The Latitude of Naples,” and an elected member of the Aosdana in Ireland, have praised her new collection. Watt has been a long-time educator of kids of all ages, she has been involved with educational publishing, and she writes personal essays and articles for a number of magazines. Watt with her husband Dan Watt and Tony Seletan produced a CD: “Songs and Letters of the Spanish Civil War.”
Doug Holder: You have been a writer in one form or the other for most of your life. You came to poetry late however. What took you so long?
Molly Lynn Watt: I am a very late comer to poetry. I accidentally came to it. I signed up for a career in memoir writing, but I didn’t get in. My back up course was poetry. It was at Harvard Extension. So I went to a poetry course, and I haven’t stopped since. This was about five years ago.
I did write poetry in college. We had a literary magazine and I had poems in it. But then… you know… I got pregnant, had to work, I was a single mother, etc... didn’t have the time.
DH: Can you talk about the CD you completed that consists of recitations and songs from your husband’s parents love letters during the time of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930’s?
MLW: It turns out there is such a thing as “reading theatre,” but I didn’t know there was such a
thing. My husband’s father was in the Spanish Civil War. This was before Hitler, and World War ll.
The idea of fighting a fascist like Franco was a strong one. George Watt, my father-in-law, went over to Spain like a lot of young men. He was a political commissar in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. He was a Communist when many people were. His wife Ruth was a pacifist and activist. They had quite a marvelous correspondence. We found the letters just recently. We had both sides of the exchange. Ruth was a wonderful writer. My husband didn’t know anything about his mother because she died when he was born. We sat down and read all these letters and wrote up an exchange. We had a friend who researched all the songs of the period, and we have been putting on a show with the songs, and produced a CD.
DH: How did you come up with the title: “Shadow People” for you new poetry collection?
MLW: I had to have a title. So while I was sifting through my manuscript I was looking for a good line… a good title. When I thought of the poems in the collection I thought of the “Shadow People” who are psychological tied to us. There are a lot of Shadow People in my head … some are ghosts. People who are on the fringe, like the man I wrote about sitting in the Cambridge Common.
DH: Can you talk about your long involvement with the “Civil Rights Movement”?
MLW: Someone asked me once, “When did you first get involved in civil rights”?
That took me back. But I remembered in the second grade during World War ll my parents had me walk a little Japanese girl to school and back. They didn’t make a big deal about it, but I realized that was a strong thing I did. I protected her from the taunts of kids. I remember too that I was chauffeur-driven to school with the only Black family in town. I realize now my father was taking a stand. He was a minister. In fact Andrew Young was one of my father’s students. My father worked with many Black ministers from the South.
I was sent to boarding school and I had a Black roommate and I didn’t think a thing about it. But she was turned down as a roommate by everyone else.
I worked in 1963 at the “Highlander Educational and Research Center,” which provided Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King with citizenship training. It was located in Knoxville, Kentucky, and designed for adult education. I was directing a work camp for voter registration workers. Both Blacks and Whites were housed there. As a result we were all arrested and the place was burned down.
DH: Do you think poetry can transform or be redemptive?
MLW: I think poetry allows you to get in touch with things that are buried. It is helpful to look back at our experiences and reframe them in ways that are helpful for us and others. The poet Fred Marchant told me that I needed to mention the incest in my family if I was to become a true poet. So I wrote a poem dealing with that subject. Now I am able to mention incest without a great deal of trepidation in my work.
DH: What is the poetic life for you?
MWL: I guess it is when you are actively writing poems. Everything that happens seems to be a possibility for a poem.
Doug Holder
Molly Lynn Watt, the gregarious host of the popular “Fireside Reading Series” in Cambridge, Mass. has recently released a collection of her own poetry “Shadow People” published by the Ibbetson Street Press of Somerville, Mass. Poets such as Fred Marchant (Director of the Poetry Center of Suffolk University—Boston), and Eva Bourke, the author of “The Latitude of Naples,” and an elected member of the Aosdana in Ireland, have praised her new collection. Watt has been a long-time educator of kids of all ages, she has been involved with educational publishing, and she writes personal essays and articles for a number of magazines. Watt with her husband Dan Watt and Tony Seletan produced a CD: “Songs and Letters of the Spanish Civil War.”
Doug Holder: You have been a writer in one form or the other for most of your life. You came to poetry late however. What took you so long?
Molly Lynn Watt: I am a very late comer to poetry. I accidentally came to it. I signed up for a career in memoir writing, but I didn’t get in. My back up course was poetry. It was at Harvard Extension. So I went to a poetry course, and I haven’t stopped since. This was about five years ago.
I did write poetry in college. We had a literary magazine and I had poems in it. But then… you know… I got pregnant, had to work, I was a single mother, etc... didn’t have the time.
DH: Can you talk about the CD you completed that consists of recitations and songs from your husband’s parents love letters during the time of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930’s?
MLW: It turns out there is such a thing as “reading theatre,” but I didn’t know there was such a
thing. My husband’s father was in the Spanish Civil War. This was before Hitler, and World War ll.
The idea of fighting a fascist like Franco was a strong one. George Watt, my father-in-law, went over to Spain like a lot of young men. He was a political commissar in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. He was a Communist when many people were. His wife Ruth was a pacifist and activist. They had quite a marvelous correspondence. We found the letters just recently. We had both sides of the exchange. Ruth was a wonderful writer. My husband didn’t know anything about his mother because she died when he was born. We sat down and read all these letters and wrote up an exchange. We had a friend who researched all the songs of the period, and we have been putting on a show with the songs, and produced a CD.
DH: How did you come up with the title: “Shadow People” for you new poetry collection?
MLW: I had to have a title. So while I was sifting through my manuscript I was looking for a good line… a good title. When I thought of the poems in the collection I thought of the “Shadow People” who are psychological tied to us. There are a lot of Shadow People in my head … some are ghosts. People who are on the fringe, like the man I wrote about sitting in the Cambridge Common.
DH: Can you talk about your long involvement with the “Civil Rights Movement”?
MLW: Someone asked me once, “When did you first get involved in civil rights”?
That took me back. But I remembered in the second grade during World War ll my parents had me walk a little Japanese girl to school and back. They didn’t make a big deal about it, but I realized that was a strong thing I did. I protected her from the taunts of kids. I remember too that I was chauffeur-driven to school with the only Black family in town. I realize now my father was taking a stand. He was a minister. In fact Andrew Young was one of my father’s students. My father worked with many Black ministers from the South.
I was sent to boarding school and I had a Black roommate and I didn’t think a thing about it. But she was turned down as a roommate by everyone else.
I worked in 1963 at the “Highlander Educational and Research Center,” which provided Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King with citizenship training. It was located in Knoxville, Kentucky, and designed for adult education. I was directing a work camp for voter registration workers. Both Blacks and Whites were housed there. As a result we were all arrested and the place was burned down.
DH: Do you think poetry can transform or be redemptive?
MLW: I think poetry allows you to get in touch with things that are buried. It is helpful to look back at our experiences and reframe them in ways that are helpful for us and others. The poet Fred Marchant told me that I needed to mention the incest in my family if I was to become a true poet. So I wrote a poem dealing with that subject. Now I am able to mention incest without a great deal of trepidation in my work.
DH: What is the poetic life for you?
MWL: I guess it is when you are actively writing poems. Everything that happens seems to be a possibility for a poem.
Doug Holder
Saturday, April 21, 2007
The Rose Cafe: Love and War in Corsica
The Rose Café: Love and War in Corsica
By John Hanson Mitchell
Shoemaker & Hoard, $25.00, 243 pages
ISBN 978-1-59376-095-3
Review by Steve Glines
John Hanson Mitchell is a man on a permanent quest.
Go out to the wilderness and find out what you are made of. There is always seminal event that forms the body of a great man (or woman’s) character. For men it has often meant going off to war where the soul is stripped of the possessions of youth and reformed on the anvil of Thor. For most of us this transformation, if we have it at all, takes the form of a quest and there is a time-honored tradition of quest literature dating to antiquity.
For urbanized Americans youth this quest often involves Europe or another exotic location and if you are lucky, both. My daughter’s quest was orchestrated by her college, about the only thing about the place for which I am grateful. She was dropped in Aix en Provence in France with 24 classmates and instructed to walk, which they did for 4 months, camping by the side of the road as they went. She left America an angry, lost teenager and returned a driven adult determined to find her place in the universe. After 2 months on the road she called me from Syracuse in Sicily to announce her epiphany: She could be 30 and wish she had her architects license or she could be 30 and have her architects license but she was going to be 30 anyway. She came home and made the deans list.
My own quest took me to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland Canada where I hiked and hitchhiked for almost five months after High School. I slept in a fish-packing shed on the northern tip of Cape Breton Island where I cleaned fish and shoveled ice for a month for beer and food. When I grew restless I moved on to Newfoundland.
The harbor a small fishing port named Fortune was filled with half a dozen tramp steamers, Liberty Ships, left over from WWII. In the bar of the only restaurant in Fortune I met the captain of a ship that continuously made the circuit from Fortune to Iceland, Ireland, England, France, Africa, Bermuda, New York City, Halifax and back to Fortune. His ship and its predecessors had been making the run, with obvious interruptions, for almost 100 years. It was a three-month journey. I needed a passport. Did I know how to cook? Would I like the adventure? It paid Canadian minimum wage. It has bothered me ever since that I said no.
Later I was hitchhiking to another small port to catch a boat ride back to civilization. It was 9 pm. I looked at the map and realized my destination for the night was 25 miles down the dirt road in front of me. I walked all night through the fog, my flashlight useful only for illuminating the edge of the ditch. About 4 am the fog lifted and the first hint of daylight appeared in the sky. I walked up a steep hill, a switchback, climbing out of a deep dark valley. As I walked over the crest I saw the most beautiful sight I have ever seen: a ship, perhaps 300 feet long, with multi-colored lights draped from bow to stern, passing up through the rigging of the tramps crane and mast. The town itself was smaller, just ten or fifteen small pastel colored shacks. I walked onboard, found myself a bench and went to sleep. An hour after the boat left port the bursar found me. I paid for a ticket to Port-aux-Basque and went back to sleep.
For the next two days we drifted along the south shore of Newfoundland stopping at one village after another. At one village I got off to explore while the ship exchanged cargo. An entire town had moved from one side of a river to another to accommodate a larger pier. I asked a local what the cost of a house was there. He blinked at me in disbelief then said, “We have lots of houses here, pick one. We’ll outfit it for ya!” A foghorn lament announced the departure of the tramp so I hopped back onboard and watched the little village that would have welcomed me slide slowly into the mist. So many “what ifs.”
John Hanson Mitchell’s new book “The Rose Café” is the tale of a quest. He is a young student studying in Paris in the early 1960’s. He is bored and uninspired, in other words, a typical French student filled with ennui. He is both unable and uninterested in writing although he carries an empty notebook with him wherever he goes. A chance offer takes him to Corsica where he ingratiated himself with the owner of “The Rose Café” who offers him a job for the season cleaning fish and sweeping up for room and board. What follows is a wonderfully charming account of the local characters. Mitchell’s ability to delve into the characters of the local town is reminiscent of Dickens. The collection of characters is wonderful and we get a small town full: There is Le Baron, the aristocratic patron with a very shady background, the agonizingly French tease Marie and classic French lovers Jean-Paul and Micheline to name just a few.
Mitchell has always been adept at describing Place. His “Ceremonial Time” covers the details of one square mile of land in Littleton Massachusetts where living characters provide an anthropomorphic dimension to the geography. With “Living at the End of Time” he explores both eccentric people and the detail of his environment in a Waldenesque shack. We dig deeper into the quest experience with “Walking Towards Walden: A Pilgrimage in Search of Place” where “Place” still takes prominence. In Mitchell’s book “Looking for Mr. Gilbert: The Reimagined Life of an African American” we finally see what he can do with character development. Place is replaced by Character.
“The Rose Café” is the crescendo of Mitchell’s quest. While we get his usual treatment of the geography in intimate detail where necessary, it never overwhelms the characters that bring light to the scenery. The description of a dilapidated farmhouse surrounded by semi-wild donkeys is just enough to illuminate the eccentricities of the farmer/donkey herder who tells us fantastical stories about the locals. We get to know the people of Corsica and the arid scrub they inhabit through Mitchell’s eyes.
At the end of the tourist season Mitchell leaves Corsica and returns to school. In a final brilliant tease, Mitchell’s last sentence says more about Corsica, its society and his characters than all the rest of the book. It’s marvelous and you’ll put the book down after a good knee-slapping laugh.
When Mitchell left Corsica he began to write. His quest had only begun and we hope will never be over. A very charming book recommended to all.
By John Hanson Mitchell
Shoemaker & Hoard, $25.00, 243 pages
ISBN 978-1-59376-095-3
Review by Steve Glines
John Hanson Mitchell is a man on a permanent quest.
Go out to the wilderness and find out what you are made of. There is always seminal event that forms the body of a great man (or woman’s) character. For men it has often meant going off to war where the soul is stripped of the possessions of youth and reformed on the anvil of Thor. For most of us this transformation, if we have it at all, takes the form of a quest and there is a time-honored tradition of quest literature dating to antiquity.
For urbanized Americans youth this quest often involves Europe or another exotic location and if you are lucky, both. My daughter’s quest was orchestrated by her college, about the only thing about the place for which I am grateful. She was dropped in Aix en Provence in France with 24 classmates and instructed to walk, which they did for 4 months, camping by the side of the road as they went. She left America an angry, lost teenager and returned a driven adult determined to find her place in the universe. After 2 months on the road she called me from Syracuse in Sicily to announce her epiphany: She could be 30 and wish she had her architects license or she could be 30 and have her architects license but she was going to be 30 anyway. She came home and made the deans list.
My own quest took me to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland Canada where I hiked and hitchhiked for almost five months after High School. I slept in a fish-packing shed on the northern tip of Cape Breton Island where I cleaned fish and shoveled ice for a month for beer and food. When I grew restless I moved on to Newfoundland.
The harbor a small fishing port named Fortune was filled with half a dozen tramp steamers, Liberty Ships, left over from WWII. In the bar of the only restaurant in Fortune I met the captain of a ship that continuously made the circuit from Fortune to Iceland, Ireland, England, France, Africa, Bermuda, New York City, Halifax and back to Fortune. His ship and its predecessors had been making the run, with obvious interruptions, for almost 100 years. It was a three-month journey. I needed a passport. Did I know how to cook? Would I like the adventure? It paid Canadian minimum wage. It has bothered me ever since that I said no.
Later I was hitchhiking to another small port to catch a boat ride back to civilization. It was 9 pm. I looked at the map and realized my destination for the night was 25 miles down the dirt road in front of me. I walked all night through the fog, my flashlight useful only for illuminating the edge of the ditch. About 4 am the fog lifted and the first hint of daylight appeared in the sky. I walked up a steep hill, a switchback, climbing out of a deep dark valley. As I walked over the crest I saw the most beautiful sight I have ever seen: a ship, perhaps 300 feet long, with multi-colored lights draped from bow to stern, passing up through the rigging of the tramps crane and mast. The town itself was smaller, just ten or fifteen small pastel colored shacks. I walked onboard, found myself a bench and went to sleep. An hour after the boat left port the bursar found me. I paid for a ticket to Port-aux-Basque and went back to sleep.
For the next two days we drifted along the south shore of Newfoundland stopping at one village after another. At one village I got off to explore while the ship exchanged cargo. An entire town had moved from one side of a river to another to accommodate a larger pier. I asked a local what the cost of a house was there. He blinked at me in disbelief then said, “We have lots of houses here, pick one. We’ll outfit it for ya!” A foghorn lament announced the departure of the tramp so I hopped back onboard and watched the little village that would have welcomed me slide slowly into the mist. So many “what ifs.”
John Hanson Mitchell’s new book “The Rose Café” is the tale of a quest. He is a young student studying in Paris in the early 1960’s. He is bored and uninspired, in other words, a typical French student filled with ennui. He is both unable and uninterested in writing although he carries an empty notebook with him wherever he goes. A chance offer takes him to Corsica where he ingratiated himself with the owner of “The Rose Café” who offers him a job for the season cleaning fish and sweeping up for room and board. What follows is a wonderfully charming account of the local characters. Mitchell’s ability to delve into the characters of the local town is reminiscent of Dickens. The collection of characters is wonderful and we get a small town full: There is Le Baron, the aristocratic patron with a very shady background, the agonizingly French tease Marie and classic French lovers Jean-Paul and Micheline to name just a few.
Mitchell has always been adept at describing Place. His “Ceremonial Time” covers the details of one square mile of land in Littleton Massachusetts where living characters provide an anthropomorphic dimension to the geography. With “Living at the End of Time” he explores both eccentric people and the detail of his environment in a Waldenesque shack. We dig deeper into the quest experience with “Walking Towards Walden: A Pilgrimage in Search of Place” where “Place” still takes prominence. In Mitchell’s book “Looking for Mr. Gilbert: The Reimagined Life of an African American” we finally see what he can do with character development. Place is replaced by Character.
“The Rose Café” is the crescendo of Mitchell’s quest. While we get his usual treatment of the geography in intimate detail where necessary, it never overwhelms the characters that bring light to the scenery. The description of a dilapidated farmhouse surrounded by semi-wild donkeys is just enough to illuminate the eccentricities of the farmer/donkey herder who tells us fantastical stories about the locals. We get to know the people of Corsica and the arid scrub they inhabit through Mitchell’s eyes.
At the end of the tourist season Mitchell leaves Corsica and returns to school. In a final brilliant tease, Mitchell’s last sentence says more about Corsica, its society and his characters than all the rest of the book. It’s marvelous and you’ll put the book down after a good knee-slapping laugh.
When Mitchell left Corsica he began to write. His quest had only begun and we hope will never be over. A very charming book recommended to all.
Steve Glines/ Ibbetson Update/ April 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
At the reception for Poetry Festival
( Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Doran)
Doug Holder/Dianne Robitaille at the reception for The Boston National Poetry Festival. http://tapestryofvoices.com
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Hanging Loose 90
Hanging Loose 90. (231 Wyckoff St. Brooklyn, NY 11217) http://www.hangingloosepress.com/ $11
Mark Pawlak, who along with Somerville, Mass. resident Dick Lourie and Robert Hershon, is an editor of the venerable small press and literary magazine “Hanging Loose.” Pawlak sent me the latest issue of “Hanging Loose with a note steering me to his article concerning the late, celebrated Somerville poet Denise Levertov, and her husband Mitch Goldman. Pawlak met and was befriended by Levertov when he was a student at MIT in the late 60’s. Pawlak gives the reader a view of the poetic as well as the political life of Levertov, who was a dyed-in-the-wool civil rights and anti-war activist. Pawlak points out that Levertov distrusted formal education, and for the most part was an autodidact. Pawlak writes:
“Denise distrusted formal education, which she felt all too frequently resulted in mis-education.”
Pawlak reports that Levertov proved to be an endless font of wisdom about her craft. He writes:
“Denise admonished me: It was not worth my while, nor was it productive for me to keep struggling with one particular poem in an effort to get it ‘right.’ Sometimes you have to give it up—abandon it was the word she used… You have to move on and open yourself to new poems.”
Pawlak who is well-regarded both as an editor and a poet was told by Levertov not to become an editor:
“Denise professed to greatly value the work of magazine and press editors, admitting that she would find it hard to survive as a writer with out their efforts, but she nevertheless thought that to become one was the death knell for a poet. Denise believed in the primacy of the poet’s calling and jealously guarded her time to write.”
Also in this issue is some fine poetry. I greatly enjoyed the lead poem by Jack Anderson “As We Grow Old Together”
As We Grow Old Together
We do not mention it, ever,
yet every morning we study each other,
and although each of us surely suspects,
we say nothing about it,
yet every morning we study each other,
searching for any new and suspicious
never before noticed tremble or quaver;
without saying anything we watch what we do.
and when we start talking we track our words,
alert for any fresh memory collapse,
any phrase that unravels and trails off to no end
or runs headlong away, then limps into mumble,
and after we’ve carefully studied each other
we sigh with relief, happy to find
we can go on as before at least one day more,
so we say “Good morning” and give thanks it is good.
Highly Recommended.
Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update
Mark Pawlak, who along with Somerville, Mass. resident Dick Lourie and Robert Hershon, is an editor of the venerable small press and literary magazine “Hanging Loose.” Pawlak sent me the latest issue of “Hanging Loose with a note steering me to his article concerning the late, celebrated Somerville poet Denise Levertov, and her husband Mitch Goldman. Pawlak met and was befriended by Levertov when he was a student at MIT in the late 60’s. Pawlak gives the reader a view of the poetic as well as the political life of Levertov, who was a dyed-in-the-wool civil rights and anti-war activist. Pawlak points out that Levertov distrusted formal education, and for the most part was an autodidact. Pawlak writes:
“Denise distrusted formal education, which she felt all too frequently resulted in mis-education.”
Pawlak reports that Levertov proved to be an endless font of wisdom about her craft. He writes:
“Denise admonished me: It was not worth my while, nor was it productive for me to keep struggling with one particular poem in an effort to get it ‘right.’ Sometimes you have to give it up—abandon it was the word she used… You have to move on and open yourself to new poems.”
Pawlak who is well-regarded both as an editor and a poet was told by Levertov not to become an editor:
“Denise professed to greatly value the work of magazine and press editors, admitting that she would find it hard to survive as a writer with out their efforts, but she nevertheless thought that to become one was the death knell for a poet. Denise believed in the primacy of the poet’s calling and jealously guarded her time to write.”
Also in this issue is some fine poetry. I greatly enjoyed the lead poem by Jack Anderson “As We Grow Old Together”
As We Grow Old Together
We do not mention it, ever,
yet every morning we study each other,
and although each of us surely suspects,
we say nothing about it,
yet every morning we study each other,
searching for any new and suspicious
never before noticed tremble or quaver;
without saying anything we watch what we do.
and when we start talking we track our words,
alert for any fresh memory collapse,
any phrase that unravels and trails off to no end
or runs headlong away, then limps into mumble,
and after we’ve carefully studied each other
we sigh with relief, happy to find
we can go on as before at least one day more,
so we say “Good morning” and give thanks it is good.
Highly Recommended.
Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update
Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky to receive Ibbetson Street Press Lifetime Achievement Award in Nov. 2007
Former national Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky will be the recipient of the Ibbetson Street Press Lifetime Achievement award, as part of the "Somerville News Writers Festival" (Nov. 11 2007) to be held at Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway Theatre in Davis Square, Somerville. Former winners were poets Robert K. Johnson, Jack Powers, former Grolier Poetry Book Shop owner Louisa Solano, and publisher David R. Godine, founder of "David R. Godine, Inc."
The (2007) "Somerville News Writers Festival" founded by Doug Holder and Tim Gager, will also include featured reader Tom Perrotta, poets: Sarah Hannah, Danielle Georges, Gloria Mindock and others to be announced. Over the last five years the festival has included such poets and writers as : Lan Samantha Chang, Franz Wright, Sue Miller, Steve Almond, Robert Olen Butler, Afaa Michael Weaver, Nick Flynn and
many others.
For more info go to http://somervillenewswritersfestival.com
Monday, April 09, 2007
Poet Michael Brown Brings His " Poetry Extravaganza" To Davis Square, Somerville.
Poet Michael Brown Brings His ‘Poetry Extravaganza’ To Davis Square
Well poetry month comes to the ‘ville April 22 at 7:30 PM at Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway Theatre when celebrated local poet Michael Brown brings his ‘Poetry Extravaganza’ to this Davis Square venue. Ten poets will make a return visit to the theatre as part of “Dr. Brown’s Traveling Poetry Show.” Such well- know slam and performance poets like: Doug Bishop, Jonathan Chin, Melissa Guillet, Valerie Lawson, Ryk McIntyre ,Tom Daley and Maia Radhakrishnan will relive their childhood memories, reinvent an eclectic collection of characters, rage against the machine, throw barbs at the nattering nabobs of negativism, etc… in this unique showcase. This performance piece is directed by Brown. Brown is the author of four books of poetry, a national slam finalist, a PhD, and is known for bringing the poetry slam to Boston from his native Chicago through his venue at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge, Mass. that he had hosted for 13 years.
Part two of the program will be hosted by SlamMaster Simone Beaubien. Beaubien took over the Cantab Slam venue for Brown, and the general consensus is that she reinvigorated this celebrated series. Beaubien will direct the “Boston Poetry Slam” part of the “Extravaganza” in which six all-star local poets, selected from Boston’s slam community will compete for the attention of a hopefully animated audience, and the discerning judges. I spoke with Brown recently about his latest project.
Doug Holder: First off "Dr. Brown's Traveling Poetry Show" is a performance poetry show. Isn't all spoken word performance to some extent?
Well poetry month comes to the ‘ville April 22 at 7:30 PM at Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway Theatre when celebrated local poet Michael Brown brings his ‘Poetry Extravaganza’ to this Davis Square venue. Ten poets will make a return visit to the theatre as part of “Dr. Brown’s Traveling Poetry Show.” Such well- know slam and performance poets like: Doug Bishop, Jonathan Chin, Melissa Guillet, Valerie Lawson, Ryk McIntyre ,Tom Daley and Maia Radhakrishnan will relive their childhood memories, reinvent an eclectic collection of characters, rage against the machine, throw barbs at the nattering nabobs of negativism, etc… in this unique showcase. This performance piece is directed by Brown. Brown is the author of four books of poetry, a national slam finalist, a PhD, and is known for bringing the poetry slam to Boston from his native Chicago through his venue at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge, Mass. that he had hosted for 13 years.
Part two of the program will be hosted by SlamMaster Simone Beaubien. Beaubien took over the Cantab Slam venue for Brown, and the general consensus is that she reinvigorated this celebrated series. Beaubien will direct the “Boston Poetry Slam” part of the “Extravaganza” in which six all-star local poets, selected from Boston’s slam community will compete for the attention of a hopefully animated audience, and the discerning judges. I spoke with Brown recently about his latest project.
Doug Holder: First off "Dr. Brown's Traveling Poetry Show" is a performance poetry show. Isn't all spoken word performance to some extent?
Mike Brown: Sure, all spoken word is performance, but certainly not all poetry presented orally is performance. In fact it has taken quite a while for some poets who do readings to realize how badly they do that. I suspect some will continue reading badly to set themselves apart from spoken word. What we seek with the Dr Brown’s show is to affect the audience with the immediacy of art.You have ten poets in this show.
DH: How do you blend their styles into a cohesive performance piece?
MB: Each show is different. We may do themed shows, such as political, comic, love stories, or Disney-connected poems, for example. But most of our shows are themed based on what the poets want to do at the time. A few days before each show I have the participants e-mail me the titles of the poems (including last lines) they would like to do. I arrange those in a set list. At its simplest, the set list progresses by association, so that one poem follows another. I don’t necessarily try to blend their styles. Each voice is unique and contrast has more value than closeness. Since we perform throughout the room, we try to have poets start at a distance from the previous poem. That facilitates contrast.
MB: Each show is different. We may do themed shows, such as political, comic, love stories, or Disney-connected poems, for example. But most of our shows are themed based on what the poets want to do at the time. A few days before each show I have the participants e-mail me the titles of the poems (including last lines) they would like to do. I arrange those in a set list. At its simplest, the set list progresses by association, so that one poem follows another. I don’t necessarily try to blend their styles. Each voice is unique and contrast has more value than closeness. Since we perform throughout the room, we try to have poets start at a distance from the previous poem. That facilitates contrast.
DH: Can you talk about some of the featured poets?
MB: I can talk about many of the poets, but not for print. Bada bing!
Mala Radhakrishnan is probably the best example of what this group can do. A Ph.D. candidate in chemistry at MIT, she plays piano and does half a dozen other interesting things. When we first met, she thought her poetry had a limited shelf life because, while witty, it was all about chemistry. She has found that audiences like that. At the same time, she has expanded what she writes about.
At his best, Ryk McIntyre is a great audience favorite. At his worst he can scare whole rooms full of people. Other than myself, he has probably been doing this longer than anyone in our group. Ryk’s wife, Melissa Guillet brings an ethereal and musical grace to what we do.
Douglas Bishop is also a seasoned performer and producer of many group shows. The lyrical quality of his work is unsurpassed.
Tom Daley, like his famous sister Katie, has a great facility with characters and voices, pastoral wit, and keen imagery.
Valerie Lawson is a mainstay, one of those solid mid-group poets with a great range of material—Duchamp, women’s hockey, love and peace. If we were a relay team, she would be the anchor.
Jeff Taylor is the wackiest one in our group. If it has to do with weird people (a guy afraid of cheese), a strange take on politics (Bush’s motivational switches), or late night, drug-induced comedy, it’s Jeff’s.
Jonathan Chin is our newest, a BU student seriously dedicated to poetry whose voice grows with each show.
Melissa Bates is probably has the greatest difficulty performing. We all find memorization difficult, and she finds it agony to stand in front of an audience and deliver. But she pitches women’s softball, so she knows how to stay in there.
Michael Mack is the opposite. He probably has least difficulty with memorization and is the most comfortable with performance. That does not mean he is the best performer. As I always say in workshops, “If you are not nervous about this, you don’t know what you are doing.” Michael knows, but he does this so much, he can get blasé.
DH: The second part of the show will be hosted by SlamMaster Simone Beaubien. Can you define Slam for the uninformed? Who will be featured in this part of the program?
MB: Slam is a competition in which poets are judged Olympic-style on content and performance. Simone has promised to bring the best six poets from the current stable at the Cantab Lounge, but she won’t say who they are, and I can’t force Simone to do anything she does not want to do.
DH: Is performance and slam poetry well-represented around the country for poetry month?
MB: Yes, but…. I first heard from Marge Piercy that poetry month was an invention of publishers and booksellers to profit from the resurgence of interest in poetry. The problem is that, while much of that interest has been fueled by performance poetry, publishers are not looking to put out books by performance poets. Peter Davison, longtime poetry editor for The Atlantic pointed out that performance poetry was having a positive effect on poetry readings. Audiences no longer tolerated being held captive by very bad readers. Those who make a distinction between performance poetry and page poetry now book performance poets to enliven otherwise dull readings by name page poets, especially during poetry month. I defer to Goethe: “Comparisons are odious.” If you don’t think performance poetry is real poetry, I’ll bet you $15. Come to our show. At the end of the evening, if you want your money back, see me.
Doug Holder
For tickets go to http://www.jtoffbroadway.com/
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Review of "On the Line" by Don Winter
On The Line
By Don Winter
2006; 14pp; BoneWorld Publishing,
3700 County Route 24,
Russell, NY 13684. $4.
Reviewed By Michael Kriesel
Winter’s 1st chapbook (also by BoneWorld) had greater depth and range of subject matter. But there are gems here, especially the fast food worker poems. “My first real wage job was at the Niles, MI, Burger Chef,” Don said in an online interview. “I had burger production ingrained into me, position by position: food preparer, cashier, even hostess (no joke)…all the way up to night manager. The battle to somehow live a voluntary, purposive life in that kind of world is reflected in those poems.”
Winter brings grace to his subjects. Here’s the first half of “The Tacoma Tavern.”
“is drunk with rain. / And our tables are careless / with empty bottles, cigarette ash. / And we run our fevers / up over a hundred / arm wrestling our motorcycle buddies, / drinking pitchers on one breath / for a dollar. And we try to drink enough / to lose our names. / And we make up stories to fit / the bad things, by turns hero and victim. / And the waitress acts vaguely in love / with each man.”
His other gift is an ability to speak for the ones at the bottom. “us…good for nothings, wrong / since Genesis.” Those fucked by “factories everywhere / slamming shut like empty cash drawers.”
“I love, and have been influenced by, the poetry of Thomas McGrath,” Winter explained. “He was educated, brilliant, and famous, but had the guts to write poems from the position of the working class poor, from that life and that labor being economically exploited, even though the academics hated him for it, and threw him out for it.”
Perhaps inspired by McGrath, who’s known for his epic “Letter To An Imaginary Friend,” Winter tries a longer poem (7 pages) in this chapbook. He’s also been recently writing short, haiku-ish pieces. I hope he keeps trying new things. He’s one of the best poets in small press…and the one with the most undeveloped potential. His bio notes mention how before a 1998 divorce reduced him to poverty, Winter owned Southeast Real Estate. Worked 16-hour days. Drove 100 mph in his sports car. “Carried a revolver in the front pocket of my leather duster, and lived in a custom-built home on Lake Tuscaloosa.”
More recently, he attended college at the University of Anchorage, serving as assistant editor of the Alaska Quarterly. Currently, Don’s one of the editors of the zine “Fight These Bastards.” And he’s back in Michigan, taking care of elderly parents. His mom and dad both have cancer.
Here’s hoping Don begins to write about these other lives, somewhere down the line.
By Don Winter
2006; 14pp; BoneWorld Publishing,
3700 County Route 24,
Russell, NY 13684. $4.
Reviewed By Michael Kriesel
Winter’s 1st chapbook (also by BoneWorld) had greater depth and range of subject matter. But there are gems here, especially the fast food worker poems. “My first real wage job was at the Niles, MI, Burger Chef,” Don said in an online interview. “I had burger production ingrained into me, position by position: food preparer, cashier, even hostess (no joke)…all the way up to night manager. The battle to somehow live a voluntary, purposive life in that kind of world is reflected in those poems.”
Winter brings grace to his subjects. Here’s the first half of “The Tacoma Tavern.”
“is drunk with rain. / And our tables are careless / with empty bottles, cigarette ash. / And we run our fevers / up over a hundred / arm wrestling our motorcycle buddies, / drinking pitchers on one breath / for a dollar. And we try to drink enough / to lose our names. / And we make up stories to fit / the bad things, by turns hero and victim. / And the waitress acts vaguely in love / with each man.”
His other gift is an ability to speak for the ones at the bottom. “us…good for nothings, wrong / since Genesis.” Those fucked by “factories everywhere / slamming shut like empty cash drawers.”
“I love, and have been influenced by, the poetry of Thomas McGrath,” Winter explained. “He was educated, brilliant, and famous, but had the guts to write poems from the position of the working class poor, from that life and that labor being economically exploited, even though the academics hated him for it, and threw him out for it.”
Perhaps inspired by McGrath, who’s known for his epic “Letter To An Imaginary Friend,” Winter tries a longer poem (7 pages) in this chapbook. He’s also been recently writing short, haiku-ish pieces. I hope he keeps trying new things. He’s one of the best poets in small press…and the one with the most undeveloped potential. His bio notes mention how before a 1998 divorce reduced him to poverty, Winter owned Southeast Real Estate. Worked 16-hour days. Drove 100 mph in his sports car. “Carried a revolver in the front pocket of my leather duster, and lived in a custom-built home on Lake Tuscaloosa.”
More recently, he attended college at the University of Anchorage, serving as assistant editor of the Alaska Quarterly. Currently, Don’s one of the editors of the zine “Fight These Bastards.” And he’s back in Michigan, taking care of elderly parents. His mom and dad both have cancer.
Here’s hoping Don begins to write about these other lives, somewhere down the line.
Review of "Some Global Positioning Dharma" Richard Krech
Krech (left) Thurston Moore (Right)
Some Global Positioning Dharma Richard Krech (Round Barn Press 945 Kains Ave Albany, CA. 94706)
This is a book of simple poems that speak of balance, harmony, and the eternal. They remind of me of the still sheet of some isolated pond that is slightly broken by a stone cast on its waters.
So it follows Krech has a poem “Art Therapy”: “To paint the big picture/ w/exquisite detail/ &economy of words. / No easy task. I choose/ to break off smaller chunks/ & make what I can
of them. / throwing pebbles in a pond.”
And here is a well-rendered picture of the simple beauty of a meal eaten over the Bay of Tangiers: “Ramadan Evening (Tangiers 1989)”:
I see people sitting at tables
looking over the By of Tangiers
hot steam rising
from their bowls.
Poised/ Time Suspends/ Sky Darkens.
The muezzin cries.
After giving thanks
they eat.
A fine collection of quiet, calming and crafted poetry by Richard Krech.
Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update
for more on the author go to http://www.verdantpress.com/krech.html
This is a book of simple poems that speak of balance, harmony, and the eternal. They remind of me of the still sheet of some isolated pond that is slightly broken by a stone cast on its waters.
So it follows Krech has a poem “Art Therapy”: “To paint the big picture/ w/exquisite detail/ &economy of words. / No easy task. I choose/ to break off smaller chunks/ & make what I can
of them. / throwing pebbles in a pond.”
And here is a well-rendered picture of the simple beauty of a meal eaten over the Bay of Tangiers: “Ramadan Evening (Tangiers 1989)”:
I see people sitting at tables
looking over the By of Tangiers
hot steam rising
from their bowls.
Poised/ Time Suspends/ Sky Darkens.
The muezzin cries.
After giving thanks
they eat.
A fine collection of quiet, calming and crafted poetry by Richard Krech.
Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update
for more on the author go to http://www.verdantpress.com/krech.html
Friday, April 06, 2007
Interview with Poet Ellaraine Lockie with Pablo Teasdale
Interview with Poet Ellaraine Lockie
By: Pablo Teasdale
Pablo: I'm very glad for the opportunity of interviewing you, Ellaraine. Your audience is rapidly growing, and I'm not the only one who wants to know how you think. So. . . Femininity is very evident and strong in your poems. Could you please express how your beauty and femininity translate into thought and word?
Ellaraine: Thank you, Pablo, for doing the interview. I'm smiling at this first question. The last person who bought a copy of my chapbook, Finishing Lines, was a woman medical doctor from Russia who is well-read in poetry. She said after reading it, "You write like a man."
And the judge of the recent Elizabeth Curry Award from SLAB at the University of Slippery Rock, in writing the analysis of the winning poem (which was mine), referred to the poet throughout as "he." (The contest entries were anonymous.) I think this was because the poem reflected a realistic look at Montana farm life, and it also used the word "bullshit."
But okay, two of my collections (Midlife Muse and Crossing the Center Line) have dealt with a most feminine issue--that of menopause. The poems in them have struck a cord with many women because I openly address experiences that they are either too embarrassed to talk about or sometimes even to think about. And I have quite a few poems about sexuality, one collection in particular about illicit love affairs (Coloring Outside the Lines). Another in progress is a collection on electronic love. These are all written from a woman's viewpoint, either my own or others', mostly women's.
I feel more qualified to write from a woman's stance for the obvious reason. When I do so, as I do with every poem, I try to strip the layers away of whatever subject I'm addressing until I'm down to the core of it. This requires an unflinching look and a willingness to write what I find there, no matter what is revealed. These are truths as I either experience them or observe them. That's what poetry should do I believe--deliver the truth. And I do think that the truth is perhaps harder to communicate sometimes for women, especially of my generation. We were brought up not to say the word fuck, for instance, when men said it all the time. But there are scenarios that can only be described by using the word. I have a poem, in fact, about how my daughters taught me that it was okay to use it. It's a very effective word, as long as it's used sparingly.
Pablo: How do you define truth in poetry? How factual are your truths?
Ellaraine: Poetry by definition is creative writing. Many poets and readers forget that and put poetry in a memoir or diary category. In the workshop that I teach, "From Picture Books to Poetry," I've started having students write "lies" just to get them feeling comfortable with the creative aspect of poetry, because sometimes we have to write non-factually, either to get at core truths or to make our poems the best they can be. The term "poetic license" didn't become cliché for nothing.
For me, the excellence of the poem is the only criteria for honesty. Of course I'm not advocating telling lies about particular people in poems. In fact, that's one of the great things about creative writing--being able to change say, from first person to third person at will, thus protecting everyone's privacy--including my own. I often write someone else's experience in first person and my own in third person. Also, many of my poems are composite poems--ones that utilize multiple people and/or experiences but then tie them all together in one voice. And I never tell which poems, or which parts of a poem, are factual. It's a question I get often at readings, and I have to clamp my mouth shut in order to avoid giving a lecture.
Sometimes, too, poems inherently demand deviations from facts in order to read musically or to follow a particular form. And what difference does it make if a dress is red instead of blue or if the experiences in the poem really happened to five people instead of one? The only thing that matters is that the poem reads true, and the readers will know when it does.
Pablo: Do you have any expressible thoughts regarding writers (and poets in particular) using opposite gender pen names or about the use of pen names in general?
Ellaraine: Oh, for sure I do. First of all, pen names no matter what gender, are great fun, and they have a way of becoming alter egos. For instance, I often use mine in public. Everyone at the local Starbucks where I write every morning knows me as the first name of one of my pen names. (It's so much easier to remember than Ellaraine.) And let's face it, there are times in life that maybe we don't want to use our real name.
Writing-wise, having pen names has allowed me to get poems published that wouldn't be copasetic with the image of a children's picture book writer, a market that I wish to enter. Publishers aren't likely to want a picture book writer, at least until she/he is established in the picture book market, to be known for sometimes writing sexually explicit poetry. This type of conflict of interest is all the more relevant because of the Internet.
I've also found the made-up names to be handy in protecting others' privacy. For instance, I just wrote a poem about an experience my daughter had touring Europe as a member of a fairly famous rock band. To use my name, the last of which is also her name, would identify her and this band. She would be furious, and I wouldn't blame her.
Then sometimes we poets just want to pursue several different styles of writing, and for me it works to have different personas holding the pen. Oh yes, and it intrigues a fair percentage of editors/publishers. One of my pens has an ongoing correspondence with one of my editor's pen names. It's belly-laughing hilarious.
I have three pen names. The first one originated back when I was first writing children's picture book manuscripts. I'd sent seven, one at a time as they were rejected, to a certain publisher when she wrote back and told me not to submit any more. I was green then as a writer, and this upset me terribly because I felt that all of my children's stories were vastly different from one another, and I had several more to send. So I made up a name, used a friend's address and sent the rest. She didn't take one, but at least I had the satisfaction of knowing they were read.
Now I tell all perspective editors in my submission letters when I'm using a pen name. That's the right thing to do, and the right thing for them to do is to protect my privacy, which they've always honored.
My two additional pen personalities were born when I wanted to enter twelve poems in a contest with a theme, but the publisher's rule was one entry of three poems per poet. So I wrote and asked if three pen names could each enter three poems in addition to mine (paying of course the entry fees for all entries.) The answer was yes, and subsequently all but one of us were published in the winners' anthology.
And did I mention the romance or mystique of having a made-up name or two?
Pablo: Now I thought we'd deviate from the usual interview questions and go a little deeper. Let's start with this one: Why are men still ruling and running the planet?
Ellaraine: Brute force. In the end, after all discussion about women's rights and equal opportunities, men are still physically more powerful than women. In many parts of the world men are legally allowed to use physical force against women--to go even as far as killing them. And in parts of the world where it isn't legal, it still not only happens, but the fact and the threat often stand between the sexes as an unconscious force that influences not only relationships but community, state, national and international policies.
Pablo: How are you affected by your dreaming life?
Ellaraine: I love having dreams--even the nightmarish ones, because they mean that I've been able to get into a deep sleep. I've battled insomnia for twelve years and have tried every remedy out there, I think, including two extensive stays at the Stanford Sleep Clinic.
Before that, most dreams seemed like a continuation of my life, some euphoric and some horrendous but most rather day-to-day-like. I've never spent much time analyzing them, but one particular and reoccurring dream fascinates me enough that I recently wrote a poem about it. It involves flying, or perhaps floating in the air above every earthly thing. I'm often in the form of an eagle. This is an incredibly happy experience and leads me to suspect that I've either been an eagle or that I will be one eventually. The closest awake feeling to this that I've ever had is when I do Tai Chi, where I sometimes feel like I'm floating through clouds. I didn't reach that state until I'd practiced Tai Chi for fifteen-plus years.
Pablo: I find it more and more difficult to think of God in terms of gender. I won't elaborate. What would your thoughts be on this?
Ellaraine: I stopped thinking of God as a kind-looking man with a beard when I stopped attending church after I left home for college. God, for me, rather has evolved into a force. I find this force in everything--people, animals, trees, rocks, the earth itself. It's all connected. Nothing affirmed this more for me than attending a writers' retreat called "Writing the World" two years ago in the Sonoran Desert with Harvey Stanbrough at the helm. Harvey is one of my poetry mentors. I'd like to add one of the resulting poems from his retreat at the end of this interview if there is space. I think if we all adhered to what Harvey teaches in this retreat, there wouldn't be any more wars. I wish its attendance were required for all world leaders.
Pablo: For this question I must loosely paraphrase the poet William Everson. He believed that there was a "mantle" the poet could put on (if it fit) that endowed the poet with authority and that this was not to be taken lightly. What are your thoughts on this?
Ellaraine: I'm not familiar with William Everson or his stance on this subject, but my definition of a powerful poem is generally one that is written by someone who comes across as an authority on that which she/he has written. Fakes usually can't pull off a good poem; the mantle just isn't going to fit.
As for a poet having this kind of authority, who better to have it other than a person who is committed to write truth? Is there responsibility on the part of the poet? Tremendous, but it's to the poet him/herself. Readers are free to choose the impact the poem has on them.
Pablo: If a complete stranger were to trust her infant to you to nurture until the child was three years old, what single thing would you feel was most important for that child?
Ellaraine: Security, in all it's facets: To be fed when hungry, to have its thirst quenched, to be physically held and emotionally nurtured, to be kept as safe and pain-free as possible and to be taught that someone loves it enough to enforce gentle, consistent and nonviolent discipline when the age/stage requires it.
Pablo: What in your opinion is the biggest source of trouble in the world today and what do you think can realistically be done about it?
Ellaraine: I don't think there's any all-encompassing answer to this; the questions are much too complex for the space I have, not only on paper but in my mind.
I've been lucky enough to travel extensively, and the happiest people I've encountered are perhaps those in cultures that put the least emphasis on material things that money can buy and who put a big emphasis on family and community. It seems to me that status quo gets out of kilter, even in these societies, when part of the people get overly greedy--for things, money or power.
What to do about it? I might know more about what not to do about it, and that's not to force one's government or religion on other countries or cultures that have functioned in their own ways since the beginning of time. (I believe this comes under the "power" part of greed.) Of course, we could try to send everyone to Harvey's "Writing the World" retreat; but there I go, trying to push my own beliefs on others.
Pablo: Imagine with me please. If you were marooned on a remote island with two strangers. . . a world class female athlete and a female astrophysicist, what synthesis of thought might the three of you produce?
Ellaraine: Boy, you weren't kidding when you said we were going to skip the usual questions and go a little deeper. This is about the strangest question anyone has ever asked me.
Okay. I know a bit about survival, not from fighting for it myself but from hearing about it through those close to me who did: my parents and grandparents, who homesteaded on the Montana prairie in the late 1800s. And that's what we're talking about here--survival.
My grandparents, when they were dependent upon the land for their livelihood, had little time to synthesize their thoughts in any way that didn't involve feeding and clothing themselves and their families.
And that's what the three of us marooned on a remote island would be strategizing too. The thought of it makes me squirm with how little I'd be able to contribute--perhaps the spinning of yarn from wild animals that the athlete would capture and then the knitting of those yarns into warmth to cover with and wear for insulation from exposure. I could make paper out of natural fibers, one of my true craft talents, and sew clothes from the bark of trees.
I would likely be the one to do the killing for food after the athlete hunted down the animals. I can mercy-kill, again as a result of growing up in Montana, so I could kill to stay alive. I might be able to make a fire from two sticks of wood, as a result of an excellent demonstration in a Masai village in Kenya recently.
As for the astrophysicist's contribution, she'd probably entertain us at night with her extensive knowledge, as we lie gazing at the stars. I could fictionalize and poetize what she said and record it using natural plant dyes on the handmade papers. Eventually, we'd probably discuss lesbianism.
Pablo: The world is ending tomorrow at noon. What will you do between now and then?
Ellaraine: I'll gather up my family and anyone we love who chooses to come, and we'll cook and eat a last meal together, incorporating everyone's favorite foods and wines. (Mine will be popcorn, any Caparone wine, homemade bread and Ben and Jerry's Coffee Heathbar Crunch Ice Cream.) Then we'll make music together. (My family is very musical.) Then we'll break into privacy, with partners or vibrators or magazines or whatever works, for a final sexual encounter. Lastly, we'll all hold hands, tell stories about each other as though we were attending our own funerals, and then we'd vow to meet in our afterlives.
Of course, this is all idealized. Maybe I'll just be immobilized by fear of pain and death or crazy in anguish that children and grandchildren, all of them all over, won't have a chance to live full lives. Who really knows how any of us will react in outrageous situations?
_______________________________________
Ellaraine writes poetry, nonfiction books, magazine articles/columns and children's stories. She is a well-published and awarded poet who has received ten nominations for Pushcart Prizes in poetry and has three published chapbooks: Midlife Muse, Poetry Forum, Crossing the Center Line, Sweet Annie Press and Coloring Outside the Lines, The Plowman Press. She also teaches school and community poetry workshops.
Her nonfiction books are All Because of a Button: Folklore, Fact and Fiction, St. Johann Press; The Gourmet Paper Maker, Creative Publishing, and The Low Lactose Kitchen Companion and Cookbook forthcoming in 2007.
Ellaraine has recently been to Kenya on a poetry fellowship and to Centrum in Port Townsend, WA, for a poetry residency. She has just received the Elizabeth Curry Award from SLAB at the University of Slippery Rock in PA. Forthcoming is a chaplet, Roadtrip, from the Rooftop Chaplet series and a chapbook, Blue Ribbons at the County Fair, from PWJ Publishing.
_______________________________________
Writers' Retreat
. . . observe the things that were and watch them pass, not rushing them along nor holding them too tightly.-- Great Expectations, Harvey Stanbrough
He speaks of writing the world
Of sensing the wholeness first
While we sit on hay bales
Pens in hand
Near the edge of an Arizona night
Our mentor encircles the gift of knowledge
His words unwrap it
Ribbons of preconceptions
fall to the Sonoran floor
Sharp observations cut away the clothes
that seam our separateness
from sand, saguaro, hawk
grasshopper and sunset
He casts a last ray of sun
on the continuous web
that weaves us all together
The spider who snares a butterfly
in a creosote bush
Whose seeds feed a kangaroo rat
The two toads who have enrolled in the retreat
And me watching a beetle spin in circles
fighting its own fading light
on a picnic table just out of reach
We're all related says our mentor
Cousin Coyote, grandfather owl
His words soft now in the silk of night
Brother beetle has flipped onto his back
Legs beating against the darkness
His dirge in baritone buzz
is steel wool that scours the sage's waxed words
While the other listeners lean into enlightenment
I curl up in confusion's shadow
Words of patience and intimate observation
waft by in the grey zone
The buzz is bright white and the beat of legs blinding
I want to yank that connecting web
Hang the beetle with Hemlock Society blessing
But I wedge my hands and their traitorous twitch
between butt and hay bale
Our mentor's final message for the evening
comes on sound waves so round and full
they overflow the soul with ancestral memories
And of the branch from which the flute was formed
Even the beetle is silent
But suddenly propelled by unexplained energy
onto the plate of leftover vegetable wraps
landing up-side down and mute
His legs still moving
The man of wisdom and music sits down as I leap up
Sledge a book of poetry onto the plate
The web snaps like a rubber band
and the entire Sonoran Desert winces
But I'm the one with the welt
that stings and reddens my cheek
_______________________________________
Pablo Teasdale’s first interview was with Raquel Welch when he was a sailor and she was a new star. Since then, he has interviewed many artists formally and informally. . . both well-know and unknown. Among the notables: Anais Nin, Bob Hope, Lyn Lifshin, James Leo Herlihy and Brian Morissey. His drawings have been published in the U. S. A. and Germany. His synthesizer compositions are used by poets and dancers in live and broadcast productions internationally. Teasdale has been the subject of four documentaries and lives in Santa Cruz, California. He is currently writing a memoir titled, "Let Me Tell You About My Redundancy Again."
By: Pablo Teasdale
Pablo: I'm very glad for the opportunity of interviewing you, Ellaraine. Your audience is rapidly growing, and I'm not the only one who wants to know how you think. So. . . Femininity is very evident and strong in your poems. Could you please express how your beauty and femininity translate into thought and word?
Ellaraine: Thank you, Pablo, for doing the interview. I'm smiling at this first question. The last person who bought a copy of my chapbook, Finishing Lines, was a woman medical doctor from Russia who is well-read in poetry. She said after reading it, "You write like a man."
And the judge of the recent Elizabeth Curry Award from SLAB at the University of Slippery Rock, in writing the analysis of the winning poem (which was mine), referred to the poet throughout as "he." (The contest entries were anonymous.) I think this was because the poem reflected a realistic look at Montana farm life, and it also used the word "bullshit."
But okay, two of my collections (Midlife Muse and Crossing the Center Line) have dealt with a most feminine issue--that of menopause. The poems in them have struck a cord with many women because I openly address experiences that they are either too embarrassed to talk about or sometimes even to think about. And I have quite a few poems about sexuality, one collection in particular about illicit love affairs (Coloring Outside the Lines). Another in progress is a collection on electronic love. These are all written from a woman's viewpoint, either my own or others', mostly women's.
I feel more qualified to write from a woman's stance for the obvious reason. When I do so, as I do with every poem, I try to strip the layers away of whatever subject I'm addressing until I'm down to the core of it. This requires an unflinching look and a willingness to write what I find there, no matter what is revealed. These are truths as I either experience them or observe them. That's what poetry should do I believe--deliver the truth. And I do think that the truth is perhaps harder to communicate sometimes for women, especially of my generation. We were brought up not to say the word fuck, for instance, when men said it all the time. But there are scenarios that can only be described by using the word. I have a poem, in fact, about how my daughters taught me that it was okay to use it. It's a very effective word, as long as it's used sparingly.
Pablo: How do you define truth in poetry? How factual are your truths?
Ellaraine: Poetry by definition is creative writing. Many poets and readers forget that and put poetry in a memoir or diary category. In the workshop that I teach, "From Picture Books to Poetry," I've started having students write "lies" just to get them feeling comfortable with the creative aspect of poetry, because sometimes we have to write non-factually, either to get at core truths or to make our poems the best they can be. The term "poetic license" didn't become cliché for nothing.
For me, the excellence of the poem is the only criteria for honesty. Of course I'm not advocating telling lies about particular people in poems. In fact, that's one of the great things about creative writing--being able to change say, from first person to third person at will, thus protecting everyone's privacy--including my own. I often write someone else's experience in first person and my own in third person. Also, many of my poems are composite poems--ones that utilize multiple people and/or experiences but then tie them all together in one voice. And I never tell which poems, or which parts of a poem, are factual. It's a question I get often at readings, and I have to clamp my mouth shut in order to avoid giving a lecture.
Sometimes, too, poems inherently demand deviations from facts in order to read musically or to follow a particular form. And what difference does it make if a dress is red instead of blue or if the experiences in the poem really happened to five people instead of one? The only thing that matters is that the poem reads true, and the readers will know when it does.
Pablo: Do you have any expressible thoughts regarding writers (and poets in particular) using opposite gender pen names or about the use of pen names in general?
Ellaraine: Oh, for sure I do. First of all, pen names no matter what gender, are great fun, and they have a way of becoming alter egos. For instance, I often use mine in public. Everyone at the local Starbucks where I write every morning knows me as the first name of one of my pen names. (It's so much easier to remember than Ellaraine.) And let's face it, there are times in life that maybe we don't want to use our real name.
Writing-wise, having pen names has allowed me to get poems published that wouldn't be copasetic with the image of a children's picture book writer, a market that I wish to enter. Publishers aren't likely to want a picture book writer, at least until she/he is established in the picture book market, to be known for sometimes writing sexually explicit poetry. This type of conflict of interest is all the more relevant because of the Internet.
I've also found the made-up names to be handy in protecting others' privacy. For instance, I just wrote a poem about an experience my daughter had touring Europe as a member of a fairly famous rock band. To use my name, the last of which is also her name, would identify her and this band. She would be furious, and I wouldn't blame her.
Then sometimes we poets just want to pursue several different styles of writing, and for me it works to have different personas holding the pen. Oh yes, and it intrigues a fair percentage of editors/publishers. One of my pens has an ongoing correspondence with one of my editor's pen names. It's belly-laughing hilarious.
I have three pen names. The first one originated back when I was first writing children's picture book manuscripts. I'd sent seven, one at a time as they were rejected, to a certain publisher when she wrote back and told me not to submit any more. I was green then as a writer, and this upset me terribly because I felt that all of my children's stories were vastly different from one another, and I had several more to send. So I made up a name, used a friend's address and sent the rest. She didn't take one, but at least I had the satisfaction of knowing they were read.
Now I tell all perspective editors in my submission letters when I'm using a pen name. That's the right thing to do, and the right thing for them to do is to protect my privacy, which they've always honored.
My two additional pen personalities were born when I wanted to enter twelve poems in a contest with a theme, but the publisher's rule was one entry of three poems per poet. So I wrote and asked if three pen names could each enter three poems in addition to mine (paying of course the entry fees for all entries.) The answer was yes, and subsequently all but one of us were published in the winners' anthology.
And did I mention the romance or mystique of having a made-up name or two?
Pablo: Now I thought we'd deviate from the usual interview questions and go a little deeper. Let's start with this one: Why are men still ruling and running the planet?
Ellaraine: Brute force. In the end, after all discussion about women's rights and equal opportunities, men are still physically more powerful than women. In many parts of the world men are legally allowed to use physical force against women--to go even as far as killing them. And in parts of the world where it isn't legal, it still not only happens, but the fact and the threat often stand between the sexes as an unconscious force that influences not only relationships but community, state, national and international policies.
Pablo: How are you affected by your dreaming life?
Ellaraine: I love having dreams--even the nightmarish ones, because they mean that I've been able to get into a deep sleep. I've battled insomnia for twelve years and have tried every remedy out there, I think, including two extensive stays at the Stanford Sleep Clinic.
Before that, most dreams seemed like a continuation of my life, some euphoric and some horrendous but most rather day-to-day-like. I've never spent much time analyzing them, but one particular and reoccurring dream fascinates me enough that I recently wrote a poem about it. It involves flying, or perhaps floating in the air above every earthly thing. I'm often in the form of an eagle. This is an incredibly happy experience and leads me to suspect that I've either been an eagle or that I will be one eventually. The closest awake feeling to this that I've ever had is when I do Tai Chi, where I sometimes feel like I'm floating through clouds. I didn't reach that state until I'd practiced Tai Chi for fifteen-plus years.
Pablo: I find it more and more difficult to think of God in terms of gender. I won't elaborate. What would your thoughts be on this?
Ellaraine: I stopped thinking of God as a kind-looking man with a beard when I stopped attending church after I left home for college. God, for me, rather has evolved into a force. I find this force in everything--people, animals, trees, rocks, the earth itself. It's all connected. Nothing affirmed this more for me than attending a writers' retreat called "Writing the World" two years ago in the Sonoran Desert with Harvey Stanbrough at the helm. Harvey is one of my poetry mentors. I'd like to add one of the resulting poems from his retreat at the end of this interview if there is space. I think if we all adhered to what Harvey teaches in this retreat, there wouldn't be any more wars. I wish its attendance were required for all world leaders.
Pablo: For this question I must loosely paraphrase the poet William Everson. He believed that there was a "mantle" the poet could put on (if it fit) that endowed the poet with authority and that this was not to be taken lightly. What are your thoughts on this?
Ellaraine: I'm not familiar with William Everson or his stance on this subject, but my definition of a powerful poem is generally one that is written by someone who comes across as an authority on that which she/he has written. Fakes usually can't pull off a good poem; the mantle just isn't going to fit.
As for a poet having this kind of authority, who better to have it other than a person who is committed to write truth? Is there responsibility on the part of the poet? Tremendous, but it's to the poet him/herself. Readers are free to choose the impact the poem has on them.
Pablo: If a complete stranger were to trust her infant to you to nurture until the child was three years old, what single thing would you feel was most important for that child?
Ellaraine: Security, in all it's facets: To be fed when hungry, to have its thirst quenched, to be physically held and emotionally nurtured, to be kept as safe and pain-free as possible and to be taught that someone loves it enough to enforce gentle, consistent and nonviolent discipline when the age/stage requires it.
Pablo: What in your opinion is the biggest source of trouble in the world today and what do you think can realistically be done about it?
Ellaraine: I don't think there's any all-encompassing answer to this; the questions are much too complex for the space I have, not only on paper but in my mind.
I've been lucky enough to travel extensively, and the happiest people I've encountered are perhaps those in cultures that put the least emphasis on material things that money can buy and who put a big emphasis on family and community. It seems to me that status quo gets out of kilter, even in these societies, when part of the people get overly greedy--for things, money or power.
What to do about it? I might know more about what not to do about it, and that's not to force one's government or religion on other countries or cultures that have functioned in their own ways since the beginning of time. (I believe this comes under the "power" part of greed.) Of course, we could try to send everyone to Harvey's "Writing the World" retreat; but there I go, trying to push my own beliefs on others.
Pablo: Imagine with me please. If you were marooned on a remote island with two strangers. . . a world class female athlete and a female astrophysicist, what synthesis of thought might the three of you produce?
Ellaraine: Boy, you weren't kidding when you said we were going to skip the usual questions and go a little deeper. This is about the strangest question anyone has ever asked me.
Okay. I know a bit about survival, not from fighting for it myself but from hearing about it through those close to me who did: my parents and grandparents, who homesteaded on the Montana prairie in the late 1800s. And that's what we're talking about here--survival.
My grandparents, when they were dependent upon the land for their livelihood, had little time to synthesize their thoughts in any way that didn't involve feeding and clothing themselves and their families.
And that's what the three of us marooned on a remote island would be strategizing too. The thought of it makes me squirm with how little I'd be able to contribute--perhaps the spinning of yarn from wild animals that the athlete would capture and then the knitting of those yarns into warmth to cover with and wear for insulation from exposure. I could make paper out of natural fibers, one of my true craft talents, and sew clothes from the bark of trees.
I would likely be the one to do the killing for food after the athlete hunted down the animals. I can mercy-kill, again as a result of growing up in Montana, so I could kill to stay alive. I might be able to make a fire from two sticks of wood, as a result of an excellent demonstration in a Masai village in Kenya recently.
As for the astrophysicist's contribution, she'd probably entertain us at night with her extensive knowledge, as we lie gazing at the stars. I could fictionalize and poetize what she said and record it using natural plant dyes on the handmade papers. Eventually, we'd probably discuss lesbianism.
Pablo: The world is ending tomorrow at noon. What will you do between now and then?
Ellaraine: I'll gather up my family and anyone we love who chooses to come, and we'll cook and eat a last meal together, incorporating everyone's favorite foods and wines. (Mine will be popcorn, any Caparone wine, homemade bread and Ben and Jerry's Coffee Heathbar Crunch Ice Cream.) Then we'll make music together. (My family is very musical.) Then we'll break into privacy, with partners or vibrators or magazines or whatever works, for a final sexual encounter. Lastly, we'll all hold hands, tell stories about each other as though we were attending our own funerals, and then we'd vow to meet in our afterlives.
Of course, this is all idealized. Maybe I'll just be immobilized by fear of pain and death or crazy in anguish that children and grandchildren, all of them all over, won't have a chance to live full lives. Who really knows how any of us will react in outrageous situations?
_______________________________________
Ellaraine writes poetry, nonfiction books, magazine articles/columns and children's stories. She is a well-published and awarded poet who has received ten nominations for Pushcart Prizes in poetry and has three published chapbooks: Midlife Muse, Poetry Forum, Crossing the Center Line, Sweet Annie Press and Coloring Outside the Lines, The Plowman Press. She also teaches school and community poetry workshops.
Her nonfiction books are All Because of a Button: Folklore, Fact and Fiction, St. Johann Press; The Gourmet Paper Maker, Creative Publishing, and The Low Lactose Kitchen Companion and Cookbook forthcoming in 2007.
Ellaraine has recently been to Kenya on a poetry fellowship and to Centrum in Port Townsend, WA, for a poetry residency. She has just received the Elizabeth Curry Award from SLAB at the University of Slippery Rock in PA. Forthcoming is a chaplet, Roadtrip, from the Rooftop Chaplet series and a chapbook, Blue Ribbons at the County Fair, from PWJ Publishing.
_______________________________________
Writers' Retreat
. . . observe the things that were and watch them pass, not rushing them along nor holding them too tightly.-- Great Expectations, Harvey Stanbrough
He speaks of writing the world
Of sensing the wholeness first
While we sit on hay bales
Pens in hand
Near the edge of an Arizona night
Our mentor encircles the gift of knowledge
His words unwrap it
Ribbons of preconceptions
fall to the Sonoran floor
Sharp observations cut away the clothes
that seam our separateness
from sand, saguaro, hawk
grasshopper and sunset
He casts a last ray of sun
on the continuous web
that weaves us all together
The spider who snares a butterfly
in a creosote bush
Whose seeds feed a kangaroo rat
The two toads who have enrolled in the retreat
And me watching a beetle spin in circles
fighting its own fading light
on a picnic table just out of reach
We're all related says our mentor
Cousin Coyote, grandfather owl
His words soft now in the silk of night
Brother beetle has flipped onto his back
Legs beating against the darkness
His dirge in baritone buzz
is steel wool that scours the sage's waxed words
While the other listeners lean into enlightenment
I curl up in confusion's shadow
Words of patience and intimate observation
waft by in the grey zone
The buzz is bright white and the beat of legs blinding
I want to yank that connecting web
Hang the beetle with Hemlock Society blessing
But I wedge my hands and their traitorous twitch
between butt and hay bale
Our mentor's final message for the evening
comes on sound waves so round and full
they overflow the soul with ancestral memories
And of the branch from which the flute was formed
Even the beetle is silent
But suddenly propelled by unexplained energy
onto the plate of leftover vegetable wraps
landing up-side down and mute
His legs still moving
The man of wisdom and music sits down as I leap up
Sledge a book of poetry onto the plate
The web snaps like a rubber band
and the entire Sonoran Desert winces
But I'm the one with the welt
that stings and reddens my cheek
_______________________________________
Pablo Teasdale’s first interview was with Raquel Welch when he was a sailor and she was a new star. Since then, he has interviewed many artists formally and informally. . . both well-know and unknown. Among the notables: Anais Nin, Bob Hope, Lyn Lifshin, James Leo Herlihy and Brian Morissey. His drawings have been published in the U. S. A. and Germany. His synthesizer compositions are used by poets and dancers in live and broadcast productions internationally. Teasdale has been the subject of four documentaries and lives in Santa Cruz, California. He is currently writing a memoir titled, "Let Me Tell You About My Redundancy Again."
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Somerville Poets Will Be Well-Represented at the Boston National Poetry Festival
SOMERVILLE POETS WILL BE WELL- REPRESENTED AT THE BOSTON NATIONAL POETRY FESTIVAL
A highlight of April/ Poetry Month is the Boston National Poetry Month Festival that for the last seven years has been held at the Boston Public Library (Copley Square). This brainchild of poet Harris Gardner will be held April 14 to 15 this year. Among the over fifty readers there will be several accomplished Somerville Poets who will make their appearance on the stage. Afaa Michael Weaver, whose work was recently featured in Poetry magazine, Gloria Mindock, the founder of the Cervena Barva Press, Tim Gager, the co-founder of the Somerville News Writers Festival, and Lloyd Schwartz, U/Mass Boston English Professor, C. D. Collins, as well as yours truly, Doug Holder, will strut their poetic stuff. Every festival includes an open mike if you are brave enough to read your own work, and a book table with books ready to be signed by the featured readers.
Every year at the festival I have hosted, read, and manned the book table. During this time I have met an incredible array of poets of all stripes: including: X.J. Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Franz Wright, as well as well-known and lesser- known regional poets. This year the festival will include former National Poet-Laureate Maxine Kumin. I can’t think think of any event of its kind that attracts so many folks from the academic, non-academic, Slam, and traditional spoken word schools or venues. If you are new to the community and want to familiarize yourself with the scene, or if you have been away awhile and want to have a reunion of sorts, or if you simply want to be the proverbial fly-on-the-wall, then this event is exactly what the doctored ordered.
For more information go to: http:www.tapestryofvoices.com or call 617- 306-9484.
A highlight of April/ Poetry Month is the Boston National Poetry Month Festival that for the last seven years has been held at the Boston Public Library (Copley Square). This brainchild of poet Harris Gardner will be held April 14 to 15 this year. Among the over fifty readers there will be several accomplished Somerville Poets who will make their appearance on the stage. Afaa Michael Weaver, whose work was recently featured in Poetry magazine, Gloria Mindock, the founder of the Cervena Barva Press, Tim Gager, the co-founder of the Somerville News Writers Festival, and Lloyd Schwartz, U/Mass Boston English Professor, C. D. Collins, as well as yours truly, Doug Holder, will strut their poetic stuff. Every festival includes an open mike if you are brave enough to read your own work, and a book table with books ready to be signed by the featured readers.
Every year at the festival I have hosted, read, and manned the book table. During this time I have met an incredible array of poets of all stripes: including: X.J. Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Franz Wright, as well as well-known and lesser- known regional poets. This year the festival will include former National Poet-Laureate Maxine Kumin. I can’t think think of any event of its kind that attracts so many folks from the academic, non-academic, Slam, and traditional spoken word schools or venues. If you are new to the community and want to familiarize yourself with the scene, or if you have been away awhile and want to have a reunion of sorts, or if you simply want to be the proverbial fly-on-the-wall, then this event is exactly what the doctored ordered.
For more information go to: http:www.tapestryofvoices.com or call 617- 306-9484.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Former Grolier Owner will read from her favorite poems at Newton Free Library!
FORMER OWNER OF FAMED GROLIER POETRY BOOK SHOP TO READ POETRY FROM HER
FAVORITE POETRY PATRONS!
FAVORITE POETRY PATRONS!
Newton Free Library 330 Homer St. Newton, Mass. April 10 7PM
The Annual Poetry Festival Features Martha Collins, Louisa Solano, Joan Houlihan & Open Mike
In honor of National Poetry Month, the Library will present its 34th Annual Evening of Poetry, sponsored by the Friends of the Library. Martha Collins, Louisa Solano ( former owner of the Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Harvard Square) and Joan Houlihan will read on Tuesday, April 10, 7:00PM, followed by an Open Mike with a one-poem/ person limit. Refreshments will be served.
The Annual Poetry Festival Features Martha Collins, Louisa Solano, Joan Houlihan & Open Mike
In honor of National Poetry Month, the Library will present its 34th Annual Evening of Poetry, sponsored by the Friends of the Library. Martha Collins, Louisa Solano ( former owner of the Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Harvard Square) and Joan Houlihan will read on Tuesday, April 10, 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.
Collins is the author of a book-length poem, Blue Front, as well as four other books of poetry: Some Things Words Can Do, A History of a Small Life on a Windy Planet, The Arrangement of Space, winner of the Peregrine Smith Poetry Competition and The Catastrophe of Rainbows. She has also edited a volume on Louise Bogan and co-translated two collections of poems from the Vietnamese, The Women Carry River Water by Nguyen Quang Thieu and Green Rice by Lam Thi My Da. In Blue Front, Collins dissects a horrific lynching that occurred in her hometown when she was a child. Booklist, writes: “Collins employs a staccato, matter-of-fact tone that strikes like a sledgehammer at persistent, if hidden, hate. More than worthy as poetry, Blue Front is also a powerful statement about America and a potent reminder of humankind’s terrible potential.”
Solano owned the Grolier Poetry Bookstore from 1974 until 2006 when she retired. Virtually everyone in modern American letters came through the Grolier’s doors in Harvard Square. Founded in 1927 by Adrian Gambet and Gordon Cairnie, it is the “oldest continuous book shop” devoted solely to the sale of poetry and poetry criticism. Solano, a 1966 graduate of Boston University and bookstore habitué since 1955, took over operation of the store after Cairnie’s death. She will read from her favorite patrons’ poems.
Houlihan is the author of Hand Held Executions and winner of the Green Rose Award from New Issues Press for The Mending Worm. She writes “Boston Comment,” a series of essays that focuses on contemporary American poetry and appears regularly on Web del Sol. Founding director of the Concord Poetry Center, she is editor-in-chief of Perihelion and senior poetry editor of Del Sol Review.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Advanced Praise for "Of All The Meals I Had Before..." and "No One Dies at the Au Bon Pain" by Doug Holder
(Doug Holder)
I will have poetry collections released by http://sunnyoutside.com and the http://www.cervenabarvapress.com in April and May 2007. Here is some advanced commentary:
"No One Dies At The Au Bon Pain" ( http://www.sunnyoutside.com)
Bones and humanity--reflections and stone- passion and tears from a glass eye... Inside, upon these pages you'll find Doug Holder has strapped you upon his back and has taken you for a ride in mortality... and beyond...these poems are poignant paintings of life and the depth its decades imprint upon a man's soul and the catacombs of its joy and pain. This one of his best works yet."
Jennifer Matthews/ author of "Fairytales and Midemeanors" http://www.jennifermatthews.com
" Doug Holder's poems take you on a dream mind ride with the common moments and things in life. The images and angles of thought and language are at once familiar and plain and odd. They are the dreams of dreams you think you remember, the thoughts you had before you remember something. They are flashes of insight and snapshots of time, and place and humanity. The poems have the sense you feel when you have an idea for a poem just before falling asleep and you say you'll write it down in the morning, but it drifts into dreamland and you forget. Reading the poems of Doug Holder, you feel as though you remember that great poem you forgot."
Dan Sklar/ Head of Creative Writing/ Endicott College
"With confidence and ocassional flashes of humor, these are poems ( lamentations/ meditations) on what was, is, and ultimately will be. They are strong and unapologetic in both their rage and acceptance, offering up a clear view of the truth--that no one gets out of here alive."
Gloria Mindock/ Cervena Barva Press http://www.cervenabarvapress.com
"Doug Holder's poems from his new collection NO ONE DIES AT THE AU BON PAIN are psychological studies delivered in spare, elegant lines. Though often located in the most quotidian of settings, they explore the heights and depths of the human soul. And when we, as readers, find hm standing before the mirror in the public restroom, we look up to find the visage reflected is our own."
Richard Wilhelm/ Arts/ Editor Ibbetson Street Press
"This book is a gift, the silhouette of restlessness as Holder studies the way things end and sees there is no real ending. He celebrates " ... a standing chant, a prayer for the common man." Holder understands compassion as generosity in tender poems carved from the quickened wood of the moment."
Afaa Michael Weaver/ Professor of English/ Simmons College / Boston
"Of All The Meals I Had Before..." ( Cervena Barva Press)
"Some poems make you hungry, and some poems want to make you throw up. These food poems are served up spicy like Italian cuisine. Read them before dinner or after desert, either way like Chinese food, you'll be hungry for more."
A. D. Winans
"A delightful and delicious collection of poems, whetting the appetite for more. These are the kinds of witty, Jewishy poems I envision Woody Allen would write, should he ever take to writing poetry. "
Helen Bar-Lev, Artist, PoetEditor-in-Chief Voices Israel Anthology
author: Animals are Nature's Poetry
co-author: Cyclamens and Swords and other poems about Israel
Praise for "Wrestling With My Father"
Robert Olen Butler (Pulitzer Prize Winner- "A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain") commenting on Holder's collection of poetry: "Wrestling With My Father:" "I’ve been greatly enjoying your poems. You have a major league talent, man."
Martha Collins ( Professor of Creative Writing-Oberlin College, and author of "Blue Front," (Gray Wolf Press) commenting on "Wrestling With My Father.":--so I did get this, at Porter Square, (Books) and found it wonderfully moving. My one and only chapbook is about my mother in her final years: more about those years than, as in yours, a whole life with a parent--but the emotions surrounding parental loss are near and dear to my heart. Thanks for heading me that way."
Sunday, April 01, 2007
In the Soho at Poets House
Well I am back from the Poet's House showcase in New York City. This is the last year it is going to be held in the SOHO section of Manhattan. This poetry center, with 45,000 volumes of poetry, will be moving in 2008 to Battery Park City. While there I spoke to a number of folks, including Donald Lev the publisher of the "Home Planet News" http://www.homeplanetnews.org, poet Stanley H. Barkan , publisher of the "Cross-Cultural Review Series of World Literature and Art in Sound, Print and Media," Lee Bricetti, the director of Poets House http://www.poetshouse.org among others.
I also met an English banker who regularly reads in venues on the Bowery,an elderly poet from France who kept asking me the difference between "there" and "here," a poetry lover who produces a show on Manhattan Cable Access TV and other interesting characters!I also looked at all the new poetry books on display. Fortunately or unfortunately Ibbetson Street Books were located on the shelf next to Poet Laureate's Donald Hall's new book. Of course Hall's book got very prominent space. But our books were there including:
cyclamens and swords by Helen Bar Lev, and johnmichael simon
The American Wives Club Patricia Brodie
Poem for the Little Book Tomas O'Leary
Shadow People Molly Lynn Watt
Bagels with the Bards Molly Lynn Watt
Louise Solano: The Grolier Poetry Book Shop Holder/Glines
(all these books were included in a printed catalogue handed out to the many guests)
I also noticed Bagel Bard Mike Amado's book: "Unearthed from Ashes ( Dorrance Publishing) was there.I was told by the online archivist that all these titles will be listed in the online directory by the summer. Also: a number of taped interviews I sent will be listed as well.Of course I gave out samples of current and back issue of "Ibbetson Street" and talked up the Bagel Bards...
I also met an English banker who regularly reads in venues on the Bowery,an elderly poet from France who kept asking me the difference between "there" and "here," a poetry lover who produces a show on Manhattan Cable Access TV and other interesting characters!I also looked at all the new poetry books on display. Fortunately or unfortunately Ibbetson Street Books were located on the shelf next to Poet Laureate's Donald Hall's new book. Of course Hall's book got very prominent space. But our books were there including:
cyclamens and swords by Helen Bar Lev, and johnmichael simon
The American Wives Club Patricia Brodie
Poem for the Little Book Tomas O'Leary
Shadow People Molly Lynn Watt
Bagels with the Bards Molly Lynn Watt
Louise Solano: The Grolier Poetry Book Shop Holder/Glines
(all these books were included in a printed catalogue handed out to the many guests)
I also noticed Bagel Bard Mike Amado's book: "Unearthed from Ashes ( Dorrance Publishing) was there.I was told by the online archivist that all these titles will be listed in the online directory by the summer. Also: a number of taped interviews I sent will be listed as well.Of course I gave out samples of current and back issue of "Ibbetson Street" and talked up the Bagel Bards...
POETS HOUSE SHOWCASE
The only event of its kind, the annual Poets House Showcase is a free exhibit featuring all of the new poetry books and poetry-related texts published in the United States in a single year—with more than 2,000 titles on view (including volumes by individual authors, anthologies, biographies, critical studies, CDs and DVDs) from over 500 commercial, university and independent presses. Established in 1992 by Executive Director Lee Briccetti, the Showcase reflects Poets House’s mission to make the range of modern poetry available to the public and to stimulate public dialogue on issues of poetry and culture.
During the course of the Showcase, Poets House offers a series of readings, workshops, and receptions, which are designed to provide insight into some of the trends in poetry publishing, to illuminate the often difficult path of the poetry book from poet to reader, and to celebrate the range and power of the American poetic voice.
Each year, Poets House adds the bibliographic records of all the books exhibited in the Showcase to its free, fully-searchable online database, the Directory of American Poetry Books. With over 20,000 titles, the Directory contains the most comprehensive information about U.S. poetry books and publishers from 1990 through 2006.
Doug Holder/Ibbetson Update
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Interview with poet, publisher, playwright Diana Saenz
Diana Saenz: A playwright with the soul of a true ‘Boston Poet.”
Diana Saenz is the author of 15 plays, and at least 3 books of poetry. Her plays have been performed across the country and abroad. A former resident of Somerville, Mass., she founded the literary journal “The Boston Poet,” from her home on Putnam Street. Later Saenz went on toCreate the online journal:” BostonPoet.com,” and most recently the “The Boston Poet Journal” which can be purchased on http://www.lulu.com/. I talked with her on my Somerville Community Access TV Program: “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: In an essay you wrote about a fictitious argument you had with your cat; your cat argued that he gets unmitigated joy from his art, while you countered all art comes with a certain amount of suffering. So do you feel there is more pain than joy in your writing?
Diana Saenz: That’s a big question. Let’s face it if there was no pain or sorrow then we would be relegated to writing Hallmark Card verse. I don’t think everything we write about is about suffering. Somehow it’s around even when one writes about joy. Everything I write is about a celebration of being alive. But without suffering how would you measure absolute happiness?
If we were to reach a utopian society Poet’s might go out of business. You can only listen to wonderful things so long. There are always going to be things to complain about. Poetry is an art that doesn’t bring in a lot of money, so poets more than any other artists remain honest.
Doug Holder: You are a poet and a playwright. Do the mediums of poetry and theatre compliment each other? Which one do you identify with more?
Diana Saenz: They both compliment each other because they are both oral arts. There is so much poetry in plays. I’ve been a poet since I was fifteen. I am above all a poet. For many years I wrote plays, and for a long period of time I wasn’t able to write poetry. I wrote a play about Lorca, and I had Lorca write a poem in it... But both are definitely connected because they are oral arts.
Doug Holder: Are your plays a vehicle for your poetry?
Diana Saenz: I wouldn’t say that. They are very different mediums. I think being a playwright makes me a much better writer. You are subject to criticism. It’s one thing people saying that they don’t like your poetry, it’s another to read it in The San Francisco Chronicle.
Doug Holder: Were you reviewed in the Chronicle?
Diana Saenz. Yes. Not favorably. But that was one play. I did other plays that got standing ovations and big audiences.
Doug Holder: Did you study Theatre with anyone, or attend a certain school?
Diana Saenz: No. I read a book that was probably written in the 1930’s. I still see that book for sale. I can’t remember the title but it was all about designing a play. I was very involved with the San Francisco theatre scene.
Doug Holder: Why did you leave San Francisco?
Diana Saenz: I had to get out of town. It’s a tiny town. It is a very different town than Boston. San Francisco is a town you can walk from one end to the other.
You run into the same people all the time. It’s a very small pool and I got tired of it. In California people see me as Mexican, and they want me to write Mexican things. Sometimes I do but I am really am an American. I really want to talk about the big questions. Here, in the Boston-area you don’t have a huge Mexican-American presence. People just take you at face value. I like the level of writing—people are a lot more educated here. In San Francisco the “Beat” poetry scene is pervasive. There is a lot of writing about drinking and really being on the outside.
Doug Holder: What is your take on the “Beat” writers like Ginsberg, Corso and Kerouac? They were known to mistreat their women—relegate them to second class citizens—props for the men.
Diana Saenz: One day I decided that I was going to learn everything I could about the “Beats.” I think they drove their women crazy. That’s what I got in my early readings. That women were there to support the male geniuses.
As for their writing I liked “On the Road,” like everyone else. But some of the works I read I wound up throwing them against the wall because I was so irritated about it.
Doug Holder: Somerville has a rich history of small presses. Describe the milieu you were in when you cut your literary teeth in Somerville?
Diana Saenz: I came from San Francisco in 1994, and I was shocked that there were no magazines that listed all the events and venues that were in the area. So I founded my own, “The Boston Poet.”
Doug Holder: What venues did you frequent?
Diana Saenz: I am proud of being part of the open mike scene. I would go to Jack Power’s Stone Soup Poets at T.T the Bear’s. I went to the Cantab Lounge in Central Square, Cambridge.
Doug Holder: Why did you give up “The Boston Poet”
Diana Saenz: It was just so much work. I wound up losing my day job. Bit it was so much fun to do. At the same time I met my husband. He wrote the scholarly articles for the magazine. I wanted to bring the open mike and the academic together.
Doug Holder: Do you think Latina poets are getting more attention now as opposed to when you cut your teeth?
Diana Saenz: There is a tremendously vibrant community of Latin playwrights out there. There is a huge community of Cuban writers from the East Coast. In California there are numerous Latin-American theatres.
Doug Holder: Your play “Dream of Canaries” takes place in an oppressive, fictional Latin American country. Why fictional?
Diana Saenz: I wanted to make the analogy to the United States. I used a Latin American country because of the pressure to write Latin American stuff. The play was commissioned by Teatro de Esperanza in San Francisco. I’ve seen that play produced in Argentina, Guatemala, and yes, even in Poland.
Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ March 2007/ Somerville, Mass.
Diana Saenz is the author of 15 plays, and at least 3 books of poetry. Her plays have been performed across the country and abroad. A former resident of Somerville, Mass., she founded the literary journal “The Boston Poet,” from her home on Putnam Street. Later Saenz went on toCreate the online journal:” BostonPoet.com,” and most recently the “The Boston Poet Journal” which can be purchased on http://www.lulu.com/. I talked with her on my Somerville Community Access TV Program: “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: In an essay you wrote about a fictitious argument you had with your cat; your cat argued that he gets unmitigated joy from his art, while you countered all art comes with a certain amount of suffering. So do you feel there is more pain than joy in your writing?
Diana Saenz: That’s a big question. Let’s face it if there was no pain or sorrow then we would be relegated to writing Hallmark Card verse. I don’t think everything we write about is about suffering. Somehow it’s around even when one writes about joy. Everything I write is about a celebration of being alive. But without suffering how would you measure absolute happiness?
If we were to reach a utopian society Poet’s might go out of business. You can only listen to wonderful things so long. There are always going to be things to complain about. Poetry is an art that doesn’t bring in a lot of money, so poets more than any other artists remain honest.
Doug Holder: You are a poet and a playwright. Do the mediums of poetry and theatre compliment each other? Which one do you identify with more?
Diana Saenz: They both compliment each other because they are both oral arts. There is so much poetry in plays. I’ve been a poet since I was fifteen. I am above all a poet. For many years I wrote plays, and for a long period of time I wasn’t able to write poetry. I wrote a play about Lorca, and I had Lorca write a poem in it... But both are definitely connected because they are oral arts.
Doug Holder: Are your plays a vehicle for your poetry?
Diana Saenz: I wouldn’t say that. They are very different mediums. I think being a playwright makes me a much better writer. You are subject to criticism. It’s one thing people saying that they don’t like your poetry, it’s another to read it in The San Francisco Chronicle.
Doug Holder: Were you reviewed in the Chronicle?
Diana Saenz. Yes. Not favorably. But that was one play. I did other plays that got standing ovations and big audiences.
Doug Holder: Did you study Theatre with anyone, or attend a certain school?
Diana Saenz: No. I read a book that was probably written in the 1930’s. I still see that book for sale. I can’t remember the title but it was all about designing a play. I was very involved with the San Francisco theatre scene.
Doug Holder: Why did you leave San Francisco?
Diana Saenz: I had to get out of town. It’s a tiny town. It is a very different town than Boston. San Francisco is a town you can walk from one end to the other.
You run into the same people all the time. It’s a very small pool and I got tired of it. In California people see me as Mexican, and they want me to write Mexican things. Sometimes I do but I am really am an American. I really want to talk about the big questions. Here, in the Boston-area you don’t have a huge Mexican-American presence. People just take you at face value. I like the level of writing—people are a lot more educated here. In San Francisco the “Beat” poetry scene is pervasive. There is a lot of writing about drinking and really being on the outside.
Doug Holder: What is your take on the “Beat” writers like Ginsberg, Corso and Kerouac? They were known to mistreat their women—relegate them to second class citizens—props for the men.
Diana Saenz: One day I decided that I was going to learn everything I could about the “Beats.” I think they drove their women crazy. That’s what I got in my early readings. That women were there to support the male geniuses.
As for their writing I liked “On the Road,” like everyone else. But some of the works I read I wound up throwing them against the wall because I was so irritated about it.
Doug Holder: Somerville has a rich history of small presses. Describe the milieu you were in when you cut your literary teeth in Somerville?
Diana Saenz: I came from San Francisco in 1994, and I was shocked that there were no magazines that listed all the events and venues that were in the area. So I founded my own, “The Boston Poet.”
Doug Holder: What venues did you frequent?
Diana Saenz: I am proud of being part of the open mike scene. I would go to Jack Power’s Stone Soup Poets at T.T the Bear’s. I went to the Cantab Lounge in Central Square, Cambridge.
Doug Holder: Why did you give up “The Boston Poet”
Diana Saenz: It was just so much work. I wound up losing my day job. Bit it was so much fun to do. At the same time I met my husband. He wrote the scholarly articles for the magazine. I wanted to bring the open mike and the academic together.
Doug Holder: Do you think Latina poets are getting more attention now as opposed to when you cut your teeth?
Diana Saenz: There is a tremendously vibrant community of Latin playwrights out there. There is a huge community of Cuban writers from the East Coast. In California there are numerous Latin-American theatres.
Doug Holder: Your play “Dream of Canaries” takes place in an oppressive, fictional Latin American country. Why fictional?
Diana Saenz: I wanted to make the analogy to the United States. I used a Latin American country because of the pressure to write Latin American stuff. The play was commissioned by Teatro de Esperanza in San Francisco. I’ve seen that play produced in Argentina, Guatemala, and yes, even in Poland.
Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ March 2007/ Somerville, Mass.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Two Poets: Two Memoirs: Richard Cambridge/Lo Galluccio
CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE: Two Poets: Two Memoirs
Poet Lo Galluccio, author of "Hot Rain ( Ibbetson, 2004) ( Pushcart Nominee 2006) and Richard Cambridge ( Curator of the "Poet's Theatre-Club Passim) will read from their anything but coventional memoirs about the artistic life.....
Thursday March 29 7 to 9PM
Emack and Bolio Poetry Series
2 Belgrade Ave. Roslindale
Host: Marc Widershien http://marccreate.com
Poet Lo Galluccio, author of "Hot Rain ( Ibbetson, 2004) ( Pushcart Nominee 2006) and Richard Cambridge ( Curator of the "Poet's Theatre-Club Passim) will read from their anything but coventional memoirs about the artistic life.....
Thursday March 29 7 to 9PM
Emack and Bolio Poetry Series
2 Belgrade Ave. Roslindale
Host: Marc Widershien http://marccreate.com
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