Somerville’s Steve Thomas & The Co Conspirators Brings Jazz to the Nave Gallery.

Somerville’s Steve Thomas & The Co Conspirators Brings Jazz to the Nave Gallery.

By day Steve Thomas is an editor at a prestigious publishing house, by night his music takes flight. Thomas, a tall and lanky man, is a composer, lyricist and jazz vocalist who founded the group: “ Steve Thomas and The Co-Conspirators.” The Conspirators consist of Thomas, John Funkhouser (bass), who is on the faculty of the Berklee School of Music, Rich Greenblatt (vibraphone) also a Berklee faculty member, and Gary Feldman (drums) an accomplished musician who has worked with such important musicians as Bill Frisell, Joanne Brackeen, etc…

Thomas grew up in Pennsylvania and moved to Somerville in 1988. Since arriving in Somerville he has involved himself with the area arts scene. He has worked with MOBIUS, an arts group based in Boston, and he won a Somerville Arts Council Grant, when the council was headed by Cecily Miller.

Thomas, who is an English major from way back in the day, has a real passion for music. He plays around Somerville and Boston, and has performed at The Somerville Museum, Third Life Studio, McIntyre and Moore, and has an upcoming gig at the Nave Gallery. Thomas has been influenced by jazz artists as varied as Louis Armstrong, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis to Ornette Coleman and Steve Lacey.

Coleman said there are a lot of Brazilian influences in his work. He writes original music, and like most jazz compositions his leaves a lot of room for improvisation. He employs scat singing and says he has ample doses of “soul” in his work.

The music scene in the area according to Thomas “is a hard nut to crack,” but he is happy to have a chance to engage his passion in anyway he can. Thomas will be performing with The Co-Conspirators at the Nave Gallery, May 3, 8PM 155 Powderhouse Blvd., Somerville.

For more information go to: http://www.stevethomasjazz.com

Ghosts by Hugh Fox

Ghosts. Poetry by Hugh Fox. ( Green Panda Press 3174 Berkshire Rd. Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44118 greenpandapress@yahoo.com

When you reach a certain age I am told, you start seeing ghosts. They lurk in the corner of your eye, a familiar voice calls to you and then vanishes into the ether. Poet Hugh Fox, author of the controversial memoir “Way, Way Off the Road…” ((Ibbetson 2005) has reached a point in his life where there is much more to look back on than to look ahead to. In “Ghosts” Fox is haunted by the “old gang” in Chicago: “…all the old gang at the Swedish Club in Chicago 60 years ago, 40 years ago, all starting to hang around the house now,/ wait for me in the backyard, /get inside my arms and /brain so that everything I do or say/echoes/re-creates them…”

Fox always uses a wild infusion of images in his work: the old warehouses in Boston and Chicago, the literary and pop culture references, the litany of names and faces from his past. Fox’s poetry is like a grand, lyrical grocery list. It is as if he has to get it all out, and quick, before the fat lady sings or the shit hits the fan.

Highly Recommended.

Doug Holder/Ibbetson Update

Broken Promises, Broken Dreams:Stories of Jewish & PalestinianTrauma and Resilience

Broken Promises, Broken Dreams:
Stories of Jewish & Palestinian
Trauma and Resilience
By Alice Rothchild
Pluto Press
238 pages/

By Thomas Gagnon

In what is clearly a labor of love, Dr. Alice Rothchild brings amazing clarity to the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict (most of the time; periodically, it stops making sense). Not only does she clarify a conflict that usually defies clarification, but she describes it from a new angle, of the feminist physician. She achieves all this with a fiction writer’s focus on specifics: specific people and their stories, quotes and scenes, sometimes involving herself. She also writes helpful overviews of the situation in Israel and her method of examination.

Meanwhile, although Rothchild is Jewish, she does not have a pro-Israeli bias. Sometimes, it seems that she has a guilt-induced pro-Palestinian bias, but that is not the case, either. She does have a feminist bias, translating to “dove” rather than “hawk,” but she presents this without expecting or demanding us to share it. Above all, Rothchild is presenting valuable information—do what you will with it.

At the outset, Rothchild writes emphatically about major events that I’ve been only vaguely aware of, for instance, “Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza since the 1967 war.” (16) She calls it “military occupation,” not “disputed territories,” as Israel does. She is clarifying that this is not a conflict, or dispute, between political equals, but a horrible vicious cycle perpetuated by master (fearful Israel) and slave (desperate Palestinians) demolishing each other. In short, the occupation is creating war. Ending the occupation is the beginning of peace. She is not alone. On the contrary, she writes, “I have learned from Israeli peace activists that there are inspiring ways to frame this ongoing conflict. In the words of Jeff Halper, “I am on the ‘side’ of Israelis and Palestinians who seek a just peace that addresses Palestinian rights of self-determination as well as Israeli concerns of security and regional integration…”(20)—versus Israelis and Palestinians operating within the “box” of the occupation.

Although not primarily focused on women’s rights, Rothchild is obviously coming from a feminist angle. She works with several human rights organizations, “to bear witness to voices that are rarely heard…” (19-20). Bearing witness to rarely heard voices is a very feminist activity (I wonder why). Rothchild begins her activist/sociologist journey in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, by meeting with a woman who is in her late sixties and not economically or politically powerful. The feminist plot thickens. This woman, Dr. Ruchama Morton, speaks of the First Intifada, the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in 1987. Specifically, she speaks of the shockingly unsanitary conditions of a hospital in Gaza, prompting protests by an association of Israeli and Palestinian physicians, which evolved into Physicians for Human Rights—Israel (PHR-I). She talks about the separation wall between Israelis and Palestinians as a kind of splitting, that allows “the ZIC (Zionist Israeli Collective) self not to see itself as aggressive, violent, cruel, possessive…by projecting all these traits on the Palestinians beyond the Wall.” (39) This is a crucial, memorable insight.

The specificity of Dr. Ruchama Morton’s experiences and opinions, recorded into a story, is an effective way to shed light on a dark cave of ever-potential sabotage. Many people and their narratives come after Ruchama, also shedding light on darkness. Gila Svirsky speaks of Women in Black, an Israeli movement to end the occupation. Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman speaks of political confusion in Israel resulting in “a right-wing party pushing a [left-wing] peace plan that pretty much speaks to the needs of the big center in Israel.” (95) Dr. Allam Jarrar recounts the story of a frightening and politically charged conflict at a checkpoint. Dr. Muntaha Hamarsheh demonstrates the challenges of managing a maternity home in the West Bank. These are only a few.

Along the way, Rothchild describes herself in the midst of disturbing scenes, for instance, her paranoia on a bus to Jerusalem. She recalls that “…half of the bus riders are soldiers, late teens, early twenties, men and women in military uniform with their automatic rifles leaning between their legs…I have never been this close to so many weapons in my life.” (86)

Are there irritating moments in Broken Promises, Broken Dreams? Yes, such as rhetorical questions with incredibly obvious answers. Is this a major flaw? No, of course not. Therefore, find your way to the Book of Alice! Read, learn, enjoy!

Thomas Gagnon/Ibbetson Update/ April 2008/Somerville, Mass.

Somerville Philosopher Ajume H. Wingo Examines What’s Behind The ‘Veil’?

Somerville Philosopher Ajume H. Wingo Examines What’s Behind The ‘Veil’?

For a year or so Ajume H. Wingo and I sat across from each other at the Sherman Café in Union Square. We would nod politely to each other and then resumed our respective reading. We never really talked. Of course I wondered about this tall, and distinguished African man who seemed to have a scholarly bent. But as fate had it, on a rainy April evening we found ourselves walking together just outside Harvard Yard and started to chew the fat. A few days later we met at Sherman’s to converse some more. Wingo is an associate professor of Philosophy at U/Mass Boston, a Senior Fellow at the McCormack Graduate School of Public Policy for Democracy and Development, and also a Fellow at Harvard’s Du Bois Institute. He is the author “Veil Politics in Liberal Democratic States” His book describes how politics in the Western World relies heavily upon the veils of icons and symbols, and how they are potent conduits for political ideology. Wingo is interested in the idea of freedom as it is thought to be by Africans. Africans have for many years been the subject of control from outside forces, such as: colonial masters, home grown tyrants, etc… This professor wants to examine what political power and freedom is and could be for Africans.

Ajume, who recently purchased a house in the Prospect Hill section of Somerville, is a native of Cameroon. He came to this country years ago to obtain an advanced education. He received his Doctorate in Philosophy for the University of Wisconsin/Madison in 1997.

Wingo loves teaching at U/Mass because of its body of diverse students, minorities, foreign students, and first generation students. Wingo smiled and said, “It teases my mind.” He feels it is a wonderful laboratory for his ideas about cultural connection and influence.

Wingo told me that when he was in Africa he was always fascinated by the United States and how its democracy worked so well. He thought the government was transparent and rational. But he came to realize that the government displayed non-rational elements like his native Africa, with icons such as: Lincoln, the White House, etc… that were used in an effective way to convey ideology.

Wingo is convinced the arts, particurally poetry is a very potent force to instill ideology in the populace. He said: “Just read the Koran, it is full of poetry. Even Sadam Hussein wrote poetry, even if it was pretty bad.” Wingo pointed out that Hitler was a brilliant manipulator and cultivated artistic images to promote his campaign of evil.

Wingo, a transplant from Cambridge finds Somerville a perfect place to hang his hat. He loves the American Flag that waves atop Prospect Hill…( well; of course, it is a symbol, an icon, no?) He loves the converted churches, the relatively subdued atmosphere of Somerville in contrast to a more raucous Cambridge or Boston.

Wingo, in spite of a busy schedule hangs out at Sherman, where his cousin works baking a delectable selection of scones and such.

He told me that he is often up in the wee hours writing, and is working on another book “The Citizen of Africa.” The book explains how to maintain a responsive government in African states.

Wingo, like most Renaissance men, has varied interests, and plans to delve deeper into the medium of poetry. One can only assume that this inquisitive man will report back with unique insights about the art.

The Endicott Review Vol.25, #1, Spring, 2008.

The Endicott Review Vol.25, #1, Spring, 2008.
Editorial Board Dan Sklar, Noga Ambar, Janet Calcaterra, etc.
Faculty Editor: Ruth Henderson, 88 pp.
Endicot College, Beverly, Massachusetts 01915



Not one of those suffer-while-you-read quarterlies, The Endicott Review is mainly nicely impacting snippets of REALITY: “ The summer of ‘72 / My father’s last garden/These flowers burgeoned/In bright oranges and yellows.../I could see him creating his own genetic planning/Masterminding new vegative forms/And the vines and shoots would have/Swallowed up the house in the middle/Surrounded by ideas and green/Much like I imagine his Eden is/That is returned to him now....” (Betsy Retallack,“Nasturtiums,” p.37). And Betsy Retallack is typical of the contributors, a music teacher in Beverly, Mass by day, a poet by night.

No mind-boggling cryptograms here. Get ready for meditations on real REALITY: “The first autumn chill is here,/ Though a hint of summer still lingers in the air.../ Long shadows in early afternoon,/Remind me of how fast the summer went by.,// It’s a good bye day to summer,/And a gentle greeting to autumn’s first cool couch.” (Jim Mulholland, “A Good Bye Day to Summer,” p. 43).
The prose is very similar too, almost impossible to distinguish between personal tale-telling essay and fiction:
All this happened, more or less. The world has changed
quite a bit since the events of this story, and so to you
this may seem untrue, but this is my story, and this is
how I’m telling it.
One day, one single day, changed history forever.....

(“Isolation” by Joseph Stucker,pp. 15-16)

Every piece in this issue drags you on to read more....more....more....

A refreshing change from enigmatic windowless work elsewhere.
And just in case you start to get bored with words, there are a number of splendid color photos by Johnny Bonacci, Andrea Marchosky, Carolina Bara, etc.
One little critique. There should be a more specific street address and subscription cost somewhere in the magazine. For individual subscribers and libraries that want to keep abreast of the vivacity of The Now !

Hugh Fox/ Ibbetson Update/April 2008

* Hugh Fox is a founding member of the Pushcart Prize. He is a regular reviewer for the Small Press Review.

Hard Blessings by Patrick Carrington

Hard Blessings
Patrick Carrington

Main Street Rag
P.O. Box 690100
Charlotte, N.C. 28227
ISBN 13:978-1-59948-115-9
$10.00

Carrington’s story poems my not resemble our story,
but it is certain, the reader will relate to some of
the poems in Hard Blessings. His unique definite
lines, the sudden stop from end to beginning;

“that most unexplainable thing

to me, to be magical enough
to raise her hands and lead me,
like Moses through water”

The sassy voice, a voice which defies the usual pin to
black velvet board; his voice flies over, around,
straight up, straight down. we land on solid ground
and just when we think it is time to rest we find
words blowing, pushing toward a perceived truth,

“…where you see yourself
in window of every dead end,
among the Maytag’s and moderate dresses,
and let’s say, for the sake of consumers,
you need more bang for your buck,…”

Patrick Carrington takes us on his ride, the chrome
spokes on his Hudson, the ignition start with love,
“you have woven them onto the map of your body like
silk.” we trace the highway, “this moving from nowhere
to nowhere else makes that person hard to keep…” this
persistent look out the back curve, glass. the speed
it takes, the destination, and all the pull over rest
stops, all anticipation, the relief, the refills, the
restless stretches, all the stuff packed in the trunk;
the poems carry us, “the sound of your spirit
crunching like saltines,” and I wonder who is driving?
the proverbial parents, or society, or ”the toes that
creep to the edge with cheap perfume of salvation in
their nostrils…”

Irene Koronas
Poetry Editor, Wilderness House Literary Review
www.whlreview.com
reviewer, Ibbetison Street Press

Somerville Poet Ifeanyi Menkiti Hosts Poet Aeronwy Thomas: Dylan Thomas’ Daughter

Dylan Thomas



Aeronwy Thomas


Somerville Poet Ifeanyi Menkiti Hosts Poet Aeronwy Thomas: Dylan Thomas’ Daughter

I found myself on a cool evening in April walking to Dunkin Donuts in Harvard Square with Aeronwy Thomas, daughter of the late great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. Aeronwy Thomas, a well-regarded educator and poet in her own right, is on a national tour talking about her father Dylan, who wrote some of the most revered verse in the 20th Century, as well as a critically acclaimed play “Under Milk Wood.”

Somerville resident, Wellesley College professor, and owner of the famed Grolier Poetry Book Shop, Ifeanyi Menkiti hosted a reading with Aeronwy Thomas, her husband Trevor Ellis, and Peter Thabit Jones, a respected Welsh poet and editor of the Seventh Quarry Magazine Magazine. I asked Menkiti why he decided to host this event organized by publisher Stanley Barkan of Cross - Cultural Communications. Menkiti said:” I Love Dylan Thomas’
sense of community. His work releases a poetic impulse across the world. It travels across borders. In the publication “Wellesley Week” Menkiti adds: “ Whether one reads his poems alone, by oneself, or hears them read aloud by him or others, or perhaps hears read aloud the captivating words of “ A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” one always comes away with a sense of ineffable magic in the air—a sense that words are potent things.”

Dylan Thomas (who died at 39 in 1953) first gained significant praise for his poetry collection: “ 18 Poems” He is also well-known for his poem to his dying father “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” as well as many other works. He died in New York City at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village from suspected chronic alcohol poisoning.

Thomas’ Daughter Aeronwy first read the poems of her famous father 20 years after his death in 1973. She was sheltered from his “wild public” lifestyle. Now she is the midst of a whirlwind national tour: “Dylan Thomas Tribute,” where she and Jones read from Thomas’ poetry, their own poetry, and discuss Thomas’ body of work and his life.

The evening started out on Plympton Street in Harvard Square at the Grolier, but the actual reading took place at Harvard’s Adams House several doors down the block. In addition to the reading by Jones and Thomas, Tino Villanueva, Aldo Tambellini, Kristine Doll, Pavel Grushko, and Aled Llion Jones read translations of Dylan Thomas’ work.

Jones' read a poem of his own during the evening that concerned of all things: a rat: (Rats do make appearences in Dylan's work as well.)

“Rats swam the canal of my childhood fears…/ a rat’s meal is my thought/ it eats in my sleep.”

Aeronwy Thomas read her own poem that harked back to her childhood memories of the great poet titled: “Later Than Laugharne:”

“…The memories race back—
… And the thrill of peeping through
the keyhole (I was always the most naughty)
to see my father writing his poems about
gulls, hills, cormorants on estuaries
which he saw through his wide-vista window,
as he sat, bent, writing in crabbed letters,
pressing against the hard surface of the
kitchen table that was his desk…”


Aeronwy’s husband Trevor sang traditional Welsh folksongs that were a welcomed addition to the reading.

After the event I managed to interview Thomas about her late father. As for Dylan Thomas’ ill-fated love affair with alcohol, Aeronwy said his trips to the United States did him no good. When he was in his native Wales he was surrounded by family and friends and drank the weak beer of the local pubs. He wrote in his “shed” every day. In the United States he was offered hard liquor like whiskey and Martinis, etc… He was unmoored, away from home and structure, and this lead to his downfall.

As far as Bob Dylan, who lifted Dylan Thomas’ first name for his last, Aeronwy Thomas admires his song lyrics. But she did say that Bob Dylan did admit to lifting Thomas’ name, but now he states that he has done more for Thomas than Thomas did for him.

I asked Thomas about the movie adaptation of “Under Milk Wood” that starred Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. She said that she was grateful someone made a movie of her father’s play. She feels Burton was a classic narrator. She did have some reservations about what she characterized as “additions” to the work, but overall she was happy with the movie.

The evening ended with a small wine and cheese buffet. Thomas signed books and was surrounded by admirers and well wishers. After this long evening no one would blame Aeronwy Thomas if she did “go gently into that good night” to get a well-earned sleep.

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

_-- Dylan Thomas

RIFT. Barbara Helfgott Hyett

RIFT. Barbara Helfgott Hyett (The University of Arkansas Press Fayetteville 2008) $16.

W. C. Fields once said, “ Marriage is a great institution but I’m not ready to be institutionalized.” One of the main themes in “Rift,” an accomplished poetry collection by Barbara Helfgott Hyett is the breakup of her long marriage. And indeed, after I have personally witnessed the many long honeymoons, and their bitter ends, I think Fields may just have a point. Hyett often uses striking imagery to paint her pain in bold strokes, and to chronicle her despair.

In the poem “Vacation” her husband’s gaping emotional void and monumental neediness mark what is inevitably down the road:

"You don’t worship me," he says,
eyes on the marsh, arms stretched
on the table before him. "I love you,"
she answers behind him, her palm brushing
his hair. "I want to be adored," he says.
She kisses the top of his head lightly.
I love you, and now she is stroking
his shoulder, This very shoulder. This hair.
It is late afternoon. The beach still clings
to her thighs.

And in “Considering Killing Him Instead” a woman scorned has been revealed with full sound and fury:

Considering Killing Him Instead

Something simple: a hammer.
One whack. A kitchen knife,
serrated. A kitchen match,
kerosene from the orange can
in the garage. The garden hose.
The garden itself. Those tubers
could do it if she trained them.
The fence post if she could tear it
from its mooring. A sidewalk
square, in pieces—too complex.
Then teeth that grind. Hands—
nothing to mediate that blow.

There are many other subjects that Hyett tackles with equal passion and skill. Richard Hoffman, author of "Half the House" and "Gold Star Road" writes of Hyett's work:

" Barbara Helfgott Hyett's "Rift" is a book born of acute psychic necessity and there is not a trifle or bauble in it... Faced with the annihilation of the life she has known, Helfgott Hyett employs her imagination, her learning, and her poetic virtuosity to search among biblical and mythic narratives, artic expeditions, memories, meteor showers, classical and romantic art, and history for a way forward. This book, is that way, a profund gift to all of us. The title sequence is itself a major work, a rich, polyvocal, unflinching vision of the world we live in now."

Highly Recommended.


Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update



Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ Somerville, Mass./April 2008

Richard Hoffman: Poet and Memoirist writes from a traumatic past.

Richard Hoffman: Poet and Memoirist writes from a traumatic past.

Richard Hoffman is the Writer-in Residence at Emerson College. For a man who has experienced years of trauma during his hardscrabble past he seems remarkably together. He has a professorial manner, and seems to be comfortable in his own skin. Hoffman is the author of “Half the House: A Memoir,” that deals with his early years as a victim of child abuse. It tells of a 10 year old’s sexual abuse at the hands of a trusted baseball coach. The book was responsible for the man’s eventual arrest, and it reached a mother lode of boys and men who suffered past abuse in a tortured silence.

Hoffman’s poetry has appeared in many prestigious journals such as the: Painted Bride Quarterly, Cedar Hill Review, Janus Head, Barrow Street, etc… His most recent collection of poetry is “Gold Star Road.” I talked with him on my Somerville Community Access TV program “ Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”


Doug Holder: In your memoir “Half the House…” you inscribed in my personal copy a quote from Camus: “Freedom is the right not to lie.” Before you wrote your memoir were you lying to yourself about the past, and with the memoir’s writing are you now free?

Richard Hoffman: I don’t think anyone is ever free from trauma. I don’t think it is a question of catharsis. I think it is a question of integrating what can’t otherwise be integrated. The part of you connected to the trauma, that is. When you don’t have access to that you are not whole. To be whole you need to integrate. One way people have done this is through “story.” When you make it part of a narrative you own it. You see it in relation to all the other events in your life. You don’t make this up, or lie, why would you? It is part of your history.

DH: But you can deny certain memories, no?

RH: Yes, and society colludes with that; in that denial. This sort of “unwelcome knowledge” can be very threatening to the status quo. So I am free of this.

DH: Isn’t memory fickle? Does your poetic sensibility color your memoir?

RH: Well a lot of people have talked about the poetic qualities of the book. I think what they mean is the use of imagery, and that it is written for the ear. You are being told a story. And I am also a fiction writer. The writing is restrained. That’s part of its lyrical quality. Isaac Babel said: " There is nothing quite so heartbreaking as a period exactly in the right place.” So the writing comes out straight forward in terms of being immediately accessible. This is to make you one with the event—not focused on the writing. It is a hellu’va lot of work to do.

DH: You confronted your elderly father about his own abuse of you, and his negligence around your abuse by a baseball coach. Was this closure for you? Did you ever feel it was overkill to bring this up with your Dad at this point in the game?

RH: Yes, I felt it was necessary to bring it up. If I was going to have a relationship with him that was real I needed to. I remember when my mother died; I thought that she didn’t really know me. By the time I was eleven I was pressured to be someone I thought they needed me to be. I kept all my trauma to myself. I didn’t want to burden them with it.

I grew up in a family with two terminally ill kids. My parents were overwhelmed. So when my mother died I thought I would be burying my father one day without even knowing each other.

My father and I had a relationship but it was very cartoonish. It was “ Hey, how about those Red Sox?” So I wanted to make the first step to break through. Writing should be the axe to crack the frozen sea within us. There was certainly a frozen sea there.

DH: So did this confrontation work?

RH: The proof is in the pudding. My father is ill now. We are in touch constantly. We have been in touch for a while and we are able to talk about anything. Before all this we were able to talk about nothing. We were literally frozen in a father/son cartoon.

DH: Has there been a marked change in you?

RH: The change happened before the book. It’s not like you tell the story and it’s ok. I was involved with this project for 17 years.
DH: In your poetry collection “Gold Star Road” there is a poem titled “Humility” where it implies the writer’s vision is always impaired or encumbered to a certain degree.

RH: Yes. I think it is always encumbered. I think that is a good word for it. If you write I hope you believe the words matter. But you know—90% of the thinking that’s going on in your head isn’t even yours. It’s Pop Culture. It is really hard to get to what’s really yours. When you do, well, then you really have written something. It all comes together. You like the way it sounds—still, you are not quite if you believe it. That’s why you have to sit with it. Encumbered? Yes. I want to be sure about what I am saying.

DH: Do you revise a lot?

RH: Continually. For years sometimes. I say when I am writing, and finish the first draft: “ This is a real poem but it is not right just yet.”

DH: Are there poets you know who didn’t revise much?

RH: Ginsberg claims he didn’t revise much. Creeley didn’t. He wrote at a snail’s pace, and literally carved his poems out.

DH: Do you believe poetry should be able to cross over from the academy to outside the gate? Has their been too little exchange?

RH: There are academics that view poetry as fodder for theory. It should be more than that.

DH: You have had problems with alcohol. Many younger viewers look at substance abuse as a romantic part of the writing life. Your take?

RH: I hear a lot of that. It’s fine. I can’t do it.

DH: Do you think it helps creativity?

RH No. Not at all. Drinking in a sense helps you be a partial person. It quieted that part of me, the demons, so I could write. I would pour a little booze on them and they would go away. But I couldn’t write the whole story at the heart of my life.

WELCOME

They speak an appropriate language here.
Listen to them sometime.

There are never gnats in the evening. No matter.
No one here knows what that means.

The people pretend to believe the man pretending
he is blind is blind and give him money.

Handbills advertise classes in breathing,
cheaper than all their competitors.

Bacon has happy pigs on the wrapper,
smiling under the red star.

And a man with toenail-yellow teeth
greets new arrivals, hands them a brochure

that's been carefully written, carefully photographed,
lovingly put together just for them

-- Richard Hoffman

Grolier Poetry Book Shop and Poetry Month

( 6 Plympton Street--Harvard Square)


Well on this crisp morning in April, Poetry Month, I stopped by the Grolier Poetry Book Shop, on Plympton Street in Harvard Square. I spoke to my friend Dan Wuenschel, the manager of the store. I asked Dan what he recommends:

Here it is:

TRANSLATIONS

Eternal Enemies by Adam Zagajewski
Selected Sonnets by Louis de Camoes
The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine by Norman R. Shapiro


And I bought a copy on Dan’s recommendation of Somerville poet David Blair’s collection "Ascension Days". Dan tells me he teaches at the Art Institue in Boston, along with another Somerville poet of my acquaintance Tanya Larkin.

Dan also directed me to “Girly Man” by Charles Bernstien ,and "Kingdom of Ordinary Time" by Marie Howe.

I asked Dan to give me an off-the-cuff quote for poetry month. He quoted Zagajewski:

“ Poetry searches for radiance. Poetry is the kingly road that leads us farthest.”

Oh, and Dan told me Jorie Grahm and Taha Muhhamad Ali stopped by the store this week— so why not you for crying out loud?! …Tell Dan Doug Holder sent you!

Oh and don't forget, next Tuesday April 15 ( according to my friend poet and B.U. professor Tino Villanueva) the Dylan Thomas Tribute Tour stops at the Grolier 7PM.

"The tour features Aeronwy Thomas, daughter of Dylan Thomas, answering questions about her father and reading his poems and original poems of her own."

Ibbetson Update/ April 2008

The Somerville News Writers Festival gets Pulitzer ( well sort of)

Tim Gager, co-founder of the Somerville News Writers Festival, (http://somervillenewswritersfestival.com) recruited Junot Diaz for next year's Somerville News Writers Festival. It was announced today (4/7/2008) that he won the Pulitzer. He is our featured reader in next November's Festival. Doug Holder/ SomervilleNews Writers Festival.

For Article read below:



Junot Diaz's Novel, `Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,' Wins Pulitzer

By Laurie Muchnick

April 7 (Bloomberg) -- Junot Diaz's first novel, ``The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,'' won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction today, having already won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Diaz first made a splash with a book of short stories, ``Drown,'' in 1996, and then spent 10 years writing ``Oscar Wao,'' the story of a geeky boy from a Dominican family living in New Jersey.
In an interview with Bloomberg's Robert Hilferty last September, Diaz said he considers himself fortunate to be able to make a living from his writing. ``I have an imaginative life,'' he said. ``Very few people can live off that in this world.''
There were two winners in the poetry category: ``Time and Materials'' by Robert Hass, a former U.S. poet laureate, and ``Failure'' by Philip Schultz.
Schultz, whose subject is reflected in the title of his book, was amazed by the prize. ``I'm somewhere beyond feeling; it's overwhelming,'' he said in a telephone interview.
He didn't write poetry for 16 years, from 1984 to 2000, when he began again at the urging of his wife, sculptor Monica Banks. ``I stopped writing because my poems were very unhappy, and I started again out of joy,'' he said.
Saul Friedlander won the prize for general nonfiction for ``The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939- 1945,'' the second volume in his history of the Holocaust. Friedlander, who teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles, grew up in France during the Nazi occupation.
The history prize was awarded to Daniel Walker Howe's ``What God Hath Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848,'' which covers the expansion of the United States to the Pacific Ocean.
John Matteson received the biography prize for ``Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father,'' which explores the lives of the ``Little Women'' author and her father, Bronson Alcott, a transcendentalist philosopher.
To contact the writer on this story: Laurie Muchnick in New York at lmuchnick@bloomberg.net.

Pomegranate Seeds:An Anthology of Greek-American Poetry

Pomegranate Seeds
An Anthology of Greek-American Poetry
Dean Kostos, Editor
Somerset Hall Press 2008
ISBN 978-09774610-4-2
$19.95

The introduction, preface to this anthology is
informative. Dean Kostos gives us reason to explore
and investigate, not just, the history he refers to in
the preface, but, also, the contents of this anthology
of Greek-American poetry. The poets, and poems are as
diverse as America, and as steeped in pride as Greece.
“We too are inspired not only by our ancient heritage,
but also by its subsequent manifestations, when Greek
culture commingled with others.” The connection
between the poets is their heritage, their voices are,
at once, strong and humble.

Thereafter, a brief biography of each of the forty
nine poets sets up an understanding, the poet’s
relationship drawn between two cultures. In all the
writing, the poems seem inseparable from the poet and
their influences. Pages flow into the next, similar to
a mountain stream after the spring rain. The poems
emerge, overflow, careen down, rich with life the
poems feed our commitment to each other as a whole. I
present a small sampling of some of the accomplished
poet’s poems from ‘Pomegranate Seeds.’

Eleni Fourtouni

“I performed the libation at sunset:
milk and honey, wine and olive oil,
enough for a hundred traitors.
once they played tag…”

John Bradley

“I tell you I didn’t die.
I just never bothered
to turn back”

Ioanna Carlsen

“The bigness of the arc going each way,
never deviating in its rhythm.
the back, the forth
the pen writing its line
and then returning,
starting over again…”

Constantine Contogenis

“Before his father told him
the idea of windows, he
loved both sides of walls, locusts
leaving carapaces, ewes…”

Penelope Karageorge

“…the stones await me.
I swallow them with salt and greens and weep.

Irene Koronas
Poetry Editor
Wilderness House Literary Review
Reviewer: Ibbetson Street Press

In Chambers: The Boddhisatva of the Public Defender’s Office by Richard Krech

In Chambers: The Boddhisatva of the Public Defender’s Office
by Richard Krech
sunnyoutside
44 pages/ $10

By Thomas Gagnon

Richard Krech has convictions, which engaged my attention and respect. Krech observes that criminal law operates violently. He makes this clear from the first poem, onwards. (This is also clear from Dickens’ Bleak House or Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.) He then establishes his role as peace-maker and liberator—overall, a life-giving force in a deadly environment. Kudos to Krech, the lawyer.

Krech, the poet, does use poetic devices, like alliteration, but he uses too few and too rarely. Too many of his poems read like news articles cut into varying line lengths that could be pasted back into the article format.

Meanwhile, onward to what works—
The opening poem, “In Chambers,” is also one of the best poems in the book. First compared to poker, a card game of deception and suspense, the courtroom dramas soon become ominously violent, featuring opponents, powder and ammunition, and corrosion—or worse, destruction—of a human being. The indelibly rhythmic assonance of the phrase “Advocates and adversaries” starts both the second stanza and the poem’s recurrent metaphor of courtroom-as-war. This soon leads to a Darth Vader “black robe at the center/of attention, the center of power.” The judge is an unfeeling robe. In the next stanza also, Krech delivers the horror of the courtroom scene.

At poem’s end, Krech asserts, “There is no symbolism here.” He follows this assertion with aptly terse statements, concluding with “and destroy [a whole life].” Well said.

That Robe from “In Chambers” re-appears later in “Virtual Justice,” where again it plays an unfeeling role, as it “two way video conferences/with a concrete cell/miles away…” While “the Robe” depersonalizes the judge, the conference is depersonalized by video technology. Later on, the alliteration of “Dejected distracted” is attention-getting, perhaps to make the reader wonder, are the prisoners distracted by their dejection? Here is a place where I also wonder, why doesn’t Krech use alliteration in other poems? Ultimately, Krech zeroes in on this illusory, virtual, and therefore, injustice.

In Chambers has other good poems, like “Deconstructing the Prosecution’s Case,” and other good devices, like the drive through the fruitful valley into the unchanging town center and then into the
battle of the courtroom. More often, however, Krech is not using language in an engaging, memorable way. His subject deserves more style than he is giving it.



--Thomas Gagnon

Ibbetson Press Book "Housekeeping" by Philip Burnham Jr. featured on NPR's

* Click on banner to get on Writer's Almanac site. Check archive if after April 4, 2008 for audio clip


Ibbetson Press Book "Housekeeping" by Philip Burnham Jr. featured on NPR's The Writer's Almanac



by Doug Holder




Poetry
Ibbetson Poet Philip Burnham featured on NPR''s Writers Almanac. From his poetry collection "Housekeeping" (Ibbetson 2005)




Poem: "Assignment #1: Write a poem about Baseball and God" by Philip E. Burnham, Jr. from Housekeeping: Poems Out of the Ordinary. © Ibbetson Street Press, 2005. Reprinted with permission.

Assignment #1: Write a poem about Baseball and God

And on the ninth day, God
In His infinite playfulness
Grass green grass, sky blue sky,
Separated the infield from the outfield,
Formed a skin of clay,
Assigned bases of safety
On cardinal points of the compass
Circling the mountain of deliverance,
Fashioned a wandering moon
From a horse, a string and a gum tree,
Tempered weapons of ash,
Made gloves from the golden skin of sacrificial bulls,
Set stars alight in the Milky Way,
Divided the descendants of Cain and Abel into contenders,
Declared time out, time in, stepped back,
And thundered over all of creation:
"Play ball

Turning Tables by Heather and Rose MacDowell

Turning Tables by Heather and Rose MacDowell
By Shannon O’Connor

The Dial Press, a division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
April 2008
$24.00
www.dialpress.com


Turning Tables was left behind at the Bagel Bards at Au Bon Pain one Saturday mornng as a joke. “We’re going to start doing chick lit books,” was received to dubious laughter. Almost everyone left and the lonely book was abandoned on the table. The few stragglers picked it up, and I decided I would read it, even though I had never dipped my toes into the chick lit sea before, but I was ready to take the plunge.

Erin Edwards, the heroine of the novel, loses her job in marketing, and a family friend gives her a recommendation to work in an upscale Manhattan restaurant. She has no experience in fine dining, but she tries to fake knowledge of food, wine and service.

The characters are extremely one dimensional: there’s the gay waiter/ aspiring actor, the nursing student who works at the restaurant at night, the lifetime waiter, the nasty Italian manager who doesn’t speak proper English, and of course, the crazy cooks.

The dialogue is stilted. The characters say things that should have been said already. At a private party at which Erin serves, a mother says to her daughter, “Look at me when I’m talking to you. There are three decent schools in Manhattan and you’ve blown through two of them.”

I kept reading, not because the characters were interesting or they had something to say, but because the story and plot were fast and intriguing. Erin was always getting into some kind of mishap at work. She had a fling with a guy just because she thought he was hot. And the fate of the restaurant was always in her hands. The managers couldn’t stand her, because she was not quick enough. She despised working there, and she felt ashamed that she had fallen from a professional job to waiting tables. She was embarrassed to tell people she met that she was a waitress. She went to an upscale party with her boyfriend and she felt “like a maid in her mistress’s clothes.”

Even though the book is chick lit, it deals with certain issues about class in America. Of course it is possible for the upper middle class to "fall" to working class, especially in the economic turmoil our country faces now. The character Erin was making a good salary in marketing and eating at the best restaurant in Manhattan, then she lost her job and became a waitress. She felt embarrassed. There shouldn’t be a reason to feel embarrassed about having a job and doing it well. She didn’t do her job well, but she improved as the book wore on, and she didn’t crack under pressure. Serving people could make anyone break, but survival is the goal. I survived this book and came out unscathed, but I don’t know if I’d swim in the chick lit sea again.

*Shannon O'Connor is a recent graduate of U/Mass Boston, and works at Starbucks on Beacon Hill.

Ten Poems about East Asia & Kitsch Nebula Ampersands And: Ralph-Michael Chiaia

Ten Poems About East Asia

&

Kitsch Nebula Ampersands And:

Poems by Ralph-Michael Chiaia

Coatlism Press, copyright 2007

Pages = 47.





Review by Lo Galluccio



Genius book. I wanted to review it because it’s about a part of the world—East Asia -- I only begin to see through the faces and ideas of my Korean and Japanese students at Berlitz. This is not a book about that part of Asia, however, except for a few poems about Seoul. What’s super-cool though is this book is also full of what I like about experimental work: his code lists, symbols, concrete language and wild juxtapositions of great post-modern verse.



“I like to keep perspective,” Suzanne Vega adroitly sings. So does Chiaia. (His bio says that he resides on Long Island but travels the world armed with his pens and laptop-- you can tell.) This book is an enticing travelogue of portraits of places and people from New York City to Singapore.



His wings are in the mixture of cultural references, combined with a love of Asian ambience and history, and New York’s splaying multi-cultural virtues and vices. The first part of the book, Part 1, “Ten Poems about East Asia” are dedicated to his homeland of East Asia, notably Thailand. (This is my guess, though it is not explicitly stated.) Although he writes with a conscientious and lucid notation of many catastrophes-- only one of which is a scorched Vietnam from the U.S. War against it-- there is a playfulness and richness of language that seems to come from the decadence of a narcotic-filled nights in Bangkok or Hong Kong.





Manila:



“She’s up in the afternoon

nose stuffed up from too much

alcohol. She washes the cum off her.



*****



hope that tomorrow

will be real

not another fantasy --

her cellphone buzzes.”

p. 14



On the close of the Vietnam War in Phnom Penh he snaps this shot:

(circa 1975):



“the motorcycles dust bowl

the place now



where the Khmer Army,

all boys,



took all the guys wearing glasses,

the doctors, the teachers,



the nurses

to labor camps



to the killing fields

to the Teng Sleng”



p. 12





The Kitsch Part 2 Section is full of Odes to many things. There are several sarcastic but true enough Odes to America that hit hard and funny. Here’s one example:



ODE TO AMERICA



“America big baby playing with toys

nobody else has

in a room full of boys.”



p. 33





Against this stake to the heart of America’s big boy greed and ridiculousness is a Ginsberg-esque piece called, “Ode for the Fucking Sake of it” that captures the freedom and cravings the US engenders & which suddenly darkens down with an iteration of 9/11.





“I want

the honking, smell of knishes and sauerkraut

and delicious peanuts that taste like shit

I want

The Latinas with hoops and jeeps

the parks and it’s craziness:

man in grey suit playing flute

woman in fountain giving speech

SWAT team in gear

Invisible on rooftops, in vans…”



“the bodegas selling dope

speaking Spanish

the passersby blowing kisses at men’s dates

the many saying yum to the tall girl in heels

the dog run, the chess tables, the arches….”





And then a jumbo jet turns right back into the World Trade Towers and Chiaia returns us to the brutal realities under the surface, or just behind them now, where other brutalities have taken their place:



“the terrorist attacks, the steel burning, the buildings falling,

the smoke that stayed, hovered, stank

of burning flesh and steel

the following antipathy, altruism, and apathy.”





Chiaia is a unique trip-hoppy visionary of language and this book encompasses war and peace, lyricism and death, and hit or miss mixes with strangers, especially women. It’s cover is forest green swirled with an image of a battleship the color of money and spring.





Lo Galluccio

Ibbetson St. Press

Poet Heather Madden: A Recent Transplant to Somerville’s Rich Artistic Milieu

Poet Heather Madden: A Recent Transplant to Somerville’s Rich Artistic Milieu

Somerville poet Heather Madden is in the midst of a love affair. It was love at first sight with the city of Somerville. She loves the mixture of artists, the generations of families that reside here, the Sherman Café, the eclectic shops of Union Square and the general enthusiasm for the Arts the ‘ville embodies. Madden, who lives in the Union Square/Winter Hill Section area of the city, told the News that her Somerville neighborhood is: “quiet enough” for her to write and she loves the view of a historic home across the way from her flat.

Madden is a published poet, with extensive teaching experience on the college level. Currently Madden works as an adjunct professor at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. and as a Development Associate at the Arsenal Center For The Arts in Watertown, Mass.

At the Center she is involved in grant writing, editing, proofing, to name just a few duties. The Center has four resident companies, and has its own programs such as “Text and Context” a series that matches a writer with a visual artist. Both participants talk about their “process” and there is an open discussion with the audience. Somerville Poet Lloyd Schwartz was a recent participant.

As for her work at Hampshire College Madden told the News that she finds the students consistently engaged with the craft of poetry. In Madden’s view her students are genuinely interested in poetry-- a godsend for any teacher.

Madden, who experienced the death of her father and other family members in short order said she need the distance of some eight years to truly write about it. She is now really “engaged” with her past in the context of her work. When she completes the manuscript she is working on: “Bring the Dead Girls Home,” she feels she will be able to “move on” in her writing.

Madden grew up near State College, Pennsylvania, a university town, but her parents were not professors. Her late father was a criminal investigator. When Madden started teaching at her alma mater she founded a visiting writers program for Department of Youth Service kids living in a residential treatment setting. She had her own college students teach the kids with laudable results. Since then Madden has gone on to teach in the Midwest, but came back to the Northeast to be near friends and family.

Madden also pitches in as a reader at the prestigious literary magazine “Ploughshares” based at Emerson College in Boston. As a reader of poetry manuscripts she looks for original vision, an element of surprise, humor, and emotional layers. Madden told the NEWS:

“If a poem makes me pause, and each line makes me want to go back and read the poem again, then it is a winner.”

Madden, who worked at the Sherman Café for a brief time when she first moved to Somerville, is happy in her new digs and glad to live in a place that is inspiring.

Doug Holder

Poesy Magazine Issue 36

POESY
issue 36
P.O.Box 7823
Santa Cruz, Ca. 95061
2008 ISSN# 1541-8162
www.poesy.org

Publisher: Brian Morrisey
Guest Editor: Erika King
Boston Editor: Doug Holder



Initially I flipped through Poesy Magazine issue 36,
and my first impressions were the juxtaposition of
photography and poetry; essay and poetry; different
type faces and poetry; the white space page integrated
with and opposite the black space page. This issue is
worth the year wait. The size, 7 ½ by 7 ½, the glossy
cover, the presentation, all lend to an intimate hold
in your hand, kind of magazine. The editors did a
fabulous job. Their respect for poetry and the poet is
evident in the formatting.

I started a list of the poems I liked best, then I
realized there were so many that it became impossible
to comment on all of them. It will have to suffice,
that I found some of the finest, grounded, simply
plain spoken poetry, not excluding what I feel is also
experimental phrasing, in a few of the poems;
“daylight snapped between black & white” or “I leave
again for Paris by way of my mother…” Then those poems
of few words, leap off the page and grab my mind, hold
me captive until I think it through; “I am the last
brut’ and the last poem in the magazine seems to be
the epitome of what this magazine stands for, or at
least part of what the magazine espouses..

“I maybe
used to have
favorite poets but they
only wrote about made up things, didn’t
have even a portion of a trashed life…”

Poesy is one of many small magazines, small presses,
that gives the public a sampling of what some poets
are trying to capture about their life and landscape,
without having to confound, us the reader.

Brian Morrisey and Erika King’s interview with the
veiled anonymity of the GPP is interesting but I don’t
agree with a lot of what the responses to the
questions were. I do agree with, “we’ve never said we
we’re, “revolutionary”…we just publish poems and get
them to as many people as possible.” that premise is
what the small press does, get the word or poem out
there and Poesy does it well.

The photography is in itself poetic portraits
portrayed in an insightful manner. Bravo to Poesy and
to all the hard working small presses. Without them
most of the poets I know would not be in print. most
of them would be lurking in a corner coffee shop
waiting for an opportunity to publish.

Irene Koronas
Poetry Editor
Wilderness House Literary Review
reviewer: Ibbetson Stree Press

Itsy Bitsy Yoga for Toddlers and Preschoolers by Helen Garabedian

Itsy Bitsy Yoga for Toddlers and Preschoolers
Helen Garabedian
Da Capo Press
A Member of the Perseus Book Group
$16.95
ISBN: 973-1-60094-008-8


I think Itsy Bitsy Yoga written in clear prose would be a delightful read for parents and caregivers. In addition to the benefits yoga brings, Ms. Garabedian states that Itsy Bitsy Yoga can tame tantrums, improve digestion, cultivate self-expression, promote fine motor development, improve realization and bring about a healthy lifesstyle. How welcoming is this! The book gives explicit how to directions and is organized around ten playful yoga routines. Each chapter has an
illustration of the posture, a section called Watch Me, Say N' Play, On the Go with Helen and Yogi Wogi Says. For example in Chapter #4, Wake n' Stretch Yoga the poses are called: Table, Cat, Cow, Twisting Cow, Child , Down Dog and Lunge ; the benefits include improved breathing,coordination,and balance
and seems like lots of fun.

The book is abundant with suggestions, songs and age-appropriate information. Ms Garabedian understands how to motivate children. I enjoyed most
the strengthening of the bond between parent and child that happens when engaging in these postures and play. The author tells how to relate to children
through singing, reading together, going on ourdoor walks and other sweet interactions. The practice is child-centered, she emphasizes; it begins where
the child is and helps to build self-confidence and self-esteem . Throughout there are praises and encourgement for the child: a nod, a smile, a high five, a pat on the back, thumbs up. What child wouldn't benefit from the routines in this book. I wish I had learned Itsy Bitsy Yoga when I was five.


Barbara Thomas

"My Fingernails" by Christopher Fritton

'My Fingernails
Are Fresnel Lenses'
Christopher Fritton
2008 ISBN 978-1-934513-06-4

Sunnyoutside
David Michael McNamara, Publisher
P.O.B. 911 Buffalo, New York, 14207
www.sunnyoutside.com

This small square, four inch by four inch, handmade,
or at least partially handmade, hand sewn, with great
attention given to the arrangement of verse done by
letterpress and fine papers contribute to a sense of
value. the book, ‘My Fingernails Are Fresnal Lenses’
becomes a gift, giving us, the general public, a
chance to untie the wrapping. the verse presented in
such a way, that there is an anticipation; you will
be pleased with the poem.

Having worked many years in print shops and paper
store, I appreciate the care given to how the poet
wanted to present his chapbook. There is a marriage of
earlier printing techniques. The red cover symbol
denotes the red lettering of an Celtic illuminated
script or medieval decorative design. The cover paper
is also reminiscent of a paper used and still made for
eighteen century multi-signature books, a laid paper,
which means you can detect a line impressed within the
paper. The letterpress is still in use today, but
mainly, for very special use or occasions. When you
run your fingers over the surface of letterpress you
can feel the indentation. This all lends to the
subject matter of the one poem, joining scientific
investigation with memory and more.

“…the light I make is chemiluminescent. The
chemicals are bodies. Light has no body, but
chemicals can be measured. They have detected light…”

Despite the relationship of chemicals and body, the
poem, for me, is about love, memory of love, human
love explored to it’s minute details. Love can be
explained anyway a poet chooses. Love still shines
through, whether because of the function of the brain,
or because we are emotional creatures, and that, being
emotional, is also connected to the brain; I refer to
the individual choices we make to love or not to love.
Christopher Fritton gives us a kiss; he gives us all
the thoughts perceived by him, behind a long kiss, an
intimate kiss. He whispers in our ear as only a lover
can. We are privy to something special. We alone, are
the only ones to ever be loved in this new way,
everlasting, evermore, that has ever been, that will
ever be.

…”I hold my hand next to your head
and my fingernails near your ear so you can hear…”

Perhaps the poet did not mean what I insist on seeing
in this poem. Light is more than material or light is
not material, or light emanates from the material,
whatever scientists discover, or have discovered, this
poem shines, on; what I call a love poem.

Irene Koronas
Poetry Editor, Wilderness House Literary Review
Reviewer, Ibbetson Street Press