DO SOMETHING, DO SOMETHING, DO SOMETHING by Joseph Riippi

DO SOMETHING, DO SOMETHING, DO SOMETHING by Joseph Riippi (http://ampersandreview.com/Do_Something!.html) Ampersand Books



-- Reviewed by Manson Solomon



Do Something, Do Something, Do Something, as one might guess from the title, tells three stories. In the space of its 176 pages, we learn of the travails of three separate young people, each in desperate straits and each needing to “do something” to work through their troubles in order to emerge on the other side. The cover illustration depicts a man in work clothes building a chimney brick by brick from the inside, which suggests to us that what these folks urgently need to do is repair their inner turmoil by painstaking reconstruction of their psyches. And the urgency is communicated visually by the fact that the emerging chimney is constructed in the shape of an exclamation point.



The author subtitles his book “a novel”, which it is insofar as style is concerned, being a work of creative fiction. Yet, since the three characters interact only incidentally and not in any way central to the development of the narrative, it is really three parallel stories, gathered together for their common thread of psychological distress brought on by traumatic violence. They each desperately need to “do something” to work through their troubles and they all do so by means of some form of writing.



We are introduced to S (or “the girl with the starfish tattoo”), who has had her life turned upside down by a traumatizing rape, and who has had a starfish tattooed on her breast to remind her that, like a starfish which has lost a tentacle, it is possible to regenerate and become whole again. We meet her stepbrother, Eddie, who has been put into a psychiatric ward for attacking a stripper with a broken glass in a fit of blind rage after the death of his mother. Eddie spends the whole novel trapped in his disturbed head in the ward, with a pile of books by his bedside, trying to deal with his condition by wrestling with the existential perspectives of Sartre, Sontag, Carver, Nietzsche, and others. He records his observations in notebooks all titled “Something About . . . “ and with “Do something, do something, do something” written on the back cover of each journal. (Though Bellow is never mentioned, shades of Herzog?). And thirdly, there is Martin, the playwright, who, when we meet him is totally drunk and throwing up (an all-too-common central condition of these unfortunate protagonists) and whose particular trauma is the loss of his prematurely-born daughter and of the divorce which it precipitated, and who is about to go back to Seattle to do something, do something, do something as a writer-director. So what the three protagonists have in common is being psychologically messed up, being in desperate need to “do something” to fix their lives, and choosing some form of writing as a vehicle for healing -- and a lot of escapist binge drinking and puking.



The book takes us into the characters’ minds in exquisite detail, beginning immediately with the prologue in which the sensitive Eddie is slapped down by his overbearing, brash mother while tenderly engaged with a delicate dead bird. Intimations of what is to come -- which is a deftly painted series of word-pictures displaying the protagonists’ mental anguish, each unique and each in its own context, set out in alternating short chapters illustrated with the three protagonists’ three icons: starfish, pile of books, bridge.



Joseph Riippi has an artistic sensibility, is able to get into his characters’ heads, describe their thoughts and the settings and events in which they are each caught up with sensitivity and in meaningful detail. And he conveys it in a way which draws the reader in. There is some really good material here, and one senses that there is potential for something really exceptional, were it to be marinated, developed, corrected, perfected.



Unfortunately, it seems to have been swept into print before it was quite ready. For some inexplicable reason, the words have found their way onto the page amidst a thicket of malaprops, grammatical errors, incorrect prepositions, and so on, basic stuff which distracts one from the substance of the writing like a spray of impudent little slaps in the face. These should surely have been purged by a competent copy editor before going to print. Some of the best authors have had trouble with grammar, spelling, and so on, but that is why publishers have editors. It is all the more surprising to see this here since Riippi specifically thanks a long list of supporters, including his MFA supervisor (who provides a glowing back cover blurb), all of whom presumably reviewed the material, and especially since parts of the book have already appeared in more than a dozen publications. Writing longhand with pen and paper has gone the way of the dinosaur, but can it be that texting and twittering have already rendered us all thumbs when it comes to basic grammatical facility, even in English departments and even amongst writers professionally plying the craft? Have all the middle school English teachers abandoned their students for hi tech? Sending this otherwise talented author’s first book out like this is like sending a beautiful young girl out to her first prom with acne all over her face. Someone needed to take her back inside and fix it before she got into the limo.



This is a good first effort, with many excellent lyrical passages, which suggests that Riippi will have more to offer in the future, provided he takes care to baste it well before taking it out of the oven and putting it on the table.

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****Manson Solomon emerged from the womb with a mission to be a writer with a large trust fund. However, since the trust fund turned out to be inexplicably missing from the equation, older and supposedly wiser counselors suggested that a commitment to a life of writing was, under the circumstances, almost certainly a guarantee of debilitating starvation. So he majored in economics.



In addition, he felt early on that a writer needed to have some life experiences in order to have something to write about, such as love and death, fortunes won and lost, conflict and resolution, war and peace, agony and ecstasy, etc etc. (Which, by the way, turned out to be totally false: he has since learned that most writers just make it all up anyway, and the nerdy reading public, not having had much worldly experience themselves, doesn’t know the difference.)



Accordingly, he spent the intervening years exploring reality as an economics professor, an investment analyst, then, seeking wider horizons, a philosophy professor, and, wider, a research fellow in social psychology. He roamed the world, inducing various academic institutions of advanced learning in London, New York, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Wellesley, Cambridge, etc. etc. to provide funds for advanced degrees and/or research programs and/or teaching positions -- which funds he secretly used to further his hidden agenda of acquiring life experiences to write about. But when children appeared on the scene, with their outrageous requirements of funding for tuition, camps, clothing, food and suchlike trivia, he went back to getting and spending again.



Somewhere in the midst of these explorations, he put in a spell in a hippie commune in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where learned first hand about life in a small fishing village and on the side established and ran the largest handcrafts outlet in Maritime Canada. After the commune went the way of the 60’s, he continued to return every summer for the past almost 40 years to witness the rather dramatic changes which are the subject of his presentation tonight.

Best?—Holderest Book Yet: Poems from the Left Bank: Somerville, Mass.

Best?—Holderest Book Yet: Poems from the Left Bank: Somerville, Mass.

review by Michael T. Steffen


None of us quite rise to the poetry we would ideally write. Some of our best stabs at the art in fact spring ironically from that very fountain of failure, as W.H. Auden remembered the salt
and wit of Yeats:

Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress.

If Doug Holder shies from the empathy of rapture and distress, the subject of the poetry in his new chapbook Poems from the Left Bank: Somerville, Mass., remains “human unsuccess,” shortcoming, such as the “Fellow Cherub Outside a Liquor Store”:

He turned his face toward me—
A smiling mouth
That had turned cruel
Still with the fleshy
Flushed cheeks
Of a choirboy.

Typically the poem’s subject gets caught in the mirror of a choice adjective as from the lit glass window of that store, perhaps with an insular examination that is glaring enough for us his familiar readers to slap a knee at, this humor, which is always at the observer’s and observed’s exchange of expenses. Nothing, the mendicant in front of the store would agree, is free. Above all, Holder’s heart is not going to do the man the disservice of bleeding for him, and the poet is being a little kind to be cruel himself, a little like Hamlet whose street, in another poem in the collection, Holder, with a sketch of drama, ponders, vacillates at and turns from.
The twenty poems from Left Bank (a shifty witticism for these hard times) if less generous in the poet’s consideration and feeling, give us friendlier versions of Holder impersonating the expected Holder that previous books have acquainted us with. It is more Holderesque than poetic, more characteristic than adventurous or traditional. A skirt of heresy for the religious.
A sign of the times. An authentic keepsake for readers. A value for the read.


Poems from the Left Bank: Somerville, Mass.
by Doug Holder
published by Propaganda Press
is available from Alternative Current/P.O. Box 398058/Cambridge, MA 02139
see also alt.current@gmail.com

Interview with Diaspora Poet/Performer/Artist Li Min Mo

Interview with Diaspora Poet/Performer/Artist Li Min Mo
By Doug Holder

Li Min Mo has had a long, nomadic journey as an artist. Born in China, she has lived in many locales, including the Lower East Side of Manhattan where she cut her teeth as an artist. Mo now resides in Cambridge but is a valued member of the Somerville-based artist group the “Streetfeet Women.” She has taught drama, storytelling, and history to children and adults for many years. She holds an M.A. in Theatre and Education from Goddard College in Vermont and an M.F.A. from Emerson College in Creative Writing. In the sixties she worked with Peter Schuman’s Bread and Puppet Theatre, as well as other cutting edge dramatic groups. She has written a memoir "Spirit Bridges" that recounts her childhood in China to her forays in the Lower East Side of New York City. I spoke with her on my Somerville Community Access TV show: “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”

Doug Holder: You endured incredible hardship; from your childhood in China to your time on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It has been said:” What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Is this true for you?

Li Min Mo: I actually think that statement has one shade of the truth. Because of my condition, (I was diagnosed with Narcolepsy when I was 18), I became very depressed. Then the doctor prescribed amphetamines. Back then nobody knew a lot about them. I had to school and work a part time job. I walked around like a drugged fool. I don't think that made me stronger just confused and depressed.

DH: Well out of adversity comes art.


LMM: Well, if you have art. If you are passionate and committed to art...which I am. I am because I know this is the vehicle where my "other" part of me...that is not injured...is going to express itself. And I don't think a lot of people see art this way. I don't make a lot of things because objects are not the way I do art. I create art because this will make me whole. So there is another part of myself that can't explain things....I do express myself when I paint or tell a story, for instance.

DH: Your mom was quite artistic.

LMM: My mom was a formidable character. She qualified as a super mom--because she was doing so much. She slept five hours every night had jobs in factories and went to school on weekends.

DH: Why did you and your Mom leave China?

LMM: My dad was arrested by the communists back in 1949. And subsequently he was executed by the government. They wanted to "educate" my mom, or brainwash her. My mom knew that this was not where she wanted to go. Basically she told them "I can't be changed. I am going to remain decadent." So they knew she wasn't going to go through the transformation a revolution requires. They told her she could leave--later we landed in Hong Kong. She had a wonderful job as a writer there. Ever since we left China my mother wanted to come to America. She felt America would give her the best break to raise her kids. I think for us she made the sacrifice. She gave up her writing career and profession, and the community of writers. It took her eight years to get here--and we wound up in New York. My mom kept a journal--she wrote her whole life.

DH: You wrote the opening of one's self is the hardest work the artist undertakes. Explain.

LMM: I think when I look in the mirror what I see is just one face of mine. I also know there is another part of me that is not in the mirror. When you write about yourself you have to write about all these layers. It's like peeling an onion--it makes you cry. It's like taking off your clothes in front of everyone. I can never see my own back, but if I am writing about my back I am forced to look at the imperfection. When you write and write well, you share these scars.

DH: You are a member of an artistic group of women writers the "Streetfeet Women.” Can you give us a little history of the group?

LMM: Mary McCullough and Ellen Harap founded the group. Its former name was the Streetfeet's Children's workshop. In the early 80's I was hired to work with children in the Mission Hill section of Boston, creating a summer art program, as well as producing plays. Our group was doing a lot of theatre. Eventually we went to Africa because we heard there was a women's conference being held there...this was 1985. Before that we raised money to travel to Africa, and wrote our own theatre piece together--we created an ensemble. From there we created and nurtured our own writing. We got together once-a-month. Our first anthology came out in 1998 "Laughing in the Kitchen"--we used to meet in each other’s kitchens. Before that we published small booklets: "On the Road to Beijing." was one such booklet. We chronicled our travels. We travel less now--we all have families and grandchildren.

DH: Can you talk about your involvement with the Bread and Puppet Theatre in the 60's. It had a very political mission, no?

LMM: Peter Schumann, the director of the theatre, started it in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I was living there at the time. I was babysitting for a filmmaker and she introduced me to Peter. Peter decided to attach my face for his masks for his play against the Vietnam War. So my face became the face of the Vietnamese people. People would wear my mask in marches and in theatre productions. I did quite a bit of writing about Peter's work because he is quite the genius. He currently has a play at the Boston center for the Arts.

DH: China is an emerging power--or has already emerged. Do you think it will have a major impact on the literary world?


LMM: I think Chinese respect writing. Now that more people are educated writing and literature will be more prominent. The government is afraid of writers. They are afraid of what writers say. I don't think there is a good chance they can shut the country off to literature.

DH: Do you think your mother would want to go back to China now if she was alive? Would you like to go back to live there?

LMM: I don't fit there. I am the artist in exile. Right now it is hard for me to blend in. I think my mother would have liked to go back though.


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

Somerville’s Mike Dacey: Publishing History “Repeats” Itself

Somerville’s Mike Dacey: Publishing History “Repeats” Itself

By Doug Holder

The first thing I noticed in Mike Dacey’s studio was a half full bottle of Balvenie Double Wood Whiskey. Now I enjoy a glass of Canadian Club with my wife on these cold evenings, so I was glad to see Dacey has good taste as well. The bottle almost seemed like a prop; it fit so well with the well-worn Letterpress printing machines and the gray winter light that filtered in before a much hyped snowstorm. Mike Dacey is an unpretentious man in his late 20’s, who is devoted to an arcane niche of the publishing and printing world: Letterpress Printing. Dacey describes this old school style of publishing as:

“A method of printing which includes raising up the surface of the plate and type, where as the ink is pushed into the paper... The current methods of printing are done by digital technology and offset methodology. “

Dacey prints beautifully conceived broadsides, chapbooks, and mono types from his space at the Fringe Movement Group, housed in an old factory at 9 Olive Square in the Union Square section of the city. The building is basically behind Sherman’s Café, home to the famed oatmeal scone as well an exhibit of Dacey’s work. His printing machines date back to the early 60’s. Dacey said: “As long as you keep them well-oiled they can last forever.”

As we talked Steve Shinnerev, a denizen of the building, and a talented videographer, traversed the expanse of the loft on a skateboard. The way I am feeling these days I would be more inclined to use a walker…but no matter.

“The Fringe Movement,” that Dacey is a proud member of, consists of young architects, engineers, a Green Roof designer, and others, who make their home here as they make their way into the marketplace.

Dacey calls his business the “Repeat Press” and judging by the quality of his products you would be well-advised to visit more than once. Dacey, a Somerville resident, lives with his girlfriend Alex Feinstein, another well-known name in arts circles in the Square. Dacey explained Somerville has been good to him, “I was awarded a Fellowship Grant from the Somerville Arts Council, and my business has become my livelihood.”

I asked Dacey why he chooses to work with Letterpress printing. Dacey said, looking at the ancient machines with a concerned, paternal gaze:

“I like working with my hands. I have a background in Graphic Design from Hampshire College. I think the end result of what I do is special and unique.”

I viewed some of his creations including, well-designed matchbooks covers, a broadside with the poetry of Devin King, as well as a slew of posters for Somerville’s P.A. Lounge as well as other area venues.

Now his stuff isn’t cheap, but you get what you pay for in this world. You can see Dacey’s craftsmanship and his well-honed artistic sensibility in everything he produces. From his cotton-based papers--to his wood type or metal type print productions--Repeat Press is well worth the price!

For more information go to: http:// repeatpress.com

They’re Dropping Bombs Not Ham Sandwiches by Michael Nash

They’re Dropping Bombs Not Ham Sandwiches
Michael Nash
Cervena Barva Press
www.cervenabarvapress.com
$14.00

Review by Renee Schwiesow

Michael Nash is not a novice when it comes to writing for the stage. A teacher of drama and English, his passion for stage productions shows in his work, which includes “Public Heroes, Private Friends” and the musical “Signs of Fire,” a work about the last year of Van Gogh’s life. Nash’s extensive background in theatre includes twenty productions and this experience is showcased in “They’re dropping bombs not Ham Sandwiches,” which takes place in a hospital corridor.

“We will remember them,” a doctor and nurse proclaim.

“We will remember,” the rest of the cast responds.

As reader, we are reminded to remember as well. Nash’s work offers the opportunity to spend time eavesdropping on a conversation between an elderly gentleman, who served during WW II, and a young man who was the recent victim of a terrorist attack in Northern Ireland. Back and forth we go, bouncing from the conversation and recollections of the elderly man’s war experience to the younger man’s questioning, searching for answers.

The entire cast is comprised of five characters who build the story that affirms the heartbreak of war throughout the two acts. Perhaps it is the sparseness of character and set that add to the starkness of reality, the poignancy of the dialogue that Nash has written. Perhaps it is the white walls that drive us to feel the madness of wars where men are marched “like lambs to the slaughter.”

On occasion we are witness to dialogue that finds us retreating into quiet contemplation. On occasion we leave a work unable to immediately articulate the emotional impact the dialogue has upon us. We are left stranded in thought; we are left holding compassion for the countless others across the world that the characters represent. “They’re Dropping Bombs not Ham Sandwiches,” is one such work. Those of us who have not experienced war first hand, indeed know nothing of the horror. But Nash’s dialogue and his characters draw us into a world that unfolds into vivid picture, and his words:

“Makes you wonder how anybody can treat another human being in such a way. . .used for horrendous experiments. Butchered. And burnt. . .”

resound in our ears long after we have put the play down.

LUKE SALISBURY: A Bagel Bard's Novel Approach to the Civil War.

LUKE SALISBURY: A Bagel Bard's Novel Approach to the Civil War.



Bunker Hill Community College English professor and a member of Somerville's Bagel Bards Luke Salisbury has written a number of books about baseball, as well as assorted novels, etc.... His latest work-in-progress is the novel "No Common War." I decided to use this passage from his manuscript that concerns a Union soldier the night before Antietam as a teaser for you readers and literary agents out there. You can read about Salisbury's impressive background at http://lukesalisbury.com.



The night of the 16th was rainy, misty, cold. Men remember it differently. The Pennsylvanians thought no battle imminent. Black Hats and Yorkers didn’t agree. General John Gibbon remembered the night was solemn, dismal, silent. David Hamer remembered how close the lines were. I remember pickets firing sporadically. Occasional artillery echoed through rain and mist. McClellan could have attacked Tuesday and destroyed the part of Lee’s Army camped at Sharpsburg, but McClellan was McClellan—he waited, finicking with details, laboring with anticipation, parading before subordinates, worrying about his men. The day delay doubled Lee’s Army as Jackson arrived and A.P. Hill started from Harper’s Ferry.


No one forgets the next day. The 17th, the bloodiest day in American history. More men would die on a Wednesday in Maryland than in all the wars Americans had fought. Those remembering, commemorating, making meaning, sanctifying—know the stakes—British recognition of the Confederacy, peace Democrats agitating to settle with the South, the Emancipation Proclamation—the document that gave the war the moral clarity of Lincoln himself. All this was only suspected, guessed or wished for by those shivering and chewing coffee beans the night before. No fires. Food cold. Sleep difficult. Sergeant William Harris of the 2nd Wisconsin—he’d be in the second wave—tried to pray himself to sleep and failed.

I prayed.



Many Yorkers and Black Hats got stomach aches as we helped ourselves to apples in the Miller and Poffenberger orchards. The Rebs had been eating green corn and apples for weeks. Ten thousand straggled—those remaining had a variety of ailments. McClellan, with the help of over-cautious, over-estimating, overpaid Pinkerton, inflated Lee’s number ten times, and decided a phantom army lay in reserve behind South Mountain.


Each army had moments of panic. A Zouave from New York City tripped over the regimental dog, fell into a stack of rifles and two regiments scrambled wildly, banging into each other, cussing and running amok until they discovered they weren’t under attack.


In the West Woods, the other side of D.M. Miller’s cornfield, a line of Rebel horses spooked. Sentries remembered it was quiet, too quiet, when something or Something—it was later described as a Spirit—frightened horses who broke their tethers and ran into the night. Major Sorrel and his men chased horses till dawn.


The night was noises, blunders, palpable fear. Later there was a desperate need to make sense of it.

Dave Christy founder of the Alpha Beat Press Has Passed Away...

I received notice that Dave Christy founder of the Alpha Beat Press has passed away. The press was very prolific and influential in the little magazine and chapbook scene in the 80's and 90's. I had my first chap published by Dave Christy: "Poems of Boston and Just Beyond: From the Back Bay to the Back Ward" May he rest in peace.


From the website:


Alpha Beat Press has been publishing Beat Generation, post-Beat Independent and other modern writings since 1986. Alpha Beat Press had its beginnings in a Montreal flat with the idea of keeping the aesthetics and sensibilities of the Beat generation alive. Our first magazine, Alpha Beat Soup was unique, being the only small press magazine publishing original and current Beat writings. In our new magazine Bouillabaisse and in our other poetry publications we have continued in that tradition, publishing a wide variety of writers and styles, from Bukowski to the lesser known poets. Alpha Beat Press is certainly the best of the small press!

Past Contributors include: John Clellan Holmes, Charles Bukowski, Beatrice Wood, Allen Ginsberg, Diane DiPrima, Carolyn Cassady, Gary Snyder, Carl Solomon, Ken Kesey, Simon Vinkenoong, Kaviraj George Dowden, John Montgomery, Jack Kerouac, Ken Babbs, Bruce Fearing, Ray Bremser, Al Aronowitz, Ana Christy, Gerald Nicosia, Diane Wakowski, Bob Kaufman, Steve Richmond, Janine Pommy Vega, Antler, Herbert Huncke, Pradip Choudhuri, Jack Micheline, Gregory Corso, Joan Reid, Allen Cohen, Yusuke Keida, Barbara Moraff, A.D.Winans, Tuli Kupferberg, Richard Morris, George Montrgomery, Frank Moore, Erling Friis-Baastad, t.k.splake, ruth weiss, elliott, Ted Berrigan, Neeli Cherkovski, Clayton Eshleman, Gerald Locklin, Joy Walsh, Anne Waldman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Kurt Nimmo, Ron Androla, Graham Cournoyer, Bill Costley, Jan Kerouac, Jeanne Conn, Stephan Ronan, Christine Zwingman, Chris Challis, Lyn Lifshin, Ulvis Alberts, Lorrie Jackson, Tony Seldin, Judson Crews, Steve Allen, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady & Ted Joans.

Review of “emily dickinson” by Irene Koronas,

Review of “emily dickinson” by Irene Koronas, sized 4 X 6 and 1/2 inches, 22 pages, Propaganda Press, Alternating Current, PO Box 398058, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, $5, 2010

By Barbara Bialick

When Irene Koronas writes her fine “experimental” poetry—sparsely punctuated prose poems, the reader would do well to experiment with the experimental experimentally.
For she is an expert mentally.

The first poem, “dear emily” reads in one interpretation, “who could know this intimacy with self would become expository tramping through every thought…we find your dogmatic loneliness…not an able companion…You dare not walk across the lawn. Yet book after book are on almost everyone’s bookshelf…”

Or you could say, “know this intimacy…self would become.. .(our) expository tramping through. every thought… trying to partner and lead…stepping on…you dare…not walk…a cross (on) the lawn…”

This handy little book with lovely pastel stripes designed by the author on the cover, can join you in a pocket or purse, perfect for sipping as you sip your coffee. Dickinson fans should find the book tasty as we learn to appreciate Emily the recluse from Koronas’ traveled and knowledgeable point of view. And also our own, depending how we choose to read it.

Many of these poems are numbered and appear to correspond to Dickinson’s poems by the same number. Have fun. Read both.

Irene Koronas is a well-known and published poet in the Cambridge/Somerville time zone and is one of the original members of the group called The Bagel Bards. She is also the poetry editor of the Wilderness House Literary Review.

Gnawed Bones: Poetry by Peggy Schumaker

Gnawed Bones
poetry

By: Peggy Schumaker

Reviewed by: E. Hanson

Peggy Schumaker in Gnawed Bones, writes from an interior landscape as well as one based on nature. Her approach is observational.
Her usage seems to me to be perfect. Her constructs building upon the general, leads us to personal truths with a teaming desert of the universal and is a pleasure to read.
I have many favorites in this admirable chapbook. However, if I had to pick just one poem out of the collection it would be “Mother Tongue”. It has an elemental feel with intuitive knowledge. Her credentials are impeccable. (The only thing missing is a translation.)
I love that she likes to use visual art as a springboard. (i.e. “Deliverance”, “That Painting I Didn’t Buy”, “Upset Woman”, etc.) My other favorite is “Sea Change”. I feel that this writer understands the richness of language but also understands that less is more.
There are wonderful poems in this collection that deal with loss. I especially like “Chickens”, “Ha Ha Ha”, and “Albondigas” which stands out for its sheer pathos.
In Gnawed Bones, the reader will come away with a very personal sense of who this author is and the basic nature in all of us, which makes us what we are.
Thank you for a good read!

Shake Down by Andie Ryan

Shakedown
by Andie Ryan
Lenox Road Publishing © 2009
ISBN 978-1-935365-05-1
Review by Steve Glines


Every Saturday morning our editor arrives with a bag, or on a bad day, a box of books to be reviewed. The poetry books are grabbed first, most of the Bagel Bards are poets and a chapbook is a quick read and an equally quick assessment and review. A quick thumbs up or down. The books that remain on the table are eyed warily. They are large, they are fiction, they are novels. They are daunting. The last book on the table carried the title “Shakedown.” A few picked it up, thumbed through it and put it back down. Some snickered, some just skimmed a paragraph or two, and some read the blurbs on the back. I picked it up. Someone rolled their eyes and said, “It’s about a company called ‘Sledd Payne’.” I put it back down.

As our meeting ended our editor, waving “Shakedown” in the air said, “OK, who’s going to review this book?”

When no one answered I said, “I will.”

It’s an hour long train ride back to my house in the burbs, enough time to get a feeling for what a book’s about:

• A murder mystery set in the 1970’s involving a Sledd Payne employee.
• Someone notices that things don’t add up, is money be4ing embezelled?
• A man named Hollister, a senior executive at Sledd Payne is on the case.
I almost missed my stop. At home I opened the book again, reading through dinner, through the 11 P.M. news, well past 3 A.M.:
• A young rising executive discovers hidden accounts with huge sums that are traded daily.
• She’s mysteriously killed.

I won’t go on. The story is a gripping who done it. We know who the villains are and we think we know who the good guys are but the twists and turns make this novel a great read and anyone who’s followed the ENRON or WorldCom story this story is completely plausible. It makes you wonder what skeletons are hidden inside the boardrooms of America’s major corporations.
This book is recommended for anyone who likes a good light thriller.

Two Somerville presses strut their literary stuff Feb.13 at the Somerville Public Library

(Cervena Barva Press)






Two Somerville presses strut their literary stuff Feb.13 at the Somerville Public Library


Ibbetson Street Press and the Cervena Barva Press will hold a joint celebratory reading at the Somerville Central Library Feb. 13, 2010 -- 2p.m. The two presses are Somerville-based and have prolifically published local, national and international poets and writers. Cervena Barva Press was founded by Somerville resident Gloria Mindock; the Ibbetson Street Press was founded in 1998 by Doug Holder, Richard Wilhelm and Dianne Robitaille.

The reading, held at the central library, is located at 79 Highland Ave. in Somerville. Buses to the library leave from Davis Square and stop at the venue on a regular basis. Open mic and featured readers will be included. Books will be on sale from both of the presses.


The reading’s purpose is to launch the new issue of Ibbetson Street , the literary journal. Ibbetson 26 features poetry from Zvi Sesling, Patricia Brodie, Kim Triedman, Dorian Brooks, Lyn Lifshin, A.D. Winans, Kelly Jean White and others, as well as an exclusive interview with Fred Marchant.


Cervena Barva Press will feature part of its roster of celebrated authors: Francis Alix, Irene Koronas, Tam Lin Neville, and Mark Pawlak

Ibbetson Street publishes the best of the small press and is distributed nationally. They have received notice in The Boston Globe, Harvard Review, Small Press Review, Salamander, PRESA, and other respected journals. Ibbetson’s magazines and books are carried at a host of independent bookstores

Climbing The Family Tree Nancy Morgan-Boucher

Climbing The Family Tree
Nancy Morgan-Boucher
nimboucher @ comcast.net
2009 $7.00

Once I get over the formatting in this self published
chapbook, and try to focus on the poems; when I'm
able to concentrate, because visually it is hard to accept
the machine like centering. Okay, I'm over it,
lets get on with the reading:

"There must be
something, he said that
turns you on, something
that sparks you, that you
once wanted to live
for…"

The poems speak eloquently of family, the poets particular
family and there are often universal instances, phrases
rendered with a knowing, "We are born oozing with thick
wet skin…" The reader is often presented with well written
personal beliefs, "like a witch, with an easy wave of her wand…"
Nancy considers each word and juxtaposes verses in that
same consideration. She gives to her readers a strong
feminine perspective with references that come from her
experiences. These poems are voiced succinctly and may
require an audible understanding to be appreciated more
readily. It is an intimate poetic look at one persons life.

Irene Koronas
Poetry Editor
Wilderness House Literary Review
www.whlreview.com

A Boston Poet: Mignon Ariel King

A Boston Poet: Mignon Ariel King ( Click on highlighted title above to get WGBH site)




Mignon Ariel King is making poetry for the page. Aside from the fact that she knows it's not cool, she's been writing poetry for most of her life now. She's born to log iambic pentameter-like script, and evoke verse like the dozens found in her first book of poems called "The Woods Have Words." Published by Ibbetson Street Press, the 78-paged collection introduces readers to a Boston that is not often documented in books, on television, and in film. Born in Boston City Hospital, and raised at the intersection where Roxbury meets South Boston, Mignon grew up in a neighborhood where black, Irish, Puerto Rican, and Cape Verdean people lived side-by-side despite forced busing.

"My favorite spot growing up was the Dudley Library," she recalls.

Reading and writing were anchors for her and the poetry mattered the most. Today she is startled by the small number of black women poets who actually participate in Boston's "real" poetry scene, which includes
a good number of open-mic venues, social groups and workshops. "You walk into a group of poets," she exclaims, "and there will be thirty people there, and there's usually a maximum of three black poets and you're the only female one. There are like 5 of us, apparently, in the whole state."

Though Mignon will do a staged reading of her poems, she says, "It's different if you're a spoken word artist, but to be a written-word poet in the Twenty-First Century is incredibly not cool."

Mignon isn't aiming for cool anyhow. "I would rather just a community of writers focused on publishing rather than friends," she jokes. This is why in 2008, she launched the online journal of black women writers called "MoJo!" where she hopes to build and strengthen a chorus of new century black women writers. She also just finished a trilogy in three genres after twelve years of hard work. When asked if she would ever accept the honor of being a poet laureate, she immediately declined and said, “I’m not a people person.”

Laissez-Passer by Ricky Rapoport Friesem

Laissez-Passer
by Ricky Rapoport Friesem
Kipod Press
Israel 2009
Softbound, 115 pages


Review by Zvi A. Sesling

Israel has always produced good poets, starting in biblical times. In the more modern era many began writing in their mother tongues: Russian, Polish, German, French. Eventually Hebrew became the language of their art. Today there are many Hebrew poets and almost as many who write poetry in English. Voices Israel is one organization in Israel that promotes English poetry with a newsletter, annual poetry competition as well as a yearly anthology.

One Israeli poet writing in English is Ricky Rapoport Friesem whose latest book Laissez-Passer, Poems 2001-2009 was recently released. Friesem is a poet and documentary film maker who has written two cookbooks, an award winning poetry collection and has had her poetry published in numerous magazines.

Friesem’s poetry is often ironic, honest and short. She writes some great lines like the opening to “Frequent Flyer,” In a strange city/where no one knows my name/I can ignore the sights.

There is also the entirety of the title poem “Laissez-Passer”

Only words
can grant me freedom
let me break through
love’s tight bonds
slide me through
restraint’s barbed borders
turn me loose in the beyond

Friesem notes about the words laissez-passer, “In French, literally, ‘let go.’ Usually used to refer to a special travel document issued in lieu of a passport. And so we see her travel document within the seven lines of the poem that will help her find her freedom.

In the clever “Book Collector” Friesem sees herself as an overlooked book by a potential lover, or perhaps just scanned but never fully appreciated. Even the final line might be a double entendre:

I am a book
you’ll never read.

You’ll stroke my cover
run your fingers down my spine,
riffle through me, feel my heft
and nod with satisfaction.
But read me? Never.

I make a nice addition
to your bookshelf.
Great book.
In good condition.
Barely used.

In a book of more than 100 poems there are many to chose from and quite a few you will find worthy of a second read. Ricky Rapoport Friesem has written a personal and enjoyable poetry book.

Somerville poet/artist Celia Gilbert: A Poet who paints with the brush and words

Somerville poet/artist Celia Gilbert: A Poet who paints with the brush and words

Celia Gilbert is a Cambridge/Somerville based poet and artist with a new collection of poetry out: “Something to Exchange.” (Blaze Vox) She studied with the noted poet Robert Lowell, as well as Anne Sexton and Robert Fitzgerald. She was the poetry/fiction editor at the Boston Phoenix and interviewed both Mary Daley the late feminist scholar, and along with fellow poet Ruth Lepson, the renowned poet Robert Creeley. She is the winner of a number of awards from prestigious organizations like the Poetry Society of America and the 92nd St. Y. I talked with Gilbert on my Somerville Community Access TV show: “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer”

Doug Holder: You studied with Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton. You were in Lowell’s famed workshop. Where was this? Can you tell us about the workshop?

Celia Gilbert: The workshop that I was thrilled to be in was at Harvard University. Robert Lowell was very generous about poets entering his seminars. I submitted poems and was excited when he said I could be there. I was there with a lot of people like Lloyd Schwartz, Jean Valentine…it was very exciting. The procedure Lowell used in class was he picked a poem that the students would submit. The student would read his or her poem and then he would read it. That was very exciting because you had your poems read by Robert Lowell. I learned a lot.

DH: Were you aware of his bouts of mental illness?

CG: It was well-known that he had a sort of seasonal illness. Most of the classes were fine. But when December came around that’s when the disorder came on. We didn’t understand seasonal affective disorder then like we do now. But at this time of the year he became more excitable. We didn’t have words like Bipolar back then.

DH: I read that when Anne Sexton was in his class at Boston University—she knew when he was headed to McLean Hospital.

CG: Yeah—but we concentrated on the poetry. Frank Bidart was in the seminar, and Frank was very much the person who helped him through the hard times.
DH: You interviewed the late poet Robert Creeley. He told me he never revised his poetry; he just threw it out if it didn’t work.

CG: I think whatever he said is true. I want to say that Robert Creeley was extremely generous. When I interviewed him with Ruth Lepson for the Phoenix, he just gave us so much time. He was very approachable. He would talk on and on. Yet his poems were so crystalline.

DH: You have a space at the Brickbottom Studios in Somerville. You are an accomplished artist as well as a poet. Can you talk about this?

CG: For most of my life I have been a poet. But I had a yearning to make art. I just never had time to explore it. About 20 years ago I took a watercolor class at the Cambridge Adult Education Center--which is a wonderful resource for people. Inspired by this I found out about a workshop at Brickbottom for monotypes.

DH: How does this fit in with your work as a poet?

CG: My poetry is not philosophical, but very visible. It is gratifying to work on visual images-- even abstract ones.

DH: In your new collection of poems "Something to Exchange" in the poem "The Meal" you write about the absence of your husband at an evening meal. I always write about food--it reveals a lot about the texture of our lives.

CG: Meals are very fraught. There was an absence of my husband at this particular meal. In the living world we create a world that we feel is safe and good. We delude ourselves that nothing bad is ever going to happen. This is how we survive. So in this poem his absence was a foreshadowing; it is a poem about how fragile life is and how lucky we are to have any happiness.



Eve Leaves Eden

The rose that bloomed at the gate
she stole for a garden of her own,
a cradle of seeds enclosed within its fullness,
defying Him the tyrant who
made the rules to keep them in.

She looked behind, one last look.
A bird sang, neither happy nor sad.
The time had come, and with that word
she understood the penalty they paid.

In her new garden,
the rose flourished along the palings,
not an aristocratic species
that would shine a week or two and fade—
a simple rambler blooming
throughout the spring and summer,
in autumn the last to go.

Winter months she brewed
the rose hips for nourishment
and saw in the curling steam
the serpent rising from her cup.



Copyright © 2005 Celia Gilbert All rights reserved
from Southwest Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission

Review of GIVE OVER THE HECKLER AND EVERYONE GETS HURT by Jason Tandon

Review of GIVE OVER THE HECKLER AND EVERYONE GETS HURT by Jason Tandon, Black Lawrence Press, Brooklyn, NY, 2009, 82 pages

By Barbara Bialick

It seems to me that the poet takes on the point of view of the new American everyman,
who “heckles” the weird guys in a bowling league as he travels around through obscure towns, and treasures his buddies, dog and girl. He intimates that he may be a black man, but doesn’t seem to make much of race. He also doesn’t seem to make much of high technology for that matter. He doesn’t provide a photo of himself to psych out, but leaves the reader with symbols, allegory, and details that aren’t so much imagery, but the observations of a keen eye, a poet’s eye.

In “League Night” the scary league bowler says, “give up, Heckler…with an air of onions and bourbon/a six-shooter plugs my ear/we end up outside…” (Fortunately the guy parts the circle and the author survives.)

In the next odd scene, “Easter Special”, he records, “In honor of Christ’s resurrection/Mister Donut tops a traditional glazed/with yellow frosting and jellybeans”
as the woman’s “cell phone rings ‘La Cucaracha’…”

And then there’s his dog in a great poem called “Dog Days”: “my dog…with a bout of jazz head,/…with his tongue lolling, eyes half closed, digging the mellow rhythm…”.

Another good one is called “Thanks for Nothing” in which he recalls stopping at a burger joint “north of Albert Lea, Minnesota” where he and his friend Bill neglected to tip the waitress. “She would come up short that day,/worse, get chewed up by her boss, worse than that/asked to turn in her name tag…”He continues: “That meal was the only thing I’ve ever stolen. Except for some time later, back on the east coast in debt…/I swiped two pocketfuls/of spice jars from a Grand Union../indignant/that I should pay so much for flavor.”

Less funny, however, is the poem, “Behind the University”, “It was a confederate flag unfurled/three stories down a brick face/on fraternity row/that took my eyes off the road…I pictured a little girl/praying before bed tonight. I was late to teach a class/and my reason felt like an excuse.”

Speaking of teaching, Tandon teaches in the writing program of Boston University. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, he got bachelors and masters in English from Middlebury College, and his MFA at the University of New Hampshire. This is his second collection of poetry.

Benefit for Haiti: Poetry Reading: Longfellow Hall Harvard; Feb. 10, 2010

On February 10 at 7:30 pm, Robert Pinsky, Rosanna Warren, Jorie Graham, and a dozen other Boston-area poets will join together for a collaborative reading to benefit "Partners in Health" and the people of Haiti. It will take place at Longfellow Hall/Harvard, Appian Way, Cambridge, MA. I ( Kim Triedman) have been organizing this benefit with Jim Henle from Harvard, and we will be co-chairing this event. As of today, the confirmed readers are:



Robert Pinsky

Jorie Graham

Rosanna Warren

Afaa Michael Weaver

Fred Marchant

Christina Davis

Daniel Tobin

Barbara Helfgott-Hyett

Jean-Dany Joachim

Patrick Sylvain

Wendy Mnookin

Marilene Phipps-Kettlewell

Nadia Herman-Colburn

Kim Stafford

Tom Daley

Jericho Brown

Franny Lindsay



Requested donation will be $10, with all proceeds going to Partners in Health (PIH). Poets' books will also be on sale, with all proceeds after cost going to PIH. The event is being co-sponsored by the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard and Harvard's Technical and Clerical Workers Union, which is providing much-needed logistical support.


I have to say it’s amazing how responsive people have been – the poets themselves, Harvard, individuals donating time and resources of various sorts. We’ve got people from so many institutions around Boston working on this. It’s going to be an incredible event on so many levels -- a true collaboration. Please support us in any way you can!


All best-
Kim Triedman (with Jim Henle)

“Among Thieves” by David Hosp

A BagelBards Book Review

“Among Thieves”
By David Hosp
Grand Central Publishing, New York, NY price $24.99

Reviewed 1/19/10 by Paul Steven Stone

“Among Thieves” is the fourth in a series of attorney-centric thrillers written by David Hosp. Its fictional portrayal of the notorious Isabella Gardner Museum heist of 1990 offers an interesting, if perhaps excessively violent, framework for the still unsolved crime whose purloined booty is reputedly worth billions today.

Fast-paced and interesting in its premise, the novel suffers from characters drawn with little depth, as if the novelist was relying on the reader’s efforts with similar novels and similar characters to round out his offering. The novel’s hero, attorney Scott Finn, works in concert with a former Boston cop turned detective, Tom Koslowski, and a single associate, Lissa Krantz, in a corporate arrangement more suited to detective fiction than commercial reality. The story opens in the past with the chilling murder of a family in Northern Ireland, then quickly spans 35-years and a quarter of the globe to overtake the modern-day murder of a high-ranking member of Boston’s criminal underworld.

Attorney Finn enters the story on Patriots Day on his way to a Red Sox game when he stops by the Nashua Street Jail to visit a client, Devon Malley, a small-time thief who may have been, as the novel later reveals, involved in history’s biggest and most audacious art theft. Malley not only convinces Finn to talk with local gangsters who might be of help, but also gets the lawyer to take charge of his angry, wise-cracking and inevitably hungry-for-love teenage daughter. Before Finn can contact either of Malley’s criminal colleagues, they are tortured to death by a vengeful and relentless IRA terrorist. It soon becomes clear that Malley and his daughter may be the next victims on the list unless Finn and the police can run down the murderer and find the stolen artwork in time.

“Among Thieves” is an interesting tale told by a highly capable writer who perhaps should have spent a little more time on developing his characters. The City of Boston, as well as one of its most notorious sons, Whitey Bulger, play key roles as events and narrative unwind. The story unfolds crisply, with at times excessive violence, and ends with an interesting, if not surprising, conclusion. Readers of crime fiction will enjoy “Among Thieves” even if it doesn’t make the list of top-tier legal/lawyer thrillers.

A SHEEP IN WOLF’S CLOTHING by Paul Steven Stone

A SHEEP IN WOLF’S CLOTHING
By Paul Steven Stone

For any democrats, progressives or dumbstruck Obama supporters wondering “What the hell happened?” in Massachusetts this past Tuesday, let me offer a few thoughts.
As Pogo once said in a famous cartoon strip, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

After eight years of Bush-Cheney malign neglect, the American presidency was turned over to a man who promised to change the way Washington worked. To take back power for the people. To curtail the power of the lobbyists and their entrenched special interests. To fight Wall Street for Main Street. To bridge partisan divide. And to restore America’s pride, not just as a powerful nation but a moral one as well.
And where do we find ourselves a year later?
Stuck.
With a president who appears to value comity over fighting for what he believes in. With a president who promised to fight for real health care reform but appeared to quickly abandon the very drug cost containment and public option elements that real reform requires.

We voted for a president who would fight drug companies for the right to import drugs from Canada and who would use America’s colossal bargaining power like a club to lower drug prices. Instead we ended up with a president who negotiated away his power in exchange for the pharmaceutical industry’s collusion in a program that would never threaten either their American monopoly or their colossal greed.

We voted for a president who would fight Wall Street but who quickly brought in the usual suspects to run things, some of them clearly tarnished by their inside involvement in the financial crisis or their initial efforts to make whole the bankers and CEOs whose greed and system manipulation caused the crisis.

This last year we have hungered for a President who would worry less about upsetting the apple cart and more about removing the bad apples. It may have been politically expedient to give Bush and Cheney a ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card, but America’s constitution has been bloodied by their cowboy-up approach to starting wars, torturing prisoners, denying constitutional rights and subverting civil liberties.

To not shine a light on these illegal and destructive behaviors is to allow them to eat away in the dark at the cornerstone of rights that others have died to secure.

We voted for a president who, if he didn’t have the heart or courage to pursue these miscreants, would at least have had the wisdom to convene a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. If only to uphold the honor of his office and his somber responsibility to our Constitution.

Over the last year we have watched President Obama repeatedly step back from using the full weight and power of his position to foster policies and programs he was elected to pursue. His willingness to enter into compromise or meaningless negotiation with fanatical Republicans so invested in protecting the wealth and power of entrenched interests they would never meet him halfway on any field, over any issue, will prove to be his—and probably our—undoing.

Mr. President, we elected you to clean up Dodge City, but it appears you’ve settled in far too comfortably, and much more quickly than anyone could have expected.

If your advisors tell you that you are doing a good job, fire them. If you can’t find worthy advisors to replace them, perhaps you’ll have to look beyond the boundaries of Washington, D.C.

That would be change we could believe in.


Paul Steven Stone is a writer/novelist living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Author of the novel “Or So It Seems” and the story collection “How To Train A Rock”, he works as Director of Advertising for W.B. Mason. He can be reached at PaulStevenStone@gmail.com.

The Bones We Carry Poems and Short Prose by the Streetfeet Women.

The Bones We Carry Poems and Short Prose by the Streetfeet Women. Chris Fadala, Beatrice Greene, Elena Harap, Mary Millner McCullough, Li Min Mo, and Aura Sanchexz. (Streetfeet Press 30 Brastow Ave. Somerville, Ma. 02143) $10.

The Streetfeet Women is a group that was founded in Boston in 1982 by Somerville resident Mary McCullough and Elena Harap.

It is a collective formed to create works celebrating the way ordinary women live their lives. In this collection by the Streetfleet women: "The Bones We Carry," there is poetry and prose by Chris Fadala, Beatrice Greene, Elena Harap, Mary McCullough, Li Min Mo, and Aura Sanchez. The arresting cover image titled: "Night Rider" was created by Bagel Bard Li Min Mo, and included is artwork from Veronique Epiter. This is an anthology that has veteran writers who have perfected their craft over the years. Being a poet more than anything else, I chose to focus on a sampling of poems.

Li Min Mo's "Old Woman" captures an artist staring at her own face and wondering about the passage of time--the way it becomes chiseled in one's face:

" staring at the mirror:
what's behind this old face?
lines, discolor of age,
old tree bark, my cheeks;...
hollows, bags, crow's feet,
disappearing eyebrows, lips,
the neck's fold, three or four times,
because old age just can't decide on one idea of a portrait."

Mo points out later that the vessel may be old but : " one arm dances with sunlight and the other still wraps/
around the moon."

Being a fan of Jazz, and an admirer of John Coltrane, I enjoyed Beatrice Greene's: "Jazz: Listening to Dr. Dr. John Coltrane." Greene examines the transforming aspect of the music and the affect it has on the listener:



"You move in suspended time and space

Reconfiguring our electromagnetic essence.

Our minds, bodies, spirits enraptured;

sometimes dancing,

sometimes in meditative stillness.

Transformed, we find ourselves

breathing as if by the ocean

where we birthed."



And in a study of a daughter bemoaning the state of a mother firmly in dotage and decline, Mary McCullough writes a masterful portrait of the matriarchal shadow the mother is now in: "Assurance":



hands that once braided my hair

rest in mother's lap

she sits in a chair

placed against a drab hospital wall,

converses in monotones

with her invisible listeners.

i search for a niche in her flatness,

proof of her former wholeness.



i, a nonbeliever,

address the guardian angels

of mothers and daughters,

pray for a miracle,

let her remember my name.



Highly Recommended.