SMU PRESS TO CLOSE JUNE 1, 2010!

Here is a letter from poet Miriam Levine about the announcement that SMU PRESS is to close June 1, 2010:



The decision to destroy SMU Press is shocking and discredits the university. Since 1936 the press has distinguished the school, publishing books of lasting value, and more recently fiction that future generations will read long after the cheering fans at football games in the twenty-first century are dead.

Few editors give manuscripts the careful, intelligent, fearless editing my manuscript received under Kathryn Lang's sensitive, scouring and polishing hands. And few publishers produce such beautiful books.

The word “culture” comes from a word meaning cultivation, tillage of the soil. In cultivation of the soil and the arts, the tools must go deep. SMU Press went deep and produced rich results.

Surely everything cannot be about money! Four hundred thousand dollars, the operating budget of the press, is an insignificant sum compared to the university’s other expenditures. Surely there are other ways to save money. Up here in the north we turn down the thermostat and put on sweaters. What would be the equivalent action in Texas? The university must do the right thing and keep the press open.



All the best from Miriam Levine



Letter from the editor of SMU PRESS:

Dear friend of SMU Press:
Last Thursday Keith Gregory, director; George Ann Ratchford, production and marketing manager; and I, acquisitions and developmental editor, were summoned to a meeting with the SMU Provost, at which we were told that the operations of the SMU Press would be closed down on June 1, 2010. We had no hint or prior warning that this was coming. We have fifteen stranded new projects under contract and 130 other titles in print, effectively unsupported if this should come to pass.
Would you please e-mail me a statement in support of the Press ASAP (today, if possible, for us to take to our editorial board meeting—and later this week, if not)??


Many thanks,
Kathryn Lang
klang@smu.edu

Senior Editor

The Endicott Review: Volume 27, Issue 1 Spring 2010

The Endicott Review
Volume 27, Issue 1 Spring 2010
Endicott College
Beverly Ma 01915

REVIEW BY IRENE KORONAS

The Endicott Review spring issue is teeming with compositions in verse and otherwise emerging phrases. A sacred space crammed with creativity, as opposed to the other sacred space, sparsely arranged. I for one, live in an apartment stacked with books in almost all the rooms, and most of the time I know where every book lives in any particular pile. Don't expect one poem to a page, expect the reality of most writers, an accumulation of words hidden within the already limited space:

"…They come in
carnivorous clusters
hungry for yielding flesh
they infiltrate
the safety
of a sequestered nest…"

Readers will find short stories and poems that relate the immediacy of an intimate occurrence, an identification to an action or the written being part of any given particular. The voices in this magazine redden truth:

"I hear the wind
push his broad shoulder
against the window.
He's looking to pick a fight,
and I have half a mind
to give him one.
I'm in the mood to rumble,
like the air over the ocean
on a night like this.
I'm in the mood to
tear or be torn
by an adversary
proportionate to my hostility.
I'm in the mood to fight,
and so,
it would seem,
is the wind.
Perfect."

Every writing petal, sings the experiences of the writer, whether student
or seasoned poet:

"1. Hold the banana up to your ear to get out of unruly conversations.
2. Peel the banana for an edible hat.
3. Cut out the seeds to make stick-on-freckles.
4. Mush the fruit like human organs.
5. Feel the skin - it is like the chin of a whale.
6. See the yellow. You are holding the sun."

I'm taking this journal with me when I travel to visit my son in Florida. The journal is my invitation to read in short spurts, and the collection offers me a chance to concentrate on new writing, on each writer who offers their song and I'll learn their tune so I can hum along with its message or lack there of, or their burst of spoken flowering on the page; a bouquet fit for anyone who likes to read:

"I'm against the rules, structure, norms, notions, stereotypes.
How on earth could you be yourself - with a world of such profound persuasion
How could you truly express emotions without being judged or marked as different by all
Break rules and boundaries and finally feel a sense of freedom
Be someone who does not discriminate and project hatred
I'm against it all.
We should all run around naked."

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

Poet Jade Sylvan: A Railing Romantic

Jade Sylvan is a writer and performer living in Boston. At times she comes across as an angry young bard railing against the world, and at other times an idealistic romantic---pardon the pun, but "unjaded." Her first full-length collection of poetry, The Spark Singer, was published in 2009 by Spuyten Duyvil Press. Her first novel, Backstage at The Caribou, was published in 2009 by Ray Ontko & Co. She has performed across the country, appearing as the featured performer at The Cantab Lounge (Boston), The Green Mill (Chicago), and The Nuyorican Poets Cafe (New York City), among others. She has also lectured and facilitated writing workshops, most recently at Indiana University and The University of Cincinnati. In 2010, she began working as an Editor and Mentor for Books of Hope, a nonprofit that seeks to empower urban youth through writing, book production, performance, and social entrepreneurship. She is currently at work on a second novel, an album of songs, and more poetry. You can find her at www.jadesylvan.com. I talked with Sylvan on my Somerville Community Access TV show: "Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer."

Doug Holder: You come from the Midwest. Why did you decide to move to Boston as opposed to New York or L.A.?

Jade Sylvan: One of my best friends was moving here... his name is Caleb Cole. ( Cole is a 2009 Artadia Award winner) He is doing very well. So I knew someone here. I knew it was a literary town. I knew it was a very smart city. So I thought I would fit in here. New York just seems too big. I was coming from a small college town. I was raised in Indianapolis a much smaller city. I wanted a more college town feel, in terms of concentration of writers, places to read, places to meet good writers. You really can't beat Boston. It has been awesome to me. I love it here--it is wonderful.

DH: I have followed your blog "The Broken Watch" for awhile now. You seemed a lot angrier a few years ago then now.

JS: Well- I mean--I am getting older. I'm 27, I was 23 when I started the blog. I feel now--that I am on the right path. I feel that I started to accomplish some things. I don't feel as lost or hopeless. It is hard for a young writer. It is hard for one to establish his or her self anywhere and feel like your voice is being heard.

All I ever wanted was to do my art and get it out there. I grew up doing my art very privately, and it was a long time before I ever got to the point that I felt comfortable showing it. Even through college, until I moved to Somerville really--I wouldn't tell anyone that I wrote. It was very internal. And I wasn't happy like that. I had a lot problems so I found what really motivates me is to keep producing, and finding avenues to get out into the world.

DH: Tell us about your new collection "Spark Singer." How did you find a publisher?

JS: I actually had an agent for my novel "Backstage at the Caribou" for a year and a half. She introduced me to the Spuyten Duyvil Press in Brooklyn.

DH: You seem to rail against what you see as mediocrity, pretense--and you seem to constantly count the ticking clock of time.

JS: Yes. Very insightful. I know my father is like this. He is a law professor. He has always been obsessed with time, with doing the most he can. My brother and I were brought up to really, really value life. We were raised to follow our dreams and passions. I am always trying to do the best and most I can with any given moment.

DH: In your new collection you have a poem "A-Train" where you are vomiting in front of a cardigan clad, rather proper young couple. You seem to be taking a studied swipe of this conventional duo, and envision them remembering you in their comfortable suburban home,
over cocktails perhaps. Do you think you could wind up like them--I mean ensconced in a suburban home years from now--remembering fondly your youthful salad days?

JS: I think I could happy with my version of that. Talk to me 5 or 6 years from now. We all have the capabilities of living dozen of lives. It's not the lifestyle I criticize. It's the inauthentic expression of the lifestyle. It's the idea that people go along with things because that's what the convention is, rather than a reason I deem worthy. ( Laugh)

DH: Despite your hard edged and at times cutting work--there is definitely the romantic in you.

JD: I feel that anybody who has the ability to get angry and upset about the world as I do has to be a romantic. I think if you weren't a romantic--if you didn't value life--you wouldn't have a reason to get upset.

DH: Define yourself as a poet?

JD: Well, I hang out with a lot of Slam poets. I read at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge more than any other place. My closest friends are in that scene. I take that in with my performances. I am not a Slam poet however. I am trying to do something new.

DH: Do you think the poetry scene has been ghettoized into different camps?

JD: Definitely. Back in Indiana I didn't like the Slam--I thought it was silly. I didn't like the MFA crowd. I thought it was dry and terrible. It seemed that poetry was in two camps. It seemed if you were not in one camp, you had no outlet. Neither one was interesting to me. So I just decided to make up my own rules.

DH: Have you felt alienated by the "Academy" poets?

JD: I am not really concerned about it. At times I will read to a Slam audience and they won't get my work because it is not conversational, and I use a lot of big words. I steal from all over the place. I take from everyone from Tony Hoagland to Allen Ginsberg.

DH: What advice would you have for poets just starting out?

JD; Read for people--find a place for that. Make friends with other writers who will challenge you. Read as much as you can. Read things you don't like. Work, Work, Work, DO IT NOW.



A-Train
by Jade Sylvan

for Maxwell Kessler

Head between my knees in black lace
green bra belt buckle eyeliner
on the A train uptown
to sleep on a boxspring tonight,
my companions off to sodomy clubs
no use to me. I just want some screaming sleep.

My lips drip acidic puke
of evian grey goose and cheeseburger
into a plastic bag leftover
from a blueberry bagel.

Across sit tittering man and woman,
red patent heels and cardigans
and straight brown bangs and
tasteful glasses and creased pants.

They are new acquaintances
subway coincidences, and on this
near empty car they have to watch
this tattooed medusa spew into a plastic bag.

Watch the makeup trail off her summer sweat
as her eyes water. Watch her try to wipe the snot.
Worse, near hellish, is her high hysteric
laughter, even as she vomits and cries,
her wild desperate mirth with the awareness of this horror.
Not what anyone wants to see before the first date.

They whisper eye-avert.
How alike they are,
they who are not this,
so different together
from this hungry purger,
painted and spangled
on this midnight banshee train.

And they, safe outside this nightmare
exchange names, numbers, a promise to text
all just below the rumble of existential moan.
It is so good to be a human, they are thinking,
and to know what you are supposed to do.

You give the guy your phone number,
cut your bangs, cross your legs
smell of fabric softener and shampoo,
thank your own personal star face that you are not
that puking snotting laughing creature
disguised so poorly as young woman.

If we're going to call it something,
let's call this my gift.
My shivering purblind with substance
and bleeding vision of bodies corroded formless,
this fragile dissection of both compass and clock.
I will do the work for you. The smoky breath
caught in these ribs is insurance
for your calm and grinning life.

Take it. It's much too precious for me to hang on to.
These types of things tend to get away from me
in bars, beds, taxis, trains, whirlpools, volcanoes, novas, and time.
Tonight I lost my last twenty-dollar bill.
Finding it will let someone believe in fate.

Your hair will keep growing
and you will marry in October.
You will have career paths and children and grow slowly fat
and your faces will wrinkle, eventually,
and for years over wine drinking you will remember
how you met, began speaking because of the thick discomfort
of that hideous vomiting girl on the subway,
so romantic, you will laugh, and kiss with tongues
even after all these years.
Such good lifetimes you are about to live.

Let this life of separate shapes and colors
and words that mean what the dictionary says
be my happy gift to you,
all you pretty people with your clean mouths.

I am glad to do it. I know it will be safe with you.
Your chests make better homes.
I never could teach it how to hold m

Poems by Ben Mazer

POEMS
Ben Mazer
The Pen & Anvil Press
ISBN 978-0-9821629-4-5
2010 $!3.95

Some of the poems in POEMS remind me of the l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e poet Charles Bernstein's work, which has transpired in the last thirty years. "Language poetry was more like a set of elective affinities shared among a group of poets…" Ben Mazer uses the best influences from free verse and experimental play, to give his poems the 'jump off the page' readers often long for:

"The closed world adumbrates the snow.
Midnight deciphers pillows at the window.
Though it was several months ago,
in dead of winter, nothing knows or shows
where the requested intimacy goes.
The silent isolated frames
of meditation have dispersed the names.
The couches crouch in feeble poses,
incognizant of roses."

This collection of poetry lands squarely on its feet, balanced like an Olympic athlete Mazer knows his craft and feels agile enough to do somersaults. In his poem, EVEN AS WE SPEAK, the words are capitalized for eleven pages, quick sentences catapulting across the pages. The reader sees the end results of what has been a long training, practicing with words so that words can say what they imply. Page after page we meet ourselves through those words, often questioning how we might relate, "The evening hour's to and fro, time's thick repercussions bloom (the hour of the small meeting)"

Each word in each poem conjures an emotion, an experience, an action. the poems wake us from our deep slumbering reality. Mazer bothers us with his intelligence. He expects an understanding from his audience:

"IT IS THE SEA'S HIGH POSTING OF NUMBERS OVER THE
CRITIQUED CONTEST OF THE IDENTITY, WHERE THE
SHADOW OF SHADOWS GATHERS. WHERE THE PINES
ARE EQUIVALENT TO ARRIVAL, OR WHAT IS TOLD IN
SUNLIGHT FALLS, WHERE IT IS SPOKEN, TO BE TOLD
AGAIN OR FOLD INTO MEMORY. GRETEL ON THE
DOORSTEP, THE GINGERBREAD HOUSE, THE OTHER
REALITY ENTERED BY MIRRORS. SHE ENTERED THE
ROOM. THE WORLD TURNS. NUMBERS ARE POSTED OVER
THE OCEAN."

I take each summersault with him, every twist in mid air, every flip:

"…
this is the subject of my poetry
The prodigal
The Return
Eliot is sympathetic
What is he to me?
…"

POEMS is all and more. I am looking forward to meeting the first poet laureate of Somerville, nominated by Doug Holder, Ibbetson Street Press.
All those in favor. Congratulation Ben Mazer.

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

The Somerville News: Poet Ben Mazer Declared Poet Laureate of Somerville

*** This will appear in the Lyrical Somerville this Wed. May 5, 2010:


Lyrical Somerville edited by Doug Holder
BEN MAZER DECLARED POET LAUREATE OF DAVIS SQUARE!

You might have seen Mazer around. He is a man somewhere in his 40s with an enviable crop of curly hair, has an intense stare, and seems to be always working on something on his laptop. "Must be a writer you think." You got that straight...he is. Mazer has been a fixture on the literary scene for awhile and a denizen of the Diesel Cafe in Davis Square.

Now since the city has never acted on my requests for a Poet Laureate program, I, Doug Holder have declared Ben Mazer as the Poet Laureate of Davis Square. And Mazer has accepted the honor. His budget will be zero, and his office will be his usual chair in the Diesel. But we have made history...the first Poet Laureate in Somerville.

Here is Dr. Mazer's bio:

A denizen of the Cambridge area all my life, I lived in Davis Square from February 2004 through January 2010, six years during which I completed a doctoral dissertation for the Editorial Institute at Boston University, edited Selected Poems of Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (Harvard University Press, 2010) and Everything Preserved: Poems 1955-2005 by Landis Everson (Graywolf Press, 2006, first winner of the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Foundation), and wrote two full length collections of poetry, both of which have just been published, Poems (The Pen & Anvil Press) and January 2008 (Dark Sky Books). When in Davis, I am always to be found at the Diesel, where I have heard myself referred to by other locals as the unofficial poet laureate of Davis Square.



Before Us

i. m. Frank Parker

Lowell winning the Pulitzer in 1947...

Pushing ecstatic through the darkening crowd...

the newspapers not yet lifted, fish and corn

wrapped by the flashing grocer, millennial...

weighed in two scales by his hurt, flashing eyes...

a seething margin, bustling with friends

and lovers, trinket-shaking sky, to die...

how can they tell us what they didn't know?

Logical types the century pressed white...

rounding the corner of each first familiar

tombstone or commemorative stone

cut in the image of the training sailor...

homecoming, whether on the edge of home.

Writing is fighting in the Christ-whale's eyes.





Orient Heights

Orient heights the sole star blessed

motion against motion movement against movement

to the one house buried in the rest

no one sees me but an old man

I've come to use drunk in his playroom

sole star blessed and a blank page

divided between the world as we know it

the world as we saw it and a blank page

and all the rest Orient heights

Review of VEINS by Larry Johnson

Review of VEINS by Larry Johnson, David Robert Books, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2009, 109 pages

By Barbara Bialick

VEINS is Larry Johnson’s first poetry book, but he’s been writing and publishing since the 1960s. An academic through and through, he sends historical figures into his poems in the form of dramatic monologues in iambic pentameter or other forms of free verse. He’s nice enough to provide notes on some of his characters—which include, for example, Weldon Kees, American poet, Julius Caesar, and linguist-adventurer Richard Francis Burton. If you like deciphering historical poetry from AD 406 to the present, this may be the book for you. Even after showing off his good vocabulary and poetic craft, he also manages to include some painful emotional experiences, such as his love for a married woman, and some thoughts about suicides.

He sums up his own work in the poem “Hangover in Memory of James Wright”:
“My best friend/once said that most poems have/an ordered group of images and a patchwork of philosophy/tacked on. My Coke gets flatter. Let them find/philosophy here…”

While I’m still not sure what the theme of veins, in vane, and vain is all about, I did find the word “vein” popping up here and there in various poems such as in “Death of the Bat-Poet”: ”though he can still/feel the moon’s fire pare the wind to voices, swirl in the lean mist, or sting upward/through veins of grass…bright swishing shapes!”

In “Morte d’Oscar” he writes, “my gaze is lost in veins of the leaded lampshade--/is it Mary’s chrysolite eyes I seek in the glow/or the brown-toned gardenia of the moon?”

The author presents his photo on the back of the book standing at Keats’ grave in Rome, 1997. He was born in Natchez, Mississippi in 1945, grew up in Jackson. He got his BA at Mississippi College and received his MA and MFA at the University of Arkansas.
He’s taught at Alma College, the University of New Orleans, North Carolina State University and Louisburg College. He’s also given a reading at the Library of Congress.

He writes his own wish for a legacy in the final poem in the collection, “When I Die”.
“When I die let multitudes read my pages/let someone say my words were buffed chalcedony

Doug Holder, Paul Steven Stone, Steve Glines and Andrey Gritsman to read at KGB Literary Bar in NYC June 9, 2010

The Event is "Boston Small Press Poetry Scene"



BOSTON SMALL PRESS POETRY SCENE
KGB Bar, 85 East 4th StreetNew York City, NY
June 09, 2010
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press. His poetry and prose have appeared in Rattle, Long Island Quarterly, Endicott Review, Main St. Rag and others. Doug is the author of many books and chapbooks. He teaches writing at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, and Endicott College in Beverly, Mass. He holds an M.A. in Lit. from Harvard University.

Paul Steven Stone’s writings have appeared in a boatload of newspapers and magazines. His comic masterpiece, Or So It Seems has been called “A rollicking spiritual page-turner!” His story collection, How To Train a Rock, was culled from 25 years of genre- and mind-bending columns. Stone lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and works as Director of Advertising for W.B. Mason.

Andrey Gritsman is a poet, essayist and translator, born in Russia. He writes in two languages. His works have appeared in multiple magazines and anthologies. Andrey is the author of several collections and recipient of an honorable mention in the Pushcart Prize Anthology, and his current book of poems Live Landscape has just been released by Cervena Barva Press.

Steve Glines is the founder and Editor of Wilderness House Press and WHLReview. He is the author of Seven Days in Fiji a literary travelogue and the poetry chapbook Opuscula (Cervena Barva Press). His works have appeared in Ibbetson Street Press, four Bagel Bard Anthologies and elsewhere. Steve is also editor-in-chief at ISCS Press.

Host: Susan Tepper

Hanging Loose 96

Hanging Loose 96
Hanging Loose Press
ISSN #0440-2316
2010

Review by Irene Kornas

What is happening in poetry being written presently? There seems, (to me) to be a blunt force; words mean exactly what is intended. There does not seem to be an under belly, metaphor, or a play with words. The writing feels like reality television. The spectator thinks, what is being shown as immediacy, an on the spot reaction to a situation; in reality the shows are scripted, similar to the poems being presented, presently, to the reading audience. This says to me, "any one can write poetry." Right? I'm making judgments about poetry today and I'm sorry for using this wonderful magazine as the scapegoat, but, here are some of the first lines from poems in this journal, that substantiate my premise, a scripted immediacy that perpetrates itself as poetic reality, but then again, it is a reality, story telling:

1. A woman sells expensive lotion
2. My mother does this thing
3. She stood between blacktop
4. I woke in my own bed
5. lowered myself into the small bluish

Here are five last lines from other poems:

1. and Jesus answering, "Everybody pays"
2. Blistering line drive
3. My father was a hard act to follow
4. Eager to fulfill a consumer need
5. Where the resolution seemed a good deal less than clear

In supposing these lines are poetry, when taken out of context, I might read them as an opening and closing of a newspaper article, and with this need to present reality as real, like a reporter reporting what happen yesterday, and what's wrong with that? now, that, newspapers are switching to computers, one will be able to take a manageable paper book and read while on the way to work.

The challenge for me is to stay realistic while reading prose, poetry and essays, by trying not to think for myself, but to read what is written as the Gospel truth of what is being told.

There are twenty four men and thirteen women represented in this magazine and I applaud the diversity of cultures and gender. This alone keeps my interest even when those differences, 'blur' in sameness:

"Man is a verb
Meaning to staff
Or people

Woman is not a verb
You cannot woman
Nobody knows
What will happen
If you try" Mac Barret

I understand there is an over all theme, a purpose to the sameness in this issue, yet/still, I am reminded of the sameness in poetry, 'out-there' and Hanging Loose 96 offers me an opportunity to express my distaste for such ness:

"Render, oh render, render me asunder with your scarlet blooms. Startle me awake and wide to be gifted in purposeful ways. Why am I so fascinated by you? This is all I know about, to come to grips profoundly within the drama of family and raw feelings. Do I really want to call you up from within and inherit what is so hard to dislodge? One reason I try to figure these things out, I hear you whispering to me, is so as not to figure myself out. One image after another in this ultimate writing, stems from that dream image, and the message it leaves you to wander through, you devoutest of pilgrims. To say the word love, out loud". Pansy Maurer-Alverez

This magazine is worth the read and reads like quick fiction; each page tells a story. Don't pass over this issue or you'll miss the telling.

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

Family Photo: My brother Donald Holder and family at the opening of " Promises, Promises."

(Click on picture to enlarge)

This is a picture of Donald Holder, his wife Evan Yionoulis (A prominent director and on the Yale Drama Faculty), and my niece Sarah and nephew Josh--future Oscar winners and acclaimed artists.

They are at the opening of "Promises, Promises" on Broadway, where Don is the lighting designer. Don has won the Tony for lighting for the Lion King and South Pacific, among many other accolades.

---Doug Holder/ Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene

Bringing Poetic Vision to the Blind

Bringing Poetic Vision to the Blind



By Doug Holder


A friend of mine the novelist Paul Steven Stone, submitted a poetry collection I wrote “The Man in the Booth in the Midtown Tunnel” ( Cervena Barva Press) to Robert Pierson, the director of the Olive W. Lacy Recording Studio at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Mass. On a late April day, I drove out to the school, a sprawling and bucolic campus in the middle of a congested semi-urban area.

Pierson met me at the studio that is housed with the entire Braille and Talking Book Library on the school grounds.. The building includes a large warehouse for audio books that are shipped across the state and to the National Library Service for the Blind, which is under the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. According to information that was sent to me the studio and the library were founded:

“on the belief that people who are visually impaired or print disabled must have access to as many materials that are available in the public libraries as possible. Therefore the studio produces recreational and informational readings to augment the Perkins Braille collection. The books range from novels, biographies and poetry, to children’s books and poetry.”

Because the library basically services Massachusetts residents, they look for local authors. The books submitted are viewed by a committee or panel, and if the members feel the book is worthy both for its general interest and the quality of its writing—they will record them on digital flash drives. Usually trained narrators read the books, but on rarer occasions the actual author does.

Before my seminal session I was handed a packet by Pierson that explained some of the finer points of reading. There was a discussion of the use of well-appointed pauses, how to animate your voice so you won’t talk in a dry monotone, how to take on a female voice if you are a male and vice-a-versa.

The narrator sits in a sound proof booth and reads from his work, while the monitor is outside the booth, working a computer, and watching for errors in speech, background noise, etc….

Pierson has worked as studio director for the past 14 years, and evidently has a passion for his work. He said the program is funded by the state, and in spite of the dire financial straits of late, their funding has not been cut.

Some of the titles that have or will be recorded are: Bunker Hill Community College professor Luke Salisbury’s novel “The Cleveland Indian,” “Shock” by Kitty Dukakis, “The Sins of the Father” by Ronald Kessler, “How to Train a Rock” by Paul Steven Stone, and many others.

The library and studio is presided over by Director Kim Charlson. Charlson, a nationally and internatinally recognized library director for the blind, told me that the library has over 110,000 titles in audio,and Braille. She proudly reported that the library was voted best library in the nation for the blind in 2008. I asked her how many Somerville residents use the library, and she told me that she has a list of 175.

Charlson lost her vision at 11, and has been living a full and active life ever since. She said one of the biggest challenges for her is to get people to take advantage of the services they offer. " For every one person we serve, eight to ten are not served." I asked her if any Somerville authors have been recorded for the library, and she came up with former Somerville resident Steve Almond, author of "Candyfreak" as well as other titles.

Charlson said audio books are more popular than Braille, and that like any library she has to be on top of the latest cutting edge technology.

After speaking with Charlson I went back to the recording studio. I heard my voice on a playback on a practice audio. I noted its clean and pristine quality—so unlike recordings of my work in the past. I left feeling good about my work and the chance for it to do some good in this world.


***Perkins School for the Blind‎175 North Beacon Street, Watertown, MA 02472(617) 924-3434‎ – (617) 972-7285‎ Perkins accepts charitable donations.

Last Night at the Wursthaus by Doug Holder

(Photo by Rachel Cunningham)

(Click on picture to enlarge)

(This is a picture of my poem " Last Night at the Wursthaus" on the window of the Grolier Poetry Bookshop in Harvard Square ( Cambridge, Mass.) The Wursthaus is a now defunct eatery, much loved by locals and others.

EAT NOT THY MIND by CHARLES PLYMELL

EAT NOT THY MIND by CHARLES PLYMELL (Glass Eye Books/Ecstatic Peace Library


Review by MANSON SOLOMON








Just as it takes a certain sensibility to, for example, dig New Orleans jazz a hundred years later, so it takes a certain frame of mind to relate to poetry harkening heavily back to a bygone era. Does that mean it takes a particular, even peculiar, mindset to respond wholeheartedly to Keats or Wordsworth or Shelley? Perhaps. But perhaps not. After all, are they not assigned to every schoolchild as examples to be appreciated, esteemed and emulated? Still and all, not every contemporary poet or consumer of poetry is at ease with strict rhyme and meter: to many it is a confining and distorting formal straitjacket which hinders and diminishes. We have evolved, they say, the past provides stepping stones not prescriptions.



So one can argue that it is inappropriate to criticize the styles of bygone times – it is what people did then: they made the most of the clay of the day. After all, Bach was not rendered passé by Beethoven and Beethoven is not the worse for having antedated Schoenberg or Stravinsky or Copeland. Chaucer and Raymond Carver were different writers for different times.



So what are we to do about writers who continue to write today in what is by now a bygone style? If it was valid then, spoke to people then, why not continue to produce in that vein? If it once was hot, why not? What’s wrong with composing a new St Louis Blues? Nothing, I suppose, if people today want to hear it, or read it. (And, of course, if it is good.)



We may not write like Keats any more – (hopefully) no one would think to try to produce another La Belle Dame Sans Merci -- but his truth and beauty are still relevant. So what about beat poetry? Are there still folks out there who can groove on the kaleidoscopic imagery of a bygone era? Well, why not? Allen Ginsberg, for example, is part of the accepted canon. His stuff happened in its context and we can appreciate it as an earnest expression of that context.



So here we have Charles Plymell – loose hanging far out tripper buddy of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Cassady et al -- writing beat poetry in 2009. As if to confirm his point of view, the frontispiece (as it used to be called) of his book comes fully equipped with a peace symbol and a psychedelic eyeball. Any child of the 60’s can understand where he is coming from, but is that enough?



And so, the First Question: who out there today will appreciate Charles Plymell’s new volume of beat poetry? What contemporary reader will trip along with lines such as these:



In the paradise of what was once the basin of angels

Sappho found without her cell phone popping a pill

under the olive tree and palm leaves swaying in L.A.



- or to the opening lines of the first poem in the book:



Stone locked savant harmony turn to wounded dust

near us the Monument Rocks in Grove County Kansas

where we heard the voice leveling the wind howling

from ancient shrieking calendars of fiery tent rituals

form violent hoof beats into the plains of autistically

unplugged grumpy Osage where the dominant Sioux

many Navaho came north before Black Kettle’s band

perished in tragic psychic fire of final transformation

cyanic voices gray faces beneath melancholy brown.





Is this poetry which can speak to universal human experience or solipsistic self-absorption? Will today’s readers dig it, or will they dismiss it as anachronistic drug-induced word salad, freely-associated disassociated half-images generated by an unfocused, overly distracted, mind? Is it creative improvisation or a soloist gone off on a random riff playing his own private non-harmonies? Far out is fine, but who’s driving?



Not all the pieces are free association enjambed poetry, however; some of them are essentially prose:



Stardust trapped at the bang became dehydrated, gave off methane gases in the deep

waters gradually through microbial flesh selves, reaching oxygen. Under high

pressure, methane insinuates itself into water around ancient microbes such as

archaea that do not have a nucleus and lack bacteria.



- or –



When anchored, yelled the captain to keep the ship from dragging or waggling at the

same angle from the sun the flower flicker after the waggle dance stops. Hmm said

old Nils about the natives. Their God seems good and true, so I guess we’ll have to kill them.



-- and so on.



And so, the Second Question: Is the poem-like beat stuff really poetry or an acid flashback – or both? Are the prosey pieces actually prose poems or just prosaic? In other words, even if you can dig it, does it really groove, is it any good?



Beats me.

“The Habit of Art” by Alan Bennett

“The Habit of Art” by Alan Bennett

Reviewed by Lawrence Kessenich



The Coolidge Corner Theatre has hosted four NT Live productions from Britain’s National Theatre this year—not live theatre on stage, but the next best thing: high-definition presentations of currently running plays, which are often sold out in London. The most recent is “The Habit of Art” by British playwright Alan Bennett, author of “The Madness of King George,” “The History Boys,” and a dozen other plays.



Poet W.H. Auden and composer Benjamin Britten, who were good friends, once collaborated on a choral piece that was staged in New York. It failed miserably, and Britten blamed Auden’s libretto for the failure. He apparently blamed Auden in a very personal way, because he also ended his friendship with Auden and, as far as anyone knows, they never saw each another again. Using the time-honored “what if?” fictional device, Bennett imagines what would have transpired if the two had met once more.



But this is only the core story of “The Habit of Art.” Bennett puts the play about Auden and Britten within a play about actors at London’s National Theatre rehearsing a play about Auden and Britten. The set is a reproduction of a rehearsal space at the National Theatre, and the actors are suitably “dressed down,” both in their clothing and their attitudes—particularly so at this rehearsal, where the director has been called away and the stage manager (marvelously played by Frances de la Tour) is running the show. They frequently stop in the middle of the action to question what their characters are doing, often addressing the playwright, who (to the dismay of some cast members, and often to his own dismay) is in attendance at this rehearsal.



We’re meant to feel that we’re getting an inside look at a playwright and actors at work. Mostly it is quite successful and entertaining, though, once in a while, what the actors say about their roles, or question the playwright about, seems a bit forced (witness the play-within-the-play’s narrator, who, fearing his character won’t make a strong enough impression on the audience, “tries out” cross-dressing and a blowing on a tuba). But for anyone who has never acted or seen actors at work—and perhaps even more so for someone who has—it’s fascinating to hear their concerns as they try to figure who the people they’re playing really are.



One also gets the sense of how personally involved actors become with their characters. This reviewer, having acted himself, has experienced the enmeshment with one’s personal life that inevitably seems to happen when playing a role. The actors in “The Habit of Art” convey this convincingly. We also see actors picking instantly picking up the roles of other actors who couldn’t make the rehearsal, displaying their versatility (Jennings and de la Tour are particularly good at this).



There are some entertaining “naughty bits,” too, as the English like to call them, when Auden and Britten interact with a “rent boy” (read male prostitute) who Auden has hired to come to his home.



But the stand-out portion of the performance for this reviewer was the play-within-the-play itself—especially when Auden and Britten finally confront one another. Richard Griffiths is, of course, not in make-up for his role as Auden during this putative rehearsal of the play, and he’s also a much more obese man than Auden was, but one feels that he’s captured Auden’s physical presence, mannerisms, and vaunted eloquence. One never doubts that one is hearing the voice of a poet when he speaks, whether he’s being profound and insightful or playful and sarcastic—though he’s never overbearing, either.



Alex Jennings as Britten is the perfect foil for Auden—much more circumspect, though no less self-centered and egotistical. Britten has come to Auden seeking support for his latest project, an opera based on Thomas Mann’s novel “Death in Venice.” Besides the project itself, the two discuss their respective lovers and respective views on how they handle being famous and homosexual—a much dicier prospect in their day. They discuss their respective arts, music and poetry, and make the occasional dig at one another. Jennings and Griffiths truly convey the comfort/discomfort of old friends who’ve quarreled getting back together after a long hiatus. It’s sad, moving, frustrating, and amusing.



Anyone interested in theatre, music, or art in general, and anyone who simply enjoys being entertained by superb actors, will find “The Habit of Art” well worth seeing. There is just one more screening of the play, on Saturday, May 8, 2010 @ 1:00pm. Tickets are available at the Coolidge Theatre box office or online at: http://store.coolidge.org/WebSales/Pages/TicketSearchCriteria.aspx?epguid=?guid=615521cb-c61a-41c9-abd2-f75643670013&&evtinfo=2641~3c2614bd-0781-48b8-a8a2-e21eaa37e962&.



The Coolidge Theatre will also be hosting an additional NT Live play, which has recently been added to the series: “London Assurance,” set in Victorian England, which is also sold out in for its entire run in London. Watch the Coolidge Theatre website for information on when the play will be shown.

Novelist Paul Steven Stone and Poet Doug Holder to read for the Perkins School for the Blind

Novelist Paul Steven Stone ("or So it Seems," "How to Train a Rock") and Poet Doug Holder ("The Man in the Booth in the Midtown Tunnel--Cervena Barva Press)have been asked to read from their work at the Perkins School for the Blind (Watertown, Mass.) in the school's ongoing project to record books for the visually impaired. Here is a history of the Clive W. Lacy Recording Studio (at the school) and the valuable work they do. The Studio Director is Robert Pierson.





HISTORY OF THE CLIVE W. LACY RECORDING STUDIO

The recording studio was established with funds left to the Perkins Library by Clive W. Lacy. A patron of the library for many years, Mr. Lacy was often frustrated by the lack of “significant” materials in the book collection. His generous contribution enabled the library to establish a professional recording studio environment where narrators could record books to be added to the National Library Service (NLS) collection.
Planning and research for the establishment and installation of the recording studio began in mid 1987. Bill West, Audio Book Production Specialist with the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, and Ray Fournier, a Braille and Talking Book Library patron, were instrumental in this process. Their willingness to give guidance and to share information was invaluable.
The original Lacy Studio was located in the lower section of the Howe building and had two analog booths. At the end of 1999, the entire Braille and Talking Book Library relocated across the Perkins campus to a newly renovated building. Additional funding made possible the purchase of four new recording booths and the hiring of the first full time studio manager.

PHILOSOPHY
Like the Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library (BTBL), the Clive W. Lacy Recording Studio is founded on the belief that people who are visually impaired or print disabled must have access to as many of the materials that are available in the public libraries as possible. Therefore, the studio produces recreational and informational reading to augment the Perkins BTBL collection. These books range from novels, biographies, and poetry, to children’s books, books on travel, history, and cooking.
Because the Perkins BTBL primarily serves residents of Massachusetts, the studio produces many recordings of books on local topics, and/or by local authors. In addition, the studio records English and United States literature of lasting value. To serve the most Perkins BTBL patrons, we record books that will interest many rather than just a few.


MISSION
The purpose of the Clive W. Lacy Recording Studio is to provide high caliber recordings for the listener’s enjoyment and enrichment. The studio strives to produce recordings that are accurate reproductions of the text and faithful renditions of the author’s message, while paying careful attention to sound track quality.

An Audience for David Ferry

An Audience for David Ferry, at the Suffolk University Poetry Center, Thursday May 1 2010
by Michael T. Steffen

Though I’ve been more a visitor to than a citizen of the “country that his poems made”my acquaintance with David Ferry’s work and name predates my particular awareness of him as a master translator and honored poet in his own right. Before I’d unwittingly enrolled myself in the singing school of translation, focused on the poet Pierre de Ronsard (which interested and required a lot of attention to Horace, a magisterial influence for the young French lyricist of paradoxical loves and apostrophized odes) I’d read Mr. Ferry’s rendering of Gilgamesh, little thinking in those days that the epic of ancient Mesopotamia would root into the earth of my memory to hold as it has.

For most of us Homer is as tangible a great father of poetry to be located, and the alpha of his Andra, if not mu of his Manin —will seem lunar enough of an island of origins for the milling young poet to plant his flag and say, From here I mend my sails. Let us go.

But David Ferry outdistanced most, if not all, English language poets in the archeological voyage, with the help of Professor Moran, by giving us the story

of him who knew the most of all men knew;
who made the journey; heartbroken; reconciled;

who knew the way things were before the Flood,
the secret things, the mystery; who went

to the end of the earth, and over; who returned,
and wrote the story on a tablet of stone.

Lost in translation, in thoughts thereof, and of the rare accomplishment of Gilgamesh, I waited for David Ferry to begin his reading.

Considering the span of personal notoriety and the great ancient names Ferry crosses (not long ago I’d read a passage from his translation of the Æneid in Poetry magazine), my mind was hardly prepared to see just a normal human being stand up to the podium. I may have been expecting a hovering spectral aura (behind a curtain to shield us) echoing with cavernous voices from the deep past to a murmur of fountains. That is the kind of ambience imagination can imbue an atmosphere with, I guess—as the man himself, not half as scary, on the contrary warm, welcoming, much admired, stood before us all, reading to us each, even to me. Or from where I sat, especially to me, as I remembered how I’d included in the introduction to my translations of Ronsard some comments on how the Renaissance poet transformed the phrases of his classical models to make new resonant language. “Cueillez dès aujourhuy les roses de la vie” to this day in most French ears remains as proverbial and familiar as Horace’s carpe diem, spread still around most of the western world.

Of so many readings from inspiring poets one is likely to attend in the area, a few will be especially remembered. This past Thursday’s reading at the Suffolk Poetry Center will be memorable for more than just myself among the standing-room-only gathering, including Fred Marchant, and the student and poet Mitch Manning who gave Mr. Ferry an insightful and impressive introduction.

Kathleen Spivack: A friend to Robert Lowell and a Ping Pong companion to Elizabeth Bishop.

Kathleen Spivack: A friend to Robert Lowell and a Ping Pong companion to Elizabeth Bishop.

Kathleen Spivack was a close friend of Robert Lowell, played Ping Pong on a regular basis with Elizabeth Bishop, and attended workshops with Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. Still, she is one of the most accessible poets I know. She goes out her way to help people, she has a slew of adoring students, and has an abundance of energy that seems to have not abated over the years. Spivak is the author of The Break Up Variations; The Beds We Lie In, Robert Lowell, A Personal Memoir; among other works. Spivack directs the Advanced Writers Workshop, an intensive coaching program for advanced writers. She is a permanent Visiting Professor of Creative Writing/American Literature at the University of Paris, Sorbonne. I talked with her on my Somerville Community Access TV show " Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer."

Doug Holder: You wrote a memoir about your time with the poet Robert Lowell.

Kathleen Spivack: I was very close to Lowell. I have also know Plath, Sexton and poets from what are now called the "Middle Generation." I came to the Boston area on a fellowship when I was seventeen to study with Robert Lowell. Lowell forgot that I was completely green and he pawned me off on these other women who happened to be Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. He had me sit on that early workshop at Boston University with George Starbuck. So I became his close friend and sort of teaching assistant for 20 years of his life to his death. One of the things he did was ask me to come to his house ( on Marlborough Street in Boston) for tutorials two or three times a week. I thought he asked me because he thought I was just so stupid in comparison to the other students. I thought he going to teach me so I could catch up.

I chose Lowell because nobody understood his poetry, and his stuff was sufficiently obscure, that nobody would mind me studying with him, as opposed to the highly visible and controversial Allen Ginsberg. When I came to Boston Lowell was sufficiently obscure. So I went to his house . Eventually I moved into the Lowell household. His wife was Elizabeth Hardwick. Lowell was a complete advocate for me in every way. He took my work to publishers, etc.... He took my poetry to The New Yorker...that was my first publication. I don't know if he liked my work or not. But he was such a loyal friend. He wrote me these wonderful letters.

D H: You teach in France part of the year. Tell me how you got this gig. Are the French more receptive to your poetry than here in the States?

KS: I have taught all over the world. The way I got this steady gig in France was interesting. I was pregnant, and my husband had left me. I was living in Somerville in one room. One day I picked up a couple of hitchhikers. They were some kids on the street my age. They were trying to find a youth hostel. I was living in one room in Somerville, it was hot; and I was very pregnant. I told them they could come back to my place for a night or two. One night ended up becoming their entire vacation. And twenty years later I got a letter from them inviting me to become a professor at the University of Paris. So they were students that fell in love with American Literature. They went back and became directors of American Literature at the University, that wasn't even a "filed" at this point. America was still considered a savage tribe; and nobody was interested. But this young group was interested and they headed the selection committee some twenty years later. The original appointment was for 6 months, but now it has been twenty years. The French don't believe that creative writing can be taught, That is starting to change though.

DH: You have collaborated with musicians and composers. Does poetry enhance the music or does music enhance the poetry?

KS: Poetry naturally goes with music. I went to Oberlin and I had a double major in music and literature. I wrote a poetry book titled "The Jane Poems" that was based on American music history. The words and music came together--it was an anti-war book. I performed with those with the jazz saxophonist Stan Getz all over the place. Then a composer put something together and we performed it in the American Place Theater. I also performed in France. I have had other works set to music as well. I worked with a young composer Eva Kendrick.


DH: What is your poetry teaching philosophy?

KS: I don't only teach poetry. Right now I am working with the Huntington Theater Fellows in Boston, and the A.R.T. Fellows, at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge.

I think people hold back when they write poetry. They save the best for last. I say start with your best--and write upward. I always push for that. I create a sense of process and keep outside of the product until I feel they are ready. But when they are ready I know they are going to win prizes. If you are on your path, in your process, I will protect that.

DH: You have written about the different approaches Plath and Sexton took to their poetry.

KS: I got to see their first drafts. I also saw Lowell's response. I think Sexton was the more natural poet. Slyvia was more controlled. Sylvia was very self-protected. Lowell couldn't access her work as well as Sexton. Sexton was a natural; it just flowed out of here.

Lowell wrote how surprised he was that Plath wrote "Ariel," because he could not have predicted it from the very staid, and perfect poems of her past.

I would like to see the mature work of both, but they both died young. Stanley Kunitz for instance, had a whole second flowering after he was 70.

DH: You were a regular Ping Pong partner with the poet Elizabeth Bishop.

KS: Lowell introduced me to Bishop when she first came to Harvard. She had arthritis. I went to her place three times a week to play ping pong with her. Believe it or not I was good in racket sports then. We talked about her problems, we had lunch, and at times she would read to me.

DH: Do you have a new book in the process of coming out?

KS: Yes. "A History of Yearning." It concerns my new way of seeing things when I got back from Europe. I am a child of European refugees. It is about history, art. It should be out in May 2010.

Somerville Playwright Colleen Hughes Writes a Drama Set in Teele Square.

Somerville Playwright Colleen Hughes Writes a Drama Set in Teele Square.

By Doug Holder

Somerville playwright Colleen Hughes walked into the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square on a cold and rainy April Saturday morning and navigated the maze of chattering poets of the Bagel Bards, so we could conduct an interview.

Hughes, 27, is a native of Somerville, and is working on her MFA in Playwriting at Boston University. Her first public presentation of her work will be at the Boston University Playwrights’ Theatre April 23, 2010 at 7PM. The play is titled “The Prayer Bargain.”

Hughes has lived all her life in Somerville, and currently occupies the attic apartment in her familial home in Teele Square. She attended high school at Arlington Catholic, and is a graduate of Holy Cross. Like many artists, native or not, Hughes has had a long love affair with our artist-friendly city. And for her immediate future anyway, she plans to stay put.

Hughes has been influenced by playwrights as diverse as Samuel Beckett, and August Wilson, and has studied with the likes of Kate Snodgrass and Melinda Lopez. Hughes wrote “The Prayer Bargain,” with Somerville as the setting. She told me: “ I wanted to partly deal with the way Somerville has changed over the years, and the issues that surround that.”

The play is set in the Teele Square area, and the players are a mother, father, daughter, and three boys. The girl comes home because of a broken engagement. She falls into the family web of problems: booze, unemployment, and stuff of that ilk. It all comes to a boiling point on Christmas Day. The daughter finds herself in the vital role of helping her dysfunctional family.

Although the play is not strictly autobiographical, Hughes knows her characters well, and certain elements are gleaned from her own life.

Hughes, who works as an editor of the “Cell Press” in Cambridge, plans to keep writing after she graduates. She will keep the day job, hopefully do some teaching, and submit to festivals… all the things young writers do to cut their teeth in the competitive arts market.

One evening, late at night, you might see a light burning in an attic apartment, perhaps in Teele square, and that might be Hughes—burning the midnight oil.

Announcing the 48th Writers Conference of the CAPE COD writers CENTER

Hey folks been speaking to the new Director of the Cape Cod Writer's Center Nancy Rubin Stuart--this is what she sent me...



Announcing the 48th
Writers Conference of the
CAPE COD writers CENTER

Books, Bytes and Beach
August 15-20, 2010
Craigville Conference Center • Centerville, Cape Cod, Massachusetts


Fiction • Nonfiction • Poetry • Screenwriting • Online Communications
Guest Speakers • Publishers • Authors • Agents • Editors • Publicists
Faculty Reception • Manuscript Evaluations • Mentoring Sessions

A Writer’s Retreat and Resource Center
For the Twenty First Century
Our Most Exciting Year Yet!
Featuring Famous Keynote Speakers and Authors
Brochure and Full Web Announcement Will Appear Soon

Pulitzer Prize winning author Elizabeth Strout speaks to Emerson College Students at Paramount Theater--Boston.

(Boston – April 15, 2010)

Article by Steve Glines


– Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize winning author and Ploughshares guest editor answered questions today for Emerson students. Mrs. Strout won the Pulitzer for her novel “Olive Kittredge” which takes place in a small fictional town in Maine. For those wanting the Cliff Notes version, “Olive” is a series of not necessarily connected short stories that either feature Olive Kittredge or where she makes a cameo appearance. We learned that the author wrote each story independently and that while all of the stories took place in that small fictional town, Olive was written into some of the stories at a later date.

The author told her audience that the ordering of the stories was by gut instinct and not by any conscious plan. That was a disappointment to this writer because in analyzing the story he had come to the conclusion that Henry, Olive’s long suffering husband, was the initial star and only after their ordeal at the hands of a bank robber does Olive come into her own as Henry fades away. That was not the author’s intent; Olive was the intended star from the beginning. The author said she had “found” Olive in unfinished stories and only after rewriting did Olive emerge as a unifying character to this collection of short stories.

In the question and answer session with Emerson students Elizabeth Strout said she could not imagine a life without writing and that she wrote throughout law school which she attended to please her father who had just wanted her to be normal. She said that literary success came as a surprise and that she didn’t really understand the business aspects of the publishing industry. When it came to marketing she only did as she was told.

When asked about her writing style Elizabeth Strout said she wrote everything by hand, often at her kitchen table, sometimes at the library and even on the subways of New York. She spoke of the importance of having a trustworthy reader providing guidance and feedback while writing. Early in her career she only had one reader, then many, but preferred the input of just one trusted person. The synopsis for Olive Kittredge was sold to the publisher with just 1/3 of the book complete. When asked if the editors or her agent had any input to the book the audience was treated to an emphatic “NO!” She then admitted that the publisher had given the book its current title which in the manuscript had been “Olive’s Story.” When asked what was special about small towns her reply was, “I have nothing profound to say about small towns. Having grown up in a small town I guess I needed 30 years perspective to write about it so I suppose I’ll eventually write about New York.”

At the reading that followed Elizabeth Strout read an abbreviated chapter from Olive Kittredge. Authors often complain that reviewers “don’t get it.” When listening to Elizabeth Strout read, the story carried an emphasis that was just as compelling but different from the story as read. The story read as a dialogue between Olive and her son, as heard by this listener, the story was a dialogue between Olive and her daughter in law. There are a million ways to read a good book. As one author commented recently on his own work, “I didn’t know I was that brilliant, I don’t remember writing all that but what do I know I’m just the author.”

Elizabeth Strout was the first reader in a new literary series by the guest editors of Ploughshares, Emerson’s literary magazine. The next event in the series will be in October 2010 with Ploughshares' next guest editor Jim Shepard.

Wave and Metronome by John Flynn

Wave and Metronome by John Flynn (Pudding House Chapbook Series 81 Shadymere Lane Columbus, Ohio 43213 http://www.puddinghouse.com)



Review by Doug Holder



John Flynn is originally from Boston and his poetry like that of the late Dave Church, has that well-honed, griity, and studied urban feel to it. Flynn wrote me he has been rejected by a slew of Iowa Writing School type publications, but his work has found a home in the very respectable Pudding House Press, and a great number of fine small press magazines over the years. We have had the pleasure of having Kevin on "Ibbetson Street" our literary journal, a couple of times as well.



In his new collection "Wave and Metronome" Flynn appreciates the beauty in the ugly, the mumblings of old stumblebums over cheap shot glasses of bourbon, and the sanctuary of the " Diner." Flynn captures the vernacular of townies reminiscing about the "old days," as evidenced by his poem "Mulcahey's Pub Under the Merit Sign." Here the pub is a focal point and a balm for a regular Joe pontificating:



Millbury street was a canal once,

and White an amusement pahk.

Bet youz didn't know that.

What's gone?

Well, a lotta things.

Two words come to mind: manufacturing jobs.

otherwise, it's still there, in a way,

except the Big Boy statue

and the musty Webster Square pool hall

a dark basement full of trimmed Brunswick tables.



I healed in dat place, so many nights.





Highly Recommended.