A Boston Poet Tea Party: A Poetry Summer Marathon: July 30 to 31 2010

A Boston Poet Tea Party


A Boston Poet Tea Party

A Summer Poetry Marathon
featuring 88 local and visiting poets
reading for 8 minutes apiece

Friday 7/30, 7:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m.
Pierre Menard Gallery
10 Arrow St., Harvard Square, Cambridge

Saturday 7/31, 12 noon-10:00 p.m.
Sunday 8/1, 12 noon-5:00 p.m.
OUTPOST 186
186 1/2 Hampshire St., Inman Square, Cambridge

Featuring readings from: Seth Abramson, Kari Adelaide, Dena Barisano, Kish Song Bear, Jim Behrle, Ana Božičević, Oni Buchanan, Mairead Byrne, Macgregor Card, Mick Carr, Kate Colby, John Coletti, John Cotter, Amanda Cook, James Cook, Mike County, Amy D'Eath, Gillian Devereux ,Thom Donovan, Valerie Duff-Strauttman, Jim Dunn, Joe Elliot, Derek Fenner, Annie Finch, Greg Fuchs, Michael Franco, Elisa Gabbert, Michael Gizzi, Peter Gizzi, Kythe Heller, Mitch Highfill, Doug Holder, Fanny Howe, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Andrew Hughes, Geoff Huth, N. F. Huth, Brenda Iijima, Lauren Ireland, Boni Joi, Ellen Kennedy, Aaron Kiely, Jack Kimball, Amy King, David Kirschenbaum, Mark Lamoureux, Gerrit Lansing, Tanya Larkin, Dorothea Lasky, Ruth Lepson, Brendan Lorber, Lori Lubeski, Bridget Madden, Douglas Manson, Fred Marchant, Filip Marinovich, Chris Martin, Joseph Massey, Ben Mazur, Gillian McCain, Suzanne Mercury, Hannah K. Messler, Debrah Morkun, Jason Morris, Anna Moschovakis, John Mulrooney, Eileen Myles, Jess Mynes, Amanda Nadelberg, Urayoan Noel, Martha Oatis, Geoffrey Olsen, January Gill O'Neil, Nathaniel Otting, Chad Parenteau, Kate Peebles, David Rivard, Chris Rizzo, Steve Roberts, Carlos Soto Roman, Douglas N. Rothschild, Lauren Russell, Kate Schapira, Alan Semerdijian, Minal Shekhawat, Nathaniel Siegel, Joel Sloman, Kimberly Ann Southwick, Chuck Stebleton, Aaron Tieger, Joe Torra, Dana Ward, Jacqueline Waters, Dustin Williamson, Elizabeth Willis, Rebecca Wolff, Angela Veronica Wong, Jon Woodward, and Elizabeth Marie Young with more TBA.

Organized by Jim Behrle, Michael Carr,
David Kirschenbaum, John Mulrooney, and Aaron Tieger



Here's the current schedule:


Friday 7/307:00 Joe Torra7:08 Jack Kimball7:16 Minal Shekhawat7:24 January O'Neil7:32 Geoffrey Olsen7:40 Kari Adelaide7:48 Elisa Gabbertbreak8:04 Thom Donovan8:12 Joan Houlihan8:20 John Cotter8:28 Dorothea Lasky8:36 Tanya Larkin8:44 Jibade-Khalil Huffman8:52 David Rivardbreak9:08 Greg Fuchs9:16 Pierre Joris9:24 Buck Downs9:32 Eileen Miles9:40 Martha Oatis9:48 Lori Lubeski9:56 Nicole Peyrafitte


Saturday 7/3112:00 Lauren Russell12:08 Suzanne Mercury12:16 Bridget Madden12:24 Seth Abramson12:32 Steve Roberts12:40 Cate Peeblesbreak12:56 Nathaniel Siegel1:04 Nathaniel Otting1:12 Dana Ward1:20 Doug Holder1:28 Mark Lamoureux1:36 Debrah Morkunbreak1:52 Chris Rizzo2:00 Ellen Kennedy2:08 Kate Colby2:16 Betsy Wheeler2:24 Douglas Manson2:32 Valerie Duff-Strauttmanbreak2:48 Kimberly Ann Southwick2:56 Mike County3:04 Andrew Hughes3:12 Amanda Cook3:20 Lauren Ireland3:28 Joel Slomanbreak3:44 James Cook3:56 Filip Marinovich4:04 Alan Semerdijian4:12 Urayoan Noel4:28 Jim Dunn4:36 Kythe Heller4:44 Lynn Behrendt5:00 Derek Fenner5:08 Joe Elliot5:16 Boni Joi5:24 Amanda Nadelberg5:32 Brenda Iijima5:40 Chad Parenteau 7:00 Jacqueline Waters7:08 Jess Mynes7:16 Chris Martin7:24 Elizabeth Willis7:32 Mitch Highfill7:40 Peter Gizzi7:48 Michael Gottliebbreak8:04 Jon Woodward8:12 Rebecca Wolff8:20 Brendan Lorber8:28 Gillian McCain8:36 Dustin Williamson8:44 Oni Buchanan8:52 Geof Huthbreak9:08 Joseph Massey9:16 Macgregor Card9:24 Elizabeth Marie Young9:32 Kish Song Bear9:40 Aaron Kiely9:48 Carlos Soto Roman9:56 Douglas N. Rothschild



Sunday 8/112:00 Michael Franco12:08 N. F. Huth12:16 Jessica Bozek12:24 Fred Marchant12:32 Angela Veronica Wong12:40 Ruth Lepsonbreak12:56 Annie Finch1:04 John Mulrooney1:12 David Kirschenbaum1:20 John Coletti1:28 Gerrit Lansing1:36 Fanny Howebreak1:52 Anna Moschovakis2:00 Michael Gizzi2:08 Ana Božičević2:16 Aaron Tieger2:24 Chuck Stebleton2:32 Mairead Byrnebreak2:48 Ben Mazer2:54 Amy King3:02 Michael Carr3:10 Janaka Stucky3:18 Gillian Devereux3:26 Laura Simsbreak3:42 Jason Morris3:50 Amy D'Eath3:58 Andi Pinto4:06 Kate Schapira4:14 Hannah K. Messler4:20 Molly Saccardobreak4:36 Chris Jackson4:44 Dena Barisano4:52 Cheryl Clark Vermeulen5:00 Jim Behrle

TEELE SQUARE WRITER IS AN "ODDBALL"

TEELE SQUARE WRITER IS AN "ODDBALL"

By Doug Holder

Jason Wright, a Somerville resident for the past 5 years is a self-described oddball. This 30 year old writer, waiter, and online magazine founder of "ODDBALL" magazine, like many young Somervillians pines to make his mark in the publishing industry. Wright, works at Bertucci's at Alewife Station to keep food on the table and just finished a certificate program in publishing at Emerson College. He stopped by to chat with me at my usual Saturday morning perch at the Au Bon Pain cafe in Davis Square.

Wright is a productive writer who started ODDBALL magazine when he was 16. It covers many subjects. It includes his own eclectic brand of poetry and prose, as well as profiles of interesting characters he runs across. Wright said the magazine gives a voice to the outsiders, and is in a way therapeutic for him. Wright who has a fondness for the philosopher Nietzsche paraphrases him to explain why he writes: ""Through chaos a star is born."

ODDBALL magazine is in blog format, and Wright traces his progress during his day to day. Wright describes it as as a poetry and graffiti magazine from Boston, Ma, that is dedicated to giving the voiceless a voice. There are accounts of his trial and travails as a writer, poetry that speaks to his unique frame of mind, as well as interesting profile (with YouTube video) of Pat Bartevian, who runs a small consignment shop in Boston. This archaic little store is sandwiched in between tall buildings in downtown Boston. It seems that this charmingly eccentric woman was a member of the long forgotten 40's singing group the " Hickory Sisters." Bartevian has tales of gigs with "old blue eyes" himself Frank Sinatra, and other famed crooners.

Wright has a B.A. in English from U/Mass Boston and studied with such distinguished Somerville writers on faculty like Joe Torra and Lloyd Schwartz. He also attended Bunker Hill Community College where yours truly is currently on faculty.

Living in Somerville is a great deal for Wright. His girlfriend works at Rounder Records, and he loves Johnny D's (he used to work there), and other venues. He told me that Somerville is a small city with a big city mentality.

Wright said he has twelve books of unpublished poetry. He has also written an unpublished work: " Journal of a Mad Man."

To finish his certificate requirements at Emerson College Wright is formulating a business plan for his nascent small press, and he is also penning a mission statement for his magazine. He is working on getting all the paperwork done that is necessary to have a legitimate enterprise.

Wright recently attended a lecture by Gloria Mindock the founder of the Cervena Barva Press at Emerson College. Both Mindock and myself are excited about the prospect of yet another publication playing a part in our rich literary milieu.


Check out ODDBALL Magazine: http://www. oddballmagazine.wordpress.com

CD Review: Dan Blakeslee’s “Tatnic Tales” / Pea Pod Recordings (2010)

CD Review: Dan Blakeslee’s “Tatnic Tales” / Pea Pod Recordings (2010)




REVIEW BY:
Reza Tokaloo




The name Dan Blakeslee seems to be getting around town (Boston area) more and more these days. This well established graphic artist is also a budding singer/songwriter/guitarist with an up coming CD to be out on Pea Pod Recordings: “Tatric Tales.” Sporting a well done cover by Blakeslee, “Tales” is a 10 song CD with the songs devised in an album format: the first 5 songs under side A, and the last 5 songs under side B.

Now to the music!

Blakeslee’s band is a very solid instrument playing troupe, with all of the musicians adept and dependable, supporting Blakeslee’s voice very well. The songs are a blend of American musical styles: American folk, southern country, jazz, blues, and also some good old fashioned rock n roll. Blakeslee keeps his singing within a melancholy range. No yelling, screaming, or falsettos here. His lyrics maintaining good folk-style story telling that also contain images of nature and life that produce vivid realizations for the listener. You can feel the movement and rumble of a train ride in the song “Wizard Nor King.” The songs, and the musical styles, are spread out nicely like a finely made carpet. Rock, folk, mountain song, and jazz meet and blend well together in a “down home” meets modern concoction that can work in a variety of musical settings, either in a smoky pub or on a CD. Other great tracks to check out on this album are: “The Swinger” (a sort of saloon folk-a-billy), “Shifting of Sand” (country with some soulful blues set to a waltzing folk beat), and “On the Watch” (very solid country beat).

Keep an eye out for Dan Blakeslee and his group. His will be a name we will be hearing from in the future.

Poet/ Performance Artist Michael Mack: Honoring His Mother's Tragic Life

Poet/ Performance Artist Michael Mack: Honoring His Mother's Tragic Life

Interview with Doug Holder



After serving in the US Air Force as an aircraft crew chief, Michael Mack worked a variety of factory and labor jobs before returning to school and graduating from the Writing Program at MIT.

Mack has performed at the US Library of Congress, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, the Columbia Festival of the Arts, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, the Austin International Poetry Festival, and Off-Off-Broadway at the Times Square Arts Center.

His work has aired on NPR, and has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), America, the Beloit Poetry Journal, Cumberland Poetry Review, and is featured in Best Catholic Writing 2005.

Mack has also performed at scores of venues for consumers and providers of mental health services, including McLean Psychiatric Hospital, the national conference of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), and for faculty and students of the Harvard Medical School and Yale Medical School.

Awards include an Artist's Grant for new theater works from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, First Prize in the Writers Circle National Poetry Competition, and an Eloranta Fellowship, which funded a residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre for the Arts in Ireland.

Mack lives in the Boston area, supplementing his work as a poet and performer with assignments as a freelance writer.

I spoke with him on my Somerville Community Access TV show " Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer."







Doug Holder: Mike your mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia right?

Michael Mack: Yes, she was diagnosed when I was five. As you know, it’s a life long commitment not only for the people who have the illness, but also the family. It is the kind of illness that ripples out in many ways.

Doug Holder: You wrote a play about your experience with her while growing up titled: “Hearing Voices, Speaking in Tongues.”


Michael Mack: I am grateful to say I performed all over the country with it. When I first started writing it; I really didn’t understand what I was writing. All I know I was writing sketches, poems, about my earlier life. I wrote about Mama, Dad, about how we all were trying to navigate the illness. It was in 1985 when I first scratched out that first line.

For me as a kid to see my mom in the state hospital, heavily medicated with thorazine—well, the term to describe what was being done to her was warehousing. Just give them enough drugs—so the patients won’t give you any trouble.

Doug Holder: You are a versatile artist: Performer, Playwright, Poet. To which role do you identify most closely?

Michael Mack: Everything starts with my spiritual life. I was raised Catholic. I am no longer a practicing Catholic. But the spiritual life is still central. So everything springs out of that. The poetry and the playwriting.


Doug Holder: What do you mean by the “spiritual life.”

Michael Mack: Well, I have heard it said you can leave the Catholic Church, but the Church doesn’t leave you. I think the Church has informed a lot of my life. But I moved on to explore other religious teachings. My poetry accesses that same center the spiritual does. Before every show I invoke the spirit of my late mother.

Doug Holder: If your mother were alive would she feel that you exploited her for your work?

Michael Mack: That is a great question. My dream had been for a long time than Mama would see the show and after I finished she would come up and take a bow. That never happened. She died before that could happen. When I first told her that I was writing about her—that I was starting to perform this show—she didn’t want anything to do with it. For her it brought up a lot of memories that she didn’t want to watch on stage. She started to come around though.

Once I took her to a poetry open mic in Baltimore. We sat down. Poets started getting up to read. She was dumbfounded. It was like she never saw anything like this in her life. For weeks afterward she said: “There is this place you can go in front of a microphone—and say whatever you want and the FBI won’t get you.” From then on I think she was starting to think more positively about seeing the show. Unfortunately—a couple of months later she died of colon cancer—she was 73.

Everybody in the family has seen the show. My father flew up to see me perform it. He sat in the front row. I couldn’t look at him. After the show he said, “ You know son, you spend your whole life with your kids, and you think you know them. And then you see your son doing this and its beautiful.” I’m pleased to say I have the family stamp of approval.

Doug Holder: How was it performing the play in mental hospital for patients?

Michael Mack: I had to take a poetic leap of faith to capture the experience of someone else. When I first performed it in hospitals I was very anxious about that. I am pleased to say the response has been quite positive. Almost to a person, people who have a major mental illness said they appreciate having somebody giving voice to the experience. I would like to see more people with mental illness have an opportunity to give voice to their experience through the arts. I want them to tell us what it is like.

Doug Holder: Why do you think there is so much mental illness between artist and poets? Look at Lowell, Plath and Sexton, for instance.

Michael Mack. I can’t speak as a clinician. People with mental illness, I think, as well as artists, often have a more direct access to those feelings, thoughts, to the dream world. We all have access to this when we sleep, but I am guessing that artists and poets have more access to that dream world in their day-to-day life. The trick is to managing it in the day to day.


For more information about Mack go to: www.michaelmacklive.com


**************************************************************************************


becoming annie


who wakes in a wrinkled cotton nightie.

She watches a luminous hand

touch her ticking wrist.



Becoming Annie, who groans and walks



to a medicine chest, rummages for her rosary,

finds a Band-Aid box of buttons and dimes,

one gown propped in the closet.



Are we becoming Annie?



Trailing water, she bends for the stairs

and squeaks down the banister,

dropping lilies of tissue paper.



Barely aware we could be Annie



we cannot remember what to forget,

pray to ourselves in baby voices,

lose names, faces, keys,



till one night we see Annie



sailing out our doorway,

gown lisping over the porch

sidelong to the street.



May a city rise in the gleam of our breathing.

May love brush its sudden

feathers on our bodies,



our running feet.


– michael mack

Palazzo Inverso by D. B. Johnson

Palazzo Inverso
D. B. Johnson
Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Book Group
www.hmhbooks.com
$17.00

“I don’t grow up. In me is the small child of my early days.” As we prepare to enter the upside-down world of Mauk, his Master and a host of carpenters, bricklayers and other workers, we are welcomed by this Escher quote. Impossible Structures – M. C. Escher was famous for creating them and Mauk, the pencil-sharpening apprentice who just may have turned the blueprints every so slightly on numerous occasions when his master was not looking, created a very Escher-like impossible structure in “Palazzo Inverso.” What a gem of a children’s book D. B. Johnson has written! And for those adults fascinated by the mathematical artistic creations of M. C. Escher, a quick topsy-turvy read of Palazzo Inverso will be a welcome adventure.

When Mauk enters the Palazzo for work one morning he finds carpenters standing on their heads and bricks being spilled onto the ceiling. Mauk finds that he, too, is running the staircase down to the tower! Mauk longed to draw but was never allowed to. His input came while the Master was doing other things and Mauk turned the drawings ever so slightly. When the Master went back to drawing, the blueprints became very strange indeed. Mauk was delighted by the way the structure had evolved, though his Master was not amused. As Mauk runs to escape the agitation of the Master, a wonderful, fun chase takes place through the Palazzo. What Mauk does not realize is that at some point during the chase all of the workers and the Master began laughing with Mauk. A new and wonderful world had been created. Topsy-turvy wasn’t so terrible after all. Perhaps it’s in the way we look at things and impossible structures may not be so impossible in the world of our imagination. Find a child to read to and enjoy the never-ending loop of this book. Or pick up the book yourself and read it for the fun of it. Remember, if anyone is looking, just remind them that life is a far more lively adventure if we never grow up.

************Rene Schwiesow is co-owner of the online poetry forum Poem Train. She is one of the co-hosts of the Mike Amado Memorial Series, Poetry: The Art of Words in Plymouth and Director of the newly formed Plymouth County Coalition for the Arts.

4th annual Ibbetson Street Poetry Contest Deadline Sept 15, 2010

4th annual Ibbetson Street Poetry Contest





Ibbetson Street Press is pleased to announce the 4th annual Ibbetson Street Poetry Contest.

The winner of the Ibbetson Street Press Poetry Contest award (must be a Massachusetts resident) will receive a $100 cash award, a framed certificate, publication in the literary journal "Ibbetson Street" http://ibbetsonpress.com/ and a poetry feature in the "Lyrical Somerville," in The Somerville News. The award will be presented at the Somerville News Writers Festival: November 13, 2010. The Somerville News Writers Festival is in its eight year and has hosted such writers and poets as: Rick Moody, Franz Wright, Robert Olen Butler, Sue Miller, Tom Perrotta, Steve Almond, Sam Cornish, Margot Livesey, Robert Pinsky, and many others. The Festival was founded by Timothy Gager and Doug Holder in 2003, and has been sponsored by The Somerville News, GRUB STREET, Porter Square Books and others.

To enter send 3 to 5 poems, any genre, length, to the Ibbetson Street Press 25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143. Entry fee is $10. Cash or check only. Make payable to "Ibbetson Street Press." Deadline: Sept 15, 2010.

The contest will be judged by The Somerville News Arts Editor and founder of the Ibbetson Street Press, Doug Holder http://dougholderresume.blogspot.com.

The winners will be announced at the Somerville News Writer's festival, where they will receive his or her award. A runner up will be announced as well.

Somerville Musician Dan Blakeslee lives honestly and lives modestly.

Somerville Musician Dan Blakeslee lives honestly and lives modestly.



By Doug Holder





Somerville musician and artist Dan Blakeslee exudes a frenetic energy from his diminutive frame. No, he is not on drugs or booze. He told me that he doesn’t have a taste for either. But he is a man who obviously has a passion for his mission—that being his art. I met with him at the Saturday morning meeting of the Bagel Bards that meets at the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square.



Blakeslee lives in the Teele Square section of Somerville, Mass., but he is a native son of South Berwick, Maine. Although he has strayed from the ‘ville on more than one occasion; he is very happy to be smack dab in the “ Paris of New England.” Blakeslee said, “ I have grown as an artist here.” We discussed the fact that many artists of my acquaintance have defected to the wilds of Brooklyn and other places South of the Charles River. Blakeslee replied,” Somerville is my Brooklyn.”



I first encountered Blakeslee at a guitar contest that I was judging at the Bloc 11 Café in Union Square. I was impressed by the artistry of his guitar playing and the passion he brought to his songs. Blakeslee describes his music as “Modern Folk.” He said: “It is a hybrid between Country and Folk.” Being the Bard that I am I asked Blakeslee if he was inspired by any poets. He mentioned the poet Robert Dunn. “ I love wordplay, and Dunn is the king. He writes short and potent poems.” And of course Blakeslee is influenced by such iconic songwriters as Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, to mention just a couple.



Blakeslee is an accomplished poster artist as well. He makes posters for any number of the gigs he has in clubs in the area. He said he has been influenced by the 1930s artist Rockwell Kent, who among other things was a draftsman and accomplished print maker.

Blakeslee who graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art , designs posters that are a mixture of the surrealistic and the comic.


Blakeslee has a new CD coming out of his music titled TATNIC TALES, based on a rural part of South Berwick, Maine, where he grew up. He said he and his fellow musicians recorded the CD in a bird-dung infested old barn. The CD will be released on June 13, 2010. On Oct. 6 Blakeslee will have a CD release concert at Club Passim in the Republic of Cambridge. And if you attend you can get a vinyl album available only at the concert.

I asked Blakeslee about his philosophy of life, he said: "Live honestly; Live modestly," and you know--I sort of think the man practices what he preaches.

Dan wrote the News:


Here are the lyrics to my song "On The Watch" which is on the album "Tatnic Tales" due out July 13th. It's the song I was describing to you of a real story that happened to me while playing a late night subway set down in Copley Station:


ON THE WATCH

By Dan Blakeslee

Written on January 1, 2009



Last night I played deep in the tunnels of town.

Bear witness my trade if you took the rails underground.



The smoke and the signals they gave me a sign.

I'm far from the whispering pines.

Tonight I am stuck with luck being blind.

And I feel someone watching me.



A few stragglers hear that greed has me under its blade.

As my words fell so desperate those witnessing fade.



Just then a stinging scent took the room.

Of Listerine, oil and perfume.

Somewhere between darkness and doom.

I feel someone watching me.



In through the gate came an Indian tall as an oak.

Just a wandering drunk I though as he saw me and spoke.



"Surrender your song and your fortune too!"

As fury in my eyes it grew.

Then across the tracks came the boys in blue.
Which left no one watching me.

My Fix Takes Another Twist: A Review Of Stephen Kessler’s The Mental Traveler

My Fix Takes Another Twist: A Review Of Stephen Kessler’s The Mental Traveler


By John Flynn


Poet, translator, essayist and Redwood Coast Review editor Stephen Kessler in his first novel has penned an honest, articulate and arresting auto-biographical nightmare odyssey of 23-year-old UC Santa Cruz dropout Stephen the K. Starting with Love Creek Lodge in Central California, and getting high with the older loving maternal Nona, Stephen’s Kafkaesque journey takes him, ultimately, to an understanding that “the world was the poem.”


Stephen abandons graduate studies in English for a confused trek into all his fathers. My favorite part of the novel was the description of the Altamont Speedway Festival of 1969, where Stephen’s day peaks with a spontaneous friendship with a fellow named Norm. The memory of that day stays with Stephen as his spiritual trek lands him in treatment at San Francisco General Hospital, to consoling friends in Benedict Canyon, to maverick eccentric profs at UC Santa Cruz, and to City Prison where Stephen becomes a bard behind bars and admits “A pattern was emerging. Each time it seemed my ordeal was about to end, something went wrong and my fix would take another twist.”


Stephen’s fix is rendered in a frank disciplined telling, a torturous soul-searching identity quest that exemplifies the youth-to-age anguish of his generation at that time. Thorazine, hitchhiking, the Zodiac Killer, acid trips, hashish, instant poems, earthy pot-smoking friends, the experimental psychiatric wing of Franciscan Santa Cruz Hospital, talk of Nixonian politics and the Vietnam war, a move to Beverly Hills and St. James Hospital in Santa Monica “because the revolution would have to include Hollywood.”


Spiraling out of control, Stephen cloys to the LA shrink El Silver Man, to street philosophers, Dylan songs, poems, fellow inmates, ward residents, a casual-sex girlfriend with a split personality. He escapes more than once from his various nuthouses. More than once he willingly returns. He rambles along certain of his purpose if only he can discover it, “the gods of the revolution secretly directing my trip.”


In the end, he returns to Santa Cruz County General Hospital, not bereft of hope, but in despair, addled on Thorazine, lost and growing aware of patron saints of lost causes, the art of obedience, choosing to “play it straight” if only to avoid electroshock therapy and a lobotomy, “deeper into despair of ever escaping…the drama of my so-called psychosis had ceased to be entertaining.”
Unable to write, he continued to read poetry, particularly Robert Bly. He then began “working on another life.”


There’s no miraculous coming of age here. No pat answer, quirky minimalism or self-indulgent dream sequences. It’s about the story, plainly told. For readers like me from the East Coast who were children during the Vietnam War era, this novel offers a close, uncompromising look at a specific time and place, and a universal examination of one artist’s sojourn into fragile self-awareness.

Ibbetson Street 27-- New Issue Due out Late June 2010 ( Front Cover)

(Click on picture to Enlarge)





The new issue of the Ibbetson Street Press will be out in late June. In this issue we will have the fine poetry of Miriam Levine, two colleagues of mine from Endicott College Dan Sklar and Margaret Young, as well as Lo Galluccio, Kate Chadbourne, Mary Rice, Dorian Brooks, Lainie Senechal and many others... The Front Cover photo is by Kirk Etherton, whose poem also appears in this issue... Design of this issue is by Steve Glines.

Review of NAME THE GLORY by Molly Mattfield Bennett

Review of NAME THE GLORY by Molly Mattfield Bennett, Wilderness House Press, 145 Foster Street, Littleton, Massachusetts 01460, 2010, 37 pages

By Barbara Bialick

My first inclination when looking at the striking red background with a black and white photo of winter branches on the cover of Name the Glory was to well, try to name the Glory. Was it the Glory of God, of Nature, of Love? After reading the book, it seems to me it was all this and more…spiritual glory, the glory of childhood, and as she expresses throughout the book’s four parts, or seasons, “Name the glory of the seasons that circle the year.” The book includes a dozen black and white photographs, including the cover photo by Elizabeth A. Bennett.

But who or Who or what is she asking to name all the glory? That’s for the reader to decide. The book is all one grand poem with two voices—that of an adult speaker’s soliloquy on the circle of life (“Name the glory of a spring morning/and a boy and a girl/free to roam”), in counterpoint to a chorus of children’s voices making a colorful play with the ABC’s: “A is for aunties arguing with aardvarks/B is for bisons beckoning baboons…”

There’s a temptation to take you all through the poem’s seasons, but this is one long poem that just keeps getting deeper and deeper into the natural spiral. The fun is to interpret the poem as you weave through it. I urge you to read the book yourself, for it’s done with wit and wisdom that sometimes reminds one of a female Walt Whitman asking nature to explain itself.

“Name the glory of mind filling the quiet/with thought on thought/until someone breaks in with a word, a touch…” (“Out in the schoolyard the children chant/Q is for querulous Quentin who quizzed quails/R is for rabbits and raccoons rafting the water…”)

A strong stanza near the end of the book reads, “Name the power of those who have no fear/of the dark/they see what they see and know its name.” But coming in right with that is “Name the glory of words that beckon…” This book is not just about life but poetry and the power of words well used. The author, Molly Mattfield Bennett, describes herself as a poet-educator, She writes, “I have taught many young children and their teachers. With Name the Glory I have tried to write my loves into a single poem.” Bennett is a resident of Quincy, Massachusetts, along with her husband, Sheldon.

Salt for the Dead: ‘Passions’ by Denis Emorine

Salt for the Dead: ‘Passions’ by Denis Emorine

article by Michael T. Steffen



Sometimes while watching or reading drama we’re struck by an insight, however subjective, that the theatre the author is presenting to us is the theatre of our own mind. The notion was impressed convincingly upon me once as I read ‘Othello’ and realized that Iago was not an actor of acts, but a protagonist, in the true sense of the word, of the tragic hero’s passions. That is, Iago is the powerful agent of Doubt within Othello’s own psyche.
It’s interesting that Denis Emorine’s one-act monodrama ‘Passions’ (released earlier this year by Červená Barva Press) so deftly evokes this sense of isolated inner psychology, though unusually the drama of ‘Passions’ takes place in the wake of a personal crisis or tragedy, and the tables are turned. The protagonist, Frank, now has nothing to say. He lies on a bed motionless and speechless throughout the short play. Frederick, we gather from his bitter and plaintive monologue, has been the victim of a conspiracy (just what we are not told specifically) which Frank and another referred to as George have played out on him.
This whole displacement of focus from the acts that build to a climax, to the worded invective after, makes a good point in its demonstration of the destructive senseless gestures of regret and spite. We sense throughout the first half of the act that Frederick’s wounded pride is fruitless. He can’t even evoke the events of Frank and George’s treachery, and we suspect moreover, because of this lack of details, that Frederick in fact has no case whatsoever, that he is suffering from delusions.
A further and more poignant point made by ‘Passions’ comes to our awareness when the insularity of the drama is disrupted toward the end of the play by the sound of footsteps rushing to the door outside the room. Here Frederick must realize that he has only deepened his own dilemma by elaborating his grief against his companion. Threatened by the arrival of a soldier, Frederick’s roaring indignation is deflated. He is again frightened and pleading for Frank to help him. At this moment Frank’s unresponsiveness grows haunted and meaningful.
Emorine’s vision operates in terms of shadows and impulses, at the vanities of the essential soul, revealing his subjects unflinchingly at precisely their weakest, at the waste of their own worst powers. In its modest format of a chapbook, ‘Passions’ lurks with dark energy under the surface and filter of our all too frail human confidence.



‘Passions’ by Denis Emorine
published by Červená Barva Press
P.O. Box 440357
W. Somerville, MA 02144-3222
is sold for $7
see thelostbookshelf.com

The World In A Minute by Gary Lenhart

The World In A Minute
by Gary Lenhart
Hanging Loose Press
© Copyright 2010 Gary Lenhart
Hanging Loose Press, Brooklyn NY
Softbound, 58 pages, $18
ISBN 978-1-934909-12-6


Review by Zvi A. Sesling


The blurb says The World In A Minute is Gary Lenhart’s fourth collection of poetry, along with one volume of selected prose and his book on poetry and social class. But
this is about poetry and it is easy to see his has built on his past publications to achieve an entertaining volume of poetry and prose poetry.

Lenhart presents sly humor, history and personal commentary in an easily accessible manner. In “A Note on Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams” for example
in writing about his wife or girlfriend:

Louise, roused prematurely
yesterday at dawn, groused:
“Have the birds always sung so loud?”


Yes, the little buggers make a racked
these midsummer morns,
chasing each other up and down,
Creating one flap after another.


When it comes to history he expounds on Eugene V. Debs, the ancient Roman port of Ostia and a devastating account of T.S. Eliot’s anti-Semitism which few poets or critics dare to take on because even though he is not the icon he once was, Eliot remains a pillar of the poetic community. Yet just as Eliot let his feelings be known, so did ee cummings,
W.H. Auden, Ezra Pound and others.

I remember reading an introduction to cummings once in which the writer stated cummings wasn’t really anti-Semitic, it was just fashionable at the time. Sure, there’s always an excuse for that sort of thing those who don’t know better say or write. But Lenhart did not let it go.

Lenhart also, in the title poem, which is a series of prose poem vignettes recalls how the great poet Carl Rakosi, at age 100 suffered a stroke and to check his awareness discovered he did not know the day or the month it was so asked him “Do you know who is president?” Rakosi responded, “Bush...the bastard.”

There is much more humor, some obvious, some more subtle, but all of it entertaining. Lenhart is also very Catholic and some of the poems dealing with his religion are quite entertaining and enlightening.

He also has some wonderful lines like the one from “Footprint On Your Heart” –

Someone will walk into your life,
Leave a footprint on your heart,


Or from “A Robust Homeland”

Yes, we cherish the legends of our parents,
Though glad to live free and a thousand miles
Away, .......

There is a lot of substance to Lenhart’s poetry, but beware, what you think is fluff is not, what you think is humor has an underlying seriousness.

All in all I enjoyed his poetry because it sinks in and when you have finished the book you still think about it, which to me is the mark of success.

Timothy McLaughlin: Writing the Right Way at Bunker Hill Community College.

Timothy McLaughlin: Writing the Right Way at Bunker Hill Community College.

Interview by Doug Holder


Almost right down the block from me in Somerville, Mass., just across the border in Charlestown, resides Bunker Hill Community College. I have always heard about it of course. Poet friends of mine have taught there, many people I know have taken courses there (including my wife); I heard about their Midnight College, the diverse student body, and the almost 12,000 students they serve. I never thought I would have the opportunity to teach there. But then… well, the recession hits and to use a cliché “other doors open.” As it turns out my fellow Bagel Bard as well as an English Professor at Bunker Hill, Luke Salisbury, set me up with an interview with the English Department head Timothy McLaughlin. And sure enough I was teaching an English Comp. course for the spring 2010 session. Now, I have to tell you I was nervous. I had taught in other settings, but this was a newbie for me. But I did it, enjoyed it and will be teaching again in the fall…and glad of it. Now, McLaughlin has been at BH for over 30 years, and has seen that and done that more times than I can imagine. So being the inquisitive character that I am I decided to interview him for “Off the Shelf,” so he could tell you-- dear reader-- what BH offers, and why you might want to go there, or recommend it to others.

Doug Holder: In the June 2009 Mass. Community College Developmental Education and Best Policy and Practice Audit it stated that 61% of students in Mass. Community Colleges begin with developmental courses. Developmental courses are preparatory courses for college work. 50% of those enrolled will withdraw or fail. What do you see as the root of the problem?


Timothy McLaughlin: I’m not sure there is one root cause. It’s a pretty complex problem that we’ve been struggling with for many years. The simple answer is this: community colleges are open admissions institutions. We accept just about everyone. And as the numbers show, many students are not ready to do college work—which means that, despite our best efforts, many are not successful. Why? Lots of reasons. We have many students who come to us after being away from school for years, which means skills are rusty. Most of our students are juggling family and work commitments. We have students who struggle with English because it is not their first language. I could go on. It would certainly be great if everyone who came to us was ready to do college level work. I don’t see that happening any time soon. I should add that there is a recent trend toward lower numbers of students being placed in developmental writing courses. The biggest challenge for us is to keep students once they register for courses. We’re constantly looking at how we can do a better job of retaining students—through better advising, through more tutoring support, through technology. You name it! We want students to succeed.

DH: Tim, you are the chair of the English Department. If I asked you what the mission statement of the department is--what would you say?

TM: Hey, we have a mission statement! It’s actually available through the college website. Basically what it says is this: that the English department is committed to helping students develop the writing and critical thinking skills that are essential to success in college—and beyond. It says that we’re committed to taking students from wherever they are now and helping them become individuals who can express themselves effectively, individuals who can make better sense of the world out there.

DH: From discussions with you I know that the mechanics of writing are emphasized, as well as "critical thinking." Why is it not enough to be a competent writer? Why do you feel strongly about teaching critical thinking?

TM: This takes us back to the mission statement. For me a competent writer is someone who can understand and express ideas clearly. Almost all the writing a student has to do in college is based on reading the ideas of others; it is based on processing complex information and sorting through multiple and sometimes conflicting perspectives. You have to be able to think critically. Further, almost all writing in college involves taking a position of some sort—staking a claim, making an assertion. In order to back up a point, you have to be able to sort information, synthesize various points of view, and distinguish between fact and opinion. Writing and critical thinking are inextricably intertwined. Someone once said, “How do I know what I think until I’ve said it. “ To me this means that writing is not only a means of expressing one’s thoughts; it is also a way of figuring out what you think.

DH: What are the challenges you face with your diverse student body?

TM: Yes, there are challenges but I also have to say there are many benefits. Students bring an incredible wealth of life experience with them. Getting back to the mission statement, the department is committed to drawing upon this diversity in culture, age and background to make learning a richer experience. The amazing diversity of this place is one of the things that make teaching at BHCC such a great experience. OK, so yes, let’s also recognize the challenges that go along with this. For me this is primarily related to the challenges of helping students overcome writing difficulties related to English being their second language.


DH: Can you give us a brief history behind the innovative Midnight Classes that BH offers?


TM: This was an idea that came from an adjunct faculty member in the Behavioral Sciences department. Her department chair liked the idea and brought it to the attention of our dean. Eventually the president heard about it and found the idea compelling. She saw a need and an opportunity and put some resources into the development of what we now call the Midnight College. We started off with a writing course and psychology class last fall and added a sociology course this past spring semester.


DH: You have a number of satellite campuses, in addition to the main campus in Charlestown. What does the Somerville satellite offer the prospective Somerville student?


TM: As far as I know we are only offering developmental math at the Mystic Activity Center in the fall. This may change in the future. Much depends on demand. BHCC’s Charlestown campus is so accessible to Somerville residents it affects our ability to offer courses at a site in Somerville.


DH: I know you have an interest in jazz. I used Amiri Baraka's essay " Minton's Playhouse" which concerned the famed NYC jazz club in one writing class I taught. There is a lot of improvisation in jazz. One might say this is true in writing creatively, or even in expository writing. What's your take?


TM: Almost all improvisation in jazz is done within a structure of some kind. So while there is great freedom there are also boundaries. Much the same could be said about writing an essay. Jazz players use forms, such as the 12-bar blues, as a vehicle of expression just as poets use forms like the sonnet. Interesting things happen when there’s a creative tension between form and expression. William Wordsworth said that a poem is like a fountain, a sudden bursting forth of creative expression—which seems descriptive as well of a jazz solo. And yet for both writer and jazz musician there is an incredible discipline that is demanded. For a jazz musician this comes in all the hours of practice and study that provide a foundation for that improvisation on the bandstand; for the writer it’s all the hours of writing and rewriting. Even in writing an expository essay you’re always working away at finding a new turn of phrase or just the write sentence rhythm – the same sort of thing you’re trying to accomplish in a jazz solo.

Ibbetson Street Press to participate in the Jewish Book Festival in Nov., 2010

(Somerville, Mass.)

Doug Holder of the Ibbetson Street Press, Steve Glines of the Wilderness House Press, and Paul Steven Stone of the Blind Elephant Press, will run a seminar at the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston annual Jewish Book Fair in Nov. 2010. The panel will concern Print-On-Demand publishing and Self-Publishing. Print-On-Demand is a growing technology used by the publishing industry. It allows publishers and authors to print as few or as many books, etc... as the market demands. Instead of big print runs that often end up in the remainder pile; the publisher can publish just what he needs at any given point in time and see what develops later.


The Boston Jewish Book Fair is a series of literary events featuring an eclectic line-up of notable authors. Programs include panel discussions, readings and workshops by some of the best voices in Jewish literature. Some notable authors who have participated are Larry Tye " Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend,"
Elinor Lipman "The Family Man," Chris Bohjalian "Skeletons at the Feast," Zoe Heller "The Believers," and many others. Congressman Barney Frank will be participating this Fall. There is a new biography out on his life: Barney Frank: The Story of America's Only Left-Handed, Gay, Jewish Congressman by Stuart Weisberg.


Check the website this summer: http://jccgb.org/bookfair for complete schedule...

YET A NEW ISSUE OF IBBETSON STREET

YET A NEW ISSUE OF IBBETSON STREET



Well in spite of the trials and travails I have been through the last year --- a new issue of Ibbetson will hit the street this June. I hope to have the manuscript in my eager little hands this weekend, when our great, loyal, and fastidious editor ( Who is also a fine poet --don't forget that!) Dorian Brooks will present the manuscript to me at Bruegger's Bagels on Mass. Ave. in Cambridge--our birth place in (1998)-- of the magazine that is. And as always the talented Steve Glines will design and put it together, and send it off to the hinterlands to be printed.


Ibbetson Street has defined a great part of my life, and from it so many things have sprouted. Friendships, The Bagel Bards, The Newton Free Library Poetry Series, The Somerville News Writers Festival, jobs, even some money now and then. I want to thank folks like Robert K. Johnson, Ray and Linda Conte, Richard Wilhelm, Dianne Robitaille, Irene Koronas, Gloria Mindock, Timothy Gager, Steve Glines, Harris Gardner, Mary Rice, and so many more who have supported us throughout the years.


If you have appreciated the magazine please send your donations to: Ibbetson Street Press 25 School Street Somerville, Mass. 02143 Contributions of $100 will get you a lifetime subscription to Ibbetson, and one new book title a year, when they are released. But we will take anything--it all helps!

As always, we have some fine talent in the new issue. Poets like Miriam Levine, Kate Chadbourne, Ed Galing, Lo Galluccio, George Wallace and others grace our magazine. Ibbetson has given a voice too many for the first time-- and many have gone on to other magazines and broader horizons. We hope to be here for our mission in the years to come.

Here is the list of contributors for the new issue:




CONTENTS






BENNY GOODMAN 1

Ed Galing



JULY FOURTH... 2

Susan Lloyd McGarry



CHILDREN OF THE SUN................... 3

Paul Kareem Tayyar


SMALL VISITORS. 3

Ginny Sullivan


SKETCH # 37................... 4

Lainie Senechal


STRAWBERRIES.......... 4

Laura Rodley


AFTER HAYING.... 5

Sheila Nickerson



THE GARDENER, IN OCTOBER 5

Sheila Nickerson



ON THE ROAD TO AMHERST 6

JoAnne Preiser



THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A MOVIE................... 7

JoAnne Preiser



THAT SUMMER.……… 8

Karla Huston



HAIR DRESSERS IN HELL... 9

Karla Huston



SMUGGLER STOPPED AT THE EGYPT/GAZA BORDER
WEARING A GIRDLE OF LIVE CROCODILES 9

Jean Monahan





SILENT AS THE DAWN 10

Michael Estabrook



WHAT IT IS 11
Margaret Young



How could I learn what to pass on to you 11
C.L. Oxley



DEAR WORLD YOU ARE COURTED TO DEATH 12
Lo Galluccio



VANISHING POINT..... 13

Harris Gardner



“ON BEAUTY’S BUM”...... 13

Philip E. Burnham, Jr.



THE MAD GIRL WANTS TO SING “GOT ALONG WITHOUT YOU
BEFORE I MET YOU”................. 14

Lyn Lifshin



TOO EARLY FOR THIS 14

Lyn Lifshin



THE SPIDERS ARE SLEEPING 15

Kate Chadbourne



KITCHEN SPIDER... 16
Cheryl B. Perreault



WATERBURY 18
William Gilson



SWEATER ON THE BEACH.... 20
Miriam Levine



RELEASE 21

Miriam Levine

HATCHES 21
Jay Matthews







APPARITIONS............ 22

Joyce Meyers

IF ONLY.. 23

Joyce Meyers



TO SEE TREES DIE................. 23

Joyce Meyers



SESTINA WRITTEN IN THE LIBRARY 24
Barbara Bialick


TURTLE SHAPED BOX 25

Ashley Trace



FROM THE BACK WARD TO THE BLACKBOARD: FROM MCLEAN HOSPITAL
TO THE COLLEGE CLASSROOM 26
Doug Holder



LOUIS XVI’S LAST THOUGHT 30

Zvi A. Sesling



THE LOVE AFFAIR... 31

George Wallace



SMOKE IN THE WIND 31

Fredrick Zydek



CATCH.... 32

Ken Seide



REVEILLE 33

Linda M. Fischer



ON THE DOCK 34

Linda Haviland Conte



TOMATOES 34

Mary Rice



THE PERFECT WORLD OF ALUMNI MAGAZINES 35

Dan Sklar



SILENT GREEK... 35
Richard W. Moyer

HALLOWEEN/COTTAGE................. 36

David Giannini



MASSACHUSETTS AUTUMN 37

David Giannini



PASSION.… 37

Sanghi Ehrlich



POLE BARN................. 38

Dale Cottingham



WALTZ IN A ROOFLESS CHAPEL.. 39

Ray Greenblatt



HOSPICE……. 39

Keith Tornheim



BOMBARDIER............ 40

Dorian Brooks



GEORGIA 41

Kirk Etherton



WAR AND PEACE ON THE PRAIRIE. 42

Ellaraine Lockie



HOME OF THE BRAVE................. 43

Ellaraine Lockie



RED CEDAR SWAMP.. 44

Anne Cope Wallace



WRITERS’ BIOS 45

Benefit for Boston Poet Laureate Sam Cornish Friday May 28, 2010 7PM

Poet Jared Smith: Taking a stand for the workingman at Bunker Hill Community College.

Poet Jared Smith: Taking a stand for the workingman at Bunker Hill Community College.

Interview by Doug Holder



It seemed fate was against poet Jared Smith. Smith arrived in Boston from Colorado to read at Bunker Hill Community College. Just before he was to take the stage a fire alarm made us evacuate the building, and stand and bake in the unseasonable heat for early May. And if Smith wanted some tap water for his parched throat—forget about it. The Boston area was in the midst of a water crisis, so everything had to be bottled or boiled. Yet Smith, who wrote a poetry book about a large body of water, Lake Michigan, braved the fire alarm, the paucity of clean water and took the stage. And he was in rare form, with his verse of the workingman, and other themes.



Jared Smith is a prominent figure in contemporary poetry, technology research, and professional continuing education. Having earned his BA cum laude and his MA in English and American Literature from New York University, he spent many years in industry and research. Starting in 1976, he rose to Vice President of The Energy Bureau, Inc. in New York; relocated to Illinois, where he became Associate Director of both Education and Research for an international not-for-profit research laboratory (IGT); advised several White House Commissions on technology and policy under the Clinton Administration; and left industry in 2001, after serving as Special Appointee to Argonne National Laboratory.

He is the author of nine volumes of poetry: Looking Into the Machinery: The Selected Longer Poems of Jared Smith (1984-2008,) (Tamarack Editions, PA, 2010;) Grassroots (Wind Publications, KY, 2010;) The Graves Grow Bigger Between Generations (Higganum Hill Books, CT, 2008;) Where Images Become Imbued With Time (Puddin'head Press, IL, 2007;) Lake Michigan and Other Poems (Puddin'head Press, IL, 2005;) Walking the Perimeters of the Plate Glass Window Factory (Birch Brook Press, NY, 2001;) Keeping the Outlaw Alive (Erie Street Press, IL, 1988;) Dark Wing (Charred Norton Publishing, NY, 1984;) and Song of the Blood: An Epic (The Smith Press, 1983.) He has also released two CDs of his work: Seven Minutes Before the Bombs Drop (ArtVilla Records, TN, 2006;) and Controlled by Ghosts (Practical Music Studios, IL, 2007.)



I talked with him on my Somerville Community Access TV show “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer”





Doug Holder: Tell me Jared, why is your work often focused on the workingman? Are you a fan of the poet Philip Levine, who also writes of these themes?







Jared Smith: I am very much a fan of Philip Levine. To answer your question: "Why is my work focused on the working man?"-- it’s as Ted Kooser, the former Poet Laureate said to me: “ Poetry is about trying to communicate with other people.” If you are going to be a poet who communicates—you have to talk about the other things you do to stay alive—to earn a living for their family—to put food on the table. That’s why I didn’t go in to teaching poetry. But I held a number of jobs in industry and government. I have taken all of this into my work—all the different kind of experiences people in our society have.




I had to support a family. But if you are really writing poetry it’s got to be as important as putting food on the table. It’s not just entertainment. It is an intellectual exercise—you got to learn something from it that gives your life meaning. Maybe that’s communicating with other generations , developing abstract ideas. Most of the words in our day to day life are used for “commercial communication.” Like words that express how much money you have, or what do you want to buy. That's 99% of the words we use. And poetry gives us a chance to develop words for what we really feeling or thinking about. If you go back to American literature from Whitman, Robert Frost--all these people were trying to develop new and noncommercial ideas that they could bring back into the culture.





Doug Holder: You were involved in the literary scene in Greenwich Village in the 70's. Can you talk about those days?




Jared Smith: Well... it was a wonderful time. I spent all of my time writing, talking with other writers, I was on the screening committee for the New York Quarterly. When poems came into the Quarterly there were 7 of us who reviewed them, and if 5 of us liked the poem, it would go directly to William Packard, the publisher. He would decide what goes into the magazine. Our advisory board at that time consisted of Isabella Gardner, W.H. Auden, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Sexton, Philip Levine and others. I got to know all these people. I got to be a drinking buddy with Gregory Corso. So I got to know the Beat poets as well. I knew both the intellectuals and the Beats because in the NYQ we encouraged excellent poetry of any school. If you did it well, if it had passion, if people experienced it, it would go in. So I got to hang with a great number of people. This was great because I wanted to think like them. This was original thinking. This was not something planted in the textbooks.




Doug Holder: You write a lot about water. In fact one of your collections deals with Lake Michigan.




Jared Smith: In my work in science and industry I was looking for proof of the transcendental quality of life. This was what Walt Whitman was talking about. He would speak of the ocean, the float, etc... I was looking for a scientifically proven metaphor--that all animals and people are very much the same. So I went to Lake Michigan because Michigan has a hundred mile area where every living person, every blade of grass drinks from the same source of water. All of these animals are 88% water. We all consume. There really isn't that many differences from one another. Given this knowledge--that you are almost completely like another person--how on earth can you go to war? How can you kill people---you are killing yourself. Basically it is bodies of water going to war.



Doug Holder. The traditional Blue Collar worker is an endangered species. Do you think there will poetry for the High Tech worker?



Jared Smith: I think there will be. I tried to do some. There are some very creative people in the arts, who are also in the sciences. If you go back to the "The Act of Creation" by Arthur Koestler, you will find that he talks about the creative process being very much the same whether you are Einstein working on the theory of Relativity, or if you are Mozart composing a concerto. So creativity from science will most certainly spill into the arts.







Evening, Yes, But A Man Is Still A Man



When shadows grow from Chicago's alleys
and rattle garbage can lids with gusts of wind
that come in across the heartland,
an old man's attention flickers like a cigarette lighter.
He stubs the morning's sales beneath a worn boot heel,
and looks to stars that have not been seen for generations.
Babies are hung out to dry from fire escapes.
A truck becomes a German steelworker's family
clearing their throats outside a vacant echoing oven in Detroit.
A broken hydrant leaks into the gutter, becomes a flood,
washes years from a plot where the pavement ends.

The man is a newspaper soaked into his own days,
where one page becomes glued onto another indelible
and indistinguishable from the stench of drunken nights.
The bottle to his lips has no name but darkness,
though it was filled from grains growing beneath the sun.
Call him stockbroker, and he will sell you a steer
with a wooden mallet buried between its eyes,
and he will follow you from city to city across our nation
offering up his family on every empty plate you come to.
Call him a tradesman, and he will trade every iron worker
for one closed out steel mill and a teenage soldier.
Tell him he is a product of the Rust Belt
and the infrastructure of every city will come uncoupled.

Do not try to sing his song on the radio.
Hunt for it instead in the loves he has left behind him.
Do not try to tell him what his interests are:
they can no longer be recognized for what they were.
Do not try to buy his wages or his time:
his is the Midwest voice newscasters dream of catching.
Tell him you're from Wall Street and you can offer a better living.
Tell him that, and he'll brick you in.


For more information about Jared Smith go to http://www.jaredsmith.info


Jared Smith's new collection "Looking into the Machinery" is available on Amazon.com

Only Wings: 20 poems of devotion by Donald Lev

Only Wings
20 poems of devotion
Donald Lev
Presa :S: Press
2010 $6.00


Review by Irene Koronas

'Only Wings' respectfully looks at what it mans to be part of
ritual, "Standing tall, which row of Monoliths wins your
respect, your fear."

"Jesus fell off the cross just as the bell
announced the store was closing.
Everyone made a bee line for the checkout counters
and forgot all about Jesus
who picked himself up and dragged himself to the bus stop
and somehow made it back home without anyone being the wiser.
This denouement, which I know of, and now you do too, obviously
has made little difference to history, but seems to be mysteriously
reflected in a public radio program I heard this afternoon comparing
lamb recipes for Easter with a recipe for special chicken soup for
Passover using only wings."

I 'just' love this chapbook and so will you. Lev has a sacred sense of humor that has me laughing out laud.

"Categories, folders, lost
documents;
the shroud with the image of Jesus
the virgin's tears, echoes of Masada:
the loneliness of anywhere…
Is it said matter may disappear
yet not cease to be?
I have looked everywhere
I can. Now my eyes turn vainly
elsewhere."

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

Poetry Reading: William Kemmett Piano Factory May 22, 2010 7PM

( Click on pic to enlarge)

My friend the poet and artist James de Crescentis runs the Gallery at the Piano Factory in the South End of Boston. Great Event this Saturday night at 7PM--come one, come all... James and I used to be colleagues at McLean Hospital.....

INCREASE, chapbook, by Susan Edwards Richmond

Review of INCREASE, chapbook, by Susan Edwards Richmond, Foothills Publishing, Kanona, New York, 2010, 34 pages, $10

By Barbara Bialick

Many poets would have loved to take on the challenge of writing INCREASE, a historical yet fanciful playbook of poems. The chapbook is written from the point of view of the Harvard, Massachusetts Shaker Community that numbered 200 people in the 1850s, but finally closed in 1920. With information drawn from members’ journals, and the historical buildings in Harvard Shaker Village, Richmond got some of her information through the Fruitlands Museum where she was poet-in-residence in 2007. The remaining Shakers sold their first office building, built in 1794, to Clara Endicott Sears, who moved that building to Fruitlands.

Richmond did a good job of making the celibate put spirited religious group come to life, especially in the section called “fall”. Herself a wife and mother, Richmond could still breathe life into the Shakers’ story—they believed in celibacy, a woman Shaker messiah, withdrawal from the world, and when worshipping ecstatically, they literally shook, danced and marched; hence the name Shakers.

One of my favorite poems was “Many of the World Attend”—from a time when they invited people from the “world” to worship with them: “Trembling in the still morning, my narrow/bed beside the others, I wake inside/these roots and tendrils growing, my skin/a poor sack to contain them…” The speaker was brought to the Shakers to live by her mother when she was 17, when she would “await the hours of stomping, singing”…when the “spirit” would “seize me in a whirling frenzy…”

In the section called “summer”, Richmond makes a sing song sort of hymn, using words from the Shakers alternating with entries from their seed and herb cabinet now kept in the Fruitlands Museum: “What did they care if the world lacked improvement/cucumber, log cucumber, squash, watermelon/It was business…/”

With the title poem, “Increase”, the authentic journal entry epigraph reads: “…our condition was a barren one, but not entirely hopeless, for we could, if we would, take children and bring them up in the principles of truth and righteousness.” (Olive Chandler Journal, 1868).

I recommend this chapbook to anyone fascinated by the Shakers, or who would like to become interested in them. The author’s previous chapbooks include, Purgatory Chasm, Birding in Winter and Boto. She has published in many journals and anthologies, and has taught writing at the Shirley Medium Correctional Facility on another Shaker site. Richmond is currently on the faculty at Clark University in Massachusetts and works with the journal “Wild Apples: a journal of nature, art, and inquiry.”