You Are Not Alone Series June 25 Doug Holder, Douglas Bishop, Kate Chadburne, Rene Schwiesow,

( Click on pic to enlarge)




Presents
You Are Not Alone
Poetry & The Arts
Saturday June 25th 2011

Brockton Public Library, 304 Main St, Brockton, MA
Free Admission - HC Accessible


12:00-12:30 Open Mic Sign Up - Share your poetry be the inspiration
12:30-12:45 Opening Remarks - Joyce Irene Benoit, Med., C.C.A.
12:45-1:45 Features and Open Mic
1:45-2:00 Intermission
2:00-4:00 Features and Open Mic
Closing Remarks - Philip Hasouris, Founder

POETRY FEATURES:

Doug Holder: Founder of Ibbetson St. Press, Arts/editor Somerville News. His poetry has appeared in Anthologies, Magazines and Newspapers.

Douglas Bishop: International Performer and Boston area favorite. He is well known for working with musicians, singers and other poets. His poetry has been published in journals, anthologies and periodicals.

Rene Schwiesow: Author of 2 books of poetry:  She has been published in many small press publications, anthologies and literary reviews.

MUSIC FEATURE:

Kate Chadbourne: Singer, storyteller, and poet whose performances combine traditional tales with music for voice, harp, flute, and piano. She was recently featured on NPR.

"The Glorious Ones" The Arsenal Center for the Arts

The Glorious Ones”
Reviewed by James Foritano

“The Glorious Ones” at The Arsenal Center for the Arts until May 7th is a scintillating revival of a a Broadway musical celebrating the Commedia dell’ Arte, a 16th century Italian theater based loosely on plot, but sustained mainly by improvisation and acrobatics.


Our modern slapstick - think The Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin or Lucille Ball, is inspired by the rowdy antics of these wandering players. Not only slapstick, but any theater in which quicksilver turns of incident and emotion seem to interrupt predictability – think Shakespeare – is indebted to the nimble minds and bodies of this tradition.


Such a weight of history could easily overbalance a night of fun, but F.U.D.G.E. theater company manages handily to tell this weighty history through the singing, grimacing, capering bodies of its dedicated actors.


Curt Fennell embodies Flaminio Scala, the driving force of this madcap band of thespians. He takes his fun, erotic and theatrical, where he can get it, but when the “Glorious Ones” are invited to perform for the court of the king of France, Flaminio is all business. Alternately baggage master and martinet, Flaminio carries his “glorious” troupe to new heights, but also to attendant slippery slopes.


“The Glorious Ones” focuses on that point in history when written theater is taking precedence and prestige over improvisation. Written scripts give nuance to stock characters and more detailed plotting gives marching orders to actors attuned to scanning restive audiences, ready colleagues, for just that right moment to insert a pertinent, and often impertinent, diversion.


The comedy and tragedy of progress is illustrated brilliantly, pognantly by actors who take their rollicking roles so seriously that, over a lifetime of rehearsals and applause, they’ve become Pantalone, Arlecchino, Columbina, Armanda. Take off that mask and you’ve taken off the face behind it. Ouch!


Flaminio as the impresario/lead actor of this doughty, star-crossed troupe performs their “swam song” to a plaintive, bitter end. But the audience senses portents of demise, and also of rebirth in the bouncing action, haunting songs which the F.U.D.G.E. ensemble sprinkles throughout this rare, polished tribute to actors past and to come of Commedia dell’ Arte.

Review of “what looks like an elephant” by Edward Nudelman

Review of “what looks like an elephant” by Edward Nudelman, Lummox Press, PO Box 5301, San Pedro, CA 90733, www.lummoxpress.com, 113 pages, $15

Review by Barbara Bialick

A good poet tends to have a keen eye for observation, irony and detail, metaphysics and philosophy, so it should be no surprise when a scientist poet arrives on the small press scene with his first “full-length” book, “what looks like an elephant”. While the first thing I think of when a writer uses the symbol of an elephant, is the republican party, the book doesn’t go too heavily into politics. Rather, one gets intrigued by the lingo he uses for some of his images, that of a noted and scientifically published biologist living in the Boston area, a published poet, too.

For example, in “Linear Equations” he writes, “The volume of air in a cave is greater than all its parts,/Ask a spelunker to differentiate light’s vector./Follow that course. Graph the activity of a winter bird/as a function of ambient temperature/…You should be dead, but you aren’t. Graph that.”

Or examine a less dense, poem, “Arrival”: “Who can tell a gnat from a mosquito, unless/blood is spilled? Outside, a dog wants in./Inside, a soul wears slippers and sips iced tea./…Nobody here remembers the Vietnam war/but they will not easily forget this one.” But what war is that?

A poet is a poet, I believe, but how often do poets start out, “I was splicing a gene/when Thayer walked in…” He has all sorts of tools and numbers and colleagues ready to mine for poetry, yet he is not bound by them. “If the fear of God/is the beginning of wisdom,/ why am I so ignorant?” (“Notes from an Ill-kept Journal”)

Edward Nudelman’s first book of poetry, “Night Fires” was published in 2009 by OSU Press. Some of the journals he has published in include “The Atlanta Review”, “Chiron Review” the “Orange Room Review” and many others. He is a noted cancer research biologist with “over 60 published papers in top-tier journals.” He has also published two books on Jessie Willcox Smith, an American illustrator (Pelican Publishing, 1989, 1990). He is a native of Seattle who lives “just north of Boston with his wife, Susan, and their Golden Retriever, Sofie.”

Bagel Bard Anthology 6--To be released this month!

To order Bagel Bard Anthology 6 and others go to: http://www.wildernesshousepress.com/p/bagels-with-bards.html




*****From the Introduction – Kathleen Spivack


The Bagel Bards are a loose group of local writers, many of them
poets, who meet once a week at the welcoming coffee shop Au Bon Pain in Davis Square, Somerville, Massachusetts to share coffee and bagels.But most importantly, they share information about the writing trade. They are a networking group for writers in the area.

The brain child of at least four superb and conscientious writers,
oug Holder, Harris Gardner, Steve Glines and Irene Koronos, the
Bagel Bards have been meeting weekly for years, providing a haven
for local writers and publishers engaged in the solitary practice of the
wordsmith profession. Writing and reading are the shared passions.
Bagel Bards range in age from 19 to 94-plus...



************ Kathleen Spivack has been a visiting professor of American Literature/Creative Writing (one semester annually) in France since 1990. She has held posts at the University of Paris VII-VIII, the University of Francoise Rabelais, Tours, the University of Versailles, and at the Ecole Superieure (Polytechnique). She was a Fulbright Senior Artist/Professor in Creative Writing in France (1993-95). Her poetry has been featured at festivals in France and in the U.S. She reads and performs in theatres, and she also works with composers. Her song cycles and longer pieces have been performed worldwide.

Yolandi Elvira Cruz: A talk with a young poet who thrives in Somerville's " Books of Hope

(Books of Hope authors)







Yolandi Elvira Cruz: A talk with a young poet who thrives in Somerville's " Books of Hope" Project.

Interview with Doug Holder

"Books of Hope" is a project located in the Mystic River Housing Project in Somerville that introduces young people to the world of publishing, marketing, poetry and creative writing. I interviewed one of the young poets who particpates in the project: Yolandi Elvira Cruz. I asked her to send her bio. She wrote the News:

"Yolandi Elvira Cruz Guerrero was born and raised in the Dominican Republic and wrote her first book when she was in third grade. It was made up of only eight pages and filled with illustrations she created herself with color pencils and water paint. Yolandi is now a seventeen-year-old High School Junior trying to pass her classes and working with kids at the local library. She has been writing since she came out her mother’s womb and has had the luck of encounteringamazing teachers and friends who have encouraged her to share her stories bothin Spanish and English. She met her first love, Spoken Word, as a freshman and has been working to make her marriage stronger and have a couple kids ever since. Right now she participates in Books of Hope in the community of Somerville.

She writes for peace and refuses to create art that doesn’t work towards positively changing the world."




What has poetry given you that other forms of expression have not?


Poetry has given me confidence and it has empowered me by reassuring me that words do have a strong impact on the entire world.


We live in Somerville, certainly not known for its "natural beauty" It is a city. What for you is beautiful about Somerville--where do you find beauty?


Although, I am not from Somerville I am actually from Boston I would say that I find the beauty of Somerville in its youth because they are very artistic and have important messages to deliver.


I know there are a lot of poets in our area. It is very competitive. Even more so if you are a teenager , and not connected in the "adult" poetry world. Has Books of Hope helped you to connect?


Books of Hope has helped me more so to become a stronger writer, we haven't necessarily had strong connections into the "adult" poetry world yet. However, we did have Lauren Whitehead give us a writing workshop which was amazing. Soon we will be doing a Mystic Ink Tour where we will most likely be exposed to this world "adult" poetry world you speak of.


Has writing poetry been helpful to you in any other aspect of your life?


Yes, writing has helped me release and understand many things I couldn't comprehend on my own. It has also helped me with my ability to speak in public and own my work as an artist.




Any teachers who have inspired you?


All of my teachers have inspired me. All of them, starting from my mother and ending with my 8-year old sister.



What for you makes a great poem?


A great poem to me is a poem that sounds like a melody even if it doesn't make any sense. Poetry is Music. Music is Poetry. And a great poem is simply based on how our hearts not our "intellectual egos" perceives it.

WRESTLING ANGELS Poetic Monologues by Freddy Frankel

WRESTLING ANGELS
Poetic Monologues by Freddy Frankel
Ibbetson Street Press, 57 pgs. $14


To order book go to: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/wrestling-angels/14846643


Review by Susan Tepper

In a collection as powerful and eclectic as Wrestling Angels, it seemed appropriate to begin the review with a quote from Shakespeare: “All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women merely players;” Freddy Frankel’s players, lifted from the bible and from history, get to have their say. These are not reluctant players he has brought to the page. But characters, (and place and document) who own their history, resplendent or vile, and move forward with a kind of persuasive stridency on the stage (page) to take their rightful place at their mark under the light. We hear from Job, Saul, Moses, Rachel, Hitler, Rebekkah, Noah. Others. Each perfectly sure what they’re doing here. The words they speak are gripping and often startling. Frankel begins these monologues with none other than the woman called Eve. She presents as innocent and sultry, an intriguing combination that made me wonder if Eve was perhaps the first female hysteric. Frankel’s field, before entering the fields of poetry, was psychiatry. And though his Poetic Monologues are written in a light, deft hand, the underpinnings of analysis seem to shadow, at times, the myriad voices. This is not a weakness of the book but a strength. The lines are perfect. There is music to be found here, too. Wrestling Angels is meant to provoke and entice the reader. It does. And, then some.






***** Susan Tepper-----Susan Tepper grew up on Long Island where many of the stories in DEER take place. Before settling down to study writing at NYU and New School, she was an actress, flight attendant, marketing manager, tour guide, singer, television producer, interior decorator, rescue worker and more.

Many of her stories, poems and essays have been published in the US and abroad, appearing in fine journals and periodicals including American Letters & Commentary, Salt Hill, Boston Review, Green Mountains Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Crannog, Poetry Salzburg, Ibbetson Street Press and elsewhere. Susan has received 5 Pushcart Prize nominations for fiction and poetry, and she curates the reading series FIZZ at KGB Bar in New York City.

Ibbetson Street Press Author Dan Sklar Wins Teaching Excellence Award

Dan Sklar, author of Bicycles, Canoes, Drums ( Ibbetson Street Press) won Endicott College's Teaching Excellence Award--below is the letter.


CLICK ON TITLE TO ORDER SKLAR'S poetry collection:


Good Morning Endicott Faculty & Staff,



It gives me great pleasure, on behalf of the Alumni Council, to announce this year’s recipient of the “Excellence in Teaching Award”. Each school selects students to participate in the nomination process. Representatives selected five candidates who have contributed to the success of the Class of 2011. These five names were then voted on by the graduating class to determine this year’s recipient of the Alumni Excellence in Teaching Award.



Student ballots have now been counted and Dr. Daniel Sklar has been selected. As the recipient of this award Dr. Sklar will serve as the Baccalaureate Speaker on May 20th and will perform the duties of Grand Marshall at the Commencement Exercise on Saturday the 21st.



Professor Sklar has been teaching at Endicott since 1987. He is the author of three books of poetry and some of his recent publications include the Harvard Review, New York Quarterly, Ibbetson Street Press, The Art of the One-Act, and NAP Magazine. In addition to his numerous writings he has produced numerous plays in Newburyport, Boston and off-Broadway.



Please join the Alumni Council and the Commencement Committee in congratulating Professor Dan Sklar on this honor.





Cheers



Erin T Neuhardt

Director, Alumni Relations

Endicott College

376 Hale St.

Beverly, MA 01915

W: (978) 232-2109

F: (978) 232-2025

eneuhard@endicott.edu

The Problem with Relativity: Short Stories by John Sokol

The Problem with Relativity
Short Stories
John Sokol
Rager Media Inc
www.ragermedia.com
ISBN 13-978-0-9792091-1-6
2006 $16.95


“...That was the only time I ever heard him really say it and
maybe the only time I've ever known what it really meant
and certainly the first time I ever saw how hard a man has
to fall and how many people he has to take with him before
he's able to spit it out.”

Sokol drags us into his short stories, skeptical, unyielding, we come
to accept the stories as our own. Usually, I review poetry books,
and whether this book was given to me by mistake or has a purpose,
there is no regret on my part. The characters jump at me, reveal
their familiar presence. The battle worn, the inter-generational,
the educated fall, the feisty reverses, and the pull:

“...Newton I recall, thought that space was spread-out, flat
therefore universal. The post office, however, seems to have
proven lately that space is relative. They're holding a letter
from Caroline in their space instead of sending it to my space.
I haven't seen Caroline at the university lately because she took
her senior class to Washington for some literary reason. She
promised she would write. She promised...”

Most of the characters are resolving, are trying to come to a resolution
about a particular circumstance in their relationship with others and
with self. Both are intertwined even when denial rides a plastic horse
like premonition, like a child being abused:

“...Did you hear me, you little shit? Get outta that goddamn tree!”
He says the same thing, every time. I don't answer. I just look
him in the eyes and shake my head no. that always makes him even
madder, so I expect i'll be up here for a while, until he passes out,
or until he storms out of the house, gets in that brown beater he
calls a car, and goes to the bar until two in the morning...”

Every short story in this book is a haiku, it drifts along the shore,
and the reader paddles in the direction the story sets. We end-up
floating on images, startled by the sentences, we remain engrossed
in conclusions; our minds raptured by the pull, the theft of being
left with a short story:

“ Horrible distrust developed in our family after that, and not all
the hostility was directed toward me. Everyone was suspicious of
everyone else. I swore on a stack of bibles that I hadn't taken the
camera and Marie said nothing at all. Mrs. Cuzman continued to
call occasionally to ask if anyone knew anything more about
the missing camera...”

A perfect book to carry with you when you go on vacation or have to wait
in a waiting room. The stories will help the time pass and will lend a
profound view from the authors perspective. A perfect book for those
dark winter rooms, or on an autumn night when moonshine wafts
through the windows. A perfect must read during any season:

“...When I try to figure out a way to resolve the inherent problems
between Joanna and myself, I remember the main doctrine I took
away from my readings of Hegel, that guy who maintained that all
human relationships are based on a master/slave component,
however blatant or subtle, however nefarious or overt. Each party
assumes the role for which they are most naturally inclined, or
they are subsumed into the role they play by the stronger will of
the other. I often wonder if relationships of even the most equitable
sort disintegrate if the initially accepted equation varies even a tad...”

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

Somerville Resident Promotes Jimmy Tingle Event--First Church/ Boston-April 29, 2011

“Jimmy Tingle event promoted by

Somerville resident”





On April 29th, locally-raised, nationally-known humorist Jimmy Tingle will perform at an event at First Church in Boston (located at 66 Marlborough Street). Union Square resident Kirk Etherton is doing his best to make sure there isn’t a single empty seat.

Etherton, who used to do stand-up comedy at “Jimmy Tingle’s Off-Broadway” theater in Davis Square, often goes to First Church. He was first attracted by the “thought-provoking sermons and diverse music” broadcast every Sunday morning on 88.9 FM, the Emerson College station.

“Jimmy is a great social comic—and a great person,” says Kirk. “Whether it’s on national TV or a local stage, he connects with audiences on a personal level. And of course, he’s hilarious.” Kirk is promoting the event in a variety of ways; he’s also gotten some of his favorite businesses and artists to donate some fine things for the auction portion of the evening.

Items up for bid will include: a one-hour therapeutic massage from Massage Therapy Works in Davis Square; dinner for two at Tamarind House and The Middle East Restaurant; plus books from award-winning poets such as Richard Hoffman, C.D. Collins, and Kathleen Spivack. (Also, a member of First Church is donating two excellent Red Sox tickets.)

The most unusual offering is a private concert, from mezzo-soprano Katarzyna Sadej and pianist Mark McNeill. “By chance, I recently saw them in a recital,” says Etherton. “Their performance was so powerful and sublime, I felt like I might float out of my seat.” Sadaj and McNeill have performed around the world, including Carnegie Hall.

Kirk is donating his time because of the focus of First Church. “They emphasize community and cooperation—locally and beyond. They support lots of important causes. like Boston youth programs, rebuilding Haiti, etc. So when the Senior Minister asked if I’d help out with this ‘fun fundraiser’ for the church—and told me Jimmy Tingle was involved—I couldn’t say no.”

Kirk has a special thanks for Master Printing & Signs in Union Square, which “did a great job of printing the poster for the event—and also helped me design it.”

The April 29th event begins at 6:30 pm, with complimentary hors d’oeuvres (and a cash bar). The “show” starts at 8:00 pm with music by the Harvard LowKeys, a co-ed a cappella group.

Tickets are just $25 in advance ($30 at the door). You can call 617. 267-6730 or email: office@firstchurchboston.org.

Proceeds will benefit First Church in Boston (Unitarian Universalist), founded in 1630.

PINKO by JEN BENKA

Pinko
by Jen Benka
Hanging Loose Press
Brooklyn NY
Copyright © 2011 by Jen Benka
60 pages, softbound, $18

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

Science has often pondered the existence of parallel universes. Jen Benko is proof they exist. How poetry, based on the traditional forms of this universe, take on both universal questions and questions of the parallel universe. Even Benko acknowledges this in the poem “Alpha” in which she writes: “the universe contains the universe. a faint milky circle, a blank field.”

Benko’s words do not sing, but they excite, send the reader into a universe of new thoughts. Take the poem “Romeo” for example:

she says that it’s not
that I am a tall woman
but the mutant
messages I send –
a hymn –
and so I am
sir to them and mister

Now you can interpret what you want from this, Dickinson, out-in-space, gender bender, freedom anthem – whatever. The fact is Benko is her own voice, and what doesn’t make sense will if you take the time and also re-read the poems, most of which are sparse, often dissect and aspect of society critically. Benko is not one kiss your cheek and say you look great. She will find the moles, the pimples, reinterpret writings, happenings, people, like taking a picture and distorting it until it is unrecognizable, a new picture never taken.

Benko is also a dark poet, not much happiness in these pages like her anti-war poem “Yankee” which is both reminiscent of Ginsberg and encompasses perhaps Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and our own Indian wars.

over there occupier
no damn different than here
we are always coming with drums
with dandy prayers dandy guns
emancipation justified what
lincoln ordering 38 Sioux
to be hanged
north has never been true

Benko scores time and again in ways one does not expect, must rethink their own philosophies and histories. The book is, shall I say, avant-garde and worth a reading.

IN THE SUMMER OF CANCER, Poems by John Sokol

Review of IN THE SUMMER OF CANCER, Poems by John Sokol, Endymion Press, 8446 Melrose Place, Los Angeles, CA 90069, 98 pages, hardcover, dated 2003, $19.95
(Cover painting, “Charon Sleeps”, 1990, also by the author.)

Review by Barbara Bialick

As Nature grows in layers, so grow the images and metaphor in John Sokol’s book THE SUMMER OF CANCER, which reflects back to 1984 when his love, Shelly, died of breast cancer. Painful as this was to him, he coats his book’s sadness in well-crafted, erudite lines from Greek mythology, eastern philosophy, natural detail, even math, before he can finally state so poignantly in the last poem of the book: “This Poem is Just Like All of Us”…that he is ”afraid of dying alone,/in nobody’s lap, in nobody’s arms.”

One of my favorite poems, “Robert Frost’s Books, Rupton, Vermont, 1980” (for Shelly 1940-1984) takes place when the couple came across Robert Frost’s house in the Vermont woods, surrounded by hunters, and go inside, and contemplate making love in the sacred poetry structure still apparently holding some of the poet’s original books and mattress coils. At the end of the poem, he risks having “Robert Frost turn over/in his grave than not pay homage to you in yours:/I shall be telling this with a sigh/Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and you and I--/We took the one less traveled by,/And, in the end, that never made a difference.”

Another powerful poem is his “Letter to a Sister I Don’t Have.” “Maybe your name is Lila, or Sarah./Maybe we live very far apart. Maybe/we haven’t seen each other in ages/…After/everyone else has left, we’ll listen to/Waltzing Matilda, and the waiters will wait/for the juke-box to break our farewell hearts…”

This is Sokol’s first full-length book and it is a good one. The author, a poet, fiction writer and painter, lives in Akron, Ohio. He has published poetry in such fine publications as “Antigonish Review”, “The Berkeley Poetry Review”, “The New York Quarterly” and so on. Here are some lines from his poem, “Old Soul”: “Had you been a/Buddhist, at Wat Po—where turtles/are revered as human souls,/making their way through one/of many lives—you might have/known the slow road to Nirvana/could ditch you here, where you/drag the bottom of a watery/world, and make do in the mud,/with your mutable soul.”

"Poet Ruth Kramer Baden: A Writer from 'East of the Moon'

"Poet Ruth Kramer Baden: A Writer from 'East of the Moon'”

Interview by Doug Holder

Ruth Kramer Baden is well into her 70’s, but is an emerging poet with her first poetry collection “East of the Moon” (Ibbetson Street Press). This book which was recently selected as a “Must Read” by the Massachusetts Book Award, is according to reviewer Barbara Bialick “a mythic narrative, storytelling, and busting with flavor beads… she takes the reader through life cycles of a mature woman—with the span of her first collection, it is obvious that her writing of this work was in the back of her mind for some time.” I talked with Baden on my Somerville Community Access TV show “ Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”



Doug Holder: So Ruth what took you so long?

Ruth Kramer Baden: Well I guess I succumbed to the myth that was thrown around when I was a young person. That was once you get married—you have children and you stay at home. I know Sylvia Plath was writing at 2 A.M. with two little children—but then she put her head in the oven. I felt like I had to devote myself to my husband and children. It wasn’t until the Feminist Revolution that I got the message that there is room for family but other things too. Yes there was love for the family but you had to fulfill your promise in the world as well. I started writing because of a teacher who inspired me in high school. I decided that I wanted to be a world famous writer, if not that, somewhere near that. So I went to college, and did what women of my generation did-- I got married and had children. I turned away completely from poetry and all the things I was thinking about in college. My husband didn’t want me to do anything that would interfere with my duties as a wife. I think I accepted that. That was your job—you didn’t think about your own needs.

DH: As Lois Ames, a confidante of both Sexton and Plath told me you were a revolutionary if you were a woman, and doing something outside the kitchen.

RB: I guess then I was a revolutionary. I took a writing seminar at the Radcliff Institute which was for “older women.” So there were some of us in our 30’s. (Laugh) I just got hooked, all I wanted to do was write, write, write. So I started writing poetry. And my dream was to publish. But somehow I didn’t think I was good enough. I didn’t know how to go about it. It was not like today when you can go on the internet and find all these publishers. I was very lucky to go to a reading at Porter Square Books to hear Kathleen Spivack read. She became my mentor and later I got my book published with her invaluable help.

DH: You were a lawyer—does this experience figure with your work?

RB: Yes I was a lawyer and I decided to retire at 70. The law did not inspire my work, but my teaching does. I teach at Brandeis University in a program for adult learners. It has been the greatest experience working with these people. They are seniors with a lot of life experience.

DH: What do you consider the traits of a good poetry teacher?

RB: In my own case I’m told that I communicate my passion for poetry. You really have to like and enjoy people. You should be able to explain in a very down-to-earth way about what you are talking about.

As far as Kathleen Spivack goes she had been a teacher many years ago when I was in my
30’s. When I saw she was reading in Porter Square ( Cambridge, Mass.), I also found out she helped her poetry students get published. I hooked up again with her. She was very encouraging. She made feel like I could become a published poet.

DH: Your poems seem to have a strong Jewish bent to them. Do you consider yourself a Jewish poet or a poet who is Jewish?

RB: I guess a poet who is Jewish. I didn’t realize that I have a decidedly Jewish slant. But now I realize it is true, many of my poems are imbued with Jewish Humanism. That is that they have a feel for the culture, the history, and what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust. Writing poetry is a way to find out who you are—where you came from.


Under The East River

What would you give to ride again
to Flatbush Avenue in the front subway car
wondering about the rails, why they meet
in the distance of the dark tunnel?
to climb the stairs up to the ozone-scented morning
holding your schoolbooks tight against your blue-sweatered
chest
and stride under the arch of Erasmus Hall High School
where Desiderius, the bronzed Dutch scholar stands
with his tome eternally open to the same two pages
to throw a Lincoln penny into his book for luck
in passing all your tests, and you do
to have your luck follow you out into the copper afternoon
and to never doubt it will be with you forever?
What will you do when your luck slips clinking onto the
rails
somewhere between Times Square and Coney Island
and you ride to and fro under the East River
while your reflection watches you from the soot-smeared
window?
you know now you will never get off at the right stop
you will fail all your tests year after year
the rails will never meet.
What would you give to ride to Herald Square and see luck
get on
wearing a faded Dodgers cap and his back-pack of tricks?
when he moves to the strap-hanger next to yours
when he sways with you
will you dare look straight into his cobalt eyes
and invite him to come home in the lowering afternoon
to lie with you, to love each other’s bones
until they meet in the tunnel of light?

"FUSION” A Magazine of Literature, Music, Art, and Ideas

“FUSION”
A Magazine of Literature, Music, Art, and Ideas
www.fusionmagazine.org
Berklee College of Music,
Boston, Massachusetts


Review by Rene Schwiesow

Berklee College in Boston is known world wide for its excellence in music education. Well known graduates include Quincy Jones, Melissa Etheridge, Joey Kramer, and Branford Marsalis. However, Berklee College is also committed to showcasing the talents of their students beyond the music genre. “FUSION: A Magazine of Literature, Music, Art, and Ideas,” was developed as the “literary and multimedia” voice of the school. FUSION’s main goal is to publish Berklee’s students, but the magazine also solicits work from faculty, staff, visiting artists and guests.

Volume 2, Issue 1, 2010 included six poems by Somerville’s Bert Stern. Stern was a visiting artist at Berklee, spring of 2010. The poems were originally published in Stern’s collection, “Steerage,” published by Ibbetson Press and the grouping includes the title poem, “Steerage.”

“In a corner, on blankets, we made house: here bundles to lean against,
there, to keep garlic and bread.”

Stern’s poems are interspersed with photographs by Berklee student Alexander Muri, alum Cailin Peters and Irish guest photographer Fionan O’Connell. O’Connell is just one of the Irish artists represented in a section entitled “Irish FUSION.” FUSION editor-in-chief Joseph Coroniti spent sabbatical time in Ireland as a visiting research professor at the Centre for Irish Studies, National University of Ireland in Galway. During his stay, Coroniti commissioned work. In addition to O’Connell’s intriguing images, eleven Irish poets are represented, including Louis de Paor, the Irish language poet, whose poems are printed in Irish with the English translation. From “Blackberries,” by Paor:

The white tide
is high as the sun
surging in her pulse,
and a thorn in her talk
unbeknownst to her,
skins my fingers.

There are no thorns in the words of Kathryn Bilinski, author of “Metropolis: A Bostonian Summer.” Bilinski threads 50 word vignettes into a fusion of sight, sound and emotion that may inspire the most committed suburbanite to board the train for a day in the city. After all, “There is nothing like a muggy summer evening in Boston.”

While I could go on for paragraphs mentioning authors and sharing quotations from the interesting reading in “FUSION,” I will leave the rest of the journey to you. You may read more about FUSION at: www.fusionmagazine.org. The magazine accepts submissions year round. However, individuals who are not Berklee students or alumni, must send a letter of enquiry before submitting.

Rene Schwiesow is co-host of the popular South Shore venue, Poetry: the Art of Words held the second Sunday of each month in Plymouth.

Bunker Hill Community College--National Poetry Month Reading

(Click on to enlarge)

Somerville Poet’s Book Selected as a “Must-Read” by the Mass Book Awards

Somerville Poet’s Book Selected as a “Must-Read” by the Mass Book Awards

By Bert Stern

Triage, by Tam Lin Neville, Cervena Barva Press, Somerville, MA, 2010

Tam Lin’s book, Triage, was recently selected as a “Must-Read” by the Mass Book Awards. She is a Somerville poet published by Cervena Barva, a Somerville press.


Many of the poems revolve around her neighborhood, Union Square.
The chastened compassion of the poems in Triage is strikingly original and at the
same time, a precise rendering of a feeling common to our times: the daily witnessing of a suffering we can’t relieve but can only try to take in with our steadiest eye. “Late Nursery Rhyme,” the opening lyric, is also the book’s “argument”:

The stars have fallen
from their glade
and deep in the long grass
lie winking in the shade.

Come with me to gather them –
Some dark, some diamond.
When we have done,
climb and wind this string of beads
through limbs and golden leaves.

And who can say, when the last star
has faded out, what these strange garlands are,
that once were light and now are char?


The exquisite poignancy of “Late Nursery Rhyme” establishes the book’s theme but represents only one of its many voices. The company Neville describes includes a manic-depressive women in the “psych ward,” a street person who “wanted the leaves to care for me,” an army wife who runs a care center for disabled vets, and many more.

Some of these poems are about Neville’s own Somerville neighborhood, where one family, when power goes out on the block, brings out a case and makes a holiday of the event: “Drink the beer before it grows warm.” In another, “Ghost Tenant,” a dead woman reflects back on her eccentric life in a house full of junk, and again the poet’s eye offers of kind of healing that was denied to the woman in life.

While many of these poems deal with dark subjects, they take place in an extended natural reality in which sun and moon shine, leaves fall, snow flakes grace a moonless street. Such flashes of beauty hint at a larger harmony that frames our human predicament.

Fathers: A Literary Anthology edited by Andre Gerard

Fathers

A Literary Anthology

Edited by Andre Gerard

Patremoir Press 2011

ISBN 978-09865554-0-4



Depending on the writer, this book is a father's dream, being

the center of attention, his children's remembrance, as in

Annie Dillard's excerpt from, "An American Childhood."

We hear the soft foehn, the breeze of being a daughter:



"…He walked lightly, long-legged, like a soft-shoe hoofer

barely in touch with the floor. When he played the drums, he

played lightly, coming down soft with the steel brushes that

sounded like a Slinky falling, not making the beat but just

sizzling along with it. He wandered into the sun porch,

unseeing; he was snapping his fingers lightly, too, as if

he were feeling between them a fine layer of Mississippi silt.

The big buckeyes outside the glass sunporch walls were

waving…"



The book came from the editor, Andre Gerard's awareness,

the need for an anthology which would speak to children, young

adults, or anyone, or anyone who came to America, often without

their fathers. Gerard taught young people in such situations and these

situations often would cause anger and sadness in his students. Gerard

read father poems to comfort and help them to relate, help them understand

they were not alone:



"…Your father was a dutiful, honest,

Faithful, and useful person."

For such plain praise what fame is recompense?

"A horn-painter, he painted delicately on horn,

He used to sit around the table and paint pictures."

The peace of God needs nothing to adorn

It, nor glory nor ambition.

"He is twenty-eight years buried," she writes, "he was called home

And is, I am sure, doing greater work."

The strength of one frail hand in a dim room

Somewhere in Brooklyn, patient and assured,

Restores my sacred duty to the Word…" Derek Walcott



An introduction to each poem and essay, makes them personal,

an experience, Gerard studies to find the poem's meanings. The book

took many years to compile and he often met with some of the writers,

such as, Rita Dove and Diana Der-Hovanessian.



Some of the work relates to the oppressive nature of a particular father.

The influence of any particular poem or writing can be felt as the reader

hears his large footnotes step down in open verse, as in the famous poem

by Sylvia Plath:



"…Daddy, I have had to kill you.

You died before I had time-

Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,

Ghastly statue with one gray toe

Big as a Frisco seal…"



Every poem, essay, represented in the book is gender balanced

and sensitive to a gender balance. "Nothing can be said about fathers

without first saying a word about mothers. Fathers and mothers are

inextricably, intimately linked" Gerard points out in the introduction to

'Fathers' which inspires and continues the tradition of either blaming

or elevating our parents to a godly, priestly, evil status. The reader will

find what is needed to substantiate their relationship with their father

with poems and excerpts from books we will trudge along pulling our

parents out of their graves. Sometimes the scent is rotten, sometimes

wisteria wafts through out the rooms filling us with recognitions:



"In the steamer is the trout

seasoned with slivers of ginger,

two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil.

We shall eat it with rice for lunch,

brothers, sister, my mother who will

taste the sweetest meat of the head,

holding it between her fingers

deftly, the way my father did

weeks ago. Then he lay down

to sleep like a snow-covered road

winding through pines older than him,

without any travelers, and lonely for no one" -Li-Young Lee

I recommend this book. It will be read many times and then passed on

to the next generation of readers as a reference book as well as

a direction to further one's knowledge:



"On the morning on May 13, 1998, my father woke up, had breakfast,

got dressed and walked away from the Steinbach Bethesda Hospital,

where he had been a patient for two and a half weeks. He walked

through his beloved hometown, along Hespeler Road, past the old

farmhouse where his mother had lived with her second husband, past

the water tower, greeting folks in his loud, friendly voice, wishing

them well. He passed the site on First Street where the house in

which my sister and I grew up once stood. He walked down Main

Street, past the Mennonite church where, throughout his life, he had

received countless certificates for perfect attendance, past Elmdale

School where he had taught grade six for forty years…" Miriam Toews

　

Irene Koronas

Poetry Editor:

Wilderness House Literary Review

Reviewer:

Ibbetson Street Press

Two Somerville artists bring poetry and music to the PRECINCT

(Lisa Kaufman-- Somerville Bagel Bard and one of the featured readers)


Two Somerville artists bring poetry and music to the PRECINCT

By Doug Holder

Somerville residents Yani Batteau and Olga Solomita started a poetry and music series at the Precinct Bar in Union Square, Somerville for the month of April (2011)--every Monday night. Such Spoken Word Artists as Angela Counts, Betraz Alba Del Rio, Lisa Kaufman, Judah LeBlang and others have or will read in this new venue. This series will also include musicians of various genres. They hope it will continue at the Precinct or in some form at another venue in the near future. I have interviewed Batteau before, and found she is a multi-talented artist, and musician. Recently I connected with her partner in this venture:


Doug Holder: What was the germ of the idea for the series?


Olga Solomita: Yani Batteau has been working with her band, 'The Styles', for just about one year. Within this year she has worked very hard to establish herself, specifically, as a professional musician. I have been along side her throughout this process. During this process, as Yani has found her voice, I, in turn, after a long hiatus, have begun to find mine again, and in more ways than one. Hence, without knowing exactly what I was looking for, I was searching through Craigslist looking for opportunities for myself as well as Yani. I came upon an ad that was asking for someone who was interested in being the resident band for the month of April at the Precinct, and who was also interested in booking other bands on the same night.I did think it odd when I read it, but rather than wonder too much about why such an opportunity was being put out there, I jumped on it. I responded to the ad instantly even before speaking with Yani, who when once informed that I had already volunteered her, was in. Of course, the resident band would be Yani Batteau and the Styles and the other performers were yet to be determined. Yani and I had several discussions about just what we wanted to happen on these Monday nights. I very much wanted to include a different genre, and in my mind, this was Spoken Word. I attended a night at the Lizard Lounge with the Jeff Robinson Trio in Cambridge to see who might be right. Jeff had already suggested a few artists, but I really wanted to see them first hand. As a result many of the Spoken Word artists chosen for this Month in April have been hand picked based on our completely visceral and subjective responses to their performances at the Lizard Lounge. Since they have been competing for the the national slam finals, I have been fortunate in that I have seen some of the best. I already knew some of the poets as well as their work and hence have invited them to participate based on their work.



DH: I had a reading series some time back at the Precinct. It is an unusual space, an old police holding cell--I believe. Part of its charm--perhaps?




OS: The Precinct is an interesting venue. It was chosen by Yani and I because the opportunity presented itself and we both had seen performances in that space. We also suspected that it would be quite a challenge to not only put together the program, but also to bring in an audience on a Monday night. Our suspicions have been confirmed, but we are none the worse for it and neither it seems are the wonderful and gracious artists that have already performed. We are proud of the program, and despite the frustration in bringing in an audience at this unusual night and place, at least for Spoken Word.


Yes, it is interesting to me that you mention that the space use to be a police holding cell. Everyone seems to mention this about the place, as if it carries the negative karma, or just karma of such an environment. Well, I imagine, some great poems were written in those cells. Didn't Oscar Wilde write while behind bars? I'm sure the blues rang out from those dark spaces. Who knows, opera, even, perhaps. I believe in order for a program to be a 'complete' success, many things have to come together. Luckily, we have had extremely gracious performers such as Scripture, Harlym 125, Nicole Perez, who this time anyway, appreciate the opportunity to perform and as well be in the company of other artists. I absolutely believe that this venue at the Precinct presents a spectacular opportunity for poets and spoken word artists in the future. We have had some incredibly powerful and wonderful poets and spoken word artists that performed as well as some great bands. In order for this program to continue at this venue, It really has to be something the owners of the Precinct want and would require a great deal of collaboration between the promoters and owners. I am not sure this is on their agenda. If it is not, the program should absolutely find a home, even if it is a mobile home. I plan to make sure of this.



DH: Some might say there are already too many poetry venues, etc... in the city of Somerville.


OS: I don't think there is too much poetry in Somerville. There are plenty of poets whose voices should be heard. Why not have as many opportunities as possible?


DH: What is your Somerville connection? Do you consider it the "Paris of New England?"


OS: I lived in Somerville in 2005 and 2006, left briefly and now have returned. I expect to stay in Somerville. I lived in Cambridge for 25 years and loved it, before I moved to Somerville for the first time. I live near Davis now and I have never been so happy in a place. I have never been to Paris, I have to be truthful, so I don't know if I'm the one who should comment on that question, but I will say that this an extremely exciting, beautiful, and complex, in some ways, place. . And it offers so much in the way of the arts and lacks the pedantry of some certain other towns.



DH: Can you tell us a bit about your background?


OS: Oh yes, my background. I am an artist, teacher, writer. I received my MFA in Media and Performing Arts at Mass College of Art in 1989 and Master in Education in 2001 from Wheelock College. I am a photographer, painter, and closet writer, but not for long. I grew up in Cambridge and Newton and come from a large family. My siblings are artists, writers, filmmakers, clinicians and pretty regular and amazing people are some of my greatest influences, but none are so great as my childhood dog, Prince.


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


Tonight April 18, 2011:

PRECINCT 70 Union Sq. Somerville
We are hosting our Third Spring Masala Monday on the 18th of April with resident band Yani Batteau and the Styles 10:30
with a smashing night of Music and Spoken Word
Featuring:
8:00 Special Appearance Robin Lane of Robin Lane and the
Chartbusters will, rock over folk into new wave will
get your feet moving.
8:30 Nash Satterfield aka Martha Bourne and Steve Mayone
will turn the room 'Inbetwang [misspelling intentional]
Country'...Folk? Rock? Country? ALL OF THE ABOVE
Bourne is a prolific composer/singer/songwriter.
9:45 Spoken Word Poetry

Angela Counts poet, award winning playwright, filmmaker

"A Full Life" Joseph A. Cohen

“A Full Life”
Joseph A. Cohen
Bound by Khoni Bindery
Lowell, MA

Review by Rene Schwiesow

The beauty of a Saturday morning spent with the Bagel Bards at the Davis Square Au Bon Pain in Somerville is the interaction with wonderful, creative, artistic individuals. The numbers of attending Bagel Bards has grown so that there are now two groupings of tables and the best way to work the situation is to spend some time at one grouping and then move over to the other grouping so as not to miss people and/or discussions. I don’t always make that move. I was fortunate recently to have done so. I spied an empty chair next to a poet that I had known for some time. She was talking with a man from Long Island who was in the area visiting his daughter and I wriggled my way into the conversation. The sparkle of his eyes and his warm demeanor made an immediate impact as he told me how welcoming the people in the Boston area had been. I secretly held the thought that it was his sparkle and warmth that drew others close. Recently this 93-¾ year old man lost his wife and he spoke of the loss and her death with a mixture of love and awe for the quiet grace in her passing.

Cohen spent the majority of his life creating a successful table linen business. However, a love for the artistic is in his blood. His wife, Sonia, was a visual artist, a musician and a composer. His daughter, Beth, is a world-renowned violinist. After his retirement, Cohen began taking courses in poetry and found the music in the rhythm of words. He also teaches photography (yes, he is still teaching) at the college level and most of the photos in “A Full Life,” are his own work. The cover photo is a beautiful, touching image of children, Algerian orphans. When the photo was taken, Cohen who was in Orange near Avignon, spoke to the children in Arabic, designating one of the girls as “director,” asking her to lead the children in their roles for the camera. Based on the composition of the photo, I would say they were both successful!

“A Full Life” is an unfolding of the pages of Cohen’s life laid open for his readers to witness. By the time we’ve finished reading, those pages have quietly folded themselves back into a metaphorical origami crane, which takes flight with an underlying peace. It is a peace that threads its way through even the harshest of Cohen’s times. Cohen spent three years overseas during World War II; and in spite of the war he continued to find beauty in humanity and the world around him. In “Buzz Bomb Christmas,” we join in the party created in the midst of “snow, sleet, sirens and the stench of exploding gunpowder.” Another round of buzz bombs above does not dampen the spirit as singing women and children rush for basement shelters. And as night brings weariness to the children, he ends the dance with “like chaperones at a prom, Madame Nys and I sound taps.”

The book is dedicated to his wife, Sonia, and her presence is a constant through every facet of the work.



The poem “Anyone for MRI?” speaks to the trauma of the stroke Sonia suffered.

In a cold white room
stripped of jewelry, glasses and hearing aid
she enters the world of MRI.

It is followed by two poems that honor her will to continue living in full color. Though her right side is greatly weakened, she continues to play her piano and teach; and she continues to paint.

Sitting at her easel painting watercolors
with her left hand for hours on end,
I look in on her only to hear her
cry out, “Leave off, I am busy!”

The poem is entitled “She Speaks,” and yes even those words are music to Cohen’s ears as he watches his wife battle her way back to “A Full Life.”

In both Cohen’s book and in the conversations he has with others, it is clear that he is filled with passion for living, compassion for others, and a deep love and respect for all. What a privilege it was to have had the opportunity to speak with Joseph. What an honor it is to have been able to take a look into his life through the pages of his work.

Cohen is planning a second book of poetry. If you would like to purchase “A Full Life,” you may do so by contacting the author at: JCohen3041@aol.com

Rene Schwiesow is co-host of the popular South Shore poetry venue: The Art of Words.

Pictures from the Endicott College/Ibbetson Street Press Visiting Author Series March 2011

March 2011 Mark Pawlak--editor at Hanging Loose Press, and Gary Metras --founder of the Adastra Press---read from their work, and talk about small press publishing at Endicott College--Halle Library http://endicott.edu




******(Click on pictures to enlarge)



( Mark Pawlak Reading)









(Gary Metras Reading)

Popt Art Portraits. Popt Art Vol 1 Spring 2011--Review by Jason Roberts

Note: this is the first in a series of reviews by Endicott College English and Creative Writing majors.









Popt Art Portraits. Popt Art Vol 1 Spring 2011 Edited by Jessica Harman (Lulu Press jharman14@aol.com)




Review by Jason Roberts



The mixture of poems, essays, stories and portraits is a beautiful thing. Popt Art is something you can pick up and put down (if you can) whenever you’d like. Inside you will find blunt humor, confessions and poems that will provoke you to reminiscence. Sometimes you might not understand them, but you don’t have to and that’s why I enjoy it so much. Some things are easy to relate to, at least for me, like the financial struggle people in the world must go through:



“The young mother is pushing through the supermarket, her toddler packed into the cart and screaming because she won’t buy the sugar doodles he saw on TV. She picks up a box of detergent, squints at the price, tries to read the fine print [glasses needed] she puts it back. Reaches for the cheaper store brand. All around her the boxes are cooing, buy me, you have to have me, I am the best. She skips the aisle of candies, she turns her head from the meat. Packaged hot dogs again. See her. You don’t, but try. Her life is pushing through supermarkets where everything costs way too much while her son cries and whatever she wants, she can’t have.” By Marge Piercy


Or how a pet walks around the house like we are its guests/servants:


“Puck the Abyssinian colored like a fine rabbit does not consider himself a cat. I am the son and heir, he says, am I not superior in my mien and breeding?...” By Marge Piercy



Take a journey into the mind of Antonia Jennifer Traitwright as she writes in her blog about What It’s Like To Be Schizophrenic:


“On the subject of beginning a description of my journey as a psychiatric patient, I will say that it’s easier to begin a novel than to begin a blog about psychosis. If I were writing a novel, I’d begin with direct, clear sentences, like “I decided to put on the pearl earrings,” or “it was a dark and stormy night.” But, I’m not writing a novel. I’m writing a blog about my schizophrenia.”


Thing that’s you may or may not regret from your childhood past:


“As boys – we dropped rocks, a flurry of bomblets, on a passing phalanx of toads. Commanders for once, free from the clamp of parental constraint, punch drunk with the notion of our control of fate – life – death. And like mini Dr. Mengeles, we experimented stuffing firecrackers down their twitching throats …” By Doug Holder



My favorite Entry would be by Joshua Abelow in his brief explanation of his work:


“A work of art is only as interesting as the conversation it generates”

“I use geometric shapes because geometry is the language of order and I am an orderly person.”

“My work is filled with skepticism and doubt and I’m not afraid to poke fun at my own stupidity or the stupidity of others or the absurdity of trying to make paintings in a world that doesn’t care if you make paintings or eat dog shit.”


He is a very blunt person. He doesn’t beat around the bush or try to push his art out into the world more than it should be. He does his art the way he wants to and not how it is expected to be. That’s how I plan to be as a writer, not following any rules or views by people concerning the way things should be written. Creative freedom is something of great importance and I’m glad Abelow has captured that fact in his art and introduction to his art.




Popt Art is something you can pick up whenever you want. It’s large selection of various pieces is something to enjoy in bulk or in part. Whichever you prefer, it is a great piece of literature.







* Jason Roberts is a Creative Writing major at Endicott College. This is his first appearence in the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene. For more information about Endicott College go to http://endicott.edu