Poets Kim Triedman and Lawrence Kessenich Take The Helm at " Ibbetson Street "

(Kim Triedman)





















(Lawrence Kessenich)









Poets Kim Triedman and Lawrence Kessenich Take The Helm at the Ibbetson Street Press.

( Somerville, Mass.)

Ibbetson Street, a well-respected literary journal , founded in Somerville, Mass. in 1998, announced a change in the editing staff. The magazine, affiliated with Endicott College in Beverly, Mass., released this statement from publisher Doug Holder:


Dorian Brooks our longtime Managing Editor at “Ibbetson Street” is retiring. She did a wonderful job for us, and brought Ibbetson Street to a new level. Dorian will be very hard to replace but I asked two excellent poets and writers to grab the helm that Dorian so adeptly occupied. Kim Triedman will be the Managing Editor for the November issue (2011) and Lawrence Kessenich for June (2012). Each editor will be bringing a small number of poets on board for each issue, as well as editing the magazine. Harris Gardner and Mary Rice will continue to be our Poetry Editors. The new Issue of Ibbetson Street that is to be released this June will be the last one edited by Dorian. Mary Rice is the Poetry Editor for our upcoming issue ( #29) and she did a great job, including securing a number of poems from poet Celia Gilbert.


Below are the bios of the two new managing editors.








Kim Triedman began writing poetry after working in fiction for several years. In the past two years, she's been named winner of both the 2008 Main Street Rag Chapbook Competition and the 2010 Ibbetson Street Poetry Award; finalist for the 2007 Philbrick Poetry Award and the 2008 James Jones First Novel Fellowship; and semi-finalist for the 2008 Black River Chapbook Competition and the 2008 Parthenon Prize for Fiction. Her poems have been published widely in literary journals and anthologies here and abroad, including Main Street Rag, Poetry International, Appalachia, The Aurorean, Avocet, The New Writer, Byline Magazine, Poet's Ink, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Journal (U.K.), Asinine Poetry, Poetry Monthly, Current Accounts, Ghoti Magazine, IF Poetry Journal, Great Kills Review, Trespass Magazine, Mature Years, ART TIMES, Literary Bird Journal, and FRiGG Magazine. Additionally, one of her recent poems was selected by John Ashbery to be included in the Ashbery Resource Center’s online catalogue, which serves as a comprehensive bibliography of both Ashbery's work and work by artists directly influenced by Ashbery. This poem has also been included in the John Cage Trust archives at Bard College. Ms. Triedman has been nominated for the anthologies Best New Poets 2009 and Best of the Web 2010. She is a graduate of Brown University and lives in the Boston area with her husband and three daughters. Her first poetry collection -- "bathe in it or sleep" -- was published by Main Street Rag Publishing Company in October of 2008





Lawrence Kessenich won the 4,000-euro first prize at the 2010 Strokestown International Poetry Festival. He has published poetry in Cream City Review, Atlanta Review, Chronogram, Conclave, Ibbetson Street and Wilderness House. His chapbook Strange News was published by Pudding House Publications in 2008. Mr. Kessenich was an editor at Houghton Mifflin Company in Boston for ten years, where he read for the publisher's annual poetry series and worked on Selected Poems: Anne Sexton and Anne Sexton: A Biography. He also worked with two Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award-winning novelists and many other fiction and nonfiction writers. He lives in Watertown, a suburb of Boston.

Dr. Steven Luria Ablon: A Poet Who Yearns to Break Your Heart.

Dr. Steven Luria Ablon: A Poet Who Yearns to Break Your Heart.


Interview with Doug Holder

Steven Ablon is a psychiatrist whose main purpose as a poet is( in his words) “to break your heart.” Ablon, a Harvard Medical School faculty member who is well-seasoned in the practice of psychoanalysis, is acquainted with heart break. In his poetry he wants his words to be strongly evocative. He wants to reach the reader on a visceral level.

And indeed Ablon achieves this with his new book of poetry “Night Call.” Neeta Jain, Poetry Editor of The Journal of General Internal Medicine writes:

“In Night Call, Ablon slows us down so we can examine moments in medicine with him. He balances harsh, clinical reality of human frailty with the sweetness of compassion. A master poet, Albon uses poems to expose this tension as he masters medicine from student to physician.”

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

Doug Holder: You practice psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud of course is the father of psychoanalysis. Does this come into play in your poetry?

Steve Albon: I love poetry. Freud’s interest in the subconscious, the dissociative method—I think these are basic parts of poetry and analysis. Like free association—you work with whatever comes to your mind, and go from there. When you begin writing—writing a poem—you sometimes end up in a surprising place you didn’t expect to. I’m in a workshop where we use phrases as prompts and then just write for five minutes —whatever comes to mind. We see where it leads us. Sometimes you can get material that builds into a poem.

DH: I have run poetry groups at McLean Hospital for years. I find poetry can be very therapeutic. Your take?

SL: I don’t use poetry myself. I think it is tremendously therapeutic though. It is for me my writing source of comfort and awareness.

DH: Well life is essentially chaotic. Doesn’t writing bring some coherence—provides a narrative to it all-so to speak?

SL: It gets you in touch with things, and brings coherence to things you weren’t fully aware of. Like in my poetry collection “Night Call.” I went to medical school and went through all kinds of painful and difficult things as a young man. At the time I didn’t have time to think about it. Now many years later all of this comes up. Probably because I have enough distance to deal with them.

DH: You quote Goethe in your introduction. “We are, ourselves, at last, dependent.” Doesn’t this fly in the face of the American Western mythos of the stranger coming into town—the lone gunslinger—taking matters in his own hands?

SL: (Laugh) I think we would agree that there are some situations that you have to be strong and independent. But underneath it all we long for relationships, support, love, and connection. Connection is what sustains us. People try to push this aside and minimize it. If you do this you miss out on a lot of important things.

DH: In your poem Café de Paris, in your new collection, you are in a café with an attractive woman. A nefarious mole on her leg spoils the idyllic moment. As a doctor are you more on the lookout for pathology than the average Joe?

SL: Well as doctors we know more than the average person about pathology. We know a mole can become a melanoma. We know the consequences. We have seen patients struggle with things like these.

DH: William Carlos Williams, a doctor and poet, and author the groundbreaking book of poetry “Patterson” wrote about of all places a very pedestrian Patterson, N.J. He thought that poetry should reflect the “local,” “real life.” Your poetry is accessible, and certainly deals with life the way it is, without grand theatrical flourishes.

SL: I don’t think poetry should require looking up references. It should have an immediate impact in its own right. Much like Robert Frost. You read it, and it seems to be on the page very powerful. There is meaning behind it but it is not obscure. In that way it is poetry of everyday life.

DH: You deal with death in your poetry. Death is a fact of life. Do you think we try to push it aside—or don’t deal with it in Western society?

SL: So much of poetry deals with death. It is part of life—not just medicine. I think Asian cultures are more accepting of it. It is a hard fact of life. As P.T. Barnum said “I’m not going to get out of this life, alive.’

DH: You studied with Barbara Helfgott Hyett. What constitutes a good teacher of poetry?

SL; Barbara is very good teacher. She can work with each person’s style. You are not expected to fit in her way of writing. You find your own voice. She is incredibly generous and loves to see the people she works with succeed. She always tells us to write a poem that will “break her heart.”


Cadaver

The lesson for today is life
inscribed in bones we dig among,
muscled, tendoned, the ruined veins,
heart as frozen as gray snow.

The face is the burnt white moon
raveled, the seas scalpelled for us
a thousand times without reproach.
I turn the grooved brain in my hand.

Which lobe for laughter, which regret
stinking of formaldehyde.
Who kissed the crater cheek, this chin,
the death we call Penelope.


* from "Night Call"

And the Birds Still Fly by Pam Rosenblatt

And the Birds Still Fly
Pam Rosenblatt
Eden Waters Press
$12.95


REVIEW BY Renee Schwiesow

“And the Birds Still Fly” is Pam Rosenblatt’s second book of poetry. Her first book, “On How to Read The Manual,” was published by Ibbetson Press. I heard Pam Rosenblatt read from “On How to Read The Manual” several years ago in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The soft-spoken photographer/poet brings her words lightly to our ears, where they linger in a whisper that remains with us.

Rosenblatt, a member of the legendary Somerville Bagel Bards, will no doubt be offering us more in the way of spoken word as she continues to promote “And the Birds Still Fly.” Kathleen Spivack has called these poems “original an innovative.” Indeed, Rosenblatt’s layout is original and innovative leading the eye along a path as if each word were a lyrical morsel for us to follow until we’ve reached the ending notes of the poems.

sun yellow bird
with rapid, stirring wings
hovers, drinks
lilac’s nectar.

The work sings us a score filled with nature. Rosenblatt pays tribute not only to the birds, but also to the squirrels, raccoons, even the insects get a poetic nod:

A six-legged insect constructs
a translucent home –

Then she juxtaposes nature against the manmade in the work “In Her Dining Room,”

Varnished green purple red grapes
push against each other falling over
the chubby chipped red-hued apple and
two portly peeling lime-colored pears all tucked
inside the dark wood bowl. . .

the difference between all that lives and grows and the inanimate palpable through the end two lines

. . .fruit too hard to consume.
Scene easy to photograph.

Rosenblatt’s photographer’s eye is evident in the observations she makes throughout “And the Birds Still Fly.” It is an eye that offers us a picture of each object she has chosen to witness and bring to life before the reader’s eyes.

She gazes out the window again,
the cumulus have somehow connected,
turned gray. Thunder rolls with
a sharp strike of white-yellow across
the smoke-hued sky.

Yes, we have that picture and a bonus in sound.

IBBETSON STREET 29 to be out next month!

The New Ibbetson Street (29) with poetry from: Celia Gilbert, Richard Hoffman, Jennifer Barber, and Barbara Helfgott Hyett will be out in June--stay tuned!




(Click on picture to Enlarge)


Front Cover Photo: Dianne Robitaille.

The Write Stuff: English Students Contributing to Local Small Press and Poetry Blog

***** This appeared in the Endicott College Blog






The Write Stuff: English Students Contributing to Local Small Press and Poetry Blog




The EC blog recently sat down with Doug Holder, an adjunct writing professor at Endicott and founder of the local Boston literary blog Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene. Doug helps us introduce his first student contributor to the blog, Jason Roberts:

I have taught ENG 101 and Creative Writing 108 for a couple of years now at Endicott College. I also have set up an office for the Ibbetson Street Press, a literary journal, and small publishing house at the college. In that capacity I am always looking to involve Creative Writing students and others in the larger literary community. The literary blog Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene, which I founded 7 years ago, is widely read by the Boston area literary community and beyond. It consists of interviews with writers, book reviews, and more. Our first reviewer in a new student series is Creative Writing major Jason Roberts, who was in my Eng 101 class this semester (Spring 2011). Jason told me he never has written a book review. I showed him sample book reviews on the site, and when he was ready we gave him a poetry journal to read. We worked on several drafts before it was posted; Jason now knows the basics of writing reviews and probably has his first publishing credit. I plan to work with students next semester and enlist them in the role of book reviewers, which will help make writing vital and exciting. I hope when people search online they will come across a collegiate cadre of Endicott writers.


We’d like to congratulate Jason on being the first student in this series! Click here for Jason’s full review of “Popt Art Portraits. Popt Art Vol 1 Spring 2011,” on the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene.




Jason Roberts, Creative Writing major


In similar news, we would also like to congratulate Creative Writing student Katie Clarke, who interviewed Pulitzer Prize winning Poet Maxine Kumin and whose essay will be featured in the next issue of the literary journal Ibbetson Street.

Tags: creative writing, poetry, review, student work

Jennifer Jean: A Poet with ‘Oceanic’ tastes

Poet Jennifer Jean: A Poet with ‘Oceanic’ tastes

Interview by Doug Holder



Poet Jennifer Jean was born near the water in Venice Beach, California. Her mother often took her out on the water, and the water has been a player on her life stage. She now lives in Salem, Mass., a historic seaport with her husband and kids. So I guess you could say she has never been a fish out of water.



Jean who teaches writing at Salem State College, is an accomplished poet with work in Caketrain, California Review, North Dakota Quarterly and others. She is the author of two collections of poetry “In the War,” and “Fishwife Tales.” This enterprising bard is an instrumental player behind the Mass. Poetry Festival to be held May 13th and 14th in Salem, Mass. I spoke to her on my Somerville Community Access TV show “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer”



Doug Holder: Your new collection “Fishwife Tales” uses marine creatures as a focal point. What was behind your choice to use these denizens of the deep?



Jennifer Jean: When I began the project I was in graduate school and I just got married. I felt I was going from my female world to unknown seas. I had a group of friends who stayed together like a group of fish. When I separated from the school—and I became married—which I am very happy with—at first my husband felt like an alien creature. The women’s community that I was from had a history—so much of my life was a female only life. I had so many people who were closer to me than my husband. But of course now we have a wealth of experience. But before I was living in my own mythos. I wanted to make that something that I could write about.



I identify with the water. I was born in Venice, California. My mom would take us out on the ocean all the time. So I have an affinity for water. The Fishwife is sort of born out of water. So when the character of the Fishwife comes out of the water for the Fisherman (Her husband) they obviously have a commonality.



DH: You have founded something called the Fishwife Music Project. Can you tell us about this?



JJ: Somehow the Fishwife poems lend themselves to music. I collaborated with a student from the Berkeley College of Music in Boston. She was inspired by the poems and wanted to put them to music.



DH: In the poem “Fishwife Advent” the fish or fish/woman seems to be sympathetic to the boat in the midst of a storm?



JJ: The Fishwife is in a woman’s form. She knows her husband is out in the storm. She changes into a half marine creature and half woman—and guides his boat to safety. She allows herself to be both fish and woman.



DH: You are a columnist for an art magazine “Art Throb” on the North Shore. Does your role of a poet play a role in your journalism?



JJ: To some extent, like poetry, every word counts in journalism. I am spitting bullets when I have to write prose on a deadline—and I teach Comp! I love the end result, but it is hard. I love “Art Throb’-it’s run by two young ladies—they are very tolerant of me!



DH: You teach Creative Writing at Salem State in Salem, Mass. What does the new breed of students bring to the plate?



JJ: The kids are more into form or meter in poetry. Hip Hop may have been a big influence. They are into internal rhyme. However they sometimes cannot reach the same depth with rhyme.



DH: Tell me about your involvement with the Mass. Poetry Festival?



JJ: I originally got involved through Stone Soup Poets. We brought the Festival from Lowell to Salem. Well, I live in Salem and so I am involved. I work closely with founder Mike Ansara and his assistant January O’Neil.

Wrestling Angels: Poetic Monologues By Freddy Frankel.

*****A Review in by Hugh Fox. Fox is a founding editor of the Pushcart Prize.



Wrestling Angels: Poetic Monologues By Freddy Frankel. 2011. 57pp, Ibbetson Street Press 25 School St. Somerville, Ma. 02143 $14.00 http://lulu.com/ibbetsonpress

A fascinating series of poetic monologues here beginning with characters out of the Torah/Old Testament like Adam and Eve, Rebekkah, Jacob, Rachel, Moses, then moving on to Jesus, Paul, Constantine, Mohammed, Abu Bakr, Erasmus, Luther, Hitler, God. And a lot more. A kind of history of world theology from the beginnings to last week. And every monologue here really gets to the slashing heart-of-the-matter point. Take Luther, for example, a Luther you never heard of/heard from before, but still historically authentic: “ I’m the flash-point in the Catholic Church,/the edge wedged tight in wood, rotted by men/who gather gold dispensing pardons…//hate those stiff-necked Jews, they refuse/to back my faith in God. In my book/ “The Jews and Their Lies,” I put the world/on notice: burn their books, their synagogues; / fire and brimstone on their heads.” (Martin Luther, p.44) He really gets inside-inside the essences of biblical characters like Solomon, Elijah and in just one page captures what most of the rest of the world would take chapters to capture: “I am my mother’s metaphor for failure—not/ the icon of success I appear, She, /Bathsheba, fought to put me on the throne…//The more she carps the more I decorate my palace and the temple/ with royal wives who bring more gold.” B (“Solomon,” p 21.) As deep as you can get. Like five hundred pages of revelatory power in a mere 57 pages. No one has ever gotten more to the heart of the matter than super-perspective Frankel. But not to be read at bedtime.

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.