Learning From Richard Wilbur with Tom Daley

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Somerville Writer Daphne Kalotay to Read at the Boston Book Festival October 28th, 2017

Daphne Kalotay

I had the good luck to touch base with Somerville writer Daphne Koltay who will be reading at the Boston Book Festival Oct. 28.  Her session for "One City One Story" will be held Saturday, October 28, at 3:45pm at Old South Church's Mary Norton Hall, located at 645 Boylston Street in Copley Square.


Daphne Kalotay is a novelist and short story writer who lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. She is known for her novels, Russian Winter (Harper, 2010) and Sight Reading (Harper, 2013), and her collection of short stories, Calamity and Other Stories (Doubleday, 2005), which was short listed for the 2005 Story Prize.

Doug Holder: I read that you are based in Somerville, but you are a Princeton University Professor--how does that work?

Earlier this year I was invited to fill a visiting position in Princeton’s Creative Writing program. I at first didn’t know how exactly it could work, since it would mean spending the 12 weeks of each semester in Princeton half the week. But I often take temporary teaching positions, since otherwise I have to scramble for things like health coverage. And this was a chance to work not only with bright students but also an amazing faculty I might otherwise not get to know, and to have a good salary and healthcare. So I accepted and am really glad. It’s been a terrific semester and is really stretching me as a teacher, which is an unexpected plus.



    I have been a panelist at the Boston Book Festival, and enjoyed it very much. The festival is very much in sync with the spirit of the city. Boston has a very unique literary sensibility--how would you describe it?

In one word: nerdy. Which I mean as the highest compliment. On the one hand there’s that conservative side that perhaps goes back to the 19^th century “Banned in Boston” tradition and to the influence of programs like Boston University’s MFA program, where I studied and which historically has tended to favor less experimental fare. But there’s also an exuberant seriousness about literature here that’s pretty unique and wonderful. By that I mean that both readers and writers here seem to embrace all kinds of writing with genuine intensity.



    You have a short story "Relativity" published for the "One City One Story" component of the festival. Tell us a bit how you connected with the festival, and why you chose to have it as a premiere publication at a festival rather than a literary magazine?

Last winter, I saw a call for submissions for “One City One Story,” which I was already familiar with and think is such a fantastic way to reach out to a whole new community of readers. I’d attended the event in the past and had read most of the previous stories, so I knew they liked stories with something New England in them—and I had just finished writing “Relativity,” which features a social worker visiting various Boston neighborhoods and also has a subtle Puritan sub-theme. I knew it was a good story that would probably stand out, but I also supposed the subject matter might come across as too dark for a community read. Anyway, I submitted it to the contest as well as a couple of journals. When the BBF selected it, I had to withdraw it from one of the journals, but The Florida Review said that since the Festival is local, they still wanted to publish it, so it will appear there this winter. And while appearing in a journal with a national readership is always great, there was no question in my mind about premiering it at the festival. The fact that the judges didn’t shy away from a story that confronts painful material, including metaphysical mysteries like birth and death, and existential mysterious like human cruelty and kindness, shows the great respect they have for Boston’s readers: that readers understand that reading means being open to things that might be uncomfortable.

 You have chosen a 99-year-old Holocaust survivor as the protagonist of your story. What brought you there?

She is based on my 100-year-old grandmother, who died just last week via medically-assisted dying, which is legal in Canada; otherwise, like the protagonist of my story, she would probably still be here, though less and less comfortably—so she chose to go out when and as she wanted. Which is a great contrast to the fact that during the Holocaust an entire government was actively trying to kill her, along with my father and his sister, who unlike their father—my grandfather—also survived. I’m acutely aware that most of that side of my family was killed and that there are so many people and stories I’ll never know. My grandmother to me is a symbol not just of survival but of the fragile link to these long-ago people and stories.

Doug Holder interviews poet Allen West

The Sunday Poet: Bridget Galway

Bridget Galway

Bridget Seley- Galway artist/poet- Her art has graced several covers of Ibbetson Press, Bagels with the Bards, and individual poet collections of Doug Holderand Molly Lynn Watt. Her poetry published in 2009-16, Bagel with the Bards, Ibbetson Press #34 and #39, #41,2016 Poetry Porch, and featured on WOMR 2001-02 Provincetown Poetry Corner. She has exhibited throughout New England. From 2009-12 was arts editor/curator for Wilderness House Literary Review. In 1990 co-founded/directed El Arco Iris free arts center in Holyoke. In 2014 procured funding, established/facilitated Youth Arts Arise free after school arts program at Arts at the Armory in Somerville. Ma.

Summer’s Dusk to City Night

The air’s cooled blanket

waves over my skin with the breeze.

I look up to the leaves quiver in response,

and higher still to the bright half Moon

peaking through gray blue to waning light-

as it expands down,

to disappear behind a mix of architecture,

where the sun has since set.

An hour ago everything was different,

when the light was glaring before the end of day.

Now I turn to the Moon reflected in a blackened window,

creating another curtain to peak through.

Now the night couples city lights,

from shops, strangers windows, and cars passing;

soften the landscape of brick and cement.

Now my imagination expands into endless stories,

separate from mine, beyond my before.

Bridget Seley-Galway

Grolier Poetry Book Shop 90th Anniv. Celebration!

http://www.harvardsquare.com/events/musical-notes-90-donald-hall-ee-cummings-poems-set-music-fundraiser-benefit-grolier-poetry

The Sunday Poet: Deborah Leipziger

Deborah Leipziger

Deborah Leipziger is an author, poet, and professor. Her chapbook, Flower Map, was published by Finishing Line Press (2013). In 2014, her poem “Written on Skin” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the co-founder of Soul-Lit, an on-line poetry magazine. Born in Brazil, Ms. Leipziger is the author of several books on human rights and sustainability. Her poems have been published in Salamander, POESY, Wilderness House Review, Ibbetson Street, and the Muddy River Poetry Review, among others.

To S

Draw me a map of your body,

its crevices and precipices

your tender places of longing.

Guide me through the unexplored places,

your Atacama desert

and singular oasis.

Let me trace the river veins

with my fingers.

Where are the bruises,

the disbelief,

and the fingerprints

of those that caused you pain?

Take me behind the waterfalls,

through the caves into the deep canyons.

Help me navigate the hollow places

of the space between us.

 --Deborah Leipziger
--  

Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perotta

 

Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perotta. Scribner, 307 pages. $26.

By Ed Meek

A summer read that pushes our buttons and makes us laugh.

Tom Perrotta, who lives in Belmont, is one of a select group of successful American novelists and screenwriters. Dennis Lehane is the other local writer who has made it big.  Where Lehane’s work is dark and edgy and focuses on crime, Perrotta is a satirist who likes to make the reader a little uncomfortable by having his characters engage in behavior that flies in the face of political correctness. In one famous story, “The Smile on Happy Chang’s Face,” a father who is having trouble dealing with his son’s gayness, breaks his son’s nose when he slaps him. But then, Perrotta creates sympathy for the same character when his wife divorces him, he is shunned and he feels terrible about what he did.  By zeroing in on political correctness in his writing, Perrotta is able to make fun of many of our current cultural obsessions. At the same time, Perrotta is an accomplished writer who knows how to plot and how to withhold information to keep us reading. Finally, he can write with fluidity from a number of different points of view. As a grad student at Syracuse, Perrotta worked with Tobias Wolf who is also adept at all those facets of writing (Our Story Begins, This Boy’s Life, etc.) and Perrotta appears to have learned quite a lot from his teacher.

As the title suggests, the main character in Mrs. Fletcher is Eve Fletcher, a 46-year-old recently divorced woman who runs a senior center.  The novel shifts between third person sections from her point of view and first person sections from the perspective of her son Brendan. Brendan is a “bro” who is starting college at a local university.  These two characters enable Perrotta to take on the older single woman looking for love and self-affirmation and the shifting sexual and identity roles in the current college scene. 

 Because her son goes off to school, Eve decides to expand her horizons. She takes a class at a local community college in gender studies taught by a former male basketball star who has transitioned into a woman. When Eve receives a mysterious text calling her a MILF, she begins exploring porn and becomes obsessed with amateur lesbian encounters. Meanwhile Brendan, who has left his cheerleader girlfriend behind, falls for a beautiful college female softball player with swimmers’ shoulders who is running a club in support of autism sensitivity.  She and Brendan have much different ideas about sexual roles.

When Brendan first gets to college he meets with an insipid advisor who reminds him that “No means no.” I thought Perrotta might venture into the quagmire of rape on college campuses where a female victim might drag a mattress everywhere as performance art but he stays away from that touchy subject.  There are points in the novel when the characters come close to going right over the edge into wildness and the plot threatens to blow up, but Perrotta knows his audience or perhaps he has a prudent side. In any case, he pulls his characters back from the brink of disaster and into what we used to refer to as normality. In other words, it’s no Wonder Boys. It is the kind of novel you want to share with someone else and it will have you laughing to yourself as you’re reading and after you put it down.

With Eve working at a senior center, Perotta also gets to poke fun at the old (with a light touch) when Eve’s transsexual professor comes to the center to give a talk about her life, and when the young woman Eve has hired as an assistant sports  hardcore tattoos. Eve’s husband, who left her for a younger woman, gets more than he bargained for with an autistic son. In each of these cases, Perrotta upends a stereotype, playing with our preconceptions by developing his characters.

Mrs. Fletcher will make a funny movie. Will it be as good as Election? (one of the best satires of high school ever).  Admittedly, it isn’t easy to maintain a satirical tone throughout a feature length movie, and satire only works with actors who aren’t afraid of looking a little silly like Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick in Election or Francis Farmer and William Macy in Fargo. If we’re lucky Mrs. Fletcher will be out next summer.  That should be plenty of time to think of a better title.

Newton Free Library Poetry Series: Nov 14, 2017 Drexler, Ruescher, Young

Click on poster to enlarge

Poet Malcolm Miller Brought to Life at Endicott College

 

Malcolm Miller

REVIEW BY    Caroline Moll


Too often, we see stories of poets work going undiscovered or underappreciated until they have passed. A variation of this cliche is reflected in the style of a documentary titled, “Unburying Malcolm Miller.” This documentary concerns the late Malcolm Miller, a Salem, MA. eccentric, and often homeless poet, who was well-known character in his native city. I attended a screening of the film, and was able to sit down with director Kevin Carey (a professor at Salem State University), along with writer and friend of Miller, Rob Kessler. Each showed obvious passion for the film they created, saying the poetry sadly was overlooked during his life. This particular screening of the documentary showed 45 minutes of the full 60 minute film.

Before the viewing, Kessler gave me some background on his relationship with Miller, and what inspired him to make the film. He told me that he had been receiving poetry in his mailbox, with a note attached reaching “send $5 if you like this”. His reaction was to send the money, but never thought to read the books. Later he took the time to read them. He mentioned feeling that his biggest regret around it was not reading them earlier. Despite a questionable mental stability, the poet’s talent stood out. On multiple occasions, he asked Miller to to speak to students, all of which he declined. His death prompted Kessler’s reaction to take Miller’s work and get it noticed on a wider scale.

The feeling of honesty and divided views of a single person really drives this film. With a dichotomy of modesty and vanity as traits, interviewees on screen familiarize the audience with Miller’s character, while also showing him in different lights. Before the screening, when I was able to speak to Kessler (recently retired as a professor of English at Salem State University), he mentioned that Miller never wanted to be a coffee table poet. It was always about the writing, it seemed, and not the profit. The raw format allows for the ones in his life to tell their story fully and honestly. The shots also visually went along with Miller’s work. His poetry is satirical in tone, but he focuses a lot on nature in his topics, describing its beauty. Especially during moments where poetry is being read, multiple wide angle nature shots are used. However, other poems are read on location and on screen, including my personal favorite entitled “Tea”.

One specific quote stuck out to me. It is subtle, yet I find it one of the most important lines in the film. “There is beauty in everything”. In retrospect, I wish this quote was emphasized even more. In a way, it encompasses everything the film stands for; it takes an unusual subject and through his legend, creates something beautiful. The beauty in the film exists in its honesty, ditching flashy cinematography or over-the-top drama. It is truly the good, bad, and ugly, of the life this man led. We, as the audience, see Miller as the sketchy man hanging around Salem, the talented yet humble poet, and everything in between. The readings of his poetry are not anything exceptionally hitting, yet are true to the tone of the writing. You can openly hear the words as he means them, in his own idiosyncratic way. Carey explained that there reasoning to filming the readings outside. He had been hoping to add a sense of authenticity, which this technique achieved. Often times music plays in the background of scenes, perfectly selected for a beautifully simple aesthetic.

We are typically judgmental culture. I find the angle this film took admirable, as it shows Miller from different points of views. Carey took a subject that the public may have viewed as crazy or absurd, and uncovered an idea of his true personality and the life he led. This Caulfield meets Thoreau type of character/writer’s story unfolds through his own poetry and other’s reflections of him. Mentally ill, or too eccentric for the world to relate to? This documentary subtly criticizes those who can not see past a person’s intimidating front, to admire the art they create. 



 Caroline Moll is a first year undergraduate student at Endicott College, studying marketing communications/advertising. She has a passion for writing that began as a kid, and has stuck with her ever since. Looking to pursue a career in advertising, she hopes to be able to combine her love for writing and visual art.

The Sunday Poet: Dennis Daly

Dennis Daly

Dennis Daly lives in Salem, Massachusetts. He has published five books of poetry, and his sixth book, Pantoums, has recently been accepted for publication by Dos Madres Press. Daly is a former factory worker and union leader. Follow his blog at dennisfdaly.blogspot.com.

Tongue-Tied

Wait to say what one cannot,

Presumptuous of advantage,

Frozen in panic of forethought,

Abandoned, there appears one passage.

Presumptuous of advantage,

Of importance that never flinches,

Abandoned, there appears one passage.

Think not in feet, but in inches.

Of importance that never flinches,

Words hesitate in their pressing.

Think not in feet, but in inches.

The answer redoubles regressing.

Words hesitate in their pressing,

Break down into dread syllables.

The answer redoubles regressing,

Freeing the oracular muscles.

Break down into dread syllables,

Frozen in panic of forethought,

Freeing the oracular muscles,

Wait to say what one cannot.

Windows Julia Denos – Illustrated by E. B. Goodale (Candlewick Press, 2017)

Windows

Julia Denos – Illustrated by E. B. Goodale (Candlewick Press, 2017)

By Lawrence Kessenich

The best books for small children take a simple concept and play it out in a way that isolates the subject and strikingly illustrates it, thereby focusing the child’s attention on it—and, for that matter, the attention of the adult reading it to the child. Windows does this with the subject of windows at dusk in an urban setting—in this case, Somerville, Massachusetts. (Although the area is not identified in the text, anyone who knows Somerville will recognize some of the stores and buildings, and the authors identify it in their bios.)

At the outset of the book, an unidentified child (I believe it’s a girl, although there is an androgynous quality that may be intentional) looks out the window as the sun fades and sees

   

…little windows

lit up like eyes in the dusk

blinking awake as the lights turn on inside

a neighborhood of paper lanterns

She puts on her red hoodie and takes a walk through her neighborhood with her white dog (these colors contrast nicely with the city as its colors dims over the course of the book). As the child passes apartment buildings and stores and an abandoned house, the book’s narrator talks about some things one might see during a walk at dusk:

You might pass a cat

or an early raccoon

taking a bath

in squares of yellow light.

The “yellow light” is from a window, of course, one of the many kinds of windows one might see on such a walk:

One window might be tall,

with curtains drawn,

or small,

with a party inside.

An enjoyable two-page spread in the middle of the books shows no less than 18 windows with the kinds of things one could see through them as they are lit up inside in the evening. One can easily imagine a child being fascinated by what’s in each of these windows—and being prompted by the reader to find specific things in them.

The palette of the illustrations throughout is deep gray-blues contrasted with the oranges-turning-to-purples of the sunset—and also contrasted with the lit-up windows. It’s a very pleasing palette that unifies the book, providing a sense of mystery throughout. The colors darken as the sun goes further and further down behind the horizon, and the child ends her walk with the most familiar window of all:

Then you arrive home again,

and you look at your window from the outside.

Someone you love is waving at you.

and you can’t wait to go in.

The books ends with the child, having completed her adventure in the near dark, sitting cozily beside her mother, who is reading a book, while through a picture window we see the darkened city with its window “eyes” alight. 

Doug Holder Interviews Kim Nagy and John Harrison editors of "Dead in Go...

  My interview with the editor of the anthology  " Dead in Good Company: A Celebration of Mt. Auburn Cemetery."

Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick Hidden Treasures found poetry discovered by Stephen Durkee

 

Steven Durkee

Herman Melville’s

Moby-Dick

Hidden Treasures

found poetry

discovered by Stephen Durkee

Provincetown Arts Press

Provincetown, MA

ISBN: 0-094-854-65-6

119 Pages

Review by Dennis Daly

Up from the bottomless buzz of swirling current and sea-foam, a whale’s fluke breaks the surface of our consciousness and reaches toward some exultant and forbidden heaven, and, dammit, it changes everything. Stephen Durkee, in his posthumous book, Moby-Dick Hidden Treasures, trawls through Melville’s metaphysical masterpiece seeking, finding, and resetting poems of high caliber and higher interest. The separation of these lines from their original prosaic context counterintuitively enriches them with new powers of artistic independence (such as slow-walking both images and lyric) and a capacity for creative, far-flung allusions. Who knew?

As one who has confidently (read smugly) denied the very existence of the “found poetry” genre, never mind its validity, Durkee’s book has been an unsettling enlightenment. Could this be the exception which proves the rule? Not bloody likely.

Early in this collection the poem November in My Soul appears. It details pent up male aggression and its antidote, at least for seamen. Adventure, after all, is a survival mechanism, built into mankind with good reason. Of course the downside must be death for some. Consider Melville’s reset words as spoken by his protagonist, Ishmael,

whenever I find my self involuntary

pausing before coffin warehouses,

and bringing up the rear

of every funeral I meet;

and especially whenever my hypos

get such an upper hand of me,

that it requires a strong moral principle

to prevent me from deliberately

stepping in to the street,

and methodically knocking

people’s hats off---

then, I account it high time

to go to sea as soon as I can.

Durkee’s discoveries, like the selection above, besides their discrete poetic offerings, often do double duty as commentaries on the densely packed novel itself. It was in this same first chapter of Moby Dick that Ishmael lamented his farcical circumstances in comparison to other worldly happenings of high tragedy including a “Bloody Battle in Afghanistan” (not much has changed since). In its totality, the reset poetry deepens this farce with an added, understated irony on the nature of free will.

Remember Philip Larkin’s lines in his poem, This Be the Verse, “Man hands on misery to man./ It deepens like a coastal shelf.” Melville expresses that same pessimism, and in much the same way. I would never have connected the two without reading Moby-Dick Hidden Treasures. Here are Melville’s pointed words, from a poem Durkee titles Able Bodied Seamen,

however they may thump

and punch me about,

I have the satisfaction

of knowing that it is alright;

That everybody else is

one way or other

served in much the same way—

either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is;

and so the universal thump

is passed around

No simple description of olfactory erotica suffices in Durkee’s selection entitled They Bloom Like Their Own Roses. After praising New Bedford’s beauteous women, Melville turns the heat up a notch describing the charm of Salem’s females, all the more effective because of the cultural irony embedded in the last line. The poetry speaks directly,

…in Salem,

where they tell me the young girls

breathe such musk,

their sailor sweethearts

smell them miles off shore,

as though they were drawing nigh

the odorous Moluccas

instead of the Puritanic sands.

In Beneath the Green Grass, Melville seems to create a limbo for seamen whose remains, lost at sea, never can give comfort to family and friends. To many civilizations funeral rites are essential. Agamemnon’s Greeks could not enter Hades without them. Even that high king could not deprive his traitorous warrior Ajax from receiving them. Grave-less bodies beg too many questions, leaving only uncertainty. Speaking of the families left behind, Durkee concludes the selection this way,

ye know not the desolation

that broods in bosoms like these.

What bitter blanks in those

black-bordered marbles

which cover no ashes!

What despair in those

immovable inscriptions!

What deadly voids and unbidden

infidelities in the lines

that seem to gnaw upon all Faith,

and refuse resurrections

to the beings who have placelessly

perished without a grave.

Melville ditches the anthropomorphic God in favor of a Deity with the likeness of a sperm whale, the whale having but few noticeable features such as noses, ears, or facial expressions. His seagoing god is beyond our mortal comprehension. Size and generality define the divine. Durkee sets the poem entitled You Feel the Deity to convey Melville’s concept,

But in the great Sperm Whale,

this high and mighty god-like

dignity inherent in the brow

is so immensely amplified

that gazing on it, in that full front view,

you feel the Deity and the dread powers

more forcibly then in beholding

any other object in living nature.

Separated from their relentless predator, man, Melville portrays whales with sympathy and awe, even associating their actions with monotheistic Zoroastrianism. The whales, so different from man in visage and habitat, appear quite like their blasphemous adversary in many other ways. In Crimsoned Sky and Sea the poet explains,

I once saw a large herd of whales in the east,

all heading toward the sun,

and for a moment vibrating

in concert with peaked flukes.

As it seemed to me at the time,

such a grand embodiment of adoration

of the gods was never beheld,

even in Persia, the home of the fire worshippers.

As Ptolemy Philopater testified

Of the African elephant, I testified of the whale,

Pronouncing him the most devout of all beings.

Durkee, born and brought up in Salem, Massachusetts and a descendant of a famous sea captain, knew his subject well. More importantly, his muse and Melville’s seem to have got along just grandly. Durkee’s value-added settings themselves consistently inspire with verve and artistic majesty. Additionally, converting “found poetry” doubters like myself is not an easy chore. For that victory I especially congratulate him. Durkee’s manuscript was on the way to the printer when he died.

Richard Hoffman discusses his memoir “ Half the House,” and the art behind it.

 

Richard Hoffman discusses his memoir “ Half the House,” and the art behind it.

From Richard Hoffman's website:

“Against the back-drop of post-war, blue-collar America, Half the House tells a story both intensely personal and universal. Depicting his family’s struggles to care for two of his brothers who are terminally ill, Hoffman also recounts the horrific abuse he suffered in secret at the age of ten by his baseball coach. In a memoir Time magazine called “spare and poignant,” the author explores the ways in which grief and rage become a tangled silence that estranges those who need each other’s love the most, and demonstrates the healing power of truth-telling in both the personal and public spheres.”

I had the pleasure to talk with Hoffman at the Bloc 11 Cafe in Somerville, MA.

DH: This memoir certainly wouldn't be considered a journalistic account.

RH: I don't think there is anything journalistic about it. It is a series of scenes that form make a narrative. I came to this as a poet. I believe the sentences should sing. And if they don't—the memoir is insufficiently artful.

DH: I see you used a Camus quote in your memoir, “ Freedom is not to lie.” Did you achieve this with your story of childhood sexual abuse and its aftermath?

RH: I have a lot of freedom for having written it. You are not free if you have to lie. Silence is a kind of lie. You have to make ethical decisions about what you will write about people. To say you shouldn't write anything is nonsense. A student reminded me once that I said, “ If we are made of memories, then we are made of each other.” That comes with a lot of responsibility to be fair to people.

DH: How would you suggest creative writing students go about starting their memoir?

RH: The key is to write about a place you felt safe and secure in. Everybody had a place to go to feel safe as a kid. Maybe you had a favorite tree to climb, etc... To write about this connects you to your interiority. And from their you can go anywhere. You can go outward from this. You are more in touch with yourself. Where most memoirs fail is with the “ I.” The characters are not fleshed out. The character doesn't have a sense of his or her self. The reader will not have the sense who the character is at that moment in time.

DH: And in your memoir there was an underground crevice that you kids used to go to.

RH: Yeah. We used to go into the sewers. It was like a big concrete room. People are always in a rush to tell people what happened to them. And what happened to them is not as interesting as getting to know who you were then and now.

DH: You organized the memoir by years. Why?

RH: I couldn't figure out any other way.

DH: Did the memoir go through many drafts?

RH The memoir took me 15 years to write—so yes, a lot of drafts . You know I never meant to write a memoir. I was and I am a poet, basically. The book started out as scenes. It bodied forth on its own. When I realized it was to become a memoir I panicked. I thought I am not a prose writer—I don't know how to make a story. My skill as a poet worked for a memoir—after all it's all about language, isn't it?

The Bagel Bards at the Brookline Public Library Oct 26 7PM ( Click on to enlarge)

( Click on picture to enlarge)

Doug Holder interviews poet Timothy Gager -- Sept 2017

Poet Doug Holder to read at Gordon College from his new poetry collection " Last Night at the Wursthaus"

Doug Holder interviews writer Ed Meek

The Sunday Poet: Susan Tepper

Poet Susan Tepper

Susan Tepper has been a writer for twenty years. Her stories, poems, interviews and essays have been published extensively worldwide. An award-winning author, Tepper has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and once for a Pulitzer Prize for the novel. 'Let's Talk' her column at Black Heart Magazine runs monthly. FIZZ her reading series at KGB Bar, NYC, has been ongoing for eight years. Before settling down to study writing, Tepper worked as an actor, singer, flight attendant, marketing manager, tour guide, television producer, interior decorator, rescue worker and more.

Last

In sand you trace a star

before the sea covers its light

that last time – from memory

sketching a cloud in flour

the table to winter

frosted walls, icicles

hung from chairs – you kept

blowing on your hands

insisting that was the last

WARHOLCAPOTE A.R.T. Loeb Drama Center Through October 31. Review by Ed Meek

 31.

From the Words of Truman Capote and Andy Warhol
Adapted by Rob Roth
Directed by Michael Mayer
Starring Stephen Spinella and Dan Butler

Film critic David Denby once said he has a hard time sitting though a play. Drama is a unique experience today. We sit, without distractions, focusing on what the people on stage are saying and to a lesser extent, doing, since in drama, dialogue is part of the action. Drama has a number of constraints. Unlike movies, there can be no grand battles; there are only so many characters that can fit on a set. We can’t zoom around the galaxy or dive under the water or follow horses around a track. Instead, drama and conflict, expressed in language by a limited number of characters must hold our attention. As in fiction, good playwrights hold back information, leading the audience by the hand through scenes that reveal character and perhaps truth. For example, In Parks’ Top Dog/Underdog, we slowly learn the background of two brothers and the conflict between them, culminating in a climatic conclusion. Along the way, themes of racism, exploitation, and our susceptibility to the con are explored.

Rob Roth developed WARHOLCAPOTE, based on conversations between the two iconic American artists taped by Warhol. Capote and Warhol represent something we don’t see much of today: celebrity artists. Capote appeared on Johnny Carson and was touted by Norman Mailer and critics as a great American writer. His novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s featured Holly-go-lightly, the character played by Audrey Hepburn in the film based on the book. In Cold Blood was a significant predecessor of creative nonfiction and nonfiction television serials like Making a Murderer. Warhol, with his Marilyn portfolio and his Campbell Soup cans, was perhaps the most famous artist in the United States in the 1960s. At the same time, Warhol’s work expressed the way that through fame, individuality is lost. Both Warhol and Capote apparently threw great parties.

The two even hoped to do a play together. Warhol, who was four years younger than Capote was obsessed with him. Capote was already famous when Warhol arrived in New York. He wrote fan letters to Capote daily and hung outside his apartment hoping to meet him. When he finally was invited in, Capote thought Warhol a strange and lonely guy but as time passed, Warhol gained fame and they became friends. Warhol stuck by Capote when he became embroiled in a scandal based on a story he wrote called “A Cote Basque” in which he attacked and exposed a number of his socialite pals. Warhol and Capote remained friends until Capote died in 1984.

Rob Roth says he drew from 59 cassette tapes as well as interviews and other recordings over a period of years to create the play. WARHOLCAPOTE can be charming and entertaining, like listening in to the conversation of an interesting couple at the next table in a restaurant, (There’s a salacious story about Capote and Humphrey Bogart that I wish I hadn’t heard.) but there is no drama, no conflict. No catharsis. Diane Paulus, the Artistic Director of A.R.T. says “the two artists imagined a play that would blur the boundaries between reality and art.” Paulus like Warhol is great at combining art and commerce. The Harvard Museum is currently featuring prints of Warhol’s portfolio of Marilyn Monroe.

Mahler’s film My Dinner With Andre has a similar premise. Mahler thought the conversations between his two friends were really interesting. What if he filmed the two in a restaurant? In My Dinner With Andre, Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregary engage in an argument about opposing world views. Shawn is very animated and enthusiastic in his delivery. Gregory is low key and rational. During the course of the argument, they reveal who they are and what they believe in and prompt us to raise questions about what is important in life. The movie is in essence, a filmed play and their opposing views furnish the necessary drama.

There are other problems with WARHOLCAPOTE. One of the two principle actors dropped out of the play just before it was to begin. Dan Butler bravely jumped in but he had to keep a script in his hands throughout the performance I saw. Unfortunately anyone who plays Capote begs a comparison to the late, great Philip Seymor in the film Capote. Stephen Spinella plays Warhol as a quirky dweeb with a high-pitched flat accent. Warhol was certainly quirky and whimsical but he was also really smart with great business sense. He once said: “good business is an art form.” He was very social, loved to throw parties and go to Sudio 54, launched Interview magazine and successfully married commerce and art in his work.

The play has a great set. At 90 minutes with no intermission, it moves along quickly.