That Honking You Hear is Not a Car Horn: Interview with Ken Field about the HONK! Festival

( Ken Field --right, Doug Holder at  Remnant Brewing)

 From the Honk! Festival Website:

Throughout the country and across the globe, a new type of street band movement is emerging — outrageous and inclusive, brass and brash, percussive and persuasive — reclaiming public space with a sound that is in your face and out of this world. Called everything from “avant-oompah!” to a “brassroots revolution,” these bands draw inspiration from sources as diverse as Klezmer, Balkan and Romani music, Brazilian Samba, Afrobeat and Highlife, Punk, Funk, and Hip Hop, as well as the New Orleans second line tradition, and deliver it with all the passion and spirit of Mardi Gras and Carnival.

Acoustic and mobile, these bands play at street level, usually for free, with no stages to elevate them above the crowd and no sound systems or speaker columns to separate performers from participants. These bands don’t just play for the people; they play among the people and invite them to join the fun. They are active, activist, and deeply engaged in their communities, at times alongside unions and grassroots groups in outright political protest, or in some form of community-building activity, routinely performing and conducting workshops for educational and social service organizations of all kinds.


Ken Field, a member of the core coordinating group for the Honk! Festival met me at  Remnant Brewing in the Bow Street Market in Union Square, Somerville. He has the low key-- cool demeanor of a jazz musician, but nonetheless shows a red hot passion for all things HONK! Field was sharing a cool drink and a spot of lunch with me while we talked about the festival. Field ( an pardon the pun) has played an instrumental role with HONK! since 2006.

Field was performing with his Revolutionary Snake Ensemble for a while, but wanted to expand its horizons, so he hooked up with HONK! and became a member of the coordinating committee in Somerville. Field likes music with a mission--and here bands from all over the nation and world engage the community.

Field told me his band is a  "Second line" brass band. Second Line is funeral music from the New Orleans Jazz tradition. The music can be somber but also very uplifting--a celebration of life.

The bands that perform at the festival have a political message as well. Whether it be environmental , about labor issues, or gender issues--the music can be a conduit for change. Field told me, " The bands for the most part pay for their own expenses. They are independent bands, with their own focus. We have bands from Austin, Texas to Rio in Brazil--it is that expansive."


 A young man at the bar overheard our conversation and came up to Field and talked to him about the "School of HONK."  He seemed to be very passionate about his experience there. Field sat back and dug the chatter. Not directly connected with the " Honk!" Festival is the school of "HONK!" Field teaches there. He and other faculty teach aspiring HONK! musicians how to engage and play in the tradition of  HONK!

Field who left the high tech world to live the life of a working artist told me, " I am basically making my living through my music." Field has an impressive resume. He has composed music for Sesame Street, independent films, music for animation and has performed widely in the Boston area and elsewhere. On Nov. 12 you can catch him with his group " Birdsongs of the Mesozoic" at the Lizard Lounge.

Field, like many artist I have interviewed, has a mission and follows through--here--in--the--Paris of New England.

*****  Sunday, October 13, 2013 - 8:00am - 10:00am  ( Honk! parade)

For more info about Ken Field go to: https://kenfield.org/


For more info  about the HONK! Festival  go to:  http://honkfest.org/2019-festival/

Featured Poet: Astrid Grahn-Farley

Astrid Grahn-Farley

My name is Astrid Grahn-Farley, I am 15 years old and I go to school in Uppsala, Sweden, but live with my dad in Boston during as much of the year as possible. He is an American from Jamaica and my mom is a Swede from Korea. I am from Boston and went to St. Columbkille until moving to Sweden with my mom. I write poetry in English and Swedish, and a little in French. I like to rhyme and to write in form.

The Poet and the Pious

First a paradise came falling to land in the lap of Eve

When she lay beneath the canopy among which sparrows weave

So came the tale you all must know from Natalia to Nieve

Of how her pretty arbor fell and the whole world now must grieve

Then to partake in mild delight came little sister Lilith

When she ran with armfuls of the fruit, and vanished into myth

So passed the tale you all must know from Emeline to Edith

Of gardens and of ardent stars that never reach their zenith

Last came the blow of sorrow dealt by the eldest son called Cain

When he wept into his hands and did not join the great refrain

So ends the tale you all must know from Eliza to Elaine

Of pomegranates and apple pips and things which leave a stain

Now for the time of prophets and the teachings of Elias

When he wrote the word on sacred scrolls by the sword or stylus

So goes the tale you all must know from Thomas to Tobias

Of prayer and of fable, of the poet and the pious

Review of Eric Greinke’s Invisible Wings, Presa Press, 2019

Eric Greinke

Review of Eric Greinke’s Invisible Wings, Pressa Press, 2019

Eric Greinke is a poet with a moderate pallet and a subtle intelligence. His poems notice things, ordinary things, and pursue them; he is curious but he treads lightly and could easily be disregarded because of his plain-spoken disguise. He is worth slowing down for. In his latest collection of 44 short poems, Invisible Wings, every sound and cadence rings true, if the reader listens carefully. He writes of a “nympho wind” that sings songs “into our rainy brains.” This is a “kissing” wind that arouses someone, whose breath goes wild and cries out “like a poem / just before birth.”

The first poem in the collection is “Wings,” where Grienke flirts with the cosmos whose stars were named after “ancient Gods” and whose direction spreads like an (imagined) expanding universe. Its energy is not showy or boastful, and Greinke delivers in a style of language that one could call, without error, plain. Yet, much of the ordinariness in the footsteps of the lines causes a likely embarrassment for one who suddenly realizes that the poem she’s reading has got quite out of hand. “Our collective neurons,” the poet writes, “back beyond the big bang,” have reverberated to become

an infinitesimal compact

of impacted selves,

their endings encoded in

expanding beams of energy.

To recognize the power of the Greinke’s language, his eschewing of sensation, his insistence on exactitude, is to grope about, “blind in every dimension / but our poor human senses.” But arise! We must scramble to keep up with the fusions, dimensions, disasters, collisions, with each “atom alone but connected.“ Really, you have to run to keep up with what’s going down in this poem, until it “plays on all the pages & stages of our days.” He doesn’t need to mention WS.

Now that we see that nothing at all is ordinary about the poem, it’s basically over. The story, that is. But not without transformation. The entire process, the cause and effect, the eons of time, and the vast universe itself are

cast. . . into the frozen fire,

transformed again into invisible wings.

Still, when an opening poem is a tour de force, one may reasonably expect to find some wobbles or potholes up ahead. And Greinke has included a few poems here that may have benefitted from a rest. “The Sunken Dream,” for instance, can be flatfooted in places, or may not know what it is really trying to convey. We get the gist; but perhaps a pivotal image and some liquid language could dive into the deep of a flooded valley of drowned houses. When the speaker says, “He blamed the government, but / his thoughts were persistent,“ we can admire the savvy line-break, but that is not enough to rescue “The Sunken Dream.”

There are other winners, of course. One of those others is “November Nights,” the most sensuous of the lot. It doesn’t strive; it begins gently:

I find your face

on a pillow of leaves,

lately adrift.

One knows that the speaker must go down to the pillow, that the leaves “lately adrift” are gathered meaningfully in one place now, a place for love and rest and listening. Greinke is a listener.

****Marcia Ross, author of the novel Layla and the Lake (Pelekinesis, 2019)

Summer Poetry Reading: Bert Stern/Richard Hoffman/ Hasting Room Reading Series : Aug 14 6:30PM Somerville Central Library

CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE

Lois Ames at the Wilderness House Literary Retreat (2004)

..... I wrote this article in 2004. At the time I was involved with the Wilderness House Literary Retreat in Littleton, Mass founded by Steve Glines. Lois Ames, who was a confidant of Slyvia Plath and Anne Sexton was our guest at the venue. Ames  wrote the biographical note to Plath's "Bell Jar."

The first event of "The Wilderness House Literary Retreat," located in Littleton, Mass., was a lunch with the late poet Robert Creeley.  That event in Dec. of 2004 provided participants with a rich trove of anecdotes and insight concerning the creative life of Creeley, as well as the Avant-Garde movement in poetry in post World War ll America. The second event on April 9, 2005 was with Lois Ames; held at the headquarters of the New England Forestry Foundation in Littleton, Mass., the temporary home of the Retreat.

   Lois Ames is a poet, biographer, and psychotherapist. She was a confidant of the poet Anne Sexton, and has published many essays on Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath including: "A Biographical Note" in the "Bell Jar" and "Anne Sexton: A Self Portrait In Letters."

   Among the guests for Ames' talk was Alex Beam, Boston Globe columnist, and author of the history of McLean Hospital "Gracefully Insane." Also in attendance were Anne Tom, founder of the "Grange Hall Poetry Series", out in Cape Cod, as well as Jean Houlihan, director of the "Concord Poetry Center," in Concord, Mass.

   Ames started her talk with a discussion of what she feels is essential for good poetry: honesty and integrity. Ames feels that a poet has to be honest in his or her work or they will simply not produce good poetry. For Ames, an active spiritual life is a staple for her poetry, as well as her life.
  The poet talked of the defining moments of her life. A social worker, who is and was politically active; she participated in the "March on Washington," in 1963, and marched against the Vietnam War in Chicago during the tumultous 60's. The most memorable poetry event for her was the "International Poetry Festival," in London in 1967. Many of the great poets of the Western World read there like: Neruda, Ginsberg, and Berryman. Allen Ginsberg taught Ames how to clap to get attention ( with her hands cupped, and on a off-beat sequence from the applause of the crowd) in order to support Neruda who she felt was not getting his share of applause..

 Ames has learned a lot from the great writers and poets over the years. From Anne Sexton she learned the business of poetry. Sexton told her to start submitting to the places that pay the best, and go down the line from there, when submitting work. 

 Ames feels that Sexton was the most generous of the poets she has known. She reached out to people from all walks of life, and was very kind to students in her workshops that she ran at Boston University, McLean Hospital and other places. She respected the poets, as well as the psyche of the poets. Ames accompanied Sexton to the first poetry workshop she conducted for patients at McLean Hospital. Sexton wanted Ames to help determine which patients were most vulnerable. She was afraid of hurting these fragile workshop participants. Many of the "poets" in attendance were on suicide watch. The mental health workers with them held their forearms during the sessions. The philosophy at the time was that a suicidal patient had to feel the presence of another person throughout the day, Ames said. Ames was asked why so many poets seemed to be affected by mental illness. She replied: "Writing poetry is an act of creation. It engenders an ecstasy while you are doing it. After you have a sense of loss. This capricious emotional bounce mimics the cycle of Manic-Depression. Perhaps poets have a predilection for being Bi-Polar," Ames opined.

 There was an active Q and A session with Ames and the audience. During the event participants had a chance to visit the 6 bedroom cabin that the "Wilderness House" will occupy in the summer. The Retreat has ambitious plans for longer sessions, and perhaps week-long workshops in the future. The next event April 30th will be with poet Suzanne Berger.

***

The WILDERNESS HOUSE LITERARY RETREAT CLOSED YEARS BACK,

At The End Of The War by DeWitt Clinton

At The End Of The War

by DeWitt Clinton

© 2018 DeWitt Clinton

Kelsay Books

Aldrich Press

ISBN 978-1—947465-92-3

Softbound, 111 pages, No Price Given

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

The Holocaust is 80 years in the past and survivors have decreased in large numbers. But deniers of that terrible period have increasingly  spread their message  to countries throughout the world.

In this toxic atmosphere DeWitt Clinton’s poem, “Touring the Holocaust” is more than a reminder; it is a tribute to the past and those who died.

Following are excerpts from this poem “Opening Day, The United States Holocaust Museum.” While the poem is five plus pages long, I present excerpts depicting the prejudice and bigotry unleashed against the Jews.

We cannot move any further

unless we step

into a care

a brown cattle car

swept incredibly clean

where all of us must

unload nothing bad will happen

to us here

though we cannot stay

too long in the car

that would bring the guards

everyone believes

we will be safe

it isn’t as if

we are really there.

And the people on the tour years later see what the camp was like. The truth may frighten. The truth may reveal. Those in the present do not die like those who died in the death camps.

What is it like for a town and its people to be wiped off the face of the earth? Clinton captures this tragedy of the many small shtetls which existed, in some cases for hundreds of years, before being exterminated by the German soldiers and their accomplices.

Dazed, disoriented, we step

into a shtetl sky high

a room of old photos

of everyone who ever

lived in that place

this fire place high as a smokestack

those at the very top

lift first into ash.

Finally we approach

the crematorium

a model of long courteous lines

little people with

little faces

guards and shepherds

keeping everyone

civil, in line.

We watch them go inside

watch them undress

the inappropriateness

of men and women

long beards

pubic hair

a wildness beyond even G-d

Clinton has brought readers through the Holocaust Museum to the reality of the actual brutality as it was perpetrated in the 1930s and 1940s. His poems portray what the Jews experienced. He shows a sensitivity to biblical literature as well as Judaism. Each poem reveals the horror of the war as well as the cruelty and viciousness of the Nazis.

“Reading the Tao at Auschwitz” is a 28 part sequence which begins thus:

I

In the beginning we saw Nothing

From Nothing came Something

Something made All of us

Turn into ash only to

Float onto those just Arrived

or on farmers, nearby,

Turning us into Soil and Food

The irony of death, of ashes of humans becoming food is not missed either by Clinton or his readers. How Nothing becomes Something is the tragedy – of which there are many -- of World War II and the Holocaust.

The third part portrays another tragedy, the treating of humans like cows or sheep led to slaughter:

III

Imagine, go ahead imagine

Undressing a place

Where signs direct

Everyone to Remember your number

To be efficient, your number is used again

In Part X the helplessness of the Jews is laid out in twenty-three lines. Many of the things Jewish prisoners needed are listed-- food and help the most prominent.

X

The way never acts yet nothing is left undone.

--I, xxxvii

We needed soup

We needed clothes

We needed penicillin

We needed cots

We needed mothers

We needed water

We needed more soup

We needed flannels

We needed air

We needed guns

We needed prayer

We needed Benji

We needed Marla

We needed all we ever knew

We needed law

We needed time

We needed home

We needed stew

We needed health

We needed Moses

We needed bombs

We needed meals

We needed You

Clinton’s book is a masterpiece of understanding and presenting the Holocaust in real terms.  He refutes the deniers for their anti-Semitic beliefs and their nefarious political purposes.

As Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, I am hoping that he taught his students about the Holocaust during his long career and that they have retained his lessons and passed them forward. That is what keeps the truth ahead of the deniers.

At The End Of The War is a book of poetry to be read by everyone.

______________________________________

Zvi A. Sesling

Editor, Muddy River Poetry Review

Author, War Zones (Nixes Mate Books)

Author, The Lynching of Leo Frank (Big Table Publishing)

Doug Holder Interviews Victor Wallis: Proud to be called an ECOSOCIALIST

Protecting Your Writing with IP Law

Protecting Your Writing with IP Law
  Article by Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene correspondent  Tori Lutz

Whether you are a casual writer or an aspiring author, it’s important to make sure your original work and ideas is protected through intellectual property (IP) law.  

Preventing others from stealing your work is a major part of the craft since having those rights ensures that you will receive any credit or potential profit that results from your creativity and labor.

Luckily, the law is on your side. Copyright law does a great job at protecting original artwork for any artistic expression, even before you’ve officially registered anything.

Here are the main things you should know about protecting your writing with IP law and why it should matter to you!

Copyright Law

There are four main areas of IP law, and copyrights cover the area of original artwork (including writing).

Copyrights give the respective owner the exclusive right to reproduction and distribution of copies of the protected work. They also grant exclusive rights to derivative versions of the work and performance/display of the work in a public setting.

Works of authorship that can be protected by copyrights include:

• Musical works
• Lyrics
• Literary works
• Dramatic works
• Motion pictures
• Sound recordings
• Architectural works

One of the best parts of copyright law is that it does fall under common law, meaning a work doesn’t need to be registered for you to be able to hold infringing parties accountable. As long as there is proof that it existed in the open before the infringement, you have rights.

That said, there are still benefits to registering the copyright. Registering is required to be able to actually sue the infringing party and hold them legally accountable, so it’s still in your best interest to make things official.

Copyrights are registered at the federal level through the Library of Congress and last 70 years after the end of the author’s life (after which they are typically passed on to family or individuals specified in the author’s will).

Risks of Unprotected Manuscripts

In addition to the right to sue infringing parties, there are other benefits to officially protecting your manuscripts and making sure you are genuinely careful with them. Adversely, there are also risks to failing to do so.

J.D. Houvener, a Los Angeles patent attorney, has seen plenty of unfortunate disasters for entrepreneurs, artists and inventors who didn’t protect their work:

“Patents are particularly critical since they don’t fall under common law, but there have been many unfortunate cases regarding copyrights and trademarks as well. The problem with original writing or other artwork is that even though common law will protect it without registration or official release of your work, it can be difficult finding proof. If someone overhears your ideas or stumbles upon your notes, they could easily get away with stealing them. It may sound crazy, but it happens.”

That said, there will always be points in your creative process where you aren’t ready to register your work yet. Perhaps it’s still in the planning stages or maybe there is a lot that you are about to change.

Really, everything at this point in the creative process boils down to trust. Know who in your circle is trustworthy with your ideas if you want to get feedback. Make sure you find a trustworthy editor and publisher who won’t take advantage of you.

Ultimately, don’t share your ideas with any and everyone you encounter, at least not until you are secured and protected.

Copyrighting Unfinished Work

To speak more in-depth on the area of unfinished work and manuscripts, it’s important to note that registering copyrights for work in this stage is premature, especially since having your work ripped off before it is public is a rare problem to have.

Copyrights don’t exist to protect the essence of an idea, they exist to protect the expression. This means that it isn’t your idea about a school of magic that is being protected, but rather the book or film that ultimately expresses that idea.

As any artist will know, ideas change and evolve over time. Final drafts are rarely just polished versions of the first draft, and there are many instances in which it ends up having enormous changes that result in a completely different story/product.

Basically, it’s mostly important to just be careful and conscious of your work in its earlier stages (as mentioned earlier). When you have a finished manuscript that is ready for a copyright, definitely make sure to jump on it! Until then, keep on revising and adding to it first.

In Summary

By understanding the basics of IP law (especially copyright law), you’re much closer to being able to successfully protect your writing, both published and unpublished.

It is absolutely vital for writers to understand the importance of protecting their work, especially since it is entirely on the owner of a copyright to hold infringing parties accountable and actually make sure their rights are upheld.

So go out there and get back to writing, but make sure you keep it protected!

******  A graduate of Florida State University, Katherine (Tori) Lutz is a Florida native currently living in Brooklyn, New York.  She is a graduate student in journalism at Columbia University in NYC.
Her work has been published on platforms like USAToday, the Tallahassee Democrat, Altitude Group Inc., and others. She has contributed a breaking news story that ranked as the top viewed article on USAToday for 3 days, served as the sole resource for the Tallahassee Democrat and USAToday network at the 2017 Richard Spencer event at the University of Florida, and stayed on top of on-going coverage of Hurricane Irma.

Filmmaker Olivia Huang: She see the graffiti on the wall, and the spirit of poetry at the Grolier

Filmmaker Olivia Huang" " The Modica Way"

Filmmaker Olivia Huang: She see the graffiti on the wall, and the spirit of poetry at the Grolier

By Doug Holder

When I first met Olivia Huang--she was in the midst of making a documentary about the famed Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Harvard Square titled, " The Last Sacred Place of Poetry: Grolier Poetry Book Shop." And I was proud to be one of the talking heads in this film about the much-revered shop. And I think the film takes on even more importance with the death of the owner, Ifeanyi Menkiti.  Menkiti, a longtime Somerville resident, was a Professor of Philosophy at Wellesely College for  many years, as well as a respected poet. He passed away in June, 2019. And for now things are in a state of transition.

When the film was completed Huang sent it around and according to her it has been screened at the North Beach American Film Festival, The Massachusetts International Film Festival, Barcelona Planet Film Festival, and others. Huang told me that she is not finished with work on the film. She said, " I am currently editing the film to bring in 15 more minutes  of footage. I want an even fuller view of the store and the activities in and around it."

Huang, a woman of abundant energy, has also set her sights on new subjects since we last talked. Huang, (a former Somerville resident) received a grant from the Cambridge Arts Council to produce a film examining the art and community around the famed graffiti alley in Central Square, Cambridge. The film's  tentative  title is  " Modica Way."   Huang reflected, " I was working in that area, and I passed the alley twice-a-day  It was was fascinating to see folks from all walks of life (not professional artists for the most part) put their work up." According to Huang the graffiti artists' work is up for a while but eventually it will be painted over by another artist. It is this ever changing canvas that Huang places her gimlet eye on.

Huang told me she is working with acclaimed dancer and choreographer Wendy Jehlen and her company  ANIKAYA. She films Jehlen's dance company productions and has other duties. When I left the Bloc 11 Cafe Huang was at work on her laptop--undoubtedly pursuing another worthwhile project---here--in--the Paris of New England.


Trailer for "The Modica Way"   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXYjuD_rqT0

Director Paula Plum Brings Steel Magnolias to the 'Hub'

I had the good fortune to interview the doyenne of the Boston-area theatre scene, actress, playwright and director Paula Plum.  I talked with Plum about her professional experience, and the play she is directing at the Hub Theatre Company in Boston, "Steel Magnolias." ( Playing through Aug 3)

Over the past three decades, her most notable performance have been as Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth, Beatrice, Touchstone and Phedre at the Actors’ Shakespeare Project; in Miss Witherspoon, The Heiress and Death of a Salesman at the Lyric Stage ; Body Awareness, History Boys and New Century at SpeakEasy Stage; Lysistrata, Ivanov, Mother Courage, and The Marriage of Bette and Boo at the American Repertory Theatre.

Ms. Plum was trained at The London Academy of Music and Dramatic arts and is a Cum Laude graduate of Boston University’s School for the Arts, where she was also honored as Distinguished Alumna in 2003.

                                              

                          ..............................................................................................................................................................................

Well--this is a Somerville newspaper--so I have to ask you if you have any history of performance in Somerville? I think I met you briefly through Emily Singer--who worked for Jimmy Tingle when he had the theatre in Davis Square.

-Yes,  I have been Artistic Director of A Christmas Celtic Sojourn produced by WGBH & Brian O’Donovan, which had its first performance at Somerville Theatre in December 2003. 

 I see you performed at the Lyric Stage. Did you perform there when it was a little walk up on Charles Street in Boston? The founders used to live in Somerville.

-I have been working at the Lyric Stage since 1975 when the theatre was located above Ken’s at Copley Square, pre-dating their Charles St. home by several years. I played Margot in their production of Dial M for Murder, directed by Polly Hogan, and featuring Ron Ritchell, the founders of the Lyric Stage. 

You seem to embrace all facets of the theatre: Playwright, actor, director. Which is you favorite role?

-Acting for me is the most freeing and when I get a chance to fly. 

I have to ask you this because my brother Don Holder is a Tony Award-- winning lighting designer.  Do you appreciate the role of lighting in a production?  

-Lighting is everything: it can create not only mood but environment. I believe you really only need actors, text and a a great lighting plot to realize a play.


You are directing Steel Magnolias at the innovative Hub Theatre of Boston.  It is about a group of women who bond over a loss of a friend in a small southern burg.  Could this been have done equally well with men and still have the same impact?

-Seriously, no. Women and men form friendships differently. The way these women relate to each other, the way they support each other, is uniquely female.


How has it been working with the Hub Theatre?

-This is my third directing experience with Hub and all three have been a pleasure. Hub Theatre is a well-greased machine. Lauren Elias is a very skilled producer and knows how to assemble a creative team, as well as how to market the heck out of a show. She’s great with social media; the houses have been packed and joyful!


Finally--why should people see Steel Magnolias?

-I have been blessed with a glorious cast of women who expertly handle the comedy as well as the pathos. . This  cast of actresses works brilliantly together to portray the charm of these Southern women, as well as their warmth, complexity, and passion.

For more information go to  http://www.hubtheatreboston.org/

From an abandoned storefront window: art sprouts in East Somerville

( Left to Right)  Stan Eichner, June Lee, Abigail Coyle, Doug Holder

** To view these artists' work go to  https://www.eastsomervillemainstreets.org/window-s-art-project

From an abandoned storefront window: art sprouts in East Somerville

By Doug Holder

Every once in awhile I leave the environs of Union Square to get a taste of the buffet of creativity we have in our city. In this case it was East Somerville.  After all the Poet Laureate of Somerville Lloyd Schwartz resides there—as well as the renowned Mudflat Studios. On a warm June day I ventured East to meet with Jen Atwood, director of East Somerville Main Streets and her band of artists and artisans, at the innovative space called Mudflat. According to their website,

 "Mudflat is a clay studio for students and artists of all ages and levels in metro Boston. We offer a dynamic artistic community, featuring classes, workshops, outreach programming and events, plus a mix of studio rentals for 38 professional clay artists."

The Mudflat Studios is an impressive place with a huge cavernous studio, and many smaller work spaces on several floors. Atwood introduced me to three of the artists who contributed to the Windows Project—part of the East Somerville Carnaval celebration. Each artists explores the meaning of “Carnaval,” which is inspired by a traditional Brazilian street fair. For some of the artists Carnavale is a specific cultural celebration, for others it is a general street celebration.

The artists' whose work adorns the windows of the abandoned East End Grill (right down the block from the studios), include: Katherine Martin Widmer, Abigail Coyle, Stan Eichner, June Lee, and Gary Duehr. Since Widmer and Duehr weren't available I interviewed the three remaining artists.

June Lee, a refugee from the banking world, found her bliss in pottery at the Mudflat Studios. She is now on their faculty. In addition,  she works in a technical capacity at Somerville High. Her ceramic plaques are hung with the other artists' works on the storefront window.  About her pottery, she told me, "I think my pieces are fun to look at. On my pottery I inscribe inspirational quotes, while some quotes are just for fun. We need some Zen and giggle sometimes. It is a crazy world." Much of her pottery pieces  that I saw were expertly crafted with vivid imagery and color.

Abigail Coyle,  is a long time resident of East Somerville. She makes her daily nut in book production at the Algonquin Club in Boston. Coyle is a lover of plants, and she uses the leaf of a Monstera plant ( a flowering plant native to many tropical places), as an inspiration for her window display. Coyle told me, " My leaf piece is made from basic retail craft, glued with a remarkable craft adhesive call Mod Podge." This glossy leaf has been the subject of many conversations from local folks passing by.

Stan Eichner, who is a former civil rights lawyer includes a photographic image from Somerville's " Honk Festival." This musical festival expresses the same sense of joy and celebration of the Carnavale. Eichner told me, " My photography is pretty broad from landscape--to street photography. When I was at the Honk Festival my camera was drawn to the energy and excitement of the scene."

Yes, even an abandoned storefront window can sprout art--here--in --The Paris of New England.

Parts of Everything in Days & Days, Michael Dickman’s new book of poetry

Parts of Everything in Days& Days, Michael Dickman’s new book of poetry

article by Michael Steffen

With the haystack of 2019 comes the needle of Michael Dickman’s fourth book of poems,

Days & Days, a renewal, extension and honing of the poet’s vision and craft quietly polarized,

as Franz Wright recognized, with “utmost gravity as well as a kind of cosmic wit.” Over again the poems’ speaker widens our look with surprising combinations salted with colloquial signatures—“shuvit in the gloxinia on the first try” (“Butterfly Days,” page 3).

While the whole assemblage of the book would seem to stand every traditional notion about poetry, language and sense on its head—which in itself isn’t new or radical in poetry—deeply familiar notes are sounded, beginning with the title and its evocation of a pastoral awareness—

I wanted to say “celebration”—of time, fulfilled by a preoccupation in the poems with nature, urban or suburban albeit, with trees and shrubs, flowers, (pieces of) grass, butterflies and butterflies, crape myrtles, pear blossoms, deer pellets, tea and test roses, fringed tulips, something dull in the bushes is that a rabbit?…

A normal juxtaposition of terms expects Days to be followed by & Nights. James Merrill had

a book of poems with that title. And so Days & Days strikes us also with a Kafkaesque sense of the technological day we live in and cannot turn off.

I picked up everything in the house & set it all back down just to

the left of the clicker (“Lakes Rivers Streams,” page 118)

If more classically it is Hesiod’s Works & Days we are just missing here, the title Days & Days becomes more burdened and ominous, especially in Dickman’s portrayal of time’s lapses.

These conditions somewhat give rise to and affirm Dickman’s alterity, especially his mincing and fizzling of our principle sources and signs:

Some sun above the day

a squiggly light that waits round or

scribbles over

a school of Radio Cabs

& bubble letters

A doe

A deer

A female deer

Traffic moves in

the leaves & then stops

to say hello (“Scribble,” page 9)

The overall arrangement of the book, meanwhile, reveals structuring, with four poems in the first section titled “The Poem Said,” a theme of roses, actual or otherwise, central to the second section (ROSE PARADE), and the third part of the book set in a long poem Dickman calls “Lakes Rivers Streams,” with a nod to John Ashbery The long poem coheres attentively though not laboriously by way of anaphor, repetitions of “The day” personified as subject, the odd use of “ditto” here and there, and an almost robo-linguistic reprising of “For instance.”

Generally, Dickman’s is language poetry, with an insistence on the preservation of the naïve spirit of creativeness, and on the necessary failure of correspondence between sign and thing, lest the correlative archons and tyranny of the day win us over.

I would go there right now

folded up in the silence of a maple tree in the front yard

A tiara

if I could get one leaf right

& sleep in air (“The Poem Said,” page 10)

Where meaning seems insistently to elude us, it sneaks back up on us…almost everywhere. To humanize the traffic in that last strophe with “& then stops/to say hello” is a keen deflation of the poet’s method and terms. It is a stroke of humor, humility and self-awareness, a sudden grin of friendliness from the alien and fugitive procedure and manner of Dickman’s elsewhere noted austerity.

From the onset of the collection, we know our ventures of personality are not made to a facile welcome on the horizon, with—

something else

more difficult to describe

a dustup

around a brown & orange aura

or Lorca’s flowers

The page under its poem’s heading “Butterfly Days” begins in paradox already with reference to an ending: “icing on a cake”—however associated with the residual or sticky, ceremonial, artificial. Icing. Beginning ending. Ending beginning. It is as odd and yet apt this book of copious near-handed wonders (“Neighbor dogs are kind & hunt balls to death”) should conclude with an embodied image of our foremost bearings of first things,

In the morning the kids come running down the stairs (“LRS,” page 121).

Days & Days

poems by Michael Dickman

is published by Alfred A. Knopf

ISBN 9780525655473 (hardcover)

available for $27.00

Robert Smyth and the Yellow Moon Press (2003)

\Robert Smyth

BY DOUG HOLDER On a nondescript stretch of Somerville Avenue just outside Porter Square, there is an unexpected storefront. Yellow Moon Press. It is a veritable treasure trove of story, poetry books, CDs and tapes, that celebrate the oral tradition. In their catalog Yellow Moon describes itself as,"...committed to publishing materials from the various arts of the oral tradition. It is our goal to make available material that explores the oral tradition and breathes new life into it."This pleasingly eclectic small press and retail outlet has poetry titles by local poet, Elizabeth McKim to the more globally known Robert Bly and Ruth Stone.The books range from THE HUNGRY TIGRESS, that deals with Buddhist legends, to JOURNEY IN- AN ANTHOLOGY OF AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION POEMS AND HOW TO TELL THEM. Yellow Moon Press ( www.yellowmoon.com) started publishing poetry in 1978, but gradually shifted to the spoken word and oral tradition. Since then Yellow Moon books are being used in courses in many schools around the country, and they have been a recipient of awards by such notable organizations as the AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, and the AMERICAN BOOK ASSOCIATION. I talked with Robert Smyth, the founder of the Press, in his small store on a sunny morning in June. DH: Tell me something about your background. How did you get into publishing and the retailing of books? RS: My love of poetry started in my last years of high school, and continued to college. I went to Denison University out in Ohio. When I was there Denise Levertov (once a Somerville poet) came for a week. Robert Bly came for a number of years, and in my senior year I brought Allen Ginsberg in. Soon after I got out of college I started going to Robert Bly's annual conference, THE GREAT MOTHER AND THE NEW FATHER. That is where I was introduced to storytelling. I first did a small chap for a woman out in Washington state. Yellow Moon was founded in 1979. My idea was that I would do little books of poetry now and again, when I found something I really liked. I did not do it as my livelihood. I did it because I loved poetry. Our first book was printed in Union Square (Somerville), by an old leftist press whose name escapes me. I think I found it through Ed Hogan, who founded Somerville's ASPECT MAGAZINE. Ed taught me a lot about publishing.The storefront opened up three years ago. Before that I did it out of my house. When I first started Yellow Moon Press I worked at ROUNDER RECORDS, which at that time was in Somerville. Yellow Moon publishes books and cassettes of storytelling, poetry and music. We have 53 titles in print. We have books on poetry, folklore, collections of Buddhist legends; a range of stuff. DH: Do you find that Somerville has a good atmosphere for your business? RS: The location here at 689 Somerville Ave. has more foot traffic than I thought. DH: Can you talk about some of the local storytellers and poets you have published? RS: The first person that comes to mind is Doug Lipman. He lived in Somerville but now he lives in Atlanta. Doug has been a real part of the storytelling community for years .He is one of the first artists I did a storytelling tape with back in the late 80's. I was associated with a group, Storytellers In Concert, that Doug was a part of. They put on monthly concerts for adults. Doug was the founding member of that. We did four storytelling cassettes with him. We have also published Jennifer Justice, Maggie Purse, Elizabeth McKim (Body India), and other local people we worked with. DH: Your wife Anna Warrock is a poet. How is it being a literary couple? Have you published your wife? RS: We toyed with the idea. I was willing and glad to produce something for Anna. She feels that she wants to get a publisher who is someone other than her husband. She has won a number of awards for her poetry. I have to honor how she wants to do it. We do stuff together. I've helped her with getting her manuscripts ready to go. We are currently working on a reading series, Crossing Open Ground at the Brickbottom Studios. It is a mixture of poets, fiction writers, and storytellers. The first evening we had the Somerville storyteller, Peggy Melanson. DH: You told me that you and Anna have coordinated Robert Bly's 28th Annual Conference on "The Great Mother and the New Father" Can you tell me how you became involved with Bly and the festival? RS:I became acquainted with Robert Bly in the early 70's. I was struck by his charisma. The conference is an interdisciplinary arts festival. There was an art gallery at the festival with some tremendous paintings, photos and sculptures. The conference this year was focused on the confluence of Jewish, Islamic, and Spanish culture. The conference explored the masculine and feminine. It explored this through the arts. DH: How hard is it to run a small press and an indie bookstore? RS: I don't count on the bookstore as a primary source of income. I still do freelance work, audio production and tapes, and I also do book production. I just did a book design for Joe Armstrong, who lives in Davis Square. He studied with Pablo Casals in the 50's.Yellow Moon is a nonprofit Several books are used as course texts at colleges around the country. Lesley University extension uses our books. We also sell to storytelling festivals. DH: Any future plans for the store and press? RS: I am on a push to grow the press. I've just signed up with WORDS DISTRIBUTION, out in California. Distribution is the nut to crack.