Tuesday, September 19, 2006

ARCHIVE OF IBBETSON STREET CONTRIBUTORS

Archive of "Ibbetson Street" Contributors ( 1998 to Present)

ISSUE 1


Deborah Byrne http://this.is/poems/hope/list/usa/deborah.html

Diana Der Hovanessian http://www.soulstirring.org/artist.pl?diana_der-hovanessian&index=1

Ed Galing

Joanne Holdridge

Richard Houff


B.Z. Niditch

Linda Porter

Richard Ray

Sue Sullivan

Cynthia Brackett-Vincent

Lyn Lifshin http://www.lynlifshin.com

Rochelle Hope Mehr

Danielle Ruwe

Mame Willey

Richard Wilhelm

Dianne Robitaille http://authorsden.com/diannerobitaille

Scott Kathan

John Hildebidle

Seth Hamlin

Ralph Hasellman, Jr. http://lucidmoonpoetry.com

Silvia Esposito.





ISSUE 2.


Robert K. Johnson

Joanne Holdridge

B.Z. Niditch

John Hildebidle

Don DiVecchio

Gary Duehr

Richard Wilhelm

James de Crecentis

Kathyrn McGrath

Amy Schrader

Ken Pobo

Michelle Lindholm

NORMAL

R. K. Thompson

Lyn Lifshin

Alice Balest

Doug Holder http://authorsden.com/douglasholder

Richard Houff

Kevin Hicks

Patricia Rourke

Ed Chaberek

Ed Galing

David Madgalene

Edward Lodi






ISSUE 3




Terry England
Jean Monahan http://jeanmonahan.com
Joanne Holdridge
Robert K. Johnson
M.L.Cramer
Jack Powers http://www.stonesouppoets.com
Ed Galing
Chris Bowden
B.Z. Niditch
Givanni Malito
John McKernan
Sue Sullivan
Lisa Fay
John Hildebidle
Lyn Lifshin
Joe Verrili
Vivian Woodhead
K. Carlton Johnson
David Madgalene
Judith Liniado
Theodore Krieger
Laura J. Maliewski
Kathyrn McGrath
Paula Phipps
Linda Haviland Conte
Richard Wilhelm
Linda Porter
A.D.Winans
John Berbich
Rufus Goodwin
Doug Holder
Dianne Robitaille
Michael Zack
Diana K. Rubin






ISSUE 4


H.L.Lindrgen
Sara Murphy
Michael H. Brownstien
Kilian Melloy
Liz Swan
Sue Sullivan
Greg L. Harrington
Joanne Holdridge
Aileen Michaels
Judith Liniado
Vivian Woodhead
John Hildebidle
C.C. Schoenbeck
Cynthia B. Vincent
Robert K. Johnson
Harris Gardner
Collima Charles
Michael Eastabrook
Belding F. Jackson
A.D.Winans
Terry England
Ed Galing
B.Z. Niditch
Richard Houff
Doug Holder
Richard Wilhelm
Dianne Robitaille
Don DiVecchio
Jean Kesulla
Grey Held
Rochelle Hope Mehr
Mary Kugler
Nate Graziano
V. Pe. Filippo





ISSUE 5


Maurice Anderson
B.Z. Niditch
Ruth Schuler
Michael Zack
Ed Galing
Michele S. Lindholm
Robert K. Johnson
Mary Agner
Conrad Geller
Ryan Van Cleave
Lyn Lifshin
Rufus Goodwin
NORMAL
Christopher Bowden
Albert Huffstickler
Alan Catlin
Nancy Means Wright
Joe Verrilli
Richard Wilhelm
Ed Chaberek
Don DiVecchio
Peter Vickers
Gloria Deo Agbasi
Ed Meek
Harris Gardner
Lainie Senechal
John Pirolli
Clem Schoenbeck
Dianne Robitaille
Joanne Holdridge
Cynthia Brackett Vincent
Doug Holder
Sue Sullivan
Linda Porter
Linda Haviland Conte
Jim DeWitt
Dan Scheider
Terry England
Louise Eastman
Judith Liniado






ISSUE 6



David Fedo
Raffie Wolf
A.D.Winans
Clemens Schoenbeck
Ann Dewes
Louise Eastman
Lyn Lifshin
Robert K. Johnson
Joanne Holdridge
Nina Judith Katz
Sue Sullivan
Linda Porter
Ed Galing
Deborah M. Priestly http://outoftheblueartgallery.com
David Madgalene
Albert Huffstickler
Joanathan Duncklee
Joanna Nealon
John Grey
Ed Meek
Rufus Goodwin
Marc Widershien http://marccreate.com
Francis Alix
Doug Holder http://authorsden.com/douglasholder
Linda Haviland Conte
Anee M. Fletcher
Brian Morrisey http://poesy.org
Carol Wasburne
Alan Catlin
Peter Vickers
Joyce Wilson http://poetryporch.com
Harris Gardner http://tapestryofvoices.com
Lainie Senechal
Oliver Cutshaw
Leslie Woolf Hedley
Judith Liniado
Peter Maciocco
Anna Brutet
Margaret Crouse
Rochelle H. Mehr
Sean Reagan
taylor Stoehr
Irene Sedeora
Anne Watson
Christopher Bowden
Don DiVecchio
Michael H. Brownstein
Reizel Polak
Mary Agner







Issue 7




June K. Mazonson
Lorraine E. Roses
Rafael Woolf
Renee Summers
Francis Alix
John C. Knight
Virgil Suarez
Paul Kloppenborg
Dianne Robitaille
Harris Gardner http://tapestryofvoices.com
Pat Callan
Joe Verrilli
Walter Howard
Peter Desmond
Sean Reagan
Marc Widershien http://marccreate.com
Ed Galing
Steve Huntress
Lainie Senechal
Linda Porter
Oliver Cutshaw
Judith Liniado
Buddah
Dana C. Lipp
Richard Wilhelm
Robert K. Johnson
Barbara Daniels
A.D. Winans
Molly K. Sacardo
Deborah M. Priestly
Hugh Fox
Portia Brockway
Dorinda Foley
Sharon Desmaris
Lyn Lifshin
Liz Borges
Rufus Goodwin
Diana der-Hovanessian
Fred Frankel
Doug Holder
Sue Sullivan
Joanne Holdridge
Dorian Brooks





ISSUE 8




ISSUE 9









Christopher Bowden
Sean Reagan
Joanne McFarland
Fred Frankel
Joanne Holdridge
Ed Galing
Rafael Woolf
Dorian Brooks
Linda Lerner
Danna C. Lipp
Richard Wilhelm
Ruth E. Winn
Joanne Lowery
Gaynell Gavin
Doug Holder
Kelly J. White
John Freeman
Dan Green
Rochelle Hope Mehr
Diana Saenz
Lisa LaPoint
Steve Armstrong
Alice moon Silver
Richard Luftig
Lee Clark Zump
Sharon Desmaris
Tom Rich
Rosario Texeira
Linda Haviland Conte
Walter Howard
Lainie Senechal
Robert K. Johnson
Marie Kazalia







ISSUE 10



Alice M. Silver
David Anderson
Richard Fox
Terry England
Patrick McKinnon
Belinda Subraman
Francis Blessington
Donald Axinn
Dave Church
Aldo Tambellini
Amanda Cohen
Hollis Cate
Linda Haviland Conte
Dan Gaynor
Joanne Holdridge
Robert K. Johnson
Christopher Bowden
Ann Taylor
Beatriz Alba Del-Rio
Ann Fletcha
Dennis Rhodes
Matt Scheider
Joe Farley
Patricia Brockway
Dorian Brooks
Marshall Harvey
Robin Merril
Jack Galmitz
Alan Catlin




ISSUE 11


ISSUE 12
ISSUE 13



ISSUE 14

ISSUE 15

Tony Artuso
Lisa Beatman
Patricia Brockway
Dorian Brooks
Philip Burnham, Jr.
Alan Catlin
Linda Haviland Conte
Jack Cooper
Lisa Fay Coutley
Diana Der Hovanessian
Julie Gordon-Dueck
Michael Eastabrook
Ann Murphy Fletcher
Tim Gager http://www.timothygager.com
Ed Galing
Robbie Gamble
Harris Gardner
Benita Glickman
Rufus Goodwin
Gayle Elen Harvey
Doug Holder
Jackleen Holton
Miriam S. Hyman
Amber Johns
Robert K. Johnson
Susan Landon
JC LEE
Richard Levine
Reginald Sinclair Lewis
Ellaraine Lockie
Eileen McClusky
David Musgrove
Steve Myers
Chad Parenteau http://www.freakmachinepress.com
Beverly Peterson
Patricia Rose Pflaumer
Lori Romero
Lainie Senechal
Ruth Margolin Silin
Carolyn Stonewell
Renee Summers
David Surette
Richard Allen Taylor
Marc Widershien
Anna Wilder
Bosley Wilder
Richard Wilhelm
Jill Williams




ISSUE 16





ISSUE 17
Cynthia Zaitzevsky
Linda M. Fischer
Laura Rodley
Ed Galing
Lyn Lifshin
Wendy Drexler
Robbie Gamble
Ellaraine Lockie
Julie Gordon-Duek
Mid Walsh
Richard Allen Taylor
Adrian S. Potter
Natasha Schneider
A. Lester
Laura Rodley
Clay Waters
Llyn Clague
Patricia W. Jones
Harris Gardner
Lainie Senechal
Margaret Turano
Stephen Morse
Robert K. Johnson
Zvi A. Sesling
Carol Hamilton
Lorraine Jeffery
Linda H. Conte
James Kernochan
Beverly Peterson







ISSUE 18




Matthew James Babcock
Jane Eric beardsley
Allegra Blake
Dorian Brooks
Philip E. Burnham, Jr.
Ann Cahart
Alan Catlin
Lylnn Clague
Linda Haviland Conte
Jack Cooper
Dale Cuttingham
Wendy Drexler
Linda M. Fischer
Brent Fisk
Ann Murphy Fletcher
Ed Galing
Lo Galluccio http://logalluccio.com
Harris Gardner
Marc D. Goldfinger
Carolyn Gregory
Eric Greinke
Janine Houlemarde
Michael Keshigian
Vanessa Kittle
Christine Klock-Linn
Lyn Lifshin
Ellaraine Lockie
Andy Marcera
Jennifer Matthews http://www.jennifermatthews.com
Ronald Moran
Gillis Murray
Joanne Nealon
Debroah M. Priestly http://outoftheblueartgallery.com
Allen Rodman
Lainie Senechal
Marian K. Shapiro
Judy Snow
Virginia Thayer
Fred Zydek
Patricia Wellingham Jones
Allen C. West
Richard Wilhelm
A.D. Winans
Doug Worth





ISSUE 19

















ISSUE 20


A.K. Allin
Barbara Bialick
Sue Budin
Patrick Carrington
Linda Haviland Conte
Jack Cooper
Dale Cottingham
Chris Crittenden
Michael Estabrook
Linda M. Fischer
Ed Galing
Lo Galluccio
Harris Gardner
Danielle Legros Georges
Patricai Giragosian
Marc D. Goldfinger
Holly Guran
Holly Guran
Sarah Hannah
Coleen T. Houlihan
Robert K. Johnson
Michael Kesigian
Jean Keskulla
Phyliss Knisley
Jane K. Kretchmann
David Lewitzky
Lyn Lifshin
Ellaraine Lockie
Gloria Mindock
Joanna Nealon
Shari O'Brien
Erica Pederson
Katie Philips
Charles P. Ries
Janice Riggs
Bill Roberts
Laura Rodley
Allen Rodman
Carole Garibaldi Rogers
Ruth Sabath Rosenthal
Lainie Senechal
Zvi A Sesling
Jeanine Stevens
Dorothy Stone
Paul Kareem Tawyar
Lorraine A. Vail
Afaa Michael Weaver
Richard Wilhelm







IBBETSON 21




CONTENTS


TUNDRA......................................................................................................................... 1
Anne Brudevold

CUP O’ JOE..................................................................................................................... 2
Diana Cole

MORNING GLORIES................................................................................................... 3
Diana Cole

THE OCEAN HAS FORGOTTEN ............................................................................... 4
Fredrick Zydek

POPE’S RED VIOLIN.................................................................................................... 5
Dianne Robitaille

THE NEARNESS OF YOU............................................................................................ 5
Lorissa Byely

EVENING STUDY.......................................................................................................... 6
Doug Bolling

SUPERMAN.................................................................................................................... 7
A.D. Winans

WINTER BEHIND A WINDOW OF BROKEN GLASS............................................ 8
Lo Galluccio

AFTER THE BLIZZARD............................................................................................... 8
Llyn Clague

THE KENYON REVIEW............................................................................................... 9
Llyn Clague

ELEGY TO MY SUMMER WRITING SPOT........................................................... 10
Krista Klanderman

BENCH.......................................................................................................................... 11
Lorraine Loiselle

SMOOTH AND SWEET.............................................................................................. 11
Michael Estabrook


AT THE WAR MUSEUM............................................................................................ 12
John Grey

HOW OUR DEAD COME BACK TO US.................................................................. 13
Dorian Brooks

TAPS.............................................................................................................................. 13
Ron Pearson

HUES OF THE HEART................................................................................................ 14
Ellaraine Lockie

BACKWARDS BASICS............................................................................................... 15
Ellaraine Lockie

HOW TO KNOW A PRAIRIE POEM........................................................................ 16
Ellaraine Lockie

NO GLUE ON THEIR SHOE...................................................................................... 17
Sandy Carpenter

FREE SPIRITS.............................................................................................................. 18
Dan Sklar

THE CORSET............................................................................................................... 19
Nicole DiCello

KING’S CHAPEL BURYING GROUND .................................................................. 20
Marc Widershien

THE CAMELLIA BUILDING..................................................................................... 21
Greg Gregory

GETTING SOBER AGAIN.......................................................................................... 21
Robert L. Penick

THINGS OF CONSEQUENCE, CERTAINTY, AND SIMILARITY....................... 22
John T. Trigonis

CLOSE THOSE GODDAMN DOORS! AN AFTERNOON WITH LOUISA SOLANO.......................................................................................... 23
Doug Holder

SUN DAY....................................................................................................................... 26
Russell Rowland

LETTER TO MY DAUGHTER................................................................................... 27
Patricia Brodie

THE POWDERER........................................................................................................ 28
Carol Hamilton

IN THE MOTEL........................................................................................................... 28
Carol Hamilton

LAND RUN, 1889......................................................................................................... 29
Carol Hamilton

city poem........................................................................................................................ 30
Tim Gager

SUNSET IN BOSTON.................................................................................................. 30
Helen Bar-Lev

JACOB’S DREAM....................................................................................................... 31
Harris Gardner

hungry spring................................................................................................................. 32
Thomas Feeny

SWARM........................................................................................................................ 32
Karla M. Huston

FISHING….................................................................................................................... 33
Karla M. Huston

MIRROR IMAGES...................................................................................................... 34
Alan Catlin

VISIBLE........................................................................................................................ 34
Ann McGovern

WITH APOLOGIES TO DONNE................................................................................ 35
May R. Kinsolving

THE PITCHER’S WIFE............................................................................................... 36
Josh Humphrey

LOWERED EXPECTATIONS IN THE LOWER 48................................................. 37
Jared Smith


LUNCH WITH THE VULTURES............................................................................... 37
Lorraine A. Vail

NORTH OF NORWAY................................................................................................ 38
Greg Tuleja

THE LUXURY OF DISTANCE................................................................................... 38
Melanie Houle

STAGE 4........................................................................................................................ 39
Cathy Porter

THREE STRONG LEGS.............................................................................................. 39
Cathy Porter

SILVER QUEEN........................................................................................................... 40
Lainie Senechal

MISTY NIGHT FOREST............................................................................................. 40
Chris Crittenden

SPARROW.................................................................................................................... 41
Bert Stern

NANTUCKET MORNING.......................................................................................... 41
Ilene Starger

SOMETIMEBOY.......................................................................................................... 42
Edward J. Carvalho

PISTACHIOS................................................................................................................ 43
Abbott Ikeler

THE CORNER GUY..................................................................................................... 44
Deborah M. Priestly

POOLSIDE.................................................................................................................... 44
Ed Galing

THE EVENING WINDS.............................................................................................. 45
Paul Kareem Tayyar

CLUB FORSYTHIA...................................................................................................... 45
Linda Haviland Conte

Writers’ Bios.................................................................................................................. 46










ISSUE 22 Nov. 2007

CONTENTS

A SEA OF CANDLES 1
Marc D. Goldfinger

MIGRAINES 2
Michael Keshigian

MORNING TREK 3
Michael Keshigian

HEALING 4
Michael Keshigian

SUSTENANCE 5
Dennis Rhodes

MOMENTS 5
Stephanie Hiteshew

AWAY AT WORK 6
Ray Greenblatt

WINTER’S ONSET 7
Anne Tom

A MOUTHFUL 8
Jane K. Kretschmann

OF WINGS AND PENS 8
Brad Bennett

IF I COULD GIVE YOU ANYTHING 9
Patricia L. Hamilton

GRIEF 10
Patricia L. Hamilton

RHAPSODY IN BLUE 11
Patricia L. Hamilton

TWILIGHT 11
Thade Correa

PASSING—ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY 12
Leia C. Davies Richardson
OF TIME AND DREAMS 13
Ulys H. Yates

TO RAMIDA 13
Abby E. Murray

HERE SITS CAT 14
Abby E. Murray

THE FORGOTTEN 15
Alan Holder

GOLDFISH 16
Deborah C. Strozier

SWEAT 17
J. Melissa Blankenship

STORM 18
Bernadette McBride

CORNUCOPIA 19
Carolyn Gregory

VIRTUAL REALITY AT THE AQUARIUM 20
Carolyn Gregory

GRACE NOTES 21
Carolyn Gregory

a strawberry big as a beating heart 21
Barbara Bialick

INTERVIEW WITH SARAH HANNAH 22
Doug Holder

ECLIPSE 23
Sarah Hannah

OWL 26
Cammy Thomas

WHITE LIGHT 27
Arlene L. Mandell

WELL-GROUNDED 28
Janice Riggs
PROVERBIAL MIND 28
Janice Riggs

BOY……… 28
Eleanor Goodman

STEADY ON COURSE 30
Ed Galing

“SPOON” 30
Leanna N. Stead

QUIET MUSING 31
Alison Cimino

SUNDAY 32
Alison Cimino

THE RECENT DEAD 32
Jean Keskulla

GREEN MAN’S JUNE SUBURBAN SONG…... 33
Marcia L. Hurlow

YOU KNOW HIS FAVORITE COLOR 34
Marcia L. Hurlow

STAGGERING 34
Shari O’Brien

THE FALLEN 34
Shari O’Brien

BAREBACK 36
I. Gillis Murray

JAM SESSION 37
I. Gillis Murray

DECEMBER 31ST IN BOSTON 37
Sarah Tuttle

METAMORPHOSIS 38
Erica Pederson

FALSE EYELASHES 38
Laura Rodley
SOIREE 39
Laura Rodley

DIVING 39
Laura Rodley

WHEN SPRING MELTS THE GROUND 40
Lyn Lifshin

CHIHUAHUA COAHILA 40
Lyn Lifshin

JEANNE MARIE PLOUFFE 41
Lyn Lifshin

LEAVING 41
Linda M. Fischer

JEAN: IN MEMORIAM 42
Linda M. Fischer

PASSAGES 43
Linda M. Fischer

SOCIAL SMOKE 44
Jade Sylvan

DUST AND LIGHT 44
Matt Friesen

BREAKING OUT 45
Joanna Nealon

I ATE MY MOTHER’S HAIR 45
Ruth Sabath Rosenthal

RIDING PAST THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
& SEEING THE STEPS 45
Ruth Sabath Rosenthal

FOR SARAH 45
Ruth Sabath Rosenthal

Writers’ Bios 46








ISSUE 23 JUNE 2008





CONTENTS


CLEANING OUT THE CLOSET 1
John P. Kristofco

GROWING VEGETABLES 2
Dara Barnat

SPIDER WEB ON THE WINDOW 2
Chris Crittenden

THE WIND AND THE MOON 3
Beth Lowell

DOG DREAM 3 4
Beth Lowell

SOLSTICE 5
Beth Lowell

SPITTLE BUG 5
Joyce Wilson

USES FOR WOOD 6
Joyce Wilson

WITH MY MOTHER AT THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON:
FRANKLIN PARK, BOSTON, BY MAURICE PRENDERGAST.……… 7
Joyce Wilson

WINTER 8
Donna Bechar

BUTTON UP SHIRT 8
Kassandra Strickland

SNAIL 8
Michael Estabrook

I WISH TO TELL YOU 9
Patricia Wellingham-Jones

HER SILENCE 9
Timothy Gager

FIGURING IT OUT 10
Dorothy Stone

A VISION ON NEWBURY STREET 10
Zvi A. Sesling

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER 11
Ellaraine Lockie


ACCOUNTABLE 12
Ellaraine Lockie

THE COST OF SOAP 13
Ellaraine Lockie

SKETCH # 6 14
Lainie Senechal

THIS SPRING 14
Joanna Nealon

BLUE JAY 14
Pamela Annas

SKETCH # 9 14
Lainie Senechal

REDUX 15
Mark Wisniewski

THE VISITOR 15
Elizabeth Leonard

BEYOND REACH 16
Martin Willitts, Jr.

BERTHE MORISOT 17
Martin Willitts, Jr.

1950 18
Robert K. Johnson

NO CONTEST 18
Robert K. Johnson

UNTITLED 18
A.D. Winans

SMALL CHAPTERS 19
Judith Ann Levison

COFFEE 19
Ellen Steinbaum

THE FIRST INCLINATION AT N.Y.U. 20
Linda Haviland Conte

SECOND COMING 20
Paul Kareem Tayyar

AT THE END OF JUNE 21
Paul Kareem Tayyar


THE SHORE AND THE CHILD 21
Paul Kareem Tayyar

INTERVIEW WITH POET MARK DOTY: A POET WHO GOES FROM
“FIRE TO FIRE”……… 22
Doug Holder

AT THE GYM 24
Mark Doty

TWO RIVERS 24
Richard Wilhelm

WHAT WE MEAN BY BARCELONA 25
Tino Villanueva

A RAINY MORNING 26
Gouri Datta

THE FIRST TIME 26
James de Crescentis

HOW IS HE? 27
Gayle Roby

AMBER IN WIND 27
Gayle Roby

AN OLD COUPLE…... 27
Susan Rosenberg

FOR BANCHA DA, WHO DISAPPEARED 28
Dibakar Barau

Last night, I rode the dark dream trolley 28
Dorothea Grossman

MY FATHER AT EIGHTY 29
Dale Cottingham

ON SECOND THOUGHT 29
Lois Beebe Hayna

THE BLESSING 30
Barbara Leff

GETTING STONED IN PIONEER CEMETERY BULLDOZED FOR
WESTGATE SHOPPING MALL 31
Fernand Roqueplan

BAGHDAD SOUNDS 32
Connemara Wadsworth

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION, BEFORE THE WAR 33
Connemara Wadsworth
BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER 34
Edward Sanders

WHEN YOU CAME 36
Joyce Meyers

DAYDREAM 36
Joyce Meyers

APPLES 37
Joyce Meyers

SEEDS 37
Joyce Meyers

MONARCH 38
Dorian Brooks

passages 38
Joy Harold Helsing

INQUIRIES FOR ANGELS 39
Harris Gardner

BELIEF 40
Harris Gardner

NOTHING TRUE 40
Chris Volkay

NOW AND THEN YOU MISS 41
Harris Gardner

THE GOOD LIFE 42
Carol Hamilton

CAPTURING THE IMAGE 42
Diane Lockward

IN THEIR HABITAT 43
Carol Hamilton

THE SEVENTH DAY 44
Llyn Clague

ANTONIO SALIERI 45
Llyn Clague

JUST BECAUSE 45
Ed Galing

Writers’ Bios 46



ISSUE 24


CONTENTS


THE TRAIN TO BATH 1
Donna L. Emerson

VISITATION 2
Thade Correa

AGAIN 2
Thade Correa

JUDY 2
Jo Barbara Taylor

THE REDEMPTION OF THINKING 4
Joanna Nealon

ANOTHER ASS-BACKWARDS MAKEOVER 5
Sally Molini

MEETING THE SELF-PORTRAITS 5
Sally Molini

BURNING BUSH 6
J. Stiles Askew

THE BITTER SEED.……… 7
J. Stiles Askew

THE SEDUCTION 8
Gary Metras

ABANDON 8
Ron Houchin

NOVEMBER IN NEW ENGLAND 8
Ed Meek

A FARMER’S LESSON 9
Alice Pettway

ANNIVERSARY 9
Alice Pettway


REPRIEVE 10
Lyn Lifshin

CHERRY BLOSSOMS IN DARKNESS 10
Lyn Lifshin

THE YOUNG GIRL DREAMS OF ESCAPE 11
Lyn Lifshin

WARSCAPES 12
Stephen Malin

LATE VISITOR 13
Linda Haviland Conte

ACCEPTANCE 14
Tracy Strauss

RUSSIANS ON THE RIVER 14
Lawrence Kessenich

TOWN DINER 14
Wendy Drexler

WHEN OUR GUESTS HAVE GONE 14
Bernadette McBride

FANDANGO 15
Milton Bloch

A FIGHT WITH THE CELL PHONE AND THE CELL PHONE LOST 15
Mike Amado

JAZZ FACE 16
Michael Keshigian

NEPTUNE AVENUE 17
Patrick Carrington

WHAT IS A FAILED POET? SOMERVILLE-AREA POETS RESPOND! 18
Doug Holder

INTENDED 18
Laura Rodley


WONDER 18
Laura Rodley

KING 19
Laura Rodley

RAUS! RAUS! 19
Ruth Sabath Rosenthal

I REMEMBER THE ZINNIAS 20
Ruth Sabath Rosenthal

NEW YORK STYLE HUNGARIAN STEW 20
Ruth Sabath Rosenthal

EX-HUSBAND’S JOURNALS 21
Tricia Barker

WRECKAGE 21
Kathryn Jacobs

SUMMER 37
Lainie Senechal

ADVICE COLUMN……… 22
Kathryn Jacobs

THE HOURS 24
Lo Galluccio

BECAUSE YOU ASKED 24
Ed Galing

HIS 25
Susan Tepper

MOZART’S FUNERAL 26
Jene Erick Beardsley

KNELL FOR THE COMMON MAN 26
Jene Erick Beardsley

SPELL # 105 27
Hari Bhajan Khalsa


THE ANATOMY OF DYING 27
Linda M. Fischer

STELLA PASTRY…... 27
Lorraine A. Vail

RAGE RED 28
Lorraine A. Vail

LAKE WALK 28
Lorraine A. Vail

MESSAGE FOR THE BEES 29
Harris Gardner

MASTER CLASS 29
Krikor N. Der Hohannesian

DRIVING IN FOG 30
Patricia L. Hamilton

UNSOLVED 31
Patricia L. Hamilton

INCANDESCENCE 32
Patricia L. Hamilton

SKYLIGHT RUNWAY 33
Linda Larson

“OLD MONEY WANTED” 34
Mignon Ariel King

A FIELD OF BOYS IN CAMBRIDGE 36
Mary Buchinger

CARGO 36
Jack Cooper

GAME BOARD 37
Jack Cooper

CONFIDANT 37
Jack Cooper

WRITERS’ BIOS 38





IBBETSON 25 JUNE 2009

SOLDIER’S LIFE...................................................................................................................... 1

Julia Carlson



GIRL’S SCHOOL...................................................................................................................... 2

Patricia Callan



AUTUMN................................................................................................................................... 2

Joyce Meyers


NIGHT CRAWLERS................................................................................................................. 3

Patricia Callan


A FISH TALE............................................................................................................................ 3

Patricia Callan


BLUESHIFT............................................................................................................................... 4

Nicole DiCello



NOT YET................................................................................................................................... 4

Diana Der-Hovanessian



STARTING OVER..................................................................................................................... 5

Judith Barisonzi



THE CALENDAR SAYS JUNE 15............................................................................................. 5

Judith Barisonzi



BIPOLAR.………...................................................................................................................... 6

Ellaraine Lockie



FALLOUT.................................................................................................................................. 7

Ellaraine Lockie



ON AVOIDING STENDHAL SYNDROME............................................................................... 8

Ellaraine Lockie



HEAVENWARD........................................................................................................................ 9
Rich Heller



HEARTWOOD........................................................................................................................... 9
Rich Heller



WATCH..................................................................................................................................... 9
Rich Heller



OLGA REPORTS ON MY LIFE AND DEATH........................................................................ 10

Greg Moglia



BOOKSTORE CRUSH............................................................................................................. 11
Greg Moglia



REGENERATION.................................................................................................................... 12

Carol Hamilton



LOVE DUET............................................................................................................................ 12

Dale Cottingham



I PAUSE TO CONTEMPLATE GROWING A MUSTACHE.................................................... 13
Michael Pontacoloni



WHILE WAITING FOR THE T............................................................................................... 13
Michael Pontacoloni



COURT STREET, SAN BERNARDINO................................................................................... 14
Marine Robert Warden



DANTE..................................................................................................................................... 14
Marine Robert Warden



RICH TASTE OF ADULTHOOD............................................................................................. 15
William Hart


FISH IN THE SEA.................................................................................................................... 15
Miguel Miro-Quesada



TOFU PUDDING..................................................................................................................... 16

Tunney Lee



OUT MY WINDOW – LATE WINTER..................................................................................... 17

Tunney Lee



AT THE SACKLER MUSEUM THE DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING................................... 17
Tunney Lee



SALEM LAMENT.................................................................................................................... 18
Richard Davignon



MR. TOAD’S WILD RIDE....................................................................................................... 18
Richard Davignon



MRS. BROOKS....................................................................................................................... 19

Richard Davignon



STEAM BATH......................................................................................................................... 19

Ed Galing



CASSANDRA........................................................................................................................... 20

Phillip Corwin



THE AMERICAN CEMETERY AT NETTUNO........................................................................ 21

Phillip Corwin



VEIL ……................................................................................................................................ 22

Phillip Corwin



OGUNQUIT IN OCTOBER..................................................................................................... 22

Lainie Senechal



DON’T BET ON THIS HORSE................................................................................................ 23

Harris Gardner



I GAVE RICHARD YATES A CALL ONE DAY...................................................................... 24

Doug Holder



OLD FRIENDS…..................................................................................................................... 25

Rena Navon



CAN, CAN’T,........................................................................................................................... 26

Peter Layton



ON A CLIFF............................................................................................................................ 26

Peter Layton



HOLD...................................................................................................................................... 26

Peter Layton



FINALLY................................................................................................................................. 27

Hugh Fox



ALWAYS................................................................................................................................. 27

Hugh Fox



GESANGVOLL/SONGFULL................................................................................................... 27

Hugh Fox



NORM VISITS HIS AUTISTIC DAUGHTER.......................................................................... 28

Tony Artuso



LOSSES AND GAINS: APRIL 1862......................................................................................... 29

Tony Artuso



COFFEE DOG CAFÉ…............................................................................................................ 30

Arlene L. Mandell



MERCY.................................................................................................................................... 30
Arlene L. Mandell



THE PLEASURE OF BIRDS.................................................................................................... 31

Michael Keshigian



LAST STORM.......................................................................................................................... 31
Arlene L. Mandell



MARY WELDON..................................................................................................................... 32

Mira Coleman



SUCH FORTUNE..................................................................................................................... 33

Linda Haviland Conte



THE WOOL MAN.................................................................................................................... 34

Mira Coleman



FISHERMAN’S COVE............................................................................................................. 35

Tim Suermondt



ORSON WELLES.................................................................................................................... 36
Paul Kareem Tayyar



TOLERABLE........................................................................................................................... 36

Michael Estabrook



TO PATTI................................................................................................................................ 36

Michael Estabrook



YOU HAVE TO FIND THE LIGHT......................................................................................... 37
Jeff Fleming



MID-AUGUST, HOTEL POOL................................................................................................ 37
Jeff Fleming



MOKELUMNE HILL.............................................................................................................. 37

Jeff Fleming



ORALS.................................................................................................................................... 38

Lyn Lifshin



WILMA.................................................................................................................................... 39

Sam Cornish



ALL NIGHT THE NIGHT HAS BEEN..................................................................................... 39

Lyn Lifshin



THE CAR ACCIDENT............................................................................................................. 40

Todd Philip Richardson



BREAD.................................................................................................................................... 41
Todd Philip Richardson



THERE IS A GHOST............................................................................................................... 41

Todd Philip Richardson



AUTUMN LOVE...................................................................................................................... 42

Jackie Ascrizzi



THE BLINDING EFFECT OF TOO MUCH IRONY................................................................ 42
Jackie Ascrizzi



SO WHAT................................................................................................................................ 43
Ruth Holzer



O HEALING GO DEEP........................................................................................................... 43

Elizabeth Kirschner



PLEASE USE SOME, BUT NOT ALL THE FOLLOWING CLICHÉS..................................... 44
Timothy Gager



THE SMELL OF REAL POETRY............................................................................................ 44

Steve Glines



WRITERS’ BIOS...................................................................................................................... 45




IBBETSON 26 Nov. 2010







CONTENTS




MARILYN MONROE’S TOASTER..................................................................................... 1

Lorraine A. Vail



THE THROAT SINGER OF TUVA...................................................................................... 2

Sheila Mullen Twyman



JERUSALEM ROAD.............................................................................................................. 3

Mary Rice


SAP MOON............................................................................................................................. 4

Gayle Roby


LEAVES OPEN MOON......................................................................................................... 4

Gayle Roby


STRAWBERRY MOON......................................................................................................... 5

Gayle Roby



THUNDER MOON................................................................................................................. 6

Gayle Roby



GREEN CORN MOON.......................................................................................................... 6

Gayle Roby



FRUIT MOON......................................................................................................................... 7

Gayle Roby



LOVE POEM FOR MARC.………....................................................................................... 8

Francine Marie Tolf



I LOOKED BACK................................................................................................................... 9

Harris Gardner



WHO WORE THE GLOVES?............................................................................................ 10

Laura Rodley



WHAT YOU’VE MISSED.................................................................................................... 11
Laura Rodley



THE YEAR I LEARNED TO LOVE YELLOW................................................................. 11
Laura Rodley



MILEAGE.............................................................................................................................. 12
Patricia Brodie



THE STORIES I CHOSE, THE STORIES I LOST........................................................... 13

Kelley Jean White



ELMWOOD AVENUE......................................................................................................... 13
Carol Matos



FALSE START...................................................................................................................... 14

Sandy Green



WHAT HAPPENS TO BUSY PEOPLE.............................................................................. 15

Sandy Green



GOOD WORKS.................................................................................................................... 16
Elizabeth Swados



AUTOMAT, PEEP-O-RAM, A TOKEN TRIO OF SYLLABLES.................................... 17
John Flynn



TIMEPIECE.......................................................................................................................... 18
Christine Ann Cuccio



Sorry....................................................................................................................................... 18

Janet Butler

WALKING THE MISSION ON A HOT SUNDAY AFTERNOON.................................. 19
A.D. Winans



*.............................................................................................................................................. 19

Simon Perchik

FRED MARCHANT: A HAPPY PERSON, A TURBULENT POET................................ 20

Doug Holder



PICKNEY STREET............................................................................................................... 23

Fred Marchant



LOOKING SOUTH.............................................................................................................. 23
Roger Kessel



TELL ME ABOUT MIDDLE AGE..................................................................................... 24
Kim Triedman



IMPROVISATION................................................................................................................ 25
Kim Triedman



ECLIPSE................................................................................................................................ 26

Dorian Brooks



SCATTERINGS.................................................................................................................... 27

Linda Haviland Conte



SOLITUDE OF MIST........................................................................................................... 27

Lainie Senechal



BACK ALLEYS..................................................................................................................... 28

Zvi A. Sesling



PRAYERS.............................................................................................................................. 28

Ed Galing



BUBBA, STUB, ROBBIE & WEENIE……........................................................................ 29

Bridgit Brown



STRAIGHT UP...................................................................................................................... 30

Richard W. Moyer



CHOICES.............................................................................................................................. 30

Don Alfieri



With watercolor stars on our muddied feet we.................................................................... 30

John T. Trigonis



THE VISITOR.….................................................................................................................. 31

Gene McCormick



AT NUTLEY POND.............................................................................................................. 32

Lyn Lifshin



THE PLAYER....................................................................................................................... 32

Lin Lifshin



FORECAST........................................................................................................................... 33

Jeff Saperstein



DECEMBER.......................................................................................................................... 33

Patricia L. Hamilton



BRIDE’S MAGAZINE.......................................................................................................... 34

Russell Rowland



USES OF TIME..................................................................................................................... 35

Russell Rowland



FLING.................................................................................................................................... 36

Naomi Ruth Lowinsky



YOUR PROBLEM................................................................................................................ 37

Naomi Ruth Lowinsky



RAIN ON CRUM CREEK…................................................................................................ 38

Linda M. Fischer



SURVIVOR............................................................................................................................ 39
Linda M. Fischer



BEING SICK.......................................................................................................................... 39

Carol Hamilton



FISH COVE........................................................................................................................... 40
Michael Keshigian



A LACK OF RAIN................................................................................................................ 41

Michael Keshigian



Joe’s horse ran in the second................................................................................................ 42

Melissa Shook



THEN GONE......................................................................................................................... 42

Llyn Clague



BLUE IRIS............................................................................................................................. 43

Mary M. Sesso



A NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR AND MEDITATION.......................................................... 44
Robert K. Johnson



WRITERS’ BIOS.................................................................................................................. 45




ISSUE 27 June, 2010




CONTENTS



BENNY GOODMAN 1
Ed Galing

JULY FOURTH 2
Susan Lloyd McGarry

CHILDREN OF THE SUN 3
Paul Kareem Tayyar

SMALL VISITORS 3
Ginny Sullivan

SKETCH # 37 4
Lainie Senechal

STRAWBERRIES 4
Laura Rodley

AFTER HAYING 5
Sheila Nickerson

THE GARDENER, IN OCTOBER 5
Sheila Nickerson

ON THE ROAD TO AMHERST 6
JoAnne Preiser

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A MOVIE 7
JoAnne Preiser

THAT SUMMER.……… 8
Karla Huston

HAIR DRESSERS IN HELL 9
Karla Huston

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


SILENT AS THE DAWN 10
Michael Estabrook

WHAT IT IS 11
Margaret Young

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

DEAR WORLD YOU ARE COURTED TO DEATH 12
Lo Galluccio

VANISHING POINT 13
Harris Gardner

“ON BEAUTY’S BUM” 13
Philip E. Burnham, Jr.

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

TOO EARLY FOR THIS 14
Lyn Lifshin

THE SPIDERS ARE SLEEPING 15
Kate Chadbourne

KITCHEN SPIDER 16
Cheryl B. Perreault

WATERBURY 18
William Gilson

SWEATER ON THE BEACH 20
Miriam Levine

RELEASE 21
Miriam Levine

HATCHES 21
Jay Matthews



APPARITIONS 22
Joyce Meyers

IF ONLY 23
Joyce Meyers

TO SEE TREES DIE 23
Joyce Meyers

SESTINA WRITTEN IN THE LIBRARY 24
Barbara Bialick

TURTLE SHAPED BOX 25
Ashley Trace

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

LOUIS XVI’S LAST THOUGHT 30
Zvi A. Sesling

THE LOVE AFFAIR 31
George Wallace

SMOKE IN THE WIND 31
Fredrick Zydek

CATCH 32
Ken Seide

REVEILLE 33
Linda M. Fischer

ON THE DOCK 34
Linda Haviland Conte

TOMATOES 34
Mary Rice

THE PERFECT WORLD OF ALUMNI MAGAZINES 35
Dan Sklar

SILENT GREEK. 35
Richard W. Moyer
HALLOWEEN/COTTAGE 36
David Giannini

MASSACHUSETTS AUTUMN 37
David Giannini

PASSION.… 37
Sanghi Ehrlich

POLE BARN 38
Dale Cottingham

WALTZ IN A ROOFLESS CHAPEL 39
Ray Greenblatt

HOSPICE……. 39
Keith Tornheim

BOMBARDIER 40
Dorian Brooks

GEORGIA 41
Kirk Etherton

WAR AND PEACE ON THE PRAIRIE 42
Ellaraine Lockie

HOME OF THE BRAVE 43
Ellaraine Lockie

RED CEDAR SWAMP 44
Anne Cope Wallace

WRITERS’ BIOS 45






IBBETSON STREET 28 * This is the first issue under the affilation with Endicott College at Beverly, Mass. Nov., 2010


NOT ADVENT 1
Ginny Sullivan

GEOGRAPHY 2
Joanne DeSimone Reynolds

CITY OF NIGHT 2
Zvi Sesling

ANTEROS A GO GO 3
John A. Trause

CAN’T MISS IT 3
Harris Gardner

PAINTING YOUR MALE SKIN 4
Deborah M. Priestly

TO BE UNDERSTOOD.……… 4
Coleen T. Houlihan

THE SORROWFUL MYSTERIES 5
Lorraine A. Vail

PHYLACTERIES 5
Ed Galing

room for love 6
Irene Koronas

WHAT BERT SAID 6
Joanna Nealon

YOUR HEART IS LIKE A SMALL BROWN STONE 7
Varsha Kukafka

SATURDAY SOCK HOP, 1959 8
Pamela Annas

MUSIC THROUGH THE GREY DAY 8
Martha Boss
ARMENIA’S MINISTRY OF CULTURE COMPLAINS 9
Diana Der Hovanessian

TO GRANDFATHER ELK 10
Li Min Mo

IN THE K-MART LOT 10
Lawrence Kessenich

THE INCIDENCE OF WATER 11
T. Michael Sullivan

RED SHIFT 11
Daniel Tobin

TREE… 12
Linda M. Fischer

PRAYER 13
Linda M. Fischer

MONTCOAL WEST VIRGINIA 14
Julia Carlson

DISAPPEARING 14
Ruth C. Chad

MERIWETHER LEWIS 15
Michael Todd Steffen

RUSH HOUR 15
X.J. Kennedy

PATCHES 16
Miriam Levine

HITCHCOCK’S CIRCLES 17
Lyn Lifshin

LEARNING WITH WHISKEY 18
Sam Cornish

AGAIN 18
Robert K. Johnson

LOST CELLO 19
Victor Howes

GOATS 19
Bert Stern

THE POET TO HER MUSE 20
Patricia L. Hamilton

IMAGINING SPRING 21
Patricia L. Hamilton

HERALDS 21
Mary Rice

MARGE PIERCY: TO BE OF USE 22
Mary Rice

WHERE DREAMS COME FROM 23
Marge Piercy

A FAREWELL TO HOES AND HOSES 24
Marge Piercy

A WEIGHTY PANTOUM 24
Marge Piercy

COME FLY WITHOUT ME 25
Marge Piercy

A DREAM THAT WILL COME TRUE 25
Marge Piercy

ADORN 26
Rene Schwiesow

RETREAT 26
Robert Riche

BIRCHES IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD 27
Philip E. Burnham, Jr.

WORDS THAT BLEED 28
A.D. Winans

MOTIVE 28
Gloria Mindock

OPEN STUDIO: LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS 29
Kathleen Spivack

GLASS DOOR KNOB.… 29
Llyn Clague

AGAINST ALL ODDS 30
Tino Villanueva

WALDEN 31
Kirk Etherton

RELUMING LIGHT……. 32
Laura Rodley

“Love never says, ‘This is the last.’” 32
Lainie Senechal

THE SEAL BEATITUDES 33
Laura Rodley

RIPE AT HARVEST 34
Ellaraine Lockie

LATE OCTOBER 35
Isabella K. Nebel

THE NEXT BETTER PLACE 35
Timothy Gager

REVELATION 36
Fred Marchant

ILLUMINATIONS 37
Ben Mazer

SHEPHERD’S CLOAK 38
Saint Rosner

BOULDER DREAMS 39
Nathaniel Mayes

THE TILT OF THE EARTH 39
Anne Drury

TROLLOPE INVENTED THE POST BOX 40
Carol Hamilton

“THE MARBLE INLET” 40
Carol Hamilton

BOWLS OF DUST 41
Molly Lynn Watt

CHOCOLATE 41
January Gill O’Neill

HERMIT’S BOWLFUL 42
Thomas O’Leary

AMERICAN DREAMING, CIRCA 1946 43
Krikor N. Der Hohannesian

GANGS OF LEAVES 43
Barbara Bialick

WALKING INTO IT, WINTER SOLSTICE 44
Tamlin Neville

WRITERS’ BIOS 45




IBBETSON STREET 29


CONTENTS



RESURRECTION................................................................................................................... 1

Celia Gilbert



INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE OPTIMIST.............................................................................. 2
Celia Gilbert



WHAT EDEN WAS LIKE...................................................................................................... 3

Celia Gilbert



MEMORIAL DAY................................................................................................................... 3

Celia Gilbert



HIC JACET............................................................................................................................. 4

Melissa Green



AT THE SEASHORE............................................................................................................. 5

Melissa Green



WHEN THE TWO PRESIDENTS KISSED.………............................................................. 6

Dennis Rhodes



POND GONE DRY................................................................................................................. 6

Dale Cottingham



THE IMPRESSIONISTS INDOORS..................................................................................... 7

Jennifer Barber



FREE ENTERPRISE.............................................................................................................. 8

Abigail Bottome


PENGUIN ICEPLEX, SOUTH POINTE............................................................................... 9

Margaret Young


VOODOO DONUTS............................................................................................................. 10

Wendy Drexler


SENDAI SISTER CITY......................................................................................................... 10

Gayle Roby


THE UNBUILT PRAIRIE.................................................................................................... 11

Wendy Drexler





TRAVEL PLANS.................................................................................................................. 11

Pia Taavila



HONEYSUCKLE.................................................................................................................. 12

Jon Mathewson



AFTERGLOW....................................................................................................................... 14

Lainie Senechal



OCTOBER............................................................................................................................. 14

Lainie Senechal


untitled.................................................................................................................................... 14

Jane Stuart



WEISS WEIN......................................................................................................................... 15

A.H. Block


THE EXPAT TAKES A HIKE….......................................................................................... 15

Jennifer Saunders


POETRY, MASKS AND TRUTH........................................................................................ 16

Mary Rice



WHO?.................................................................................................................................... 18
Harris Gardner

WRITER IN RESIDENCE.................................................................................................... 19

Lawrence Kessenich



NEW YORK IN GENERAL................................................................................................. 20
Ed Galing


SWEET DIXIELAND, EARLY SIXTIES............................................................................ 20
Linda Larson


A SHORT, RECENT HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN NORTH AMERICA...................... 21

Adrienne Drobnies



LONG ENOUGH.................................................................................................................. 22

Richard Hoffman


OF TIME AND THE BEAUTY CONTEST........................................................................ 23

Dan Sklar





DIABOLI FILIA.................................................................................................................... 23

James K. Webb


CHEATING THE DEER...................................................................................................... 24

Linda M. Fischer



SNOWDROPS....................................................................................................................... 25

Linda M. Fischer



INSIDE OUT.......................................................................................................................... 26

Judith Askew



RIDING THE LOCAL.......................................................................................................... 26

Ray Greenblatt



FACING THE DEAD............................................................................................................ 27

JoAnne Preiser



SIGHT SEER......................................................................................................................... 27

Chad Parenteau



AFTER READING MICHAEL MACK............................................................................... 28

Barbara Helfgott Hyett



SUNDAYS AT THE HOME................................................................................................. 29

Marissa Dubin



ANGLE OF REPOSE........................................................................................................... 30

Ellaraine Lockie



AN AMERICAN HAIBUN.................................................................................................... 31
Ellaraine Lockie

BOOK REVIEW—WHERE I LIVE: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, 1990-2010,
by MAXINE KUMIN............................................................................................................. 32

Katie Clarke



DRIVING HOME FROM ITHACA
AFTER LEAVING MY DAUGHTER AT COLLEGE...................................................... 34
Joan I. Siegel



MIDSUMMER BIKE RIDE.................................................................................................. 34

Carol Hamilton



EFFABLE............................................................................................................................... 35

Kelley Jean White

A DAY BETWEEN SEASONS............................................................................................. 35

David Chorlton

THE TORTOISESHELL CAT............................................................................................ 36

Joyce Wilson



POISONOUS FRUIT............................................................................................................ 37

Joyce Wilson



SEASONS LOST................................................................................................................... 37

Anthony James



“A NOVEL READER” by VINCENT VAN GOGH.......................................................... 38

Deborah H. Doolittle



BRAVO!.…............................................................................................................................ 38

Joan Dugas



MIDNIGHT AT THE DISCO BOWLING ALLEY............................................................ 39

Deborah H. Doolittle



BARN..................................................................................................................................... 40

Dorian Brooks



RELATIVITY........................................................................................................................ 40

Hillary Bartholomew



I ABOMINATE……….......................................................................................................... 41

Llyn Clague



MY WIFE’S LAUGH............................................................................................................ 41

Llyn Clague



MORE HAIR......................................................................................................................... 42

Lyn Lifshin



THE PEARLS........................................................................................................................ 43

Lyn Lifshin



THE BUDDHAS OF BAMIYAN.......................................................................................... 44

Joseph Ross



A MOMENT WITH BUDDAH............................................................................................. 44

A.D. Winans



WRITERS’ BIOS.................................................................................................................. 45






IBBETSON 30


CONTENTS

TOWN PARK, LATE AUTUMN.................................................................................................1

Ted Kooser

GINNY, WITH THE SMALLEST WAIST ................................................................................2

Lyn Lifshin

HOME FOR LUNCH ....................................................................................................................2

Joanne DeSimone Reynolds

TAKING ISSUE WITH MARCELINO ......................................................................................3

Ellaraine Lockie

SKYLIGHT ....................................................................................................................................4

Ellen Kirvin Dudis

I SEE ALLEN’S DEAD FACE FLASH ON TV AT NOON

IN A PHOENIX BUS STATION ..................................................................................................5

Branton Shearer

WHAT I SHOULD HAVE TOLD YOU………..........................................................................6

Susan Waters

DEAR READER ............................................................................................................................6

Lorraine A. Vail

NEW HIRE ORIENTATION .......................................................................................................7

Patricia Hamilton

LAMB’S EAR.................................................................................................................................8

Cynthia Duda

FIBONACCI FLOWERS..............................................................................................................8

Deborah Leipziger

RIGHT TRIANGLE ......................................................................................................................9

Richard Luftig

A POET’S TIME AND PLACE .................................................................................................10

Jared Smith

HAUNTED....................................................................................................................................11

Deborah Finkelstein

EXPRESSIONS ............................................................................................................................11

Mary Rice

ATTACK OF OPPORTUNITY .................................................................................................12

Kevin Brown

UPBEAT .......................................................................................................................................13

Richard Swanson

LOST AND FOUND AT THE CHECK-OUT COUNTER .....................................................14

Harris Gardner

BELIEVE IN THEM AND THEY WILL COME ....................................................................14

Carol Hamilton

AMISH COUNTRY........................................................................................................................15

Joyce Wilson

POEM FOR ALEXSEY DAYEN ...............................................................................................16

A.D. Winans

SHELVES OF WAR: THE READING ROOM OF THE CORK CITY LIBRARY ............17

Philip E. Burnham, Jr.

A COLD EXCHANGE ................................................................................................................17

Joanna Nealon

IN RUMBULA FOREST ............................................................................................................18

Freddy Frankel

FINAL MATTER.........................................................................................................................19

Molly Lynn Watt

NOCHE DE LOS MUERTOS, SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE..............................................20

Andrew H. Oerke

PATIENCE ...................................................................................................................................21

Joyce Meyers

I THINK NOW OF TASSO’S OAK ..........................................................................................21

John J. Trause

FROST@MIDNIGHT .................................................................................................................22

Victor Howes

WALT, WITH ONLY YOU IN MIND ......................................................................................22

Ruth Sabath Rosenthal

WHAT BOOMERS WANT ........................................................................................................23

Barbara Bialick

HUGH FOX: WAY, WAY OFF ON HIS FINAL ROAD ........................................................24

Doug Holder

THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS .......................................................................................26

Ellaraine Lockie

FALLING IN LOVE WITH ROMA..........................................................................................28

Lawrence Kessenich

BEDROOM FRESCO, FROM A VILLA UNEARTHED NEAR POMPEII ........................28

Jean Monahan

THE SOUND OF IT ....................................................................................................................29

Karla Huston

THE SOUND OF ANGELS ........................................................................................................29

Ruth C. Chad

BLACK ANGEL ..........................................................................................................................30

Diana Der-Hovanessian

AN ESTUARY..............................................................................................................................30

Marilène Phipps-Kettlewell

ODE TO PUERTO MOSQUITO BIOLUMINESCENT BAY ...............................................31

Meg Campbell

SEA COLOR ................................................................................................................................32

Gloria Mindock

MORNING MIST ........................................................................................................................32

Kathleen Spivack

WAITING FOR MY SON...........................................................................................................33

Ed Galing

SELF-STORAGE.........................................................................................................................34

Charles Sabukewicz

MUG’S PROPHECY ...................................................................................................................35

Tomas O’Leary

TOMATOES IN SEPTEMBER .................................................................................................36

Joyce Wilson

NOVEMBER ................................................................................................................................36

Joyce Meyers

SWEET SEASON: RETURN TO THE NILE ..........................................................................37

Laura Bernard

CAMERA OSCURA....................................................................................................................37

Laura Bernard

EASY .............................................................................................................................................38

Joyce Meyers

FAITH IS A FISH BOWL ..........................................................................................................38

Jean Monahan

BLACK WIDOW ON A DOOR HINGE…...............................................................................39

Mike Amado

XYLEM & PHLOEM..................................................................................................................40

E.P. Fisher

WILL YOU ...................................................................................................................................41

Donna Bechar

EASY AS FALLING OFF A LOG .............................................................................................41

Bert Stern

CREATION………. .....................................................................................................................42

Bonny Barry Sanders

ACCOUTREMENTS ..................................................................................................................43

Kim Triedman

FIELD CANVAS..........................................................................................................................43

Joan Kimball

BRISTLECONE PINES ..............................................................................................................44

Ruth Gooley

THESE HANDS ...........................................................................................................................44

Krikor Der Hohannesian

INVOKING GANESHA..............................................................................................................45

Rene Schwiesow

SILVER BLOSSOMS..................................................................................................................45

Lainie Senechal

FROM STARS..............................................................................................................................46




IBBETSON 32




Bob Brooks
Philip E. Burnham, Jr.
Helen Marie Casey
Dennis Daly
Diana Der-Hovanessian
Jesse Mavro Diamond
David R. DiSarro
Elizabeth Doran
Cynthia Duda
Deborah Finkelstein
Linda M. Fischer
Peter Fulton
Timothy Gager
Ed Galing
Harris Gardner
Carol Hamilton
Elizabeth Hanson
Adria Holmes
Robert K. Johnson
Christine Kennedy
X.J. Kennedy   
Lawrence Kessenich
Joan Alice Wood Kimball 
Irene Koronas
John P. Kristofco
Miriam Levine
Lyn Lifshin
Ellaraine Lockie
Ben Mazer
Sandy McCord
Joyce Meyers
Jean Monahan 
Ruth O'Callaghan
Mark Pawlak
Simon Perchik
Emily Pineau
Joanne DeSimone Reynolds
Amelia Wilbur Riggs
Charles Sabukewicz
Lainie Senechal,
Judith Skillman
Wendell Smith
Bert Stern
Geeta Tewari
Teisha Twomey
Marty Walsh
Chris Warner
Afaa Michael Weaver
Sheryl White
Tom Yuill


IBBETSON 33


Molly Bennett

Louise Berliner

Barbara Bialick

Jessie Brown

Michael Brosnan

Michael Casey

Ruth C. Chad

Llyn Clague

Louisa Clerici

Diana Der-Hovanessian

Cornelius Eady

James Eret

Rhina P. Espaillat

Timothy Gager

Ed Galing

Brendan Galvin

Harris Gardner


Marc D. Goldfinger

Cleo Griffith

Mary E. Hampton

Bill Harney

Barbara Helfgott Hyett

Richard Hoffman





Robert K. Johnson



George Kalogeris

K. T. Landon

Kathleen Tibbetts

Lyn Lifshin

Marie-Elizabeth Mali

Stephen Malin


Jennifer Matthews

Michael Gillan Maxwell

Julianne Palumbo

Marilene Phipps-Kettlewell [

Marge Piercy

Denise Provost

Jason L. Roberts

Gayle Roby

Lainie Senechal

Steven Sher

Jared Smith

Wendell Smith

Laurie Soriano

Kathleen Spivack

Michael Todd Steffen

Paul Kareem Tayyar

Keith Tornheim

John T. Trigonis

Teisha Twomey

Jean Valentine

Molly Lynn Watt

Zvi A. Sesling
ISSUE 38




 

Interview with Gloria Mindock

Gloria Mindock is no novice to the world of the small press. Between 1984 and 1994 she was the editor of the “Boston Literary Review,”, and ran a poetry series “BLUR READS.” Gloria has had a couple of chapbooks of poetry published, and her work has appeared in a number of journals such as: PHOEBE, RIVER STYX, BIG HAMMER, etc…

For over 34 years she has been involved in theatre, acting in plays, opera and musicals, and has received grants from the Polaroid Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Mass. Cultural Council, and the Somerville Arts Council. I talked with Gloria on my Somerville Community Access TV Show: “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”

DSH: Gloria. I have called you a holy fool. Like all of us in the small press you put your own money and time into your enterprise with little compensation. Why do you do it?

GM: I love it. I love to give a voice to established and emerging writers. My main goal with the Cervena Barva Press is to bring writers’ work from other countries over here, because we have a lack of translations. My favorite writers come from Eastern Europe and South America. I just don’t see that type of style here.

DSH: You are an accomplished playwright, and poet. How do you define yourself?

GM: Right now as a poet. I am into political poetry. I pretty much retired from the stage. My interests have gone to writing.

DSH: Do you get anything out of writing that you didn’t get out of performing?

GM: That’s a hard question. I love performing. That’s my first love. There is nothing like that rush, that high…there is nothing like it. With writing my high is a little different. When I share my work at poetry readings it is really wonderful but different.

DSH: Can you talk about the beginnings of the “Boston Literary Review” and your involvement?


GM: It started in Somerville in 1984. The scene back then was not as strong as it is now. There were pockets of writers I think. I think it is stronger now. Everywhere you go there seems to be writers.

Gary Duehr and I started the “Boston Literary Review.” It lasted 10 years. It ceased publication because we went different directions in our life. It was a wonderful experience while it happened.

DSH: Any poets of note you published over the years?

GM: Eric Penkey, Gary Fincke, and William James Austin. Austin is very special to me. We are going to publish him to see how he changed…developed. He’s like my little baby (laughs). Don’t tell him that! He’s teaching at the State College in Farmingdale, N.Y.

DSH: In your collection “Oh, Angel,” and in your work in general, you deal with themes of death. Can you talk about that?

GM Death is a very heavy topic. I have always been fascinated about how different cultures handle death. Some cultures will let birds peck the corpses up. Others wrap the body up. Of course I have lost a lot of people close to me due to death.

DSH: Do you believe in an afterlife?

GM: I’d like to believe there is an afterlife. And I believe in angels. Just a peaceful afterlife is how I would like to think of it. I do believe in God. I have a very strong faith. I don’t go to church though.

DSH: So you are not into organized religion?

GM: I still consider myself a Catholic. I still love the ritual of the Catholic Church. I just don’t attend church.

DSH: Do you consider yourself a political poet?

GM: Yes. I write about the atrocities of the world. I have been working on poetry about the atrocities in El Salvador. When I was in college I worked with a priest with some refugees from El Salvador. That’s when I became very interested. I couldn’t stand what was going on there. The government would do things like hang body parts of dissenters from trees.

DSH: Do you think poetry can have a role in changing things?

GM: Definitely. I think people are listening to poetry more. Like George Held (whose chapbook we published) and people like him are making a difference. Even the simplest of poems can stimulate change. I think it is very important…writing of all sorts. We have to speak out.

DSH: You have a particular affinity with Eastern European writers. Are you a Slav yourself?

GM: I have a little Polish in me. That’s as far as it gets. The writing from Eastern Europe, which was under Communist rule for years, is amazing. The use of it, the way they put words together, the emotion. When I read their stuff I feel like I have a home. It makes me tick. I read everything I can. It is so different from what you get here in America.

DSH: How is it for a woman writer in the male dominated small press?

GM: I have had no problems.. Everyone has been very nice. Once-in- awhile, a writer will make me pull my hair out. That comes with the territory. I know how to stay professional. I don’t give in if I don’t want to. Maybe the big publishers have a problem with male dominated scene. In terms of getting help from other small press publishers—they have been very helpful.

DSH: Who have you been influenced by. Any role models?

GM: Definitely. Neruda. I just love him. My mother always painted, and poetry was always around me. I always had that artistic background. My dad taught 7th and 8th grade English. There are a lot of artists in my family. My sister is a musicologist. My parents are my biggest influence.

DSH: Are you in any particular school of poetry?

GM: No. It’s hard to classify me. Experimental? Sometimes really weird stuff. Maybe lyrical.

DSH: You have a wonderful online newsletter “Cervena Barva Press.” “Cervena Barva” publishing is another enterprise of yours. Can you talk about these?

GM: I wouldn’t have this newsletter if it wasn’t for my partner Bill. He works hard for me, doing all the HTML stuff. He also prints out our chaps. In the newsletter I like to list readings in the area and overseas. I always have interviews.

I also have a poetry postcard series, and we have published a number of chapbooks.

We have a feature “Lost Bookshelf,” that sells books online for writers. I want an outlet for writers to sell their books.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006


Boston Comedy Festival: Somerville’s Emily Singer Has A Few Zingers!

Doug Holder

While waiting in front of the Colonial Theatre in Boston for my companion for the evening; I watched the throngs of newly minted Emerson College students pass by with all their colorful, creative plumage, and sonic bursts of energy. On this crisp September evening I was going to catch the Boston Comedy Festival, at one of its many venues; in this case Dick’s Beantown Comedy Vault in the heart of the Theatre District. Somerville comedian and P.R. gal for Jimmy Tingle’s Off- Broadway Theatre Emily Singer and her cohorts were performing in this basement comedy bistro. Singer and the other performers for the night were trying to ferment a “Comedy Revolution,” the title of their gig.

The “Boston Comedy Festival” is now in its seventh year. Over 150 comics perform in dozens of venues. The festival draws stand-up, as well as national headlining talent from the region. At the close of the fest there is a comedy contest where comics compete for $10,000, and a chance to be seen by national scouts. Best of all the festival raises money for the Red Cross.

Performing this evening, other than Emily Singer, were Dylan Mandlshon, Jon Lincoln, Selena Coppock, Sarah Blodgett, Ted Pettingell, Jon Lincoln; plus a few unexpected guests.

The host John David worked the crowd with a very caustic wit, and used an unsuspecting girl at the front table as a sort of a whipping post for his barbed jokes. David is a well-oiled M.C., with a plethora of misogynist, racial and scatological material.

One thing can be said, David kept the crowd on their toes; and the talent was an engaging and amusing grab bag.

Our girl Emily Singer, played a low-key, slightly world-weary every woman, bringing humor to the banalities of the day to day. Singer bemoaned the state of men in her life. One boyfriend broke up with her in an email. She said, “I always knew he had problems with attachments.” Recently Singer said she ordered a boat online: “It came with free shipping.” Talking of the new Super Wal-Mart, Singer reflected: “They have everything. A florist, a restaurant, a university. I even got a degree; Phi Beta Crappa.” Unlike many of the other comedians Singer stayed away from the sexually explicit and bathroom levity, but effectively won over the crowd.

The other comics included a tall-drink-of-water from Toronto Dylan Mandlshon, who said he was brought up as a non-practicing Jew. He just thought his parents were “Cheap Catholics.” Ted Pettingell cast himself as the classic loser. He told the crowd that if he committed suicide his eulogy would read: “I can see why he did it.” Selena Coppock did a manic take on a vapid Weston party-hearty girl, and Jon Lincoln recited a litany of woes with the girls in his life. Sarah Blodgett talked about the lack of top shelf dating fodder in the underdog city of Worcester.

The show ended late and then the crowd moved to a reception upstairs. This evening provided a much needed dose of cheer on the eve of 9/11.

Doug Holder

Friday, September 01, 2006





The Other Side of Broadway. Selected Poems: 1965-2005. A.D. Winans. ( Presa s Press POBOX 792 Rockford, Michigan 49341) presapress@aol.com http://www.presapress.com/ $18.

I am very familiar with the work of A.D. Winans. I have interviewed him, reviewed his books, published a chap of his, argued with him, learned from him, and I am regularly in touch with him via the internet. A.D. Winans is a straight shooting son-of-a gun, a poet who has lived the life and walked the walk. Like Bukowski, Fox, Catlin, Lifshin, and to a lesser extent Galing, Winans has appeared in many of the small press magazines that have cropped up over the past several decades. The poet/laureate of San Francisco Jack Hirschman, writes (in his introduction to “The Other Side of Broadway…”) about Winans, and his fellow travelers Bukowski, Bob Kaufman and Jack Micheline:

“While the literary “Beats,” were becoming commercially and academically acceptable, those three remained luminaries to those who felt that the real poetry of These States had to be written within and about the nightmare of the American Dream. And even when Bukowski wrote himself out of his dirty paper bag and into a kind of commercial glory…there was still enough in him of street imagination for Winans to pay brotherly tribute.”

Winans is not politically correct, he doesn’t posture, he isn’t affected, and does not breathe rarefied air. He is a tough old bird and proud of it. He’s stingy with praise, so when he gives it to you, you really feel you have earned it. Now in his 70’s, he seems as passionate about his work as he ever was…maybe more so. Although I have read many of these poems before it is great to have them in one collection. Here you can look at Winans holistically; the whole corpus, so to speak.

My favorite section of the book is title “Cityscapes,” where he pays gritty homage to San Francisco, his home. In “City Poet” Winans captures the frenzy of a creative mind on its run savaging the city streets for food for its hungry and visceral art:

“Once addiction sets in
There is no stopping it
You become a serial killer
Attacking the keyboard at will
Your mind working in shifts
Strange creatures live inside your head
Show no mercy give no ground
Forcing your fingers to do their bidding
Writing down your thoughts in your
Loose-leaf notebook.”

In the “Poets and Poetry” section Winans takes on all the Bukowski mimics, and gets to the real core of their need, with the poem: “For All Those Kids Who Couldn’t Get Enough Of Bukowski.”

“These kids could never
Get enough of him
Not in books or magazines
Or on rare occasions in person
They wrote poems for and
About him
They bemoaned the fact that
He hadn’t been accepted
By the Academics
As if this were somehow
A liability
They flailed away
At the establishment
Supposedly on his behalf
But I suspect that getting
Their names in print
Had more than a little
To do with it…”

In a tribute to the late poet d.a. levy, Winans describes how hard it is to try to defeat the system, a theme the late poet tackled: “and we go on too/ like a tired tongue/ resting between the legs of a very bored woman…”

The other sections of the book are titled: “Women,” “Politics,” “Looking Back/Reflections,” “Jazz,” and “Family.”

Jack Hirschman writes of Winans:

“…his is a poetry of information in times of enormous barrages of misinformation and lies, a poetry of witness that records the widespread injustices of contemporary life in a language that is hard-edged, direct and driven by an honesty that insists it is more than honesty, is the moment’s truth, as he sees it.”

And boy does he see it, and he gives it right back to us; right between the eyes.

Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ Somerville, Mass. / Sept. 2006

This new anthology from the http://www.presapress.com/ was reviewed very favorably in the Small Press Review:

"This anthology is the Naked Poetry of our half century, but stronger, without the academic attempt to provide trivial definition to artistic form. It represents the diversity, power and anguish of avant-garde American poetry from the 60's onward, selected by the past editors of Ghost Dance, The Smith, and Pilot Press.... This book is a prime source. Generations to come will use it to learn how writing was lived before the mundane media-centric days of virtual reality. Their work is visceral and drawn from the pain of living, fighting for dignity, rather than pontificating. And working alone, speaking most frequently to each other in the small press, they created much of the muscular, nonlinear immediacy that today's MFA writing programs try to program."--Jared Smith

Contributors; Stanley Nelson, Hugh Fox, Kirby Congdon, Richard Kostelanetz, Lyn Lifshin, Harry Smith, Eric Greinke, John Keene, Lynne Savitt, A.D. Winans, Doug Holder, Mark Sonnenfeld, and Richard Morris.

Jared Smith:Jared Smith is too old and too contrary to be a Yale Younger Poet. His fourth book of poetry, Walking The Perimeters Of The Plate Glass Window Factory (Birch Brook Press, NY, 2002 ) drew a front cover review from Small Press Review and is still available from Birch Brook Press, Amazon, Baker & Taylor, etc. Other books included Keeping The Outlaw Alive ( Erie Street Press , Chicago, 1988;) Dark Wing ( Charred Norton Publishing , New York, 1984;) and Song Of The Blood ( The Smith Press , New York, 1983.)

He has been published hundreds of times in a wide number of literary journals and magazines over the past 25 years, including in Juice during the 1970s, along with its predecessor The White Elephant . His poems and essays have also appeared in The New York Quarterly, Kenyon Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, The Smith, Greenfield Review, Vagabond, Bitterroot, Poet Lore, Telephone , U.T. Review , Small Press Review, Bitter Oleander , and others. His work has been adapted to modern dance at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts , to stage in the Chicago area, and has been read on nationally syndicated National Public Radio programs. He is moderator of three national online literary forums starting up this spring and funded by The New York Quarterly at http://www.poetscraft.com/ . He is also Poetry Editor of Trail & Timberline , the official journal of The Colorado Mountain Club

Saturday, August 26, 2006


At The Wilderness House Literary Retreat: An Afternoon with Louisa Solano.

Aug. 2006.






picture by Gloria Mindock

From Right to left: Doug Holder, Louisa Solano, Beatriz Alba Del-Rio, Suzanne Owens.

Friday, August 25, 2006


Jasen Sousa: A Young Somerville writer who publishes poetry inspired by pain.

By Doug Holder.

Jasen Sousa, 24, born and bred in Somerville, Mass, is no stranger to the “mean streets.” He saw many of his peers succumb to the perils of drug addiction, and the dead ends that lie on the other-side-of-the- tracks. When Sousa was eighteen years old a friend of his committed suicide and he started to write poetry as a balm to the psychic pain he was experiencing. He wanted to write poetry about a part of Somerville that is distantly removed from the tony environs of Davis Square. He writes of gangs, violence, but also the search for identity and love.

To fund his fledgling poetry publishing enterprise “J -Rock Publishing,” Sousa worked long hours at a variety of jobs, and managed to save $2,000 for his first collection of poetry “Life& Weather.”

Sousa affects a Hip-Hop style of dress, but when he speaks he seems gentle, considerate and articulate. He told the News that he has been influenced by the late Hip-Hop artist Tupac Shakur, as well as Poe’s dark poetry. His poetry tends to rhyme, and is sometimes read in the cadence of a Rap song.

Sousa feels that kids need to see a poet and writer who “looks like them.” And indeed, Sousa has a boyish face that makes it easy for him to pass as a teen. From the revenues of sales from his four books; he takes several local kids to attend an annual poetry convention in Las Vegas. He said that at the convention his book sells extremely well. In fact, in four years he claims to have sold 5,000 copies of his first book; (convention sales and others), an amount that would make any small press publisher salivate over.

His poetry books include: “Life and Weather,” “Almost Forever,” and “Close Your Eyes and Dream With Me,” and are sold at Newbury Comics in Boston and Porter Square Books in Cambridge.

Sousa said he wrote the poems for his collection “Almost Home Free,” in cemeteries in and around Somerville and Boston. He needed the graves to inspire his writing about the losses he has experienced in his hardscrabble life.

Sousa says his family is as supportive as they can be, given that fact they are a traditional Portuguese clan, that are hesitant to talk about their problems and emotions in public, much less in a book. Sousa is an ambitious young man, and currently works three jobs, and is attending Emerson College in Boston. He just completed a course with the noted writer Matthew Pearl.

Sousa hopes that in the future he can create a large publishing concern that prints books for young people all over the world. Right now he is trying to compile an international anthology of children’s writing. According to Sousa he has taken a different path than many of his peers, and he hopes to bring his art to the greater world, but still with an eye on his roots in the ‘Ville.

Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update

To find out more about Jasen go to http://www.jrockpublishing.com/

Thursday, August 24, 2006


Evidence of Things Seen. Richard Wollman. ( The Sheep Meadow Press POBOX 1345 Riverdale-on-Hudson NY 10471)

Simmons College literature professor Richard Wollman in his new poetry collection: “Evidence Of Things Seen” writes of shucking clams, of Lester Young in a ruminating Paris, of a church that reflects the images of subverted and converted Jews, and he does it with elegiac and evocative language. In his poem “Pressure” Wollman describes his inept attempts to shuck clams. Here is a portrait of a poet who is just as shucked as his crustacean charges:

“but there was no remedy
for dull knife slips in the flesh
of my hand beneath the thumb
where I’d slice myself open
like an unprotected clam.
It was ruining my hands.
The boss knew I didn’t have
to do this for my living
and waited for me to quit,
baited me, making me stand
on the bar to clean the grease…

No one ever poured a drink
until I dragged myself back.
there, the only one who could
no longer smell the liquor
of the fish all over us.”

I have always been a fan of the “ Pres” and “Lady Day,”. In “Lester Young in Paris” we have a portrait of the “Pres” (Young), the famous jazz saxophonist, as deadens his pain, and his ghosts with booze and his art. In some respects the poem reads like a haunting, late night jazz composition:

“In the studio he wore felt slippers.
It was a way to live,

deaden the noise of fists,
the reedy wheeze of his breath

stolen one night in a white barracks.
And the squawk of hospital doors up north.

In curved brass, pain takes
the shape of song, the sense

variously drawn out. What can be made
of the low sounds

of men? He drank deep
until he finally drowned them.”

Recommended.

Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ Aug 2006

Tuesday, August 22, 2006


Helen Bar Lev: A Painter and Poet who is a Voice of Israel.

by Doug Holder





Helen Bar Lev was born in New York City in 1942, but has lived in Jerusalem for over 33 years. She is a well regarded and established artist, and has a world- wide following for her watercolor landscape paintings, especially of Jerusalem. She has been exhibited in London, Paris, New York and Israel. In addition Bar Lev has been commissioned to provide illustrations for books, and many prominent collectors and museums have obtained her artwork. But Bar Lev is not only a visual artist, she is an accomplished poet. She authored and illustrated a book of poems “Animals are Nature’s Poetry,”, and has written about the Holocaust and the emotional pain she experienced hearing about it as a child. She is currently the editor-in-chief of the “Voices Israel Anthology,” and is working on a book project with her partner, the poet John Michael Simon. I talked with both Bar Lev and Simon at the Zaftig Deli in Brookline over bagels and lox.

Doug Holder: Why did you move to Israel from New York?

Helen Bar Lev: I belong there. Everything about it speaks to me. The air, the scenery, the beauty. I studied at Cooper Union in NYC, but I was fed up with the New York scene. This was the time of the POP Art movement. It wasn’t me. I gave up and I studied anthropology. I just couldn’t do that type of art. The minute my foot hit the ground in Israel I knew I was meant to be there.

DH: You have written poetry about the Holocaust. You were a very small child in New York City at the time of the Holocaust. How did it affect you?

HL: I had dreams about it. I remember I was 10 years old and I was looking through a pictorial encyclopedia of the Holocaust. After that I started having nightmares about it.

DH: Did your family tell you about it?

HL: It seeped in. In one of the poems I write about seeing a newspaper in 1945 or 6, when they discovered the mass graves. When I was in Israel in 1959 they were still announcing on the radio” If so and so is still alive will you please contact so and so.”

DH: You lived with the writer Edward Whittemore, who was known for his use of “Magic Realism.” Was his writing an influence on yours?

HL: No. I would describe my style as realistic.

DH: Where do you get your inspiration for your poetry?

HL: When I stand in the shower, when I am walking. I hear the words. This is different from my painting of landscapes. Landscapes are a visual thing. Poetry excited me so much… it just happened.

DH: John how is it having a partner who is a fellow poet?

John Michael Simon: We constantly interact. We collaborated on a number of books. The most recent is a book of children’s rhymes. We also collaborated on a book based on Helen’s exhibits at the Jerusalem Zoo. (“Animals Are Nature’s Poetry). She drew portraits of animals in the zoo. It’s descriptive about the animals, their habitat, and the dangers of extinction. I translated the book. It is in Hebrew and English.

I am often influenced by something that Helen has written. It is always unexpected. I don’t know where it is going to go.

HL: Sometimes we use the same words and ideas…universal things.

JMS: When we wake up in the morning, she says: Have you written anything?” And she won’t do anything till she reads the poem I have written. And then I ask her if she has written anything. And that’s how we start the day.

DH: Do you do readings around Israel?

HL: We belong to “Voices Israel”, an English language poetry group. There are three meetings a month in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusaleum. It is the group in Haifa that we go to. We do readings there. But readings are not a priority with us. Recently, at the “Artist House,” I exhibited poems with my paintings. This was the first time I did that. You know poems that relate to nature.

DH: When did you start writing Poetry?

HL: Only three years ago. When John and I met, we fell in love…it just happened…the both of us...the poetry.

DH: So your poetry came out of love?

HL: Yes.

JMS: Helen has always been fascinated by writing. But she was never a writer herself. She is more on the artist side. When we met I told he I was a writer. Helen was under the impression I wrote novels or stories. Actually my background is as a technical writer. She asked me if I wrote anything besides technical stuff. I said I have written a few poems. So I read them to her. She liked them. She told me I should do more because they were good. At that stage we both started writing.

DH: You won a Reuben Rose Award?

JMS: The English Poets’ organization: “Voices Israel” runs a competition. Rueben Rose was one of the founders of the group. We always invite someone from overseas to judge. Last year it was a professor of Literature. I won the first prize. Both Helen and I have been published in anthologies and internet publications.

DH: Helen. Is poetry a compliment to your art?

HL: Poetry has overtaken my art. It’s a bit distressing. I have been painting for over thirty years now. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I sketch but I have done that for awhile. The poetry just flows. It is amazing at this age and stage in my life. All of a sudden you become something different from what you were.

DH: Are you going to publish anymore books?

HL: We want to publish some more books. Specifically poems about Israel. We are hoping to interest a publisher. I would like my paintings to illustrate the book.

DH: How did you guys get involved with the “Voices Israel” anthology?

HL: We published poems on their website. We were invited by the editor to contribute. Eventually he stepped down. I have experience editing books so I volunteered. I offered my services.

The first meeting of "Voices Israel” was in 1971. They publish an anthology annually. So they have

35 years of poetry.


To find more about Helen Bar Lev go to http://www.helenbarlev.com/

Monday, August 21, 2006


APART by Vanessa Kittle
Chapbook: 34 pages
Copyright, 2005
March St. Press
http://www.marchstreetpress.com/


The little backstory is this. Vanessa Kittle is still an intriguing new friend and fellow-writer who joined my Myspace page a few months ago. (Yes, I confess, from the epithet, “Internet whore” I became a “Myspace kid.”) I know some things about her: she lives on Long Island with a female partner and kitten, she’s a former lawyer and chef and she studied fiction and poetry, the latter which she feels a strong compulsion to create. In her picture -- also on the cover of APART – she has a kind of compelling wide-eyed mischievous fairy grin. She’s a kind of witch, I guess you would say, from a spiritualist sect called Magick. Long fascinated by female witches and those thusly accused, I’m automatically curious and drawn in. For as little as I know practically about these sects, I intuitively feel connected to the sense of autonomy, mystery and spiritual rituals such women nurture and generate. Maybe that’s why my 2nd CD’s called “Spell on You,” or why it’s always mattered to me that my birthday falls on St. Joan’s birthday and Epiphany, even why I had psychic voices, do yoga, long for the Priestess card in Tarot readings. It’s in my nature, I guess.

So I go to Vanessa’s website, Abramelin: A Journal of Poetry and Magick, and am struck by its governing principle, if you could call it that: It is an interesting and well-designed site with colored balls offering links from a tree of life. Symbolic and economical. One reads:

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” And underneath this tenet:
“Love is the Law, Love under Will.”

Well, without going into the figure of the Scarlet Woman or Nuit –even some of the Star Wars-like creatures that seem to be icons of her spiritual beliefs, I feel comfortable with those two assertions, especially the second. They are clearly pagan, in some way. But that is fine with me. So I come to expect something nature-oriented and maybe erotic about her work. Vanessa writes:

“My own poetry does not adhere to any school. It’s not academic. It’s not experimental. I guess I’d describe it as literary.”

While I agree with all this, I offered another description of her work as being concrete mysticism, and she seemed to like that description and to agree with it.

APART is an excellent title. It sets us up for a perspective that is outside the box, and perhaps describes Vanessa’s commitment to her beliefs. However, these poems are acutely and wonderfully about day to day moments – not proselytizing prescripts. In ”Snow Covers the Door” she writes:

“The boy is standing over me.
He smells like rotten orange juice.
He’s sitting on my bed,
but I am one of those people waiting
to be found by a big Saint Bernard dog
with a wooden bottle around its neck.”
p 2

This is a woman who is more comfortable with animals and wintertime than with crushing sociability or summer-heat. She writes in “Bug Sex”:

“I long for the silence of winter,
when all the bugs are dead
or the dry brown hills of California,
where there are few insects.”

Maybe it is that she is really an autumnal child, the time associated with the transition between hot and cold, the magic time of Halloween, the fracas of autumn leaves. In “Fall People” she writes:

“Rejoice my brothers and sisters
for there are long shadows
and deep colors.
Grin at your first purchase of hot cocoa.”

This love for the season of fall culminates in “Jack-o- Lantern” in which she frets over the disposal of a pumpkin who’s been turned into a spirit of the holiday and writes:

“The people who live here must be fearless against death.”

“Have we become that small?
Defeated? Prepackaged?
Safety checked for razors?
Who wants a mouthful of blood?
A brain dead halleluiah?
Are any of our people left alive,
Or are they all just fornicating
In sexy mouse-girl costumes
While drinking fruit flavored
Malt liquor and listening
To horror music compilations
chattering their teeth
about their 401ks
and the time of Bauhaus?
P 8-9
Some of my favorite poems in this collection interweave female mythology, angelic presences and rather more intricate imagery and language: “Debris,” “ Where a Lotus Grows,” and “The Difference between Seeing and Being” among them. For she is definitely capable of raising the pitch and switching the planes of her poems.

In “Confessions of a Chi Leech” she begins:

“If I don’t have an orgasm once a week
I turn into a neurotic wolf…”
And in a mad sarcastic humor the last stanza screams:
“This wolf doesn’t have no king.
This wolf needs no king!”

It’s a great come full-circle blusey self-affirming riff.

What strikes me as interesting too, is that for the female eroticism, there is a kind of restrained Puritanism that doesn’t go with mating out of pure lust all the time, or full-scale orgies. No, there is a kind of classical, wintry restraint. There is also a flouting of convention and humor in poems like “Cassandra in a Worn Out Threesome” about an Easter outing to the Ruby restaurant for cheese fries and bloody Marys.

“The guy called it a hedonist’s Easter but we didn’t go home and get naked.” she defends.

Or in “Breeders” – a poem about two mating crabs: “One acts the rooster, one acts the girlie girl even though she ain’t fifteen.” Ending with something that smacks of self-portrait, “And finally, a bitter lobster sits by herself dreaming of seagulls and low tide.”

This is not a bitter young woman, or witch, what have you. And there is a lot of majestic mystical power in her work….always cross-cuttting between the worldly and otherworldly. “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” Yes, it is evident in the life she is experiencing, a sensual and metaphysical affair with time and space. In “Postscript” the final poem of the book she throws some weight to the future-side:

We will return to life
in the dust of the last breath
of a broken star.
We will find ourselves
between the particles
revealed by a sun that sneaks
through the blinds
of a dark and stagnant house.
It will be late October
the last warmth. The moment
I call fools summer.
The sun will give us form.
It is R2D2 and we are Princess Leia.
But we are still lighter than air.

Or maybe we will remain empty.
And maybe it is all the same.

Thank you Vanessa for your alchemy, and vision, and verse. I am honored to have been able to share some of your poetry with others. Keep it going.

Reviewed by Lo Galluccio
For Ibbetson St. Press

Sunday, August 20, 2006


"Jim Morris and his Presidential Follies of 2006"
By Doug Holder


Somerville is a city with a lot of residents, but whenever I am at Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway Theatre, I am reminded that it still retains its small town charm. So it was no surprise before taking in the show: "Jim Morris and his Presidential Follies of 2006," that I ran into folks who were friends of both my landlord and a poet who I recently published. Jimmy Tingle himself was behind the bar in the lobby, cheerfully dispensing drinks…all was right with the world.
I have always been a fan of impressionists. From David Fry’s wonderful imitations of Dick Nixon to Rich Little’s right- on- the- money mimicry, I am a patron of that art. And Jim Morris doesn’t disappoint. Morris is possessed by his subjects; with his face twisted in their signature expressions, and his speech a right -on replica of their cadences and inflections.

Morris’ specialty is impressions of political figures. He started out locally with the hard r’s of former Mayor Kevin White, to the embarrassing speech impediment of an unfortunate substitute teacher of his youth. Morris is not afraid to get down and dirty. When tackling president Nixon, he imagined Nixon’s sexual encounter with his first lady. Nixon approaches this amorous liaison like a political hack. He tells her: " I would like at this time for you to remain perfectly still, as I caress those fleshy protuberances." Then Morris proceeds to have the audience hear a baritone Henry Kissinger in the midst of orgasm: Kissinger grunts "Oy!" Morris segue ways into Rod Serling of " The Twilight Zone" fame introducing a holier-than-thou Al Gore, as he pontificates about Global Warming.

Perhaps the largest segment of this show was devoted to our current president George Bush. Morris shows a true mastery of his subject. His rubbery face is actually transformed into a stunning Bush mask-- a mixture of frat boy arrogance and pre-senile befuddlement. Bush mangles words, and is unable to hold a thought. He talks of having "heart to tart" talks with his daughters, and threatens to close down their "ports of entry." In the Q and A session with the audience Bush was asked who would he support in 2008, he replied " A man named Marshal Law"

Bush’s imaginary slideshow drags at the end, but there was plenty of levity throughout the show. Morris will remind many of us of those classic impersonators on the Johnny Carson Show, Ed Sullivan, and the Jack Paar show. Check it out!

Doug Holder

Wednesday, August 16, 2006


New Orleans Suite by Peg Lauber
Marsh River Editions Chapbook
48 pages, 2006 $10. http://www.marshrivereditions.com
Review by Lo Galluccio http://www.logalluccio.com

Over the course of five or so years, writer Peg Lauber – practically a Wisconsin native, though born in Michigan – gives us her flow-chart of journeys north and south: her main destination., the misgiving and magical city of New Orleans. Like Demeter to her daughter’s Persephone, Peg is pulled into the seasonal work of a mad bird lover, a woman who raises non-migratory sandhill cranes. We see Meaghan with a wild sweet smile in a photo early on in this collection, holding a large feathered animal, who seems settled in her arms but somehow unwieldy and otherworldy. It is an appropriate image to introduce the book’s heart and soul. For in Meaghen --Peg’s own offspring-- lies something beyond the normal, something a little saintly, a little out of control.

“Finally turning east we see
New Orleans on the horizon
Where our daughter waits
To help us unload, get ready
For the Christmas party
At the place where she raises cranes,
Where I’ll wear my Christmas crane shirt.”
On Our Way: December 2001

Perhaps it is transference, but Peg –while her daughter is enraptured by her cranes – scans the landscape to behold many birds, the birds of winter and summer, the birds “of the intercoastal waterway.” And the birds are as variegated in temperment and look as they can be; sacred, scary, mystical creatures of flight. Some are trapped for their own good and fed cuts of fish-meat. Some are “Muscovy ducks gone wild/living on the golf course, steam rising from water traps early….p.2

There are many good poems in the New Orleans Suite, and I detect in Peg and her work, a love and trust for progressions, for sequences, for the simple plot of how we get from here to there. While the birds do dominate much of the book’s story, it is also a book about the city of New Orleans itself. In “The First Parade: Mardi Gras, January 2002”
she takes us from the start of the parade with its police and shriners, though the floats of “gigantic glitter” whose plastic medallions litter the streets in purple, red, gold and green, to the underside of the event; its aftermath:

“At the end march more police – policing convicts dressed in yellow, who scoop piles of garbage into trucks. “Strange parade…” the author comments. And, in the end, as with her Christmas crane shirt, and like the scavenger birds with less discriminating taste, she reaches into the dirt to find, “a plush toy, a red Tabasco bottle with arms: my treasure to remember in the northern summer.” P 5

Unlike Meaghan’s cranes, Peg is herself a migratory creature. In “Feeding Storks” she vividly describes the kind of butchery necessary to debone fish and cut the symbol of Christ, fish, for the birds. She writes”

“It’s a mean thing, taking apart large fish
who bleed as I do, but gleam as I don’t:
silver beauty, slippery bracelets, gigantic rings
but here just daily gifts for those large
ungainly, yet beautiful birds.” P 6

There are also more pedestrian poems concerning the humans around and how they come to bloody ends in the badlands of this City…

“Stray bullets are common in New Orleans, that other country
where almost every day
someone’s child gets in the way
of a bullet intended for someone else,
while someone’s child, in a drive by
shooting, celebrates the phallic power
in his hand, the money in his pocket,
the drugs in his bloodstream –
those, the only things that matter.”
“Coda: Other People’s Guns” p 13

And so, like the weather north to south, we are introduced to the polarity between the sacrifices made for the birds and the surrounding human territorial wars for money and drugs in New Orleans. Side by side these universes co-exist.

There are wonderous snapshots of different birds, as in “Night Bird” whose imagery is almost classical, pitched to opera: “The filthy night is laced with streaks of dawn/ like cream in tea/as the caged night bird stops shrieking./…..She works quietly and with a hard joy, tearing strips from the meat, suddenly bursting into shrieks that carry to the still shore, to the horizon, persisting, persisting, persisting…”

New Orleans is a town rife with holiday parades, history and murder. And Peg describes in her acute and elegant poems these spectacles close up; one can smell the muck, the oil, the blood, the incense. But it is also a City surrounded by these miraculous birds who are fed, and caged, and fretted over. This is the jewel-like secret of Peg’s journey as a writer and mother, shared with us in “New Orleans Suite.” We are treated to visions and flights of many degrees.

Recommended.

Lo Galluccio
Ibbetson St. Press

Tuesday, August 15, 2006


Jennifer Matthews--“Sunroom Sessions” Release and @ The Tir na nOg with her Talent September 10th
By Chiemi http://www.chiemimusic.com


Yes --after tours of England, Southern California, Alaska and other accolades and exciting appearances, the beloved Jennifer Matthews is coming September 10th to a venue near you! She is honoring her Somerville fans as part of the News Poetry and Music Series. Indeed, she is well-known and accomplished in both of those arts.
Since Matthews moved to Boston in 1998, her solo career has brought her icon status. She is a rocker with a Suzanne Vega-like toned down side. Also, her lyrics, whether published in books or albums, ring with an unrelenting realness.
This past June, Matthews released “The Sunroom Sessions” (Thundamoon Records 2006), her self-produced solo follow-up to last year’s “The Wheel.” It was recorded by Jerry Bates at Sunroom Studio in Norton, Mass., with Matthews on vocals, piano, baritone guitar, acoustic guitar and mandolin. Part of Matthew’s style is defined by her signature baritone electric guitar, with which she creates her own special funk and jazz. She also tunes in on her blue Martin.
“[J]ove” (no.1), begins the “Session” with virtual discordance artfully cast by Matthews as a chopping river of guitar over which her serene voice floats like a still sky. The last lines, “lost under the stars again” aptly describe where I am left at the close of this song. The layers of Matthews’s soft singing with Bates’s backing vocals and the underlying light thrumming instrumentation in “1000 miles” (no.2), enfold the listener in a marvelous, textured tapestry comprised of few choice strains of subtly colored feathers laid over one another. “[W]rote u a song” (no. 3) has a self-described catchy rhythm “to increase your heartbeat” coupled with folksy lyrics, while “gospel of love” (no. 4) and “revelation” (no. 7) soothe. “[F]loating” (no. 5) is ethereal and spooky, with a Middle Eastern flair, as Matthews describes longing, waiting and dreaming. The intricate slurs, crafted chords, grace notes and intense cries at the apex of “[D]ogs at the door” (no. 6) demonstrate Matthews’s vocal diversity and musical ingenuity. “[C]onfess” (no. 8), “them bones” (no. 9), “little sister” (no. 10), “[L]emon peels & tangerines” (no. 11) and “sweet as rain” (no. 12) are sighing lullabies. Matthew’s begins “trees in december” (no. 13) with haunting plucked tones and distributes thought-provoking phrases throughout, such as “there’s a wheelbarrow sitting with its heart wide open.” “[W]estern skyline” (no. 14) and “if I ever” (no. 15) gently round out this intimate and sometimes sweetly evanescent experience.
Matthews studied music at the University of Colorado in Boulder and at Denver's School of Music. She began her career as a solo artist while in Colorado, performing in local venues there. This experience led to several awards from the Rocky Mountain Music Association. She then toured Japan, Korea and Hawaii for three months and relocated to New York. "Beautiful Mud," the five-piece band Matthews started, separated after their well-received debut release and performing for several years in New York City.
In 2003, Matthews was nominated for a poetry award by the Cambridge Arts Council for her book of poetry released under Somerville's Ibbetson Street Press, Fairy Tales and Misdemeanors.
May of 2005 brought the release of "The Wheel" (Thundamoon Records )--recorded and mixed at Windham Studios in Vermont. Matthews and producer/engineer Brian Brown took the 13 song record to new levels by adding some electronica and loops to her roots rock sound. "The Wheel" reveals the mystic in Matthews and showcases her guitar talent.
The rest has been Matthews in continuous motion, including a publishing deal with ACM Records, Inc. For more on Matthews check out:

http://www.jennifermatthews.com.
Jennifer will be reading from her poetry Sept 12 2006 7PM at the Newton Free Library, along with Mark Pawlak, and Ifeanyi Menkiti.

Saturday, August 12, 2006


Modern Love. Andrew Scott. (Sunnyoutside POBOX 441429 Somerville, Ma. 02144 USA) $10 http://sunnyoutside.com/

“Modern Love’ by Andrew Scott is the second chapbook of fiction by the Somerville, Mass. small press “sunnyoutside.” As usual Dave McNamara has designed this book, and it is a handsome addition to his list of titles. The artwork in the book was done by Ed Herrera and the font for the text has been digitally interpreted by Robert Slemback. “Modern Love” is a short story about a young couple’s journey from the corn-fed Midwest to the brighter horizons of California. The couple is in search of a better life, but more accurately in search of themselves. The young man wants to make it as a rock band promoter, and his girlfriend Alice seems to be along for the ride. The story moves on in a predictable way: they meet a kindly old man in Tucson, and it ends with a not very profound psychological epiphany. The characters don’t seem sufficiently fleshed out, and the story sort of peters out. I think people in the music biz might find this novella a good read; as there are some amusing riffs on the music industry. Although the writing is competent, the story is not particularly compelling.

Doug Holder/Ibbetson Update/ Somerville, Mass. /Aug 2006
Irene Koronas: An inventive writer and experimental poet




Irene Koronas (left): With Bagel Bards: Doug Holder, Harris Gardner, and Linda Haviland Conte.




Irene Koronas, like many poets in the area, is a denizen of coffee shops. Some years ago we met at Breuger Bagels in Porter Square, Cambridge, Mass. the birthplace of the Ibbetson Street Press. Later Irene became the scribe for the weekly “Bagel Bards” meeting now held at the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square, Somerville, Mass. Irene is currently the poetry editor for the “Wilderness House Literary Review,” has numerous publication credits, and has read extensively in the area.

Koronas, who has been creating since age 12, said in an interview with Cambridge Alewife poetry editor Lo Galluccio , that she first explored language by reading and writing poetry, and eventually fell in love with Octavio Paz, Yannos Ritos, and others. Koronas is also a graduate of the Mass. College of Art, and uses her skills to produce her own handmade chapbooks. Her poetry is often accompanied by her art. Koronas is a self-described experimental poet, and she tries to contemplate the meaning, image and representation of symbols and words in all their infinite forms.

Doug Holder: You describe yourself as an experimental poet. Can you define that?

Irene Koronas: For me experimental means I like to play with words. I like to use words that I haven’t used myself. I want the reader to look up words and think about them. I’ve been thinking more about what I do. It feels like a grid… my poetry that is. I juxtapose words next to each other. Sometimes it is meaningless. But sometimes it means something. It’s like a painting or grid. The colors positioned next to each other—will change each other.

Doug Holder: Can talk about whom influences you.

Irene Koronas. I try to be my own person. I don’t want to be so heavily influenced by everyone else. My mother told me that I was the most gullible child she ever had. Now I am more confident about what I am doing—who I am—and the fact that I like to play. I like to think now. I never had time just to think before. I was always working and raising a family.

Doug Holder: What do you think about?

Irene koronas: I think about what words mean, and how to position them. Right now I don’t use punctuation.

Doug Holder: How has your “outside of the box” work been accepted in the poetry community?

Irene Koronas: It took awhile for some people to accept the way I am writing. I hang out with people who know what I am doing. But I can write narrative poetry—I have for many years. If I am reading somewhere I consider the audience. Even if poetry is experimental they can relate to the rhythm.

Doug Holder: You have talked to me about “ageism” in the poetry scene. You are a woman “of a certain age.” How have you been treated?

Irene Koronas: I will be 65 years old in September. I have gotten used to it. When I turned 60 I really noticed that I wasn’t getting the attention I got when I was younger. It was more physical than anything else. It is not as easy to get younger poets to listen to me. I am a moderator on an experimental poetry internet site. I had to put in my profile that I was a grandmother. I was getting a lot of email from very young experimental poets. I let it go for awhile because it was exciting being exposed to new ideas. It got so that it wasn’t real, so I stopped. It’s hard for some younger people to understand that older poets still experiment.

Doug Holder: You make beautiful handmade chapbooks. Can you talk about this?

Irene Koronas: I like to make things. I like the idea of hand making a book. I like to actually hold a book. Everything is about the computer these days. It’s easy for me. I like the sewing of the book…the texture. I don’t make books as often as I used to.

Doug Holder: Are you as interested in the look of the book as you are the content?

Irene Koronas: I am as interested in the look of the poem as I am in the content. I am interested in the look of the letters on the page—the whole thing.

Doug Holder: You are the “scribe” for the “Bagel Bards,” a group of poets and writers that meets at 9AM every Saturday at the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square, Somerville, Mass. You write a weekly column for the Bards. What does being a group “scribe” entail?

Irene Koronas: Part of my work as an experimental poet is to catch word or phrases on the subway, etc… So at the meetings I catch phrases and conversations and form an essay. Last week we talked about string Theory, prejudice in the 60’s, and then the Holocaust. So I started to think about a single word: “Madness”. I thought about its meaning. When I looked up the word in the dictionary it was defined as “enthusiastic.” That was confusing. So in my column “Word Catcher” I try to make my experimenting interesting.-- Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006


The Café Review. Summer 2006. (Yes books. 589 Congress St. Portland, Me. 04101) thecafereview@thecafereview.com) http://thecafereview.com $8.

From the city of Portland, Maine (a favorite haunt of mine) comes the well-regarded “The Café Review.” I had the privilege to meet the folks from the Review when I read with them at the “Grolier Poetry Reading Series” at Harvard University. In this issue they have a poem by Ed Sanders (of the “FUGS” and “Tales of Beatnik Glory” fame.) titled: “The Impeachment of George Bush-A World Wide Party.” This is a rollicking and humorous account of the reaction of the world in the wake of a Jr. Bush impeachment:

Today they impeached George Bush
And the world began to party.

Flowers bloomed spontaneously
Trombones cam out of attics by themselves
and began to play the celebration waltz…

Paul Bowles sent a water pipe from Tangier
to Corso, Ginsberg, and Orlovosky,
in room 27 of the Beat Hotel on Rue Git le Coeur
to celebrate the good news.

Cassandra stands on Pennsylvania Avenue
and weeps this time with surprise
because the world at last is listening to her words,
“Goodbye George, your house has fallen without ashes!

There is also fine work by Charles Ries, Dawn Potter, Diane Wakoski, and others. The journal also has a large BOOKS RECEIVED list, as well as artwork and reviews. Highly Recommended.

Ibbetson Update/ Doug Holder

Friday, August 04, 2006









Poet Ed Galing's wife has passed at age 89. Ed was married for 68 years. Ed Galing is a widely published and respected member of our poetry community. Send your condolences to: Ed Galing 3435 Mill Rd. Hatboro, PA. 19040 Ed does not have a computer. Ed sent me a poem "Gently Into The Night."

Here is an excerpt:

one month after she has left me to lie in the cemetery,
and the many friends and good relatives have disappeared
it's just me and her all over again,
and I tell you, she is not dead...

and today she and i are goingfor a long ride,
into the Pocono mountains,
she always liked that ride into hills and valleys;
and perhaps we will find a shady spot somewhere,
and talk about life and how lucky we are
to have each other.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006



Jean Trounstine: A Writer Who Has Braved Many Journeys.

Jean Trounstine is a writer who has taught in prison, survived cancer, has been in a long and successful marriage, and has had the good graces to write about it. Trounstine is a professor of Humanities at Middlesex Community College in Lowell, Mass., and she has worked extensively in the prison system directing inmates in theatrical productions including “The Merchant of Venice” at MCI / Framingham. This experience was the basis for her book “Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama In A Women’s Prison.” She is the co-author of “Finding A Voice: The Practice of Changing Lives Through Literature.” Most recently she co-edited the anthology “Why I Am Still Married.” ( Hudson Books)

Doug Holder: You have said that working in prisons has changed you. How?

Jean Trounstine: It’s a hard question but it’s a good one. I always say to my students just going into a prison changes you. You see something that you never imagined to be true. That is the way people are treated behind bars. You just never think about the way people are treated in prison. You never think about what happens to them in prison. At least I didn’t. The women I met behind bars were often wonderfully talented. They had stories and had situations in their lives that lead up to pretty good reasons why they were behind bars. I wanted to help them tell their stories, be it through theatre or writing. I was moved by their stories and I turned into an advocate for women in prison. I wanted to find out about them. A lot of people are behind bars for really lousy reasons. Women serve longer sentences than necessary to rehabilitate them. After a certain time prison becomes counterproductive.

DH: Why did you produce Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice”?

JT: I think Shakespeare is something that women in prison thought they couldn’t do. I think you have to make Shakespeare accessible. I think the stories of Shakespeare are incredibly dramatic and traumatic. They are the stories of these women’s’ lives. The questions they live with are in Shakespeare’s plays.

DH: Can you talk about the collection of poetry you penned “Almost Home Free,” that deals with your experience with cancer?

JT: I just had to write it. The writing happened to come out in poetry. When I looked back it wasn’t about illness; it was about family. Illness was a big way to get to questions like mortality. My perceptions of the world were intensified during my creative time. I saw the ironies of everything. Irony is what drove me to poetry. Someone once asked me when I was walking down the hall: “Is that your hair or a wig?” My perceptions of how we live and the way we speak to each other were intensified.

DH: Did cancer make you a better poet?
JT: Well…I tend not to write poetry unless I am driven to. That’s different than my other writing. There is something about poetry that gets to the core for me. I felt invincible up to this point. I was very healthy. My poems are about the fragility of life.

DH: In a poem you wrote “Language of Cancer” you deal with the arcane clinical jargon we use to describe the disease. Do you feel we have to get beyond the clinical language to get to the emotional core?

JT: When we try to connect with someone with cancer the language is a barrier to really connecting with the person. And that ‘s how it was for me. There is a lot of masking that goes on if you are not careful.

DH: You were a contributing editor to the anthology “Why I’M Still Married” with Karen Propp. Do you think this is a question that a lot of us ask ?

JT: I do. I’ve heard people say “I don’t ask that question because I adore my wife or husband, etc…” But for most people, especially for women, they ask that question. Women get sicker; men apparently do better in marriage. Each essay tackles something. Challenges to the marriage. We tried to get people to think deeply about marriage.

DH: Do you think we enter marriage with blinders on?

JT: Absolutely. It’s a tough thing marriage. But I think it is a good thing; it stretches us. I wasn’t able to meet the challenge of my first husband’s heart attack. But today if my husband had a heart attack I would be able to handle it.

DH: Why did you use women writers for this essay anthology?

JT: We wanted writers because we wanted well-written essays. I think there is diversity in the work, in terms of background, culture, age, etc… We did try to get men. We would get responses like; “I’m not brave enough to write this essay.” Our editor told us that men don’t read these types of things. It’s sad really. I think it is a good book for people who are getting married.

DH: Were there any surprises when you were editing this book?

JT: Open marriage was a surprise. It surprised me that I found myself pulling away from it. I didn’t like it. But then I came to understand it.

DH: How does your teaching fit with your writing?

JT: I love teaching. I feel very connected to it.

DH: Any future projects?

JT: A memoir of growing up German/Jewish in Ohio.

Doug Holder/Ibbetson Update

Feeding My Heart To The Wind: Selected Short Poems. 1999-2005 Michael Kriesel. $6. (http://www.sunnyoutside.com/ )


Dave McNamara, the founder of the Somerville independent press “sunnyoutside,” is not only an editor but a very serious designer of books. The look of the book is almost as important as the contents. McNamara writes of the design of “Feeding My Heart… “ The cover text was set by hand in Alternate Gothic No. 2, along with a linocut by Adrian Rodriquez…” And so on. But it’s all over my head.

However…these short poems by Kriesel are accessible, tightly written, economical and well-constructed. Kriesel, seems to have studied the short form and serves it to us on a fully fleshed plate. Here is an inspired little ditty “ Cabbage Moths.”

Walking
Past the garden

Startled
By confetti

Rising
Up


And in “American Haiku” I can’t but stop thinking about our debacle in Iraq:

Bull frogs
Stop
To ponder
That last
Cherry bomb


This is another tasty poetic morsel from the folks at “sunnyoutside”

Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ Aug 2006

Thursday, July 27, 2006


Chiemi: A Lawyer and Singer Songwriter who is “blessed.”


Ingrid Chiemi Schroffner, known by the moniker “Chiemi,” is a 30 something, lawyer/singer/songwriter, and journalist well-known on the Somerville music scene. A native of Hawaii, but a resident of Massachusetts since 1988, Chiemi, (meaning one who is blessed in Japanese), came here to attend college and she eventually earned her law degree from Boston College Law School. In a biographical statement she writes: “I like telling stories which stems in part, from my East/West heritage; work on folktales as an undergraduate, and I further carry it out in my daytime profession as an advocate.”

Chiemi hosts the monthly “Somerville News Music/Poetry Series” currently held at the Sherman Cafe in Union Square, Somerville. She also has a popular column in The Somerville News, titled “Chiemi’s Corner,” that reports on the music scene through incisive interviews and articles.

In 2005 Chiemi released the CD “Living On Two Coasts.” She has played in such Somerville watering holes as “The Burren,” “Toast,” “The Skybar,” and “PA’s Lounge.” I talked with her on my Somerville Community Access TV show “Poet to Poet/Writer to Writer.”


Doug Holder: “Chiemi” means “one who is blessed” in Japanese. Are you blessed?

Chiemi: I guess I can’t complain. I feel lucky to write for The Somerville News, and to host the “Somerville News Poetry Series.” I pen the “Chiemi’s corner” column for the News, and I post it on my website. So the people I interview or write about can send their articles to their friends, etc… “Chiemi’s Corner” deals with the Somerville music scene and the series, and the poets and musicians who populate this milieu. At the” Somerville News Poetry and Music Series” we will have performers and poets like Jennifer Matthews, Colleen Houlihan, Ross Goldberg, and others presenting. On Sept 10 the series will move to the Tir Na Nog in Union Square. I do feature articles on each person in the series. I get to learn about how they write, what their processes are, and what their composition and art are about.

DH: You are half Japanese and half German. You write songs about your mixed heritage. Are these two parts of you in conflict?

C: There is friction between East/West ways of thinking. I covered this in my undergraduate thesis concerning German and Japanese folktales, and how they shape identities through common genres. In the Western mindset there tends to be a focus on moving forward. In the Asian mindset there is a progression that is like a ball or sphere that expands. Asian thought is more about incorporating things as opposed to moving forward and discarding things. So this creates conflict. My mother was brought up in the circular way of thinking, while my father is German and much more pragmatic.

DH: What inspires you when you write lyrics?

C: Turns of phrases, conversations that I have, or that I hear. I like to think of songs as a continuum of thinking about ideas. My thoughts evolve…whether I am using the sea as a metaphor, or thinking about what it means to love someone.

DH: You are a lawyer as well as being a singer/songwriter. Does each of these feed the other?

C: I like to think of them as being related. I don’t like to have lack of continuity. It’s hard to be one way in one role and different in the other. It’s weird.

DH: Does your life as an artist affect your credibility as a lawyer?

C: I don’t tell my clients that I am a musician. People have this idea that musicians are flakes. I’m in family law, so it may be more acceptable to be a performer.

DH You were involved in the “Burren Project.” It revolved around the Burren Pub in Davis Square, Somerville. Can you talk about it?

C: I was involved with it in 2004. It was a fabulous project. It involved a compilation of the regular musicians that performed at the Burren open mic. We made a CD that was representative of a typical night bat the Burren.

DH: Your best friend from law school is the daughter of Ed Sanders. Sanders was a member of the group the FUGS and the author of “Tales of Beatnik Glory.” Did Sanders politically focused songs have any influence on you?

C: The fact that his group incorporated political ideas in their songs had an impact on me. I realized it wasn’t totally off-base to do that. I’ve met him, and he has a very interesting way of thinking. His daughter is now a very conservative lawyer.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006


POETICA:REFLECTIONS OF JEWISH THOUGHT, Publisher/Editor Michal Mahgerefteh,WWW.Poeticamagazine.com or Poetica, P.O.Box 11014, Norfolk, VA 23517.$14.00/year, $5.00/issue. July, 2006. Review by Hugh Fox. hughfoxy@aol.com

Given the current political context, when I started reading Poetica I expected something furious, agitated, militaryish, rebellious, but the main tone here is a kind of Jewish almost-Buddhism. Sometimes even Jewish-Buddhistic impressionism: "Morning fog unfurls, brushing Pacific cliffs.... Houses and cars must exist somewhere, but not in this world filled with soft silence. Dim shapes might be cypress or cedars, birds, butterflies or nothing. Hummingbirds may be hovering, lilies may be blooming, but I stand alone, wrapped in a tallit woven of lavendar, rosemary, sea mist and far away light." (Davi Walders, Mendocino Sabbath, p. 52)

Most of the time here Judaism here seems remote, nostalgic, something beautiful, held in high esteem...but very much in the past: "The old days were better; there is no doubt that we learned a lot from our Jewish parents who taught us the Jewish way of life..... ah, yes, those old days were so much better.... and no one can ever take them away from us. " ( pp. 55-56) " The pressures of the contemporary world seem to have taken over.Childhood was belief-time, the present is the absence of and the longing for a return of belief: Source of All Life, how long will I feel isolated and alone -- removed from all that is godly? How long will I be troubled and full of sadness? How long will everything seem to go against me? I want to believe in you, to know you are out there. Give me the courage to see clearly. Keep me from sinking into despair..... " (Psalm #13, Eva Miodownik Oppenheim, p.37)

All in all a very touching, meaningful, contemplative-philosophical review, nothing wasted or minor here, but all major confrontations with thePhilosophical-Mystical Reality of a Judaism out there that surrounds us, has us and we hope continues to surround us.

Hugh Fox/Ibbetson Update

Thursday, July 20, 2006


A.D. Winans reviews "Way, Way Off the Road" a memoir by Hugh Fox.

(Photo of: A.D. Winans.)


Way, Way Off The Road by Hugh Fox.
288 pages. Paperback. $l6.50
Ibbetson Street Press. Somerville, Massachusetts

I reluctantly agreed to review this book because Hugh Fox is a friend of mine, and perhaps more importantly because I’m mentioned in the book.

One of the back page blurbs says that Whitman in “Song of Myself only grazes the surfaces that Fox penetrates,” and goes on to say that Henry Miller “is demure compared to Fox.” Fox is no Whitman or Henry Miller. He is Fox, and that in it self should be enough without exaggerated hype.

I have known Fox for over thirty years and there is no denying that he has a certain charm and zaniness about him, which will no doubt appeal to many readers of the book. The book more or less begins with Fox (who was then a Professor of bonehead English at Michigan State University) discovering the works of Charles Bukowski (Hank) and learning that one can say in direct and clear language what academics clothe in words that all too often demand a trip to a dictionary. Fox pays Hank a visit and later writes a critical book on his work. Fox leaves the reader with the impression that Hank felt a certain kinship towards him. I knew and exchanged letters with Hank for eighteen years. Here is what Hank said in a letter to me about his meeting with Fox.

“Hugh Fox, as usual uses opportunity to advertise himself. That’s all right, if you have the talent to back up your words. Fox has traveled from universities in South America to here in the U.S. I went to his place one night. He taught at Loyola. “A Jew teaching at Loyola.” He took the money and hardly looked like he’d been living on tootsie rolls. If he ever took a physical beating, it must have been from his wife in the bedroom. Fox is a dreamer. He’s never known a physical beating. I looked at his face. He still hasn’t had one. I can tell by the way he writes.”

Pretty harsh stuff, but that was Hank. The book is filled with portraits (frequently unflattering) of friends, lovers and spouses of close friends Fox has met during his extensive travels. Some of the recollections are gems and others quite comical. We also get glimpses of the other side of Fox (Connie) who dresses up in black latex and walks the streets of San Francisco as a drag queen. Fox has said that he tells it like it is, but I know (or knew) many of the people in the book, and there are stories in the book that are reported as factual, which in fact are fiction.

A novelist can say what he or she wants to about a person while concealing there true identify under a pseudo name, but this is a memoir, and there are certain literary rules that apply to a memoir. The question that arises is a question of what is a memoir? It is by definition a means of expressing one’s memories. It is also an expression of one’s feelings. Its origin goes as far back as St. Augustine’s Confessions. Real life of course occurs on the streets and not on the pages of a book, which becomes the recalling of events in the author’s life. It is to be expected that not every event in the author’s life will be recalled with 100 % accuracy, but what is demanded of the author is that he not invent occurrences that did not happen, or embellish on them in such a way as to make the reporting of events more fiction than fact.
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Playing fast and loose with the truth is borderline dishonesty. The author also has an obligation to research his material.

On Page 37 Fox says this about Len Randolph: “Somehow he got to be head of CCLM (Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines), the National Endowment of the Arts’ agency for funding little magazines and small presses.” In fact, Randolph was the Literature Director of the NEA, and had no direct ties to CCLM.

Getting back to an author’s obligation to tell the truth. Let’s look at page 165, where Fox reports on a meeting with me at Vesuvio’s Bar in North Beach sometime in the late eighties or early nineties: “He walks in with a cane.” (I have never used a cane). He goes on to report that he asked me what happened to me, and I supposedly replied, “I was an orderly for years in this mental hospital. And finally one of the kooks got me. My back, you know.” The truth is that I have never worked at a mental hospital, was never an orderly, and do not have back problems. The only truth to the recollection is that I met him and Richard Morris at Vesuvio’s Bar. You begin to see where Fox plays fast and loose with events that took place during his travels. Then there is the “imaginary” ride across the Brooklyn Bridge where several COSMEP friends (including me) are engaged in what can only be described as a “juvenile” conversation over the merits of Hank’s writing. This fictional event never happened. Perhaps perfect subject matter for a novel, but not a memoir.

In another section of the book, he relates an incident that allegedly took place at a mutual friend’s home. I asked the person about this, and she wrote back and said she has no recollection of the event. If this were the only instance in the book, I might write it off as a lapse of memory, but there are too many other instances.

Fox devotes a long section in the book to Harry Smith, a poet friend, and one of the original founders of COSMEP. He talks in detail about Harry’s former wife (Marion) who at the time was dying from brain cancer. She later winds up in a nursing home with Harry described as taking up with a “controlling” woman who can’t get enough sex. Harry later marries the woman (Zerlina) whom Fox goes on to describe in extremely negative terms. Fox subsequently returns later to further slam Zerlina, with more unflattering words about Harry, who was at the time Fox’s closest friend. I believe these slams were made because Fox blames Zerlina for his (Fox) no longer being the number one person in Harry’s life. Fox sees himself as Mother Universe, with the rest of us a cast of characters revolving around him.

And here is where the problem lies. Putting aside the inaccurate portrayals of many events, we have to ask why Fox finds it necessary to demean people he calls his friends. Not only is he cruel to Harry Smith and his wife, but also to Blythe Ayne, who allowed Hugh to dress up and play the role of Connie at her San Francisco apartment. Fox’s own wife recently warned Fox not to visit Blyhe on his planned 2006 visit to the West Coast after what Fox’s wife termed the “horrible things” he said about Blythe in his book.



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Fox sees himself as being on the “outside” while revealing the “inside” of every person he comes into contact with. I admire his stamina and prolific output over the years, and I do believe he wants to be close to the people he claims he loves, but he has a strange way of showing it.

The book also suffers from loose editing, and is often disjointed and repetitive. A writer is responsible for sending out his best work and can’t rely on others to edit it for him. I found myself all too often grazing over passages as I headed towards the end of the book. Fox’s true talent (at least in this book) lies in his being “a character” and not a prose writer. He nails down the subject matter, but fails to put it all together in a coherent manner.

The book is aimed more towards the small press poet and writer who knew the old days Fox writes about. Days long gone! New readers not familiar with the time period fox writes about, and, not familiar with COSMEP, might find it of some interest.

A.D. Winans/ Ibbetson Update

Monday, July 17, 2006


IBBETSON STREET PRESS POETRY AWARD Deadline: Sept 15 2006


Every year at the The Somerville News Writers Festival http://www.somervillenewswritersfestival.com/ there is an award presented the: “Ibbetson Street Press Lifetime Achievement Award.” This year the festival will be held at “Jimmy Tingle’s Off -Broadway Theatre,” in Davis Square, Nov. 12. In addition, we have decided to present an “Ibbetson Street Press Poetry Award,” to be announced and presented the night of the festival. There will be one winner, and three honorable mentions. The contest is open to all poets in the state of Massachusetts. The winner will get $100, publication in the ‘Lyrical Somerville,” and in the literary journal: “Ibbetson Street,” as well as receiving a framed certificate. For the past three years “The Somerville News Writers Festival” has hosted such writers as : Sue Miller, Franz Wright, Lan Samantha Chang, Steve Almond, Robert Olen Butler and others, and is well-regarded in local literary circles. To Submit: send 3 to 5 poems with a brief bio to: ibbetsonpress@msn.com. Submission fee is $5. Or mail both poems and fee to: Ibbetson Press 25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143 http://www.ibbetsonpress.com

Friday, July 14, 2006

Big Men Speaking to Little Men by Philip Fried, Salmon Poetry,Cliffs of Moheer, Country Clare, Ireland. www.salmonpoetry.com.103 pages. 12.99 Eurodollars.

Review by Hugh Fox.

Let me start off with the title, Big Men Speaking to LittleMen. What Fried has done here is to take ALL-HISTORY, ALL-ART, ALLLITERATURE and somehow relate it to our Yankee-Gringo Here and Now. So get ready for a long swim in the ocean of World Culture. And because of Fried's larger cultural overview, his comments on the contemporary scene have a lot more impact and power. As in this poem Mauvaise Foiâ (Bad Faith):

"We are the tardy witnesses, but not the angels, of history. For us the grandeur is summoned and buttressed by a faith in facts,the losses religiously noted. We travelwith a bad conscience, as necessary as passport and money, a nagging ache,like a sensitive tooth the tongue worries.And everywhere we go the chairsworship in the empty cathedrals."(p.47)

He can't even get dressed without living through all-history:

"Naked I dream of clothing's prehistory, The hats that were given by gods to showMastery; a numinous aura, with plumes,Or crowns that were horns, and the long sleeves. Devised by the mountain folk who carried ,The lofty cold so close to their skin."(Getting Dressed, p.87)

In the midst of all this playgrounding around, though, there is a powerful message that contemporary Americans, by restricting and limiting themselves in terms of ALL-CULTURE, are losing all the refinements and extras that go with life on planet Earth and beyond:

"In a patina of green oxide with the world's heartbeat in his hair....the bodiless dance is always beginning...not even dust of our dust survivesthe death of worldsbut ecstasy,snippet in a teeming void,a curl of possibility,a tickling on the lip of Nothing....worlds are born with the lilt of a hair."(Dancing Shiva, p.28)

What you come away with after reading through Fried is that weare tiny, so lost in time and culture that we are barely here at all, and the only thing that makes any sense isn't any form of negativity, but an enthusiastic rushing into life/experience. It's amazing how Fried can take a golf-course image and turn into a sermon about cosmological existentialism:

"God comes along with the caddy cart and ah those charmed holes when the world is down to grapefruit size. I mean the whole juicy universe, no wonder our heavens are fitting better into the children's unborn pocket slater when one of them hands you a lovely marble it's hard with loss and inward with bubbles of constellations that tickle us as we lie on the greens supineon summer nights, a thoughtful bladeof grass in our teeth as we take in the bigness."
(Say It Happens, pp.60-61)
Not a book to browse through but meditate through like St.Augustine's Confessions.

Hugh Fox/Ibbetson Update/July 2006. Hugh Fox is the author of "Way, Way Off the Road"

Thursday, July 13, 2006


me thinks i see my father. Poems About Our Fathers. Glenn Cooper/ Michael Estabrook. ( Liquid Paper Press. PO BOX 4973 Austin, Texas. 78765. mestabrook@comcast.net $6.


Having just completed a poetry collection about my late father “Wrestling With My Father,” I was interested to read this poetry chap “me thinks I see my father” by Glenn Cooper and Michael Estabrook. In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” Hamlet utters the words: “ My father, methinks I see my father.” Just as the death of Hamlet’s father haunted Hamlet, death haunts these two poets.

Cooper’s late father seemed to be a hard man to love; with his flashes of anger, hard drinking, and fits of violence. And it seems that Cooper hasn’t escaped his father’s long shadow; a theme in his poem: “all right, dad, you win.”

incredibly, it won’t be so long
before I’ll be as old
as my father was
when he died. He may have been
an out of work, near-alcoholic
in the end, but at least he
had me and four other kids
to show for himself.
all I have is a large book and
record collection, incurable love
for a woman who doesn’t
love me back,
and these few
small,
Inadequate
words.

In many of Michael Estabrook’s poems there is regret on his part that he didn’t appreciate his dad enough when he was around. Estabook is haunted by his father while walking through Harvard Yard, pumping gas on a Saturday morning, or while nursing the wounds of his mid-life crisis. In “ December 2. 1999” Estabrook writes about his conversation with his brother concerning his father’s death.

“… But Todd and I,
like we do every year, talked about his being
Dad’s day; “ 36 years today. He’s been gone now
Longer than he was alive.” Yes I Know.”
We never used the word “dead”
when referring to Dad. Instead we say
he’s “gone” or “away” or something like that.

I’m not sure why, but I suspect
It’s because we really don’t consider him dead,
We can’t. We both know he’s alive still inside of us.

The physical bodies of our fathers die, but their spirit lingers on with their sons. Both poets resurrect their fathers and hopefully resurrect ours. Recommended.

Doug Holder/Ibbetson Update

Wednesday, July 12, 2006


Another Woman Who Looks Like Me. Poems by Lyn Lifshin. ( Black Sparrow Press David R. Godine, Publisher. POBOX 450 Jaffrey, NH. 03452
( http://www.blacksparrowbooks.com/ ) $19.

The famed Black Sparrow Press now owned by the venerable Boston-area publisher David R. Godine, has just released a collection by poet Lyn Lifshin: “Another Woman Who Looks Like Me.” Anyone who has had even minimal exposure to the small press knows Lifshin. Since the early 70’s she has graced the pages of poetry journals both obscure and prominent. I don’t think Lifshin can be grouped in any particular school. She has a unique voice that speaks to the independent woman, the carnal man, and the dutiful daughter. Her poetry is deeply personal, and peppered with beautiful, haunting and visceral images.

Leave it to Lifshin to weave a wonderful poem about hair. And in “I wear my hair long” there is so much more than hair there:

“to remember old boyfriends’
aunts making appointments,
telling stylist to cut it short.
in a flip. I wear my hair long
to protest against all the
shaved heads at Auschwitz,
against the threats of PhD
examiners to look more
professional and dignified.
I want it to smell of lilac wind,
want my old cat in its warmth.
I long to hang my hair out
windows to shy lovers…

My hair begs to be touched
caught in your fingers,
your teeth. It smells of lilies,
gardenias, some animal you
never want not near once
you’ve stroked it….” (59)

In the poem “The emptiness, Nancy says” Lifshin addresses the void we all seek to fill, and probably never will:

“most everyone
has it. You can’t
eat enough, hold
enough people
near you, can’t
drink or take
enough pills,
have enough
lovers and babies…” (178)

The poems in this collection cover the waterfront of Lifshin’s life. They deal with her childhood, her emerging sexuality, her relationship with her mother in her prime and decline, and everything in between. A quote on the back cover from the San Francisco Review of Books expertly sums up Lifshin:

“You might as well get used to it: Lifshin is here to stay. For me, she’s sexy. For women, she’s an archetype of gutsy independence. As a poet, she’s nobody but herself. Frightening prolific and utterly intense. One of a kind. Highly Recommended.

Ibbetson Update/ Doug Holder/ July 2006