Jan. 24 2006 : My Guests will be Lee Kidd and Jessa Lynne, founders of the "Squawk Coffeehouse" in Harvard Square.









Somerville News
On any given day, at the Sherman Cafe, in Union Square, you are bound to run into any number of poets, writers, and artists nursing their respective cups of java.
On this particular Saturday I ran into the former owner of House of Sarah Books in Inman Sq. and June Gross who co-wrote the play “The Dangers of Empathy.” But, who I was really waiting for was Lee Kidd and Jessa Lynne, of the “Squawk Coffeehouse,” a long-time venue of music, poetry and performance housed at the Harvard Epworth Methodist Church just outside Harvard Square.
Since 1988, the coffeehouse has presented such folks as the poet/writer Ed Sanders, the singer and 60’s activist John Sinclair, the jazz musician and Kerouac confidant David Amram, and a host of local poets and musicians. Their other brainchild is “Squawk Magazine” an art and poetry journal that they have put out with artist/poet Mick Cusimano and others. There are 57 issues of the print magazine, and now “Squawk” is solely online, but a new print run may be in the works.
Lee Kidd, one of the founders of the “Squawk” enterprise, is decidedly a Renaissance man. Since 1976, he has owned and operated a language school in Harvard Square that specializes in foreign language immersion. Kidd is not just a self-educated bohemian. He attended Harvard Divinity School; he is a Fulbright scholar, and has been published in “The New Yorker.”
Jessa Lynne has an equally fascinating background. Originally from the Milwaukee area; she moved here looking for a counterculture venue when she heard of the “Naked City,” an earlier incarnation of “Squawk,” which was located at the “Allston Mall” in Allston. “I was impressed with the warm and open environment,” she said. Since then, she has graced the stage at “Squawk.” She has performed skits, political satire, dance and other modes of expression.
Lynne works at Harvard, and also has a gig where she portrays historical figures like Susan B. Anthony, Emilia Earhart, and other notable women, at libraries and schools in the area. Kidd said that “Squawk” has changed a lot from 1988 to 2005. Before it was basically music and poetry, now there is anything from jugglers to book signings, he said. “We are more eclectic now. We have a coffeehouse consciousness, a mix of people from the homeless to Harvard professors,” he said. Kidd and Lynne are optimistic for the future of “Squawk.” Kidd said, “There will a great golden age of music and poetry in the third millennium, and we'll be part of it.” “Squawk” meets every Thursday night at 9 p.m. at the Harvard Epworth Methodist Church, 1555 Mass. Ave., Harvard Square, Cambridge. More information is available at www.angelfire.com/music/squawk.

Feb 14 2006 5PM : My guest will be
poet Sarah Hannah.


Sarah Hannah
sarahhannah@writersartists.net


Sarah Hannah received a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.F.A. from Columbia University. She is currently completing her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia University's Graduate School of the Arts and Sciences. Her poems have appeared in Parnassus, The Southern Review, Pivot, Barrow Street, Michigan Quarterly Review, Crab Orchard Review, Gulf Coast, and other journals. She was awarded a Governor's Fellowship for residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts for summer 2001 and 2002. The original manuscript which became Longing Distance was a semi-finalist for the Yale Younger Poets Prize in 2002.

Governor's Fellowship, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts
Davidoff Fellowship, Wesleyan Writers' Conference
Semi-finalist, Yale Younger Poets Prize, 2002

Sarah Hannah has taught creative writing and composition at Wesleyan University, Columbia University, the 92nd Street Y, and in private workshops in New York City.
She currently teaches a poetry workshop at the Makor Center of the 92nd Street Y.
AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) convention in Chicago, April 2004.


Longing Distance, Tupelo Press 2004.


This is an extremely moving work. I'm struck by her intelligence of emotion, and her unmistakable voice. These poems are at once determined, vulnerable, and fierce; she looks it all straight in the eye. Shadow and lover beware: these poems will fix you. Sarah Hannah is a true original. I love this book. —Annie Dillard

The distance of longing, the proximity of oblivion: the motives that animate these poems are the contours of perception in a mortal coil. Sarah Hannah is a physiologist of sight, devoutest scribe to the almost-seen, the intimated world, even, or especially, as that world is about to be lost. She is also a worker of wonders. See how, in her hands, the sonnet becomes an instrument of twenty-first-century meditation. See how the fish in the marketplace "in greens and ices swimming" suddenly brings to life again the "river lined with briars." —Linda Gregerson

Sarah Hannah's poems are subtly alive to the many ways the natural world interpenetrates and informs and interprets human experience. But what impresses me most about them is their engagement with language itself—words and the forms they assume—as the link between us and the circumambient universe. Her work says something at once new and very old, and something we badly need to hear. —James Olney

Jan 10 2006 5PM: My guest will be Tufts University Lecturer and poet Rebecca Kaiser Gibson. Gibson, a Somerville resident, has an eclectic background in the Arts, and she will talk about her creative life and energies.

Oberlin College, BA; Teachers College, Columbia University, MAT (Theatre); University of Pittsburgh, MA, (Theatre Directing); Boston University, MA (Creative Writing: Poetry)


Background

Major Awards:
MacDowell Colony, writing residency

rebecca.kaisergibson@tufts.edu

Poetry:Northwest Review, "Inside the Church" (forthcoming publication) Field, Number 70: “Global Warming”Northwest Review, XXXVIII-1: “Fever Passage” ”Mothering, No. 68: “When He Carried His Baby Across the Hall” Agni, 42: “The Loomfixer” The Boston Phoenix: “Sacrificial” The Boston Review, Volume XXI, Number 5: “Dunkin’ Donuts --Somerville, Mass.”The Antigonish Review, Number 93-94: “Lester and Martha” Fiction, Essays and Reviews:Pleiades, review of Anne Winters’ “The Displaced of Capital”Harvard Review, Number 17: “Of Paradise”Northwest Review, Vol 41, No. 3: "Why He Calls”Pleiades, 24:2: review of “The Unexpected Aviary” by L.R. Berger The Boston Book Review, Vol. 6, issue 2 “It Was Proper Form”: review of Martha Collins’ “Some Things Words Can Do.”Radio Broadcast:Radio for the Blind TIC, Marshfield, MA 2003

My guest Dec. 6 2005 will be poet and host of the Poet's Theatre at the Club Passim (Harvard Square), Richard Cambridge.

Interview
with
Richard Cambridge
by
Jessa Piaia
[excerpted from SQUAWKMagazine, Issue #46]
June 1991
Jessa: Richard, what poets have influenced you most?

Richard: Certainly everything in Elliot's poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred PruFrock," speaks to me how I feel as a poet. Written in rhyme and free verse, it's a combination that has always attracted me. I'm never quite happy in either form, and his was such a perfect blending. The poem itself just blew me away. I thought, "If I can write like that, that's a yardstick to measure myself against."
Leonard Cohen really opened me up the widest, through his songs, poetry, and novel, Beautiful Flowers. He has the ability of combining the sacred and the profane, by elevating the profane as to make it beautiful and holy. His theory of being an artist, a poet, a creative person was to be totally vulnerable, dwelling in this openness, allowing it to run through you, and then working it out from there. One of his sayings was, "Openness is our art form; spontaneity is genius." I said, "Okay, no matter what happens, I'm going to do this. No matter where it takes me, I'll follow it."
Also in Beautiful Flowers, Cohen defines a saint, not the old-Christian type, but a 20th century one. He says, "A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of LOVE. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. I do not think the saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an 'escaped ski.' His course is a caress of the hill; something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance." Just the whole notion of being an 'escaped ski,' like a ski run wild, wherever the curve of the mountain rut takes you is where you go. You're totally given over. This just blew me away!
More than other poets, Keats and Yeats both impressed me as poets who wrote from the inside out; they expressed the inner understanding and knowledge that comes when you've in touch with the truth of something, because you've identified internally and have become empathic, in a sense.

Jessa: What have been your sources of inspiration?Richard: Nature, relationship, political struggles, including the Native American movement, and the struggle of women expressed in my Halloween poem.

My poem, "The Life of a Man," is autobiographic. It details my passage of starting off as a poet, but then having to put down the pen, to participate in the fight for both civil rights and to end the war in Southeast Asia. The last line, "What is a twist of rhyme to a Black man doing time?" questions the significance of poetry if people are unjustly imprisoned or getting blown away in foreign countries in wars that we have no business participating in. I've always had that struggle of social conscience.

Jessa: Tell us more about your philosophy of poetry.

Richard: I think as artists we have to speak for our time and for what is eternal. All great art transcends its time, while speaking for its time. It's not a matter of tripping out to do a retro thing of sheer romanticism. We have to deal with the hard issues of the day: AIDS, the S & L mess, the Gulf War. The Gulf War was wrong; and all war, eternally, is wrong. That's our challenge and responsibility as artists, to be part of the greater community, to address our present reality, as we weave in timelessness to transcend the human condition. Bob Dylan approached this in his song, "Blowing in the Wind."

Nov. 1 2005 5PM: My guest will be Timothy Gager cofounder of
“The Somerville News Writers Festival”

Three years. In the world of literary ventures, venues, etc.... this can seem like a lifetime. Tim Gager and I started “The Somerville News Writers festival,” a few years ago, when “The Somerville News,” was undergoing big changes with new ownership and staffing. I asked Tim to join me in this venture because of his reputation for running an excellent reading series for fiction writers, “Dire Reader,” at the “ Out of the Blue Art Gallery,” in Cambridge. Since then Tim and I have presented poets and writers like Andre Dubus lll, Tom Perrotta, Jack Powers, Marc Goldfinger, Deborah Priestly, Robert K. Johnson, Steve Almond, and others, at the “Jimmy Tingle Theatre,” in Davis square.
To tell you the truth, I am surprised that we lasted this long. It takes a lot of work, and a cadre of loyal interns, not to mention money, to put on these literary gigs. There is always the clash of personalities and considerable egos, along with the attempts to attract an often indifferent media to contend with. But with the backing of “The Somerville News,” both owners and board of directors, we have presented what we believe is fitting for the impressive literary community Somerville has become.
This year, Nov. 13 2005, to be exact, we are moving to a larger space at the historic “Somerville Theatre,” in Davis Square. We will be housed in a 900 seat theatre, and have an impressive roster of readers. On board will be two Pulitzer Prize winners poet Franz Wright and novelist Robert Olen Butler. Louisa Solano, owner of the famed “Grolier Poetry Book Shop,” will be presented with the “Ibbetson Street Press Life Time Achievement Award,” and poets and writers such as Sue Miller (“The Good Mother”), Alex Beam (“Gracefully Insane”), Lan Samantha Chang, the new head of the “Iowa Writers Workshop,” Susie Davidson (“I Refused to Die...”), Steve Almond (“My Life in Heavy Metal”), Afaa Michael Weaver ( “These Hands I Know), Tim Gager (“Short Street), Hallie Ephron and Donald Davidoff ( “Delusion,”), will read from their impressive body of work.
The music will provided by that gifted poet/singer/ songwriter Jennifer Matthews. Matthews is a published poet, who has just released a critically acclaimed CD “The Wheel,” (Thunda Moon Records).
We are keeping the ticket prices low at $9, to make this an accessible festival. Both Tim and I feel strongly that the rich artistic milieu of Somerville, Mass. should have a festival that aspires for national recognition, but still stays true to its local roots.
*For info. About tickets contact

Nov. 29 2005: 5PM My guest will be poet Michael Brown.


Biography
Michael R. Brown

"the Jerry Garcia of performance poetry" --WBUR/NPR"ein Dichter und Weltenbummler" --Die Welt"rascal-artist-angel-wonder...at the same time" -- Paul Stokstad, "Poets at 8"
Along with Finnish performance poet Erkki Lappalainen, President of the International Organization of Performance Poets, Michael Brown, the organization's General Secretary, produced the first Poetry Olympics held October 1998 in Stockholm, Europe's Cultural Capital. Poets from twelve countries competed in four separate categories. Plans are underway for a larger Olympics during the next several years in another European country.
Michael Brown's first book of poetry, Falling Wallendas (Chicago: Tia Chucha, 1994) resulted from a performance piece presented around the USA for the previous three years. The point of view is that of someone who has lived a full life and finds it too easy to look back in comfortable memory and not too difficult to look ahead. Much of the political attitude stems from a quote from an old organizer, "The most radical thing you can have in America is a long memory." In 1995 Brown's new performance piece, Prof. Perfpo lectures on performing poetry, premiered at Passim's in Cambridge. Susquehanna, his new book-length poetry manuscript, presents persona poems from small town life. He is currently working on two more poetry books, one of which is The Martin Bormann Dog Care Book containing political poems.
Michael Brown's first published poem appeared in the premiere issue of Beyond Baroque in 1968. Over the past 30 years his poems have been in (among others) Amandla Ngewethu!, Another Chicago Magazine, Blue Cloud, Defined Providence, Galley Sail, Greenfield Review, Kudzu, Oyez, On the Bus, Pembroke, Red Brick Review, West Coast Poetry Review, and in Since Feeling Is First (Scott, Foresman, 1972), The Vagaries of Invention (Sidewinder, 1982) and Stray Bullets: Chicago Saloon Poets 1991 (Tia Chucha, 1992). He has also had travel articles in The Chicago Tribune, "Homage to Robert Hayden" in Commentary (1980), fiction in Wormwood, feature articles in The Chicago Reader, and occasional columns in The Korea Times.
An itinerant professor, Brown has been teaching for 39 years, including five years of high school and stints at Michigan, East Texas State, Central (Ohio) State, Western Michigan, Illinois-Chicago, the Uptown Chicago Center of Elmhurst and North Park, Roosevelt, Rhode Island, Suffolk, and his best-loved of all, Chicago State. Currently Professor of Communications at Mount Ida College, he teaches writing, Intercultural Communications, and English as a Second Language.
Brown holds a Ph.D. in English and Education from the University of Michigan. His dissertation, directed by Robert Hayden, was a literary history of the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. In 1986 and 1987 Brown taught at Suwon University in South Korea and traveled extensively in Asia. In 1988 he lectured on English as a second language at the National Normal University in Taipeh. In 1991 he lectured at the University of Stockholm on African American literature and performed his poetry at Kaffe 44. In 1998 he lectured on performance poetry at Hamburg University and performed in London, England; Halmstad, Umea and Stockholm, Sweden; Dusseldorf and Hamburg, Germany; Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Jerusalem.
Brown began doing slam and performance poetry when he returned from Korea. After honing his skills in the bars of Chicago, including the infamous Weeds, he and his wife brought competitive poetry to the Northeast. They co-hosted the Boston slam, and they were members of the 1993 National Championship team from Boston. Brown organized the 1992 International Poetry Slam Championships. He founded Slam! the International Performance Poetry Newsletter, official publication of the Poetry Olympics and the US national slam, and he is creator of for international poetry news. He has several times performed his poem "Chorus" as part of Beat Cafe, an original ballet choreographed by former Joffrey dancer Anthony Williams. He recently completed a play , The Duchess of York. He appeared in the documentary film SlamNation. He continues to write, teach, perform, plan, and dream.

Oct 11 2005: 5PM My guest will be storyteller Judah LeBlang.


Judah Leblang is a writer, teacher and storyteller based in Boston, MA. His written and audio pieces combine reflection, keen observation, and humor.

Oct 18, 2005 5PM: My guest will be poet Ifeanyi Menkiti

Born in Onitsha, Nigeria, Ifeanyi Menkiti first came to the United States to attend Pomona College from which he received his undergraduate degree. Later he went on to Columbia University and New York University for further studies. He received his Ph.D in Philosophy from Harvard University. He has taught Philosophy at Wellesley College for more than 30 years.


Ifeanyi Menkiti is the author of two previous collections of poetry, Affirmations (1971) and The Jubilation of Falling Bodies (1978). Other poems have appeared in journals and periodicals such as the Sewanee Review, Ploughshares, New Directions, New Letters, the Massachusetts Review. In addition, such other publications as the Evergreen Review, Stony Brook, Bitterroot, the Southwest Review, Chelsea and theAfrican journals Okike, Transition and Nigeria Magazine have also carried his work. In 1975, he was honored with a fellowship in poetry from Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities through the Artists Foundation, followed in 1978 by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Menkiti's poetry has also been aired on National Public Radio and he has given public readings in the New York City public schools under the auspices of the Academy of American Poets as well as for radio stations WBAI (NYC) and WGBH (Boston).
Ifeanyi Menkiti's new edition of poetry, Of Altair, the Bright Light has been published by Earthwinds Editions Spring 2005.

Dec 13 2005 5PM: My guest will be Tam Lin Neville.

Tam Lin Neville, (like myself) was born in New York City, but now after stints in Philadelphia, Indiana, China and Japan she has made the 'Ville her home. Neville's poetry has appeared in such respected journals as the American Poetry Review, The Massachusetts Review, Crazyhorse and others. She has worked as a creative writing teaching fellow at Butler University in Indianapolis, and her chapbook, "Dreaming in Chinese," won the Calypso Press' first chapbook competition in the Spring of 1995. Neville uses striking imagery from nature to illuminate personal intimacy and the intricacies of the soul. Her poems have been described as, "...profoundly original in their way of being moral, mysterious and intimate, all at once." Her most recent poetry collection is "Journey Cake," that deals with her experiences in China.

My guest Nov 8 2005 5PM will be Naomi F. Chase:

Author of three books of poetry, two nonfiction titles, numerous short stories, and articles for the The Village Voice, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, Naomi Feigelson Chase will be at Porter Square Books to read from her "novel in verse," Gittel, the Would-Be Messiah, which was nominated for the Turning Point Press Award of 2005. In 2003, she won the 2003 Flume Press Poetry Chapbook Award for One Blue Thread.

Sept 13- 5PM We will rebroadcast an interview with Hallie Ephron, and Doc. Donald Davidoff, the co-authors of the Peter Zak mystery series. They will both be reading at The Somerville News Writers Festival 3 Nov. 13 2005 7PM The Somerville Theatre Davis Sq. Somerville http://somervillenewswritersfestival.com

Sept 6 2005: Susie Davidson. We will rebroadcast an earlier interview with Davidson concerning her Holocaust compliation "I Refused to Die...." http://www.irefusedtodie.com

8/30 5PM Channel 3 SCAT: This will be a re-broadcast of an earlier interview with poet and singer/songwriter Jennifer Matthews. http://jennifermatthews.com Matthews has a new CD out "The Wheel," and she will be performing at "The Somerville News Writers Festival" Nov 13 2005 7PM at The Somerville Theatre. http://somervillenewswritersfestival.com

Sept 20 5PM: My guest will be Jim Kates, publisher of Zephyr Press of Brookline, Mass.

Zephyr Press, a non-profit arts and education 501(c)(3) organization, publishes literary titles that foster deeper understanding of cultures and languages.
Since its first forays into American poetry and prose in 1980, Zephyr has expanded its list to include a series of Russian and Slavic literature, and most recently an East Asian line of books. Zephyr has also initiated a collaborative venture with the series Adventures in Poetry—a small press with a thirty-year history.
To further our commitment to cross-cultural exchange, we organize bilingual readings, translation workshops in schools, and other educational and cultural events.

My guest on Sept 27 2005 5PM will be:

Aldo Tambellini was born in Syracuse, New York in 1930 and was taken to Italy at the age of eighteen months where he lived in Lucca (Tuscany), Italy. At the age of ten he was enrolled in the Scuola D’Arte, Augusto Passaglia and studied there until he was sixteen. His neighborhood was bombed during World War II (21 of his friends and neighbors died). In 1946, Aldo returned to the United States. For his artistic talents, he received a full scholarship to study Art at the University of Syracuse where he earned his B.F.A. in Painting in 1954. Subsequently, Aldo was awarded aTeaching Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame studying under World–renowned artist, Ivan Mastrovic graduating with a Master Degree in Sculpture in 1959. Aldo moved to New York City at the end of 1959. He was the founder of the artistic group called "Group Center", an active counter-culture movement organizing group exhibitions, anti-Vietnam demonstrations, multi-media events and collaborative performances. While interacting with other artists, Aldo continued to exhibit as a painter and a sculptor. He founded the Gate Theatre the only daily public theatre showing avant-garde independent filmmakers in New York City. He, also, co-founded with Otto Piene the Black Gate, a second theatre, which held live multi-media performances and installations. In the late ’60s he was a pioneer of the movement of alternative video (non-broadcast TV). Aldo won the International Grand Prix, Oberhausen Film Festival, 1969 for his "Black TV" now in a collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, where he held a One-Man Film Show. Recognition for his avant-garde work led Aldo to be in the First Video as Art Form Exhibition at Brandeis University Museum, Massachusetts and the First Video Art Gallery Show at Howard Wise Gallery, New York City. With Otto Piene, Aldo Tambellini created the first ever National Television Broadcast by Artists in 1968 in Cologne, Germany and participated in the First Broadcast by Video Artists on WBGH, Boston. For his media work, he was awarded several grants from the New York State Council of the Arts. From 1976-84, Aldo was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, he worked with Arts, Media and Communication conducting courses, workshops and participated in events in the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia. He organized a group called "Communicationsphere". His Media and Communication work was exhibited at the Bienale ‘83, Sao Paolo, Brazil and at the Sogetzu, Japan. Since 1984, his artistic activities have concentrated on writing and performing poetry in many venues in Massachusetts and Connecticut. In 1998 he founded and hosted a venue "The People’s Poetry" in Cambridge, MA. His poetry deals with the effect of technology on our lives, the issues of poverty, the alienation of humans in our society, the destructive aspect of war, and the neglect of the poor and the elderly. His vision has been described as "dark". Using a style that is sometimes tough, humorous, sarcastic, tragic and metaphorical most of his themes are contemporary and brutally raw. In contrast, Aldo is gentle and sensitive in his poems dedicated to children. He has performed his poetry with music; video projection; participated in many radio shows and countless poetry venues. Aldo was first published in the Syracuse University Literary Journal in 1952. Subsequently, he has been published in several journals and publications including "Center Poems", CAVS, MIT, "Black Rose Magazine", Boston, "Spare Change Newspaper", "Ibbetson Street Press", in the most recent book City of Poets, 18 Boston Voices , and in the Spring Issue 2002 of "Voices of Italian Americana" (VIA). These photos were taken by Anna Salamone(C) 2003, including, one with Daniela Gioseffi at the American Italian Roundtable Book Fair at Fordham University in New York City, December 2003.

Aug. 2 2005: My guest will be Susie Davidson, author of " I Refused to Die: Stories of Boston Area Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers Who Liberated The Concentration Camps of World War ll." ( Ibbetson 2005) "The words of Holocaust survivors and their liberators mark the end of an unspeakable world war and the beginning of new life for those who endured. Susie Davidson has done a remarkable job in capturing the depths of despair and the joys of salvation. The act of liberation will always be seared in the minds and hearts of those inside and outside the gates of the camps." Thomas G. Kelley, Secretary Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Veterans' Services “Sixty years ago, in the spring of 1945, Allied soldiers entered Nazi concentration camps and found evidence of an almost incomprehensible evil. But they also found survivors. In this volume, Susie Davidson gives us the testimony of both survivors and liberators: encounters between those who had defied death and those who had risked death in the same cause, to preserve human freedom and human dignity. We must honor them by carrying on their struggle to defend life, liberty, and justice for all persons.” Michael E. Capuano, Member of Congress "In writing this book, Susie Davidson is advancing the eternal message of the most significant event in Jewish history. In doing so, she is fulfilling a most important service to the entire community. The Holocaust was an essential element in the establishment of the State of Israel, which reserves an official national day for honoring its memory. Its lessons are the most profound and the most crucial in the creation of our modern Jewish identity. Susie's effort to document the story of these remarkable survivors and the brave soldiers who liberated the camps is to be supported and is greatly appreciated." Hillel Newman Consul of Israel to New England “’I Refused to Die’ provides Boston's Jewish community with a fitting testimony to mankind's darkest hour. It is overwhelming to read how each individual life was so brutally stripped bare. The author allows readers, who have neither the experience nor the language to truly understand such levels of horror, a chance to empathize with the unique plight of the victims.” Richard Ferrer Editor, The Jewish Advocate

July 12 2005 5PM: Joan Houlihan



Joan Houlihan is the director of the Concord Poetry Center, author of Hand-Held Executions, Poems & Essays and of the chapbook Our New and Smaller Lives. She is editor-in-chief of Perihelion, a nationally lauded poetry magazine, as well as the senior poetry editor of Del Sol Review, both published at webdelsol.com. She writes a column on contemporary poetry, Boston Comment, and she is staff reviewer for the Contemporary Poetry Review.
Ms. Houlihan's work has appeared or is forthcoming in many journals and magazines, including Boston Review, Harvard Review, The Gettysburg Review, Poetry International, Fulcrum, Passages North, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Arts, Gulf Coast, VOLT and is anthologized in the upcoming Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries (University of Iowa Press, December 2004). She has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

July 19 5PM My guest will be: Lois Ames. Ames is a poet, biographer and psychotherapist. Born in Boston,she graduated from Smith College,and from the University of Chicago with a Master of Arts degree in psychiatric social work. She has published many biographical essays on Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, including "A Biographical Note" in The Bell Tar (Harper & Row) and Anne Sexton: A Self Portrait in Letters (Houghton Mifflin). She has received, among other awards and citations, a gold medal from The University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration Alumni Association, "For Outstanding Achievements in Education & Human Welfare." She is Lectuter on Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

My guest will be Manson Kennedy, program director of the "Books of Hope"project.

With both an academic and fine arts education, from Harvard and the Kansas City Art Institute, Manson is a professional photographer and filmmaker. Since the 1960's, he has periodically taught and worked with college-level art students, penitentiary inmates, and inner-city youth.
For thirteen years, Mr. Kennedy was a trustee at the Catlin Gabel School in Oregon. He served on the board there in several capacities: as head of the recruitment committee; as a member of the executive committee; as vice president; as head of annual giving for the school; and as a member of a headmaster search committee. As part of an advisory team for the NAIS, he also evaluated boards of trustees at other independent schools in the Pacific Northwest.
As Program Manager, Manson helps to plan and coordinate the activities and curriculum for Books of Hope sessions and does the grantwriting for the BOH program. He designed the activities and curriculum for the sessions at Clarendon Hill Community Center and Mystic Learning Center. In 2004, he designed and managed a successful summer writing/performing program for Boston youth at the Strand Theater. He was recently invited to give a youth writing workshop at the Camile Cosby Girls’ Program at Harvard’s Judge Baker Children’s Center. He has been with BOH for four years.June 14 2005 5PM: "The Books of Hope" Project:

A joint program of the Somerville Arts Council and the Mystic Learning Center, Books of Hope (BOH) seeks to create opportunities for self-expression and advocacy through creative writing, so that young people can reach out to each other, to their neighbors, and to others around the world. This creative writing program for teens is held at the Mystic Learning Center. The BOH authors are involved in the publishing process from start to finish – from formulating an idea and writing and editing multiple drafts to publishing the book and selling the finished project. Since 1999, over fifty youth have produced over 75 books. Almost all authors have returned to publish again and again, some now working on their third and fourth books

April 26 2005 5PM: My guests will be Samuel J. Scott editor of "Spare Change News" http://www.homelessempowerment.org and Kate E. Bush, poetry editor.



The mission of Spare Change and the Homeless Empowerment Project (HEP) is to play a role in
ending homelessness in our community by providing income, skill development and self-advocacy opportunities to people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
While providing these opportunities we encourage all who participate in our programs to become involved in the governance of our community-led organization. It is our belief that people who are experiencing homelessness, when provided with encouragement and accessible opportunities for self-advancement, have the ability to create lasting and positive change for ourselves and our community.

May 10 2005 5PM: My guest will be poet Doug Worth. Worth has recently completed a poetry collection "Catch the Light." ( Higganum Hill Books) Worth's poetry has been published widely in periodicals and anthologies, and he has received a number of fellowships, grants and prizes, and has been profiled in "Who's Who in America," "Contemporary Authors," and the "International Who's Who in Poetry." Hailed by historian Howard Zinn as a "visionary dream-weaver of the future global tribe;" Worth is also the author of a young adult novella, and an illustrated children's book.

On Tuesday March 22 5PM : My guest will be: CHARLES COE. Charles Coe is a Coordinator for the Massachusetts Cultural Council'sOrganizational Support Program, overseeing the grant programs for music andliterature organizations. Before joining the Council, Charles was awardedthe council's Artists Fellowship in Poetry. Charles's work has beenpublished in numerous magazines, newspapers, anthologies and literaryreviews, such as the Boston Globe, Boston Phoenix, Atelier, The Journal ofModern Writing and Poesis."Picnic on the Moon," a volume of his poetry, has been published by LeapfrogPress of Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Charles is also featured on two spokenword CDs: "Get Ready for Boston," a collection of stories and songs aboutBoston neighborhoods, and "One Side of the River," an anthology of Cambridgeand Somerville poets including Robert Pinsky, Frank Bidart, Liam Rector andGail Mazur. In addition to poetry, Charles is a journalist and book reviewerHe is also a long-time activist with the National Writers Union, a laborunion that serves freelance writers. He has served on the union's NationalExecutive Board, is co-chair of the Boston Chapter Steering Committee, andco-founded the union's National Diversity Committee. In addition to his work as a writer, Charles has an extensive background asa jazz vocalist and has performed and recorded with numerous musicians inthe Boston area and throughout New England, including Stan Strickland,Semenya McCord and Avery Sharpe.

April 5 2005: 5PM SCAT : My guests will be June Gross and Viesia Novosielski. This mother and daughter team have written a book and a play "The Dangers of Empathy," that deals with a Gross' and Novosielski's experience with mental illness. Join me as I talk with these intriguing
Somerville artists. http://www.lipstickwarrior.com

March 8 2005-- My guest will be poets Harris Gardner and Lainie Senechal. Senechal is a published poet, and an accomplished painter with many exhibits to her credit. Gardner is a published poet, and founder of the "Tapestry of Voices" poetry venue, probably one of the most successful poetry organizations in the region. 5PM SCAT

Feb 22--My guest will be "Mothra" a video editor and Mass. College of Art film student, who is spearheading a drive to establish a "zine" library in Boston. 5PM Channel 3 SCAT.