Jan 9 2007 5PM My guest will be Nate Graziano.

Biography
I currently live in Manchester, New Hampshire with my beautiful wife Liz and two beautiful children, Paige and Owen. I teach writing at Pembroke Academy in Pembroke, New Hampshire.
In 2002, my first hardcover collection of fiction Frostbite was published by Green Bean Press. In October of 2003, my first full-length collection of poetry Not So Profound was also published by Green Bean Press. I'm the author of a number chapbooks and broadsides of poetry and fiction. In July, sunnyoutside will be publishing a new volume of poetry titled Honey, I'm Home.
I was born in 1975 and grew up in West Warwick, Rhode Island. I attended college at Plymouth State in New Hampshire, lived a year in Las Vegas, and have since been freezing my ass off here. I'm currently a part-time graduate student in the fiction writing program at the University of New Hampshire. For more information, read my books. They reveal a lot.
My work has been published by some of the following print journals, zines and organizations: Nerve Cowboy, Staplegun, The Black Bear Review, Way Station Magazine, Heeltap, The Owen Wister Review, Angelflesh, The Chiron Review, Unwound, Iodine, Poesy, Art:Mag, Blind Man's Rainbow, The Silt Reader, Heeltap, Gros Textes(Belgium), The Brobdingnagian Times(Ireland), Main Street Rag, Controlled Burn, Anthills, The Dublin Quarterly (Ireland) and Bottle 3.
Places To find my work on-line:http://www.sniffylinings.com/
http://www.thundersandwich.com/
http://www.the-hold.com/
www.openwidemagazine.co.uk/
http://www.myfavoritebullet.com/
http://www.remarkpoetry.net/
http://www.dublinquartlerly.com/

Jan 2 2007: 5PM My guest will be Somerville Poet Bert Stern:


Bert Stern was born in Buffalo, New York in 1930. He was educated at the University of Buffalo, Columbia,and at Indiana University, where he earned his Ph.D. in English.
Stern taught for forty years at Wabash College, where he is now Milligan Professor of English, Emeritus. He also taught from 1965-67 at the University of Thessaloniki and from 1984-85 at Peking University. He presently teaches in "Changing Life Through Literature," a program for men and women on probation.

His poems have been published in New Letters, The American Poetry Review, Indiana Review, Poetry, Spoon River Poetry Review, among others, and in a number of anthologies. His chapbook, Silk/The Ragpicker's Grandson, was published by Red Dust in 1998. His essays and reviews have appeared in Sewanee Review, Southern Review, Modern Language Review, The New Republic, Southern Review, Columbia Teachers’ College Record, Adirondack Life, and in a number of anthologies. His critical study, Wallace Stevens: Art of Uncertainty, was published by the University of Michigan Press in 1965

My guest Dec. 5 5PM will be Richard Wollman:

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.I t 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.

My Guest Nov 14 at 5PM will be poet Richard Moore:


Of Richard Moore's ten published volumes of poetry, one was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and another was a T. S. Eliot Prize finalist. He is also the author of a novel, The Investigator (Story Line Press, 1991), a collection of essays, The Rule That Liberates (University of South Dakota Press, 1994), and translations of Plautus' Captivi (in the Johns Hopkins University Complete Roman Drama in Translation series, 1995) and Euripedes' Hippolytus (in the Penn Greek Drama Series, U. of Pennsylvania, 1998). Moore's most recent poetry books include The Mouse Whole: An Epic (Negative Capability Press, 1996) and Pygmies and Pyramids (Orchises Press, 1998). His newest collection of poems, The Naked Scarecrow, was published by Truman State University Press, New Odyssey Editions, in the spring of 2000. He is listed in Who's Who In America, and articles on his work have appeared in The Dictionary Of Literary Biography and numerous newspapers and journals. His fiction, essays, and more than 500 of his poems, have been published in a great variety of magazines, including The New Yorker, Atlantic, Harper's, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, and The Nation. He has also published translations of poetry in German, French, and Italian. He gives frequent readings, lectures and dramatic performances in Boston, Washington, and other cities.

My Guest Oct 17 2006 5PM will be author and pilot Patrick Smith:


The 5X5 Interview: Patrick Smith, Ask The Pilot
Patrick Smith is sure one doggone aviator extraordinaire. In his "Ask the Pilot" column for Salon.com, he dispels common airline myths, explains the beauty of certain flight patterns, and tries to keep terrorist hysteria to a minimum. That's all well and good, but what about the mile-high club and how getting bumped to first-class simply ruins you for flying with the peons in steerage ever again? We asked the pilot these questions and more, and miraculously he answered without demanding security strip search us first.

Age: 38
Occupation: Patrick Smith is an erstwhile airline pilot and author of a popular weekly air travel column at Salon.com and a book author. Location: Somerville, Massachusetts, just outside Boston

1. The fan mail from your column: I bet you receive an inordinate amount from people wanting to discuss the "mile-high club." What would you like to say here to end this conversation once and for all (well, at least for me)?
That it's not worth the effort? Granted this is one of those for-the-sake-of-it thrills, but the novelty only goes so far. I mean, what could be a more erotic setting than the closet-sized lavatory of a jetliner, wedged between a chemical toilet and a filthy, napkin-clogged waste receptacle? But hey, knock yourself out.
That said, some airlines are installing lower-deck sleeping suites for premium class passengers. Those on Virgin Atlantic, I remember reading, will have full double beds and total privacy.
As for me I'll admit nothing, but, not for any reason, I'd like you to imagine three things: (1) A Swedish exchange student. (2) a four-seat Piper Cherokee (with no autopilot). (3) a lazy half-hour above the marshes and estuaries of Newburyport, Massachusetts.
2. Salon is rightfully proud of its independent-press status. Is it an ethical choice of yours to work for them or could you just as easily see yourself in an office in the towers of Conde Nast?
It's less a choice than an accidental fit. I'm a pretty liberal guy, politically, which lends itself nicely to Salon's leanings. Not sure how that happened; I grew up in a blue collar suburb and went to a Catholic high school. But during the mid-1980s, in my late teens, when most would-be pilots were enlisting for ROTC, I was hanging out in the hardcore punk rock scene, which, if you remember, was virulently leftist and anti-Reagan. Most of my ideological sensibilities probably owe to that period -- getting out of the suburbs and into the city.
But finding a home at Salon wasn't by design. I certainly don't *choose* to use credit cards to pay my rent, and a mainstream gig could make life a lot more comfortable.
I think (hope) Salon appreciates my ability to pull in readers from across the spectrum, at least when I stick to aviation's more nuts-and-bolts issues. You'd be surprised, though, how often ideology makes its way into a topic. As a general subject, air travel is seemingly apolitical -- at least the way others have covered it -- but there have been loads of partisan controversies: debates over security, racial profiling of passengers, cockpit guns and so forth. Some of my writing gets fairly provocative. Last winter, you might recall, a Christian pilot found himself in hot water after he evangelized to a planeload of people over the PA. So I went and looked at the way airlines around the world mix religion and flying. Those were two of my favorite columns.
3. I was once bumped up to first-class for a Virgin flight to the U.K. and I really don't know if I can fly in lesser accommodations again. The other half really does live quite a lot better. Can you dispel any of the wonderful feelings that remain from that flight, or is it really as good as it seemed for that one blissful trip?
You're screwed. There's no going back. It's funny though, your use of the phrase, "the other half." I used to have a girlfriend who was repulsed by the idea of separate classes on airplanes. Obviously she never had a sleeper seat on a 14-hour nonstop.
It's ironic, because while we whine about the worsening discomforts of economy class, things have never been more luxurious up front. (A sign of impending class warfare, my old friend would probably say.) Enclosed sleeper suites, 14-inch personal video screens, even a turndown service.
Now, don't confuse domestic first class with international. There's a world of difference, and carriers tailor their service to specific routes. Neither should you confuse most U.S. airlines with those overseas. The Asian and European carriers especially, have perfected the art of long-haul comfort. As I write in my book, the service levels aboard U.S. airlines aren't quite the laughing stock of the world, but it's something like that or well on its way. Singapore Airlines, perennial passenger service champ, hands out designer pajamas for each leg of your flight.
Even -- or especially -- in coach, the more prestigious foreign lines put U.S. standards to shame. I recently flew from Hong Kong to Bangkok aboard Emirates, the carrier of Dubai (United Arab Emirates), and it was fantastic. We had six-page menus, adjustable foot and head rests, personal videos, a crew that spoke 12 languages. In economy.
4. Columnists, whether they're sports or aviation columnists, usually have a much more well-rounded education/interest than just their column subject. How much of your other interests do you manage to slip into your column?
Whether I'm more cerebral or, as you say, "well-rounded" than other pilots is debatable, but it's always fun to venture off-topic, just to see who notices whatever reference you've chosen to slide in. Song lyrics, favorite authors or artists, and such. I love to travel, having been to fifty or so countries, and a few of my articles have veered almost into full-blown travelogues.
That's part of my schtick, though: I don't write about planes, I write about air travel. As a kid, it wasn't only flying, in and of itself, that infatuated me; rather the opportunities it presented. Aerobatics and fighter planes bored me, but I could spend hours studying the routes and timetables of the airlines. We've come to see flying as little more than an inconvenient means to an end, and I'm trying to reattach it to the greater realms of geography and culture -- not incidental to the journey, but part of it. In 2004 you can step aboard a plane in New York and fly nonstop to fucking Singapore! If that can't amaze and impress you, something's wrong.
5. How about word association? I say, "People who buy the dirty magazines at the airport newsstands are scary individuals." You say . . .
Only if they read them on board. Which brings up a possible and disturbing variation of the Mile High Club, above.

An adaptation of the columns, "Ask the Pilot," was recently published by Riverhead books. An index of Patrick's online articles can be viewed here. For more information on his book, check out Ask The Pilot.

My guest Oct 3 2006 5PM:
In Blind Spot, acclaimed local poet Eisenberg wrestles with the effort to break with the perceptions and behaviors dictated by one’s inherited place on the planet. The book includes a section of poems about the many hatreds of Eisenberg’s grandmother, poems which helped Susan to understand the impact of the truth her grandmother always hid about herself—that she was a refugee from the pogroms of Russia.

Co-sponsored by the Jewish Women’s Archive.

About Susan Eisenberg:Raised in a three-generation household in Cleveland, Susan Eisenberg lives in Boston. She is the author of the poetry book, Pioneering (1998), and the nonfiction book, We’ll Call You If We Need You: Experiences of Women Working Construction (1998), which was selected as a New York Times Book Review Notable Book and optioned by MGM for a feature film. Licensed as a master electrician, she helped shape the cultural expression and analytical thinking of the tradeswomen’s movement nationally and internationally. Currently she is developing Permanent Care, a photo-based exploration of the relationship of the chronically ill to medication. She travels widely as a poet and lecturer; and teaches at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

My guest Sept 12 at 5PM will be poet Cheryl Perreault

Hopkinton poet plays as ‘Artist for Alzheimer’s’

Hopkinton resident and poet Cheryl Perreault's recently performed for "Artists for Alzheimer’s," a non-profit organization that brings together volunteer artists and people with Alzheimer’s and related forms of dementia.

Perreault’s performance was at Hearthstone, an assisted living residence for people with Alzheimer’s disease, located at 50 West Main Street in Hopkinton.
Perreault read from many of her works, while accompanied on guitar by longtime collaborator Steve Rapson.

The spoken words of Perreault’s poetry, along with the melodies provided by Rapson, helped create a strong emotional connection with the audience. Perreault and Rapson introduced many works from their CD, entitled "On Ants, Sandwiches and The Meaning of It All." Carol Cahill of Hearthstone, who helped coordinate the event, had much praise for the performance. "This performance was a truly uplifting experience for everyone involved," said Cahill. "The responses and reactions by those in attendance was something to behold. Tears came to my eyes on more than one occasion."

Perreault and Rapson were presented with an award at the conclusion of their performance, which recognized their contribution to enhancing the cultural life of people living with Alzheimer’s disease. For more information on the artistry of Cheryl Perreault, and to learn about her CD, she has a website at http://www.CherylPerreault.com. For more information on "Artists for Alzheimer’s," visit their website at www.ArtistsForAlzheimers.org.

Sept 5. 5PM My guest will be Gloria Mindock, founder of the Cervena Barva Press in Somerville, Mass.

Gloria Mindock
Between 1984-1994, I was Editor of the BOSTON LITERARY REVIEW/BluR, Co-founder of THEATRE S. and S. PRESS INC., and ran a poetry reading series called, BluR Reads. S. PRESS published a chapbook of my poems called, DOPPELGANGER, in 1992. Its poems were a text of a theatre piece of the same name performed by THEATRE S. A review by STAGES stated I took great liberties with Poe and "captured the romantic desperation of "William Wilson," a tale of self-destructive double-identity."
I have been published in numerous journals including PHOEBE, RIVER STYX, POET LORE, FIRE, and BLACKBOX with poems forthcoming in BIG HAMMER, BOGG, and UNU Revista de Cultura in Romania with translations by Flavia Cosma. I have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was awarded a Massachusetts Council Poetry Fellowship distributed by The Somerville Arts Council.Oh Angel, a chapbook, was published in January, 2006 and Nothing Divine Here is forthcoming.Both published by U ŠOKU ŠTAMPA publications.
For over 34 years, I have been involved in all aspects of the theatre, acting in plays, operas and musicals, writing text for original plays as well as music compositions. My favorite was writing the music for an adaptation of GILGAMESH, in which I sang 72 sections a capella.
My solo multi-media performance art pieces include, "BIG BOMB BUICKS, WHERE DID ALL THOSE BIRDS AND DOGS COME FROM?, I WISH FRANCISCO FRANCO WOULD LOVE ME, and SKIN CELLS, MAGGOTS, AND OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST."
While THEATRE S. was in existence, many grants were awarded to the theatre from The Polaroid Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Globe Foundation, New England For the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and The Somerville Arts Council.
Support ?ervená Barva Press

Aug 15 5PM My guest will be Danielle Legros Georges.


Danielle Legros Georges was born in Haiti and raised in the U.S. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines, including The American Poetry Review,and her work is widely anthologized. Her many awards for writing include a LEF Foundation Fellowship; and a MacDowell Fellowship. Maroon is her first book-length publication. She is on the faculty at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass.

Aug 1 5PM My guest will be Bagel Bard Scribe, Wilderness House Literary Review Poetry editor, and artist: Irene Koronas.

Irene Koronas and the SPIRITUAL POWER OF ZERO
by Lo Galluccio
Experimental poet and painter Irene Koronas based in Cambridge began creating when she was 12-years-old.
She explored language by reading and writing poetry and eventually fell in love with Octavio Paz, Cavafy and Yannos Ritsos.
Her Orthodox Greek heritage led her to be inspired by these poets as opposed to many confessional American poets.
Her latest creative exploration Project Zero, has led her to contemplate the meaning, image and representation of zero in all its many forms.
You will find paper reinforcements in some of her artwork because they are, after all, little sticky zeros. The title painting of her exhibition up at the O’Neill branch of the public library this month is titled 1 with 0=10-0_1 full circle.
Looking for zero, word combinations (o)
Wording zero’s representation, round soundVoid of biology, creator of chaos. Who belongsOpen? O differentiation from others. O only aloneAllows alone. O look you fools collapse
So broken so whole so smooth, so longSo propitious to soothe to group to blockCombinations; odd one equation annoys power;Old power oppositions. Zero uncovers
Look how wantonly, look you opposites,come, come. One, one good to twoZero zero plus two, no additionOnly zero operates somehow out of thought,subtraction. Others also born from cosmos,from reason, from axiom of you.
And Project Zero is not the first time Koronas has looked at numbers for their spiritual and artistic value. Her father made lists of numbers –pages and pages- before going to the dogtracks to bet and her Aunt was a compulsive scratch ticket gambler.
For Irene the numbers have a mystical meaning, for instance 1+ 2 = 3, is like the trinity. Her cubist paintings could compare with Eucharistic bread, broken into pieces but always whole.
Indeed her paintings --which relate to her poems like abstract correspondences-- are usually made on a grid composed of squares, which like eyes have images (or pupils) at the center.
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In the poem 12 cubes, printed below, she said, “The idea for this poem came from a painting done in a 12 cube grid. The words are not confined within the cubes but the cubes allow the images to co-exist. Unlike formalist writings and the use of a single subject; theme; I imagine the many and the varied images from the many sources. So each image compliments the other in and only in the fact that it is an image. The words paint an image. The image holds the words.”
12 cubes
everything’s wild on the way, in theway it is explained, i discover eightcubes from the 12 cubes painted. Nakedas opposed to nude, i witness yourleaps off the page, fifteen months toolate. Setting shutter speed, flexible andgetting paid for the method lovers tonein early morning. please sit, gatherliquid appropriately then clap. all sky,all video stores so red, no concept iscomplimented, it is blurry around myneck. I understand your concise cheer,red lines. Both round houses aremetaphysical, probably just adjustingwith ease with passing through. whatwill you inherit? the holes wornbackwards? dark night or day, standingby fountains fulfilling wishes? i dreamhow to button-hole memory: run staplesuntil an ostrich with no arms, a doorthat opens on explanations as conceit listens, tacks their thumbs; that’s whathappens in triangles. my brother wasthere he was orange he put himself inboxes to preserve our mothers for wesoak them in rain, in the end there by arope called victor, for grass in august islovely, sometimes an embarassment.have you transcended, thrown nerve upfrom tooth, given a ram one morechance to decode the seven purpleswamps. please, mothers, propel usthrough clouds, understanding our needto break even; hawks folding space, long corners into square houses
That poem relates to a painting in her upcoming exhibit, and is taken from a handmade chapbook called, “species.”
It’s full title comes from a definition found in a 1947 dictionary that Irene likes to use in order to find archaic meanings.
7. obsolete: specie.
{latin species seeing,appearance, likeness, aparticular sort, kind,species, from specere,to look at}
She said, “Forming a grid becomes a spiritual exercise, a discipline, a daily stance of commitment to my own definitions of what it means to be part of a species; historically I bring myself to myself each and every day. The becoming is within each square and each square represents that becoming.”
The maker of many one-of-a-kind handmade books, Irene Koronas also suggests that the musicality of her poems comes from her Orthodox Christian heritage where almost all the liturgy is sung.
“This is my history. It is as important to hear the poem as to read it,” she said.
Her watercolor paintings exhibit will be on display at the O’Neill Branch of the Public Library in Cambridge, 70 Rindge Ave., for the rest of January.
She is an exciting, experimental artist who is still dedicated to evolving

July 25 5PM My Guest will be Jean Trounstine:


"I am a professor of humanities at Middlesex Community College in Lowell Massachusetts, and I specialize in writing, literature and theatre courses. I am never bored! I became a writer because of needing to write about working in prison. I needed to tell stories of the amazing women behind bars. At Framingham Women's Prison in Massachusetts, I directed eight productions, including THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. Drawing from music history, women's history, art, literature and drama, the program eventually earned college credit and was nominated for a prestigious Schwartz Award, considered by the Mass Foundation for Humanities as the most successful project funded in 1988. It is the basis of my first book SHAKESPEARE BEHIND BARS: THE POWER OF DRAMA IN A WOMEN'S PRISON, published by St. Martin's Press, 2001. Prison work changed me, and I've written many articles about teaching offenders and been featured on The Today Show, All Things Considered-NPR, and The Connection. I co-edited an anthology of writings used in the Changing Lives Through Literature Program, published by Notre Dame Press, a program I helped to establish for women in Massachusetts (see cltl.umassd.com), where criminals are sentenced to a literature seminar and probation instead of jail. Because of that work, I also coauthored FINDING A VOICE: THE PRACTICE OF CHANGING LIVES THROUGH LITERATURE, published by the University of Michigan Press (which also recently published the paperback of SBB). My first collection of poetry, ALMOST HOME FREE, a collection of poetry about the journey of cancer -- I'm a survivor -- was published by Pecan Grove Press in 2003 and received enthusiastically.Most recently I've co-edited a book with Karen Propp, WHY I'M STILL MARRIED, published by Hudson Street Press, an imprint of Penguin, 2006. Essayists include a slew of great writers! I live more happily than not with my husband in Massachusetts. "

July 18 5PM my guest will be Chiemi:

Chiemi is a singer, songwriter and performer in the Boston-area, and welcomes you to see her perform, download her music or buy her CDs, and enjoy her work.


Chiemi was born Ingrid Chiemi Schroffner on Halloween 1970 in Honolulu. Her Japanese middle name means blessed one. Chiemi was the reigning Miss Teen of Hawaii in 1987-88. As a 'teen queen', she performed, singing and dancing for and at many charitable functions and fundraisers. In 1988, Chiemi conducted her Punahou High School graduating class of over 400 to perform a rendition in four-part harmony of her first written piece, "Steps to Find." While a soloist and member of the 150 person Boston College Chorale under the direction of the late liturgical music composer Dr. C. Alexander Peloquin, Chiemi was graced with the part of the female angel in Haydn's "The Heavens Are Telling," which she performed with the Chorale in a special audience with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in Rome. While in graduate school, Chiemi was a soloist and member of "The Wand'ring Mistrials," an acapella singing group covering various pop tunes for charitable and graduate student events. Chiemi's musical influences are Joan Baez, Suzanne Vega and Annie Lennox. She enjoys micing at The Burren for the experienced and interesting people she has met to learn from—so much friendly talent! She thanks God for giving her a voice and sends much Aloha to her family and friends for their love and support, especially to her husband, Josh...

View the new Chiemi Montage video here.

June 13 5PM My guest will be Patricia Brodie. Brodie is a poet with a new collection out: "The American Wives Club" ( Ibbetson, 2006) Here are some comments about her work:




Patricia Brodie's poetic knife is well honed as she pares down to theessence of what it means to be mother/wife/lover/friend/careerwoman/expatriate in today's world. She skillfully carves words intowell-crafted pieces to complete a work that both genders will want to viewagain and again. ‹Ellaraine Lockie, poet, nonfiction author, educator

Patricia Brodie's poems are warm and witty with wonderful surprises for theenchanted reader. Her poems reflect a life of love, friendship and travel,of eucalyptus trees, found treasures of the sea, and the bittersweetmemories of home and family. They sing.‹Victor Howes, past president, New England Poetry Club

Patricia Brodie's poems are sophisticated, warm, sardonic. Whether you are drawn to form or free, you will find much that will please in this variedand very readable collection. Her distinctive voice will linger afteryou've finished. ‹Dorothy Stone, poet

June 27 5PM: My guest: Tomas O'Leary is a poet, translator, musician, singer, artist and expressive therapist. His published books of poetry are "Fool at the Funeral" and "The Devil Take a Crooked House," both from Lynx House Press; his third, now ready for publication, is "A Prayer for Everyone." Also ready are a novel, "Portrait of the Artist as a Black Hole," and a brief fairy tale for eccentric adults, "Once Upon a Realm Just Forming," both books with illustrations by the author:
His book of off-the-wall doodles with captions (self-published) is "Olio of 'Toons." He is presently immersed in translations of the Cuban revolutionary/poet, José Martí, and will soon publish a 21-poem Spanish/English volume entitled "La poesía es sagrada/ Poetry Is Sacred."

O'Leary's poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including such well-named venues as Agora, Anathema, Arion's Dolphin, The Blacksmith, Choice, The Chowder Review, Colorado Review, Cow Creek Review, East Coast Poets, Hubbub, Lynx, Midwest Quarterly, Mississippi Mud, Niagara, Ploughshares, Poiesis, Scarab, Street Magazine, Willow Springs,The Worcester Review,Words, Working from Silence, etc., and in such vibrant news-sheets as The Cambridge Chronicle, The Somerville News, and the Royal Gazette of Bermuda.

O'Leary has taught literature, creative writing and journalism at the college level, creative writing and Spanish at the high school level, and basic Spanish to little kids. He has given numerous poetry readings and workshops over the decades. For the past 15 years he has worked in nursing homes, leading circles of the elderly in song and spirited exchange, accompanied by his German-make (Hohner) Irish accordion manufactured in China, and entertains occasionally at pubs and private parties.

M.F.A. in poetry from the writers' workshop, UMass/Amherst, and M.A. in expressive therapies, Lesley University, O'Leary has lived some of his years in Colombia and Mexico. Brought up in Somerville (Massachusetts) by Irish immigrant parents, he resides just over the line, in Cambridge, with his wife and two sons.

May 16 5PM: My guest will be "Hanging Loose Press" editor Mark Pawlak. Pawlak has a new book out:

OFFICIAL VERSIONS

This is Mark Pawlak’s fifth poetry collection, the other most recent titles being Special Handling: Newspaper Poems New and Selected and All the News. His poetry and prose have appeared in The Best American Poetry 2006 (Billy Collins, ed.), New American Writing, Off the Coast, Pemmican, and The Saint Ann’s Review, among other places. In addition, he is editor of four anthologies, most recently, Present/Tense: Poets in the World, a collection of contemporary American political poetry, featuring work from some of the country’s best-known writers. Pawlak is Director of Academic Support Programs at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he also teaches mathematics. He has been the recipient of two Massachusetts Artist Fellowship awards. He lives in Cambridge with his wife and his teenage son.

"Mark Pawlak...reminds me of a lyrical "junk," man-and I mean this in the best sense of the word. He collects phrases, archaic songs, ephemera from the past, and makes a strong poetic statement....Pawlak has a very quirky, engaging and unique style. Recommended."--Doug Holder, Boston Area Small Press Poetry Scene Read the full article>>

“Mark Pawlak’s poems document a literary journey charged with the sheer joy of words and often with fierce irony. He finds poetry in day-to-day common language, and makes his poems from snippets of remembered conversation and comment, from restaurant serving mats, the phone book and, most pointedly, from the news. Pawlak’s sophisticated use of irony allows him to precisely slice through governmental double-talk and the slanted reportage of our time to expose the contradictions, errors and lies inherent in the rhetoric of power brokers and political spin doctors. He is our most politically conscious poet and, as such, puts conscience back into poetry where it is sorely needed.” -—Michael Basinski, Curator, The Poetry Room, SUNY Buffalo

“Narrative? Kind of. Lyric? Sort of. Mark Pawlak takes his own versions (found and otherwise) and has turned them inside-out to celebrate how insane and touching language can be: from ‘perks’ to ‘Pappa Oom Mow Mow’—go on and shake it, baby!”—Kimiko Hahn

Praise for Mark Pawlak’s previous books:
SPECIAL HANDLING: NEWSPAPER POEMS NEW AND SELECTED“At a time when many Americans are too demoralized or too confused, as Gore Vidal says, to remember anything past last Tuesday, Pawlak names things accurately, jogs our memory and sharpens our wit.”—Michael True, Worcester Magazine

“Poetry and politics do mix—rather like nitrogen and glycerin—in Mark Pawlak’s explosive verse.” -—Kristin Aronson

ALL THE NEWS“It is wonderful to find a book as serious and witty as this…one of the best of the year and of the times.”—Thomas McGrath

May 2 5PM My guest will be thr Rev. Steve Edington, the author of the "Beat Face of God..."


This book is an exploration of some of the underlying spiritual and religious currents found in the writings and lives of a loose constellation of writers and poets who came together in America after World War II, and came to be known as the Beat Generation writers. Among their more prominent figures were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Gary Snyder, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, to name just a few.

Writing from the perspective of a liberal religious minister (Unitarian Universalist) and a Beat Generation scholar, Rev. Stephen Edington expands upon, and delves into, Jack Kerouac's contention that the Beat Generation was a religious generation. These writers and poets, each in his or her own way, were articulating and setting forth an "alternative spirituality" in the face of the prevailing cultural ethos of the America of the 1950s.

This is not primarily, however, a literary review of a group of writers from over a half-century ago. Their work is as powerful today as it was in their day, especially for those pursuing a spiritual path of their own. Edington weaves much of the spiritual journeys of the Beats into the evolution of his own spirituality.

Also, the ways in which the Beats challenged the culture and politics of America in the 1950s resonates strongly in today's post-9/11 America as well, as this book's concluding chapter demonstrates.

About the Author

Rev. Stephen Edington is the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Nashua, New Hampshire. He is a member of the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Committee and an adjunct faculty member of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. His previous book is Kerouac's Nashua Connection.

March 7 2006: My guest will be comedian Emily Singer. We will discuss her creative life as a performer and comedy writer. Here is an article about Emily in "The Somerville News."

by Karmyn E. Guthrie

Emily Singer, local comedian and spokesperson for Jimmy Tingle’s Off-Broadway, spoke at the Somerville News contributors meeting February 18thSinger does public relations and marketing for the Davis Square theater, a job that utilizes her genuine passion for comedy, in general, and Jimmy Tingle’s, in particular.
“Comedy is extremely addictive,” said Singer. And she’d like to help all of us get our fix. “We’d like to reach out to the community so they feel like they have a place to go every night of the week.”
Jimmy Tingle’s, a 200-seat theater, was founded by its namesake in November of 2002. Already, some of the biggest names in comedy have graced its stage, including the founder himself. Tingle, who you may have seen on just about any of the late night talk show, 60 Minutes II, or his HBO special has
become one of the most well-respected comedians around, choosing to keep this lively yet intimate Somerville venue as his home theater.
“Jimmy is one of the most creative people I’ve ever met,” said Singer, who opened for him recently. She credits him, as well as the other top-of-their-game performers at the theater, as a valuable influence on her own career. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to learn from the masters,” she said.
Singer has been doing stand-up since 1997, gravitating to it from acting then improv. “Comedy is so multifaceted. “ she said, “I see how people can spend their whole lives doing it.”
With her soft voice and gentle, unassuming manner, she doesn’t strike one as typical for someone in her field. “When people find out I’m a comedian they’re really shocked, “ she said.
But after watching her act, it makes sense. Her routine, which incorporates everything from massage parlors to speed dating to getting organized, works well with her personality, and her jokes are both offbeat and natural.
“It’s best to start from something natural then spin it,” Singer said. “My favorite jokes are things that just happen to me. She savors little absurdities of life, such as riding a bus to New York and noticing a fellow passenger who was, inexplicably, wearing a gorilla suit.
Singer also said that humor can also come from the tragedies and annoyances of life. “Comedy is a great healer, “ she said. She said that live comedy is a good way for audiences to put everything else behind, and that at Jimmy Tingle’s the audiences have been great. “The thing that everyone says about the theater is that it’s got great vibes, “ she said.


Emily Singer has performed throughout the New England area and in Los Angeles, New York and Madison, entertaining audiences with her unique comedic view of the world. For four years in a row (thru 2005), she has been picked to play The Boston International Comedy & Movie Festival. She has also performed in the 2003 California New Talent Comedy Contest, and the 2003 London New Talent Comedy Contest. She has hosted the Women In Comedy series at Jimmy Tingle’s OFF BROADWAY Theater.

She has performed at benefit shows for causes such as The Emerson Baseball Team, Habitat for Humanity and The Advent School. She is among several comedians who share their memories of children’s television pioneer Rex Trailer in the documentary “Rex Trailer’s Boomtown” which aired on CBS-TV 4 in June 2005 and is archived in the Museum of TV and Radio in NYC. She has performed comedy at numerous venues, including Bradley Playhouse, Putnam CT, The Improv Comedy Club, New York, NY, The Comedy Club, Madison WI, and Stand Up-NY, New York, NY. For more info please visit: www.emilysinger.com

Emily teaches acting at Brookline Adult & Community Education (since 1997), where she has at times taught Stand-Up Comedy and Improv. Since Fall 2003 she has worked as a teacher’s assistant to Bronia Wheeler in Acting classes at Harvard University Extension School and Harvard University Summer School.
http://emilysinger.com

Feb. 28 2006: My Guests will be Grey Held and Shelby Allen

From Grey Held:

I co-teach a poetry workshop with Shelby Allen at the Northeastern
Correctional Center in Concord.
Before that I volunteered in a program at Baystate Correctional Center in
Norfolk, MA.
I enjoy teaching poetry in prison. The guys in the class are eager to tell
their stories and are quite talented.
I'm continually moved by how smart these guys are--about themselves and
about connecting with others.
Some of them did something stupid under the influence of drugs twenty years
ago and have had twenty years to think and reflect on their actions.

April 18 2006: My guest will be David McNamara. McNamara founded and operates sunnyoutside, an independent press, in Somerville, Massachusetts. He studied literature at Long Island University, Ohio State University, the Poets' House in Ireland, Wroxton College (England), and Fairleigh Dickinson University, where he earned his BA in English Language. He also holds a graduate certificate in Publishing from Emerson College. Widely published in the small press, he was the director of )ism(, based in Seattle, in the late 1990s, before moving to Massachusetts and launching sunnyoutside. Still writing and submitting occasionally, his collection Or is forthcoming from Hemispherical Press.

My guest April 11,2006: Sarah Getty is an award-winning poet and fiction writer living near Boston, Mass. Her second book of poems, Bring Me Her Heart, will be published by Higganum Hill Press in March 2006. Her first collection, The Land of Milk and Honey, was published by the University of South Carolina Press as part of the James Dickey Contemporary Poetry Series. It won the Cambridge Poetry Prize in the Publication category in March, 2002. Sarah’s poem “That Woman” is included in the anthology Birds in the Hand, published in April, 2004 by Farrar, Straus, Giroux. In 2004 she received the Barbara Bradley Prize from the New England Poetry Club and was one of five finalists in the grub street, inc. poetry contest.
In July of 2006, Sarah will lead a 10-day poetry workshop at the Villa Virgiliana on the Bay of Naples in Italy. More details can be found in the Workshops section of this web site.
Sarah Getty’s poetry can also be found in magazines such as The Paris Review, The Western Humanities Review, and The Massachusetts Review. Her poem “Ciphers” has been set to music by Adam Grossman in a piece for mixed chorus and flute choir.
Getty’s short fiction has been published in the Iowa Review and the Larcom Review. Her story “Forces” will appear in the anthology Great Old Broads, forthcoming from Haworth Press in 2005.
"Makes radiant the role of women over more than a century of physical and metaphysical voyaging. Here, poignantly, are "mortals, telling their stories."
--Maxine Kumin
"Plain statements, everyday situations, ordinary American lives, yet suddenly with a last image, or a final line of great beauty and transcendence, and you realize that you are in the presence of a poet. Like Oliver's these poems have that weird, exhilarating combination of clarity of statement, story, or situation, with depth of feeling that reveals the mystery beneath the everyday."
-- The Virginia Quarterly Review
more about Sarah Getty>>
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March 28 2006 5 PM My guest will be: Edward J. Carvalho. Ed is a twice-nominated Pushcart Prize writer (2004-2005) who has been writing poetry for over 20 years. A persona who is very much like part Dimebag Darrell Abbott and part Walt Whitman, his poetry is often described as having a style that is 'original, innovative, imaginative and brutal.' Sometimes filled with satire and other times lyrical poignancy, Carvalho's work is always teeming with the unexpected. He is the author of several self-published chapbooks and full-length collections of poetry, including the latest manuscript, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short", which is currently being shopped to publishers around the United States. His poetry - lauded by Nobel laureate, Elie Wiesel and poet, Martin Espada - has appeared in various national journals around the country. Mr. Carvalho holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from Goddard College with future academic plans that include the pursuit of a doctorate in literature and criticism focusing on Walt Whitman. He currently resides in Boston, MA. For more information, please visit http://www.edwardjcarvalho.com"