May 26 2009 Poet Wendy Mnookin

May 26 2009 5PM Poet Wendy Mnookin:



"I am a poet living in Newton, Massachusetts. I received my BA from Radcliffe College and my MFA in Writing from Vermont College. My latest book, THE MOON MAKES ITS OWN PLEA was published by BOA Editions in 2008. My other collections are WHAT HE TOOK, TO GET HERE, and GUENEVER SPEAKS.

I teach poetry at Emerson College in Boston and at Grub Street, a non-profit Boston writing center. I have taught poetry at Boston College, to children in schools throughout the Boston area, and in workshops around the country.

In THE MOON MAKES ITS OWN PLEA I explore the idea of self and how that self is strengthened and abraded by relationships. The poems coalesce around the condition of mortality--not a specific death, although these also occur, but the state of being mortal.

In WHAT HE TOOK I revisit the death of my father in a car accident when I was two. I move from the accident itself to my efforts to understand the loss and how it has shaped my adult life.

TO GET HERE explores loss of a different kind: the inability to save those we love. In this book, I look at our family's struggle to come to terms with my son's drug addiction.

GUENEVER SPEAKS is a cycle of persona poems about the woman at the center of the Arthurian legend. Malory's MORTE D'ARTHUR leaves much unsaid about Guenever, whose voice speaks in these poems.

My poems have been published in journals, online publications, and anthologies. New work appears in The Greensboro Review, the Harvard Review, Pool, Prairie Schooner, and Runes.

My poems have won prizes from various journals, including The Comstock Review, The Kansas Quarterly and New Millennium Writings. I received an NEA Fellowship in Poetry, and WHAT HE TOOK won the 2002 Sheila Motton Award from the New England Poetry Club."

May 19 Poet Jeffrey Thomson

Jeffrey Thomson is the author of four books of poems, including Birdwatching in Wartime (Carnegie Mellon 2009) and Renovation (Carnegie Mellon 2005). Also forthcoming is a an anthology of emerging poets: From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great co-edited with Camille Dungy and Matt O’Donnell (Persea Books, 2009). He has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Arts Commission, and, most recently, was named the 2008 Individual Arts Fellow in the Literary Arts by the Maine Arts Commission. He is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Maine Farmington. His website is www.jeffreythomson.com.

May 12 2009 An Sokolovska : Social Scientist/Activist/Writer

May 12 2009


My guest will be An Sokolvska. I meet many interesting people from my perch at the Sherman Cafe in Union Square in Somerville. One such person is An Sokolvska. An is a social scientist, trained at Boston University and Brandeis University. She has taught at Brandeis University and other area institutions. An has posed and written about some interesting questions. The one that caught my interest while we munched on our scones and read our morning New York Times was: "Why do men and women have difficulties with each other?" Though this is simply put the question is hardly facile. Literature has certainly addressed this burning question over the years. We will touch on these and other issues on Poet to Poet.