Interviewer vs. Interviewer

Interviewer vs. Interviewer
( Click on picture to view) Elizabeth Lund--Host of Poetic Lines interviews Host of Poet to Poet-- Doug Holder

Monday, December 06, 2010

Nancy Rubin Stuart Dec 14, 2010 5PM





Nancy Rubin Stuart is a journalist and author who specializes in social trends, women’s history and biography. She began writing professionally as a contributor to New York Times under the byline of Nancy Rubin, first for the Westchester editions of that newspaper, then for several national sections. That work prompted her first book, The New Suburban Woman: Beyond Myth and Motherhood .

Subsequent books included The Mother Mirror: How a Generation of Women Is Changing Motherhood in America, the award-winning Isabella of Castile: The First Renaissance Queen , and the best-selling American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post
In 2005 Harcourt published Nancy’s biography of the co-founder of American spiritualism, T’he Reluctant Spiritualist: The Life of Maggie Fox under the byline, Nancy Rubin Stuart.

Subsequent to a 2005 William Randolph Hearst Award from the American Antiquarian Society Beacon Press published Nancy’s The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation in 2008. Reissued in paperback in 2009, that book won the 2009 Historic Winslow House Book Award and was a 2010 finalist in USA Today Book News "Best Book" Awards.

Nancy serves on the board for the Women Writing Womens' Lives Seminar, City University of New York Graduate Center and is the Artistic Director of the Cape Cod Writers Center.

Sunday, November 07, 2010

Nov. 9, 2010: My guest--novelist-- Chava Hudson "The Closing":

My guest will Chava Hudson





After working as a graphic designer, an art teacher, and then designing and producing her own line of outerwear for the boutique market, Chava Hudson became smitten with the Internet. In 1998, she studied web design and since then has created sites for the Universities and non-profits, but mostly designs websites and graphics for small businesses, artists and writers. She brings a unique solution to each project and to each client, discovering each client's needs and communicating their message visually.

As an artist, Chava produces limited edition prints which are currently in private and corporate collections and has taught graphic design digital painting at Endicott College in Beverly, MA. She's completed four novels, many short stories, and publishes Zingology.com an online literary zine.

In 2009 Chava began producing and hosting an award-winning, monthly local cable show for BevCam entitled Out and About, produced by Film North in Beverly, MA. The show features interesting musicians, writers, filmmakers, an occasional foray into cooking, and even a psychic reading by the offical witch of Salem, MA. Later that year, she started The North Shore Jazz Project with Henry Ferrini, one of the guests on the show.


The Closing

by Chava Hudson
Zingology Press
Copyright © 2010 by Chava Hudson
Softcover, 184 pages, no price listed
ISBN 1452865426

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

Chava Hudson has succeeded where other writers have failed: you know what murder is about at the beginning, yet the novel works, the people are believable and so you keep on reading.

Hudson’s story is about a real estate agent in a realty firm that does a bit more than sell realty. In fact, the way they drum up business will just kill you. But that’s all I’ll tell you, except that the novel is filled with irony, a touch of humor, but more important, leaves you with serious questions about moral values, mortality and what the future might bring to an ever aging population, a theme done many times, but here with a new twist.

Singles, Anne meets Steve and the romance begins. But Steve’s mother gets in the way, and not as you might imagine. Still, Anne, whose boyfriend has abandoned her, finds a new romance irresistible, even with the knowledge she keeps inside.

The story is fast paced, easy and fun to read and, perhaps, should be read by people with Victorian ideas of life and death and what is noble and what is not.

This is Ms. Hudson’s fourth book (she also writes poetry and edits the online journal zingology). It took her just over a year to write the closing, but the novel idea (yes I mean that both ways)came during a walk around town where she saw a for sale sign on a front yard. The realtor's name was Kevorkian, which got her thinking. Hudson had also just returned from Costa Rica where she spent two weeks at an artist colony and rode up to Monteverde with some friends she had made there. The result, a book worth reading.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Nov. 2, 2010 Writer Joan Leegant " Wherever You Go"




My guest will be novelist: Joan Leegant


Joan Leegant is the author of WHEREVER YOU GO, published July 2010, and AN HOUR IN PARADISE, for which she won the PEN/New England Book Award, the Wallant Award for Jewish Fiction, and was a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. Formerly an attorney, she taught at Harvard University for eight years. Since 2007, she has lived half the year in Tel Aviv, where she is the visiting writer at Bar-Ilan University and lectures for the U.S. State Department. When not in Israel she lives in Newton, Massachusetts. For more about Joan Leegant and her work, visit: www.joanleegant.com.

Sunday, October 03, 2010

Oct 12, 2010: Poet Cam Terwillger




Cam Terwilliger is a poet, fiction writer, and freelance journalist living in Somerville, Mass. A recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fiction Fellowship and a Somerville Arts Council Fellowship, Cam teaches fiction at Emerson College and Grub Street. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in West Branch, Post Road, The Mid-American Review, The Greensboro Review, The Sycamore Review and others. Cam’s been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has received an Academy of American Poets Prize. Additionally, he holds an MFA from Emerson College, and has served as a reader for The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, and as a judge for The Rhode Island Council on the Arts Fiction Fellowship.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Sept 21, 2010: Endicott College professor and Author of "The Woman Who Named God..." Charlotte Gordon Guest on Poet to Poet/Writer to Writer




Charlotte Gordon is a writer of poetry, non-fiction and fiction. She began her writing life as a poet and has published two books of poetry, When the Grateful Dead Came to St. Louis and Two Girls on a Raft. Her biography of the 17th century poet, Anne Bradstreet, Mistress Bradstreet: The Untold Life of America’s First Poet, (Little, Brown, 2005) won a New England Book Award for non-fiction.

Her latest book, The Woman Who Named God: Abraham’s Dilemma and the Birth of Three Faiths (Little Brown, 2009), retells the famous Biblical story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar.

Charlotte has been featured on NPR’s “Weekend Edition” with Scott Simon. Her poetry has won many prizes, including a Robert Penn Warren Award. She has been invited to read her work at various colleges, schools, and cultural institutions, including Radcliffe College, University of New Hampshire, Salem State College, University of Massachusetts and The Salem Atheneum. She has also given presentations to historical societies, churches, temples, and book clubs, from Georgia to Wyoming.

Charlotte received an undergraduate degree in English and American Literature from Harvard University and a PhD from Boston University. A post-doctoral fellow at Boston University, she taught Religion and Literature in the Department of Theology and from 1999-2002 was a lecturer in Elie Wiesel’s seminars, The Literature of Memory.

Since 1986, Charlotte has taught creative writing, history, literature, religion, and theater at both the college and secondary school level. From 1992-2002 she was the Director of the Writing Program at The Waring School in Beverly, MA. She currently teaches at Endicott College in Beverly, MA and conducts writing workshops for adults from her home in Gloucester, MA.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Sept. 14, 2010 5PM 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. Please visit the Writing page to read some of Judah's stories, or listen to audio clips of Judah reading them. There is also information on Judah's CD Finding My Place, and "Snapshots," as well as a schedule of workshops and readings you may wish to attend.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Tues Aug 3, 2010: Poet Populist of Cambridge, Mass--Jean--Dany Joachim













Jean-Dany Joachim was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He is the current Poet Populist of Cambridge Massachusetts. His writing found its voice in the never-ending, complex reality of his country. After moving to U.S.A nearly two decades ago, he left his work in the theatre and began writing in English, while at the same time exploring poetry in other languages. Jean-Dany has translated poetry from and into Spanish, French, Haitian Creole, and English. As the creator and producer of the City Night Reading Series, he brings together poets, writers, performers and lovers of literature for the celebration of the art of word in the Boston and NYC areas. He is the author of “Chen Plenn – Leta”, and his work has appeared in anthologies and numerous literary magazines. He works at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston MA

Saturday, July 03, 2010

July 6, 2010 5PM Steve Luttrell Poet Laureate of Portland, Maine

My guest will be the editor of the Cafe Review and Poet Laureate of Portland, Maine Steve Luttrell.

Steve was born and continues to live in Portland, Maine. He is a graduate of Franklin Pierce College and is the author of ten books of poetry. His latest title, Twelve Moons, Twelve Poems, is currently available. Recently, Steve was named Poet Laureate of Portland, Maine, for a two-year term.


Saturday, June 12, 2010

June 15, 2010; Poet Educator Len Solo



June 15, 2010: My guest will be educator and poet Len Solo. Len is the author of the new book:

"Making An Extraordinary School: The Work of Ordinary People"

Forewords by Jonathan Kozol & Roland S. Barth

"One of the country's outstanding schools"
-Redbook Magazine

"The Disney's Spotlight School of the Year, 2000"

"What a gift! Making an Extraordinary School offers an enlightened and enlightening alternative to what so many today must experience and endure in schools. It offers a powerful example of a better way."
-Roland S. Barth

"Len Solo's beautiful and tremendously useful story of the Graham & Parks School is one of those rare works on education that is a genuine joy to read"
-Jonathan Kozol

Len Solo has been an educator for most of his professional work life. He has been a public high school teacher of English, math, and social studies; founder of a small, private alternative school in Atlantic City (Atlantic County New School); founder and department chairperson of the Teacher Drop-Out Center at Stockton State College, Pomona, New Jersey; principal for twenty-seven years at Graham & Parks Alternative Public School in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and is currently an education consultant. He is also a painter, writer, and poet.

Len’s books include: Landscape of the Misty Eye, with Steve Weitzman; Rooted in Place; Making an Extraordinary School: The Work of Ordinary People; The Magic of Light; and has most recently contributed an essay in the anthology, Turning Points: 35 Visionaries in Education Tell Their Own Stories.

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

6/8/2010: Poet, Professor, Mariyln Jurich.




6/8/2010: My guest will be Poet, Professor, Marilyn Jurich.

BIO:

Marilyn Jurich
Associate Professor

English Department
Suffolk University




Recent Publications (Selected)
Defying The Eye Chart, A Collection of Poems Mayapple Press, 2007 (forthcoming).



“Poetry for Children,” essay in The Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature, Oxford UP, 2006.



“The Mindless Body and the Bodiless Mind: Gyrations of Body, Mind, and Soul in Short Story Fantasies by Jewish Writers” in Fantastic Odysseys. Ed.Mary Pharr, Prager Press, 2003.



“Children Stranded Among The Dark Satanic Mills” in Journal of the Fantastic in The Arts, Vol. 13, No. 5, 2003.



“MindingThe Trickster” and “Twenty-two to Trick on the Tongue,” two poems in Trickster’s Way, an on-line journal published by Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, 2003.



“The Immutable,” “Lines Attributed to King Alfred the Great (849-899) from Recently Discovered Scrools. . . ,“ and “Quotients,” poems anthologized in Do Not Give Me Things Unbroken. Ed. Laura Hechtman Ayers, et. al,Writers Club Press, 2002.



“Seeing the Eye in the Darkness of Being. . .” (essay with poems and memoir) in Trickster’s Way, an on-line journal published by Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, 2002.



“Why the Sphinx,” “Threat,” “Reading the Eye Chart,” “Tachyonic Toss #1,” “The Seamstress of Flowers”: poems anthologized in Uncommonplaces. Eds. Kerman and Riggs, Mayapple Press, 2000.



Scheherazade’s Sisters: Trickster Heroines and Their Stories in World Literature, Greenwood Press, 1998.



“The Pseudo-Cosmographies of Stanislaw Lem” in Utopian Studies 9. No. 2, 1998.



“Solus Solo, The Monster Self: Solipsism in Peer Gynt, Grendel, Perfume” in PARA*DOXA: STUDIES IN WORLD LITERATURE GENRES, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1996.



Selected Publications, 1995-1969
“A Woman’s A Two-Faced” in Journal of Fantasy in the Arts, Spring Issue, 1995.



“Mithraic Aspects of Merlin in Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave” in Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Marshall Tymn, Ed., Greenwood Press, 1991.



“The Applauded Jigsaw, Patterns of Lives Contoured by Voices: The Literary Lives of James Playsted Wood” in The Voice of the Narrator in Children’s Literature: Insights from Writers and Critics. Eds. Otten and Schmidt, Greenwood Press, 1989.



“A Critical Exploration of the Aborigine in Australian Books for Children” in Webs and Wardrobes: Humanist and Religious World Views in Children’s Literature, Eds., Milner and Milner, University Press of America, 1987.



“Children;s Literature in the College Classroom,” College English, February, 1983.



Coordinating Editor, The Unforbidden Fruit: A Journal in Fantasy and Folklore, Suffolk University, 1977.



“What’s Left Out of Biography for Children” in The Great Excluded: Critical Essays in Children’s Literature, Vol l, No, 1, Yale UP, 1972.



A Department Store Has Everything! and Seeds from the Store, A Play and Poems for Children. Boston: Todd Press, 1969.



Courses Taught
Children’s Literature
Fantasy and Folklore
Modern English Poetry
Speculative Literature
Law and Literature
Verse Drama
Adolescent Literature
Writing for Children
Peace Studies

Sunday, May 02, 2010

May 4 ,2010: Poets Jared Smith and Michael Mack 4:30 to 5:30 PM








After serving in the US Air Force as an aircraft crew chief, Michael Mack worked a variety of factory and labor jobs before returning to school and graduating from the Writing Program at MIT.

Mack has performed at the US Library of Congress, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, the Columbia Festival of the Arts, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, the Austin International Poetry Festival, and Off-Off-Broadway at the Times Square Arts Center.

His work has aired on NPR, and has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), America, the Beloit Poetry Journal, Cumberland Poetry Review, and is featured in Best Catholic Writing 2005.

Mack has also performed at scores of venues for consumers and providers of mental health services, including McLean Psychiatric Hospital, the national conference of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), and for faculty and students of the Harvard Medical School and Yale Medical School.

Awards include an Artist's Grant for new theater works from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, First Prize in the Writers Circle National Poetry Competition, and an Eloranta Fellowship, which funded a residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre for the Arts in Ireland.

Mack lives in the Boston area, supplementing his work as a poet and performer with assignments as a freelance writer.















Biographical Information: Jared R.W. Smith

Jared Smith is a prominent figure in contemporary poetry, technology research, and professional continuing education. Having earned his BA cum laude and his MA in English and American Literature from New York University, he spent many years in industry and research. Starting in 1976, he rose to Vice President of The Energy Bureau, Inc. in New York; relocated to Illinois, where he became Associate Director of both Education and Research for an international not-for-profit research laboratory (IGT); advised several White House Commissions on technology and policy under the Clinton Administration; and left industry in 2001, after serving as Special Appointee to Argonne National Laboratory.

He is the author of nine volumes of poetry: Looking Into the Machinery: The Selected Longer Poems of Jared Smith (1984-2008,) (Tamarack Editions, PA, 2010;) Grassroots (Wind Publications, KY, 2010;) The Graves Grow Bigger Between Generations (Higganum Hill Books, CT, 2008;) Where Images Become Imbued With Time (Puddin'head Press, IL, 2007;) Lake Michigan and Other Poems (Puddin'head Press, IL, 2005;) Walking the Perimeters of the Plate Glass Window Factory (Birch Brook Press, NY, 2001;) Keeping the Outlaw Alive (Erie Street Press, IL, 1988;) Dark Wing (Charred Norton Publishing, NY, 1984;) and Song of the Blood: An Epic (The Smith Press, 1983.) He has also released two CDs of his work: Seven Minutes Before the Bombs Drop (ArtVilla Records, TN, 2006;) and Controlled by Ghosts (Practical Music Studios, IL, 2007.)

Jared has had hundreds of publications in literary journals across the nation over the past 30 years, in addition to several foreign countries. He has published reviews of the works of such major contemporary poets as Ted Kooser, C.K. Williams, and W.S. Merwin, as well as several craft interviews, including one with Ted Kooser that was translated into Chinese for republication in Taiwan and Mainland China. Jared's work has also been adapted to stage in both New York and Chicago.

Jared Smith's poems, essays, and literary commentary have appeared in The New York Quarterly, Confrontation, Spoon River Quarterly, Kenyon Review, Bitter Oleander, Small Press Review, Greenfield Review, Vagabond, The Smith, Home Planet News, Bitterroot, Rhino, Ibbetson Street Press, Wilderness House Review, After Hours, Poet Lore, The Pedestal, Second Coming, The Partisan Review, Somerville News, Coe Review, U.T. Review, The Iconoclast, Trail & Timberline, and many others. He has also been on National Public Radio and Pacifica. He has given readings, workshops, and classes at colleges, schools, libraries, and coffee houses around the country.

While at NYU, Jared studied under poet/critic M.L. Rosenthal, Library of Congress Adviser Robert Hazel, and founder of The New York Quarterly William Packard. He has served as a member of the Screening Committee and on the Board of Directors of The New York Quarterly under founding Editor William Packard, as well as being a current member of its Advisory Board under Raymond Hammond; as coordinator of readings at two Greenwich Village coffee shops in the 70s; as a Guest Columnist for Poets magazine and Home Planet News under Editor Don Lev; as Guest Poetry Editor for two issues of The Pedestal under Editor John Amen; and as Poetry Editor of Trail & Timberline.

Jared Smith is a member of Colorado Poets Center, The Colorado Poets Association, The Academy of American Poets, Illinois State Poetry Society, and The Chicago Poets' Club, and past President of Poets & Patrons in Chicago. He is listed in Marquis Who's Who In America, among other reference works, and has been listed among the authors in Poets & Writers Directory since its inception.
Biographical Information: Jared R.W. Smith

Jared Smith is a prominent figure in contemporary poetry, technology research, and professional continuing education. Having earned his BA cum laude and his MA in English and American Literature from New York University, he spent many years in industry and research. Starting in 1976, he rose to Vice President of The Energy Bureau, Inc. in New York; relocated to Illinois, where he became Associate Director of both Education and Research for an international not-for-profit research laboratory (IGT); advised several White House Commissions on technology and policy under the Clinton Administration; and left industry in 2001, after serving as Special Appointee to Argonne National Laboratory.

He is the author of nine volumes of poetry: Looking Into the Machinery: The Selected Longer Poems of Jared Smith (1984-2008,) (Tamarack Editions, PA, 2010;) Grassroots (Wind Publications, KY, 2010;) The Graves Grow Bigger Between Generations (Higganum Hill Books, CT, 2008;) Where Images Become Imbued With Time (Puddin'head Press, IL, 2007;) Lake Michigan and Other Poems (Puddin'head Press, IL, 2005;) Walking the Perimeters of the Plate Glass Window Factory (Birch Brook Press, NY, 2001;) Keeping the Outlaw Alive (Erie Street Press, IL, 1988;) Dark Wing (Charred Norton Publishing, NY, 1984;) and Song of the Blood: An Epic (The Smith Press, 1983.) He has also released two CDs of his work: Seven Minutes Before the Bombs Drop (ArtVilla Records, TN, 2006;) and Controlled by Ghosts (Practical Music Studios, IL, 2007.)

Jared has had hundreds of publications in literary journals across the nation over the past 30 years, in addition to several foreign countries. He has published reviews of the works of such major contemporary poets as Ted Kooser, C.K. Williams, and W.S. Merwin, as well as several craft interviews, including one with Ted Kooser that was translated into Chinese for republication in Taiwan and Mainland China. Jared's work has also been adapted to stage in both New York and Chicago.

Jared Smith's poems, essays, and literary commentary have appeared in The New York Quarterly, Confrontation, Spoon River Quarterly, Kenyon Review, Bitter Oleander, Small Press Review, Greenfield Review, Vagabond, The Smith, Home Planet News, Bitterroot, Rhino, Ibbetson Street Press, Wilderness House Review, After Hours, Poet Lore, The Pedestal, Second Coming, The Partisan Review, Somerville News, Coe Review, U.T. Review, The Iconoclast, Trail & Timberline, and many others. He has also been on National Public Radio and Pacifica. He has given readings, workshops, and classes at colleges, schools, libraries, and coffee houses around the country.

While at NYU, Jared studied under poet/critic M.L. Rosenthal, Library of Congress Adviser Robert Hazel, and founder of The New York Quarterly William Packard. He has served as a member of the Screening Committee and on the Board of Directors of The New York Quarterly under founding Editor William Packard, as well as being a current member of its Advisory Board under Raymond Hammond; as coordinator of readings at two Greenwich Village coffee shops in the 70s; as a Guest Columnist for Poets magazine and Home Planet News under Editor Don Lev; as Guest Poetry Editor for two issues of The Pedestal under Editor John Amen; and as Poetry Editor of Trail & Timberline.

Jared Smith is a member of Colorado Poets Center, The Colorado Poets Association, The Academy of American Poets, Illinois State Poetry Society, and The Chicago Poets' Club, and past President of Poets & Patrons in Chicago. He is listed in Marquis Who's Who In America, among other reference works, and has been listed among the authors in Poets & Writers Directory since its inception.

Friday, April 09, 2010

April 13, 2010 Poet Jade Sylvan




Jade Sylvan is a writer and performer living in Boston. Her first full-length collection of poetry, The Spark Singer, was published in 2009 by Spuyten Duyvil Press. Her first novel, Backstage at The Caribou, was published in 2009 by Ray Ontko & Co. She has performed across the country, appearing as the featured performer at The Cantab Lounge (Boston), The Green Mill (Chicago), and The Nuyorican Poets Cafe (New York City), among others. She has also lectured and facilitated writing workshops, most recently at Indiana University and The University of Cincinnati. In 2010, she began working as an Editor and Mentor for Books of Hope, a nonprofit that seeks to empower urban youth through writing, book production, performance, and social entrepreneurship. She is currently at work on a second novel, an album of songs, and more poetry. You can find her at www.jadesylvan.com.

Sunday, April 04, 2010

APRIL 6, 2010 Poet Kathleen Spivack



APRIL 6 2010 Poet Kathleen Spivack



Kathleen Spivack is the author of The Break-Up Variations; The Beds We Lie In (nominated for a Pulitzer Prize); The Honeymoon; Swimmer in the Spreading Dawn; The Jane Poems; Flying Inland; Robert Lowell, A Personal Memoir; and a novel, Unspeakable Things (the latter two are currently with an agent). Published in over 300 magazines and anthologies, her work has also been translated into French. She reads her work throughout Europe and the United States, and gives theater performances and master classes. In Boston, Kathleen Spivack directs the Advanced Writing Workshop, an intensive coaching program for advanced writers. She is a permanent Visiting Professor of Creative Writing/ American Literature at the University of Paris, Sorbonne.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

March 23 Poet Melissa Guillet



My guest will be poet Melissa Guillet. She writes,

"I have performed my work at libraries, coffee houses, and bars across the U.S. and Canada. I feel poetry should work on the page and aloud, and would describe it as narrative and often lyric. I have appeared on "Places", Youtube, CCTV, and other local access cable shows. My work has appeared or is forthcoming in Appleseeds, Ballard Street, Bloodroot Literary Magazine, Caduceus, The Cherry Blossom Review, GBSPA’s City Lights, Cyclamen & Sword, Dos Passos Review, Fearless Books, Imitation Fruit (winning poem), Lalitamba, Language and Culture, Lavanderia, Look! Up in the Sky!, New Muse, Nth Position, Public Republic, Sangam, Scrivener’s Pen, Seven Circle Press, Women. Period., six Poets’ Asylum anthologies, and several chapbooks. I am the chief editor and founder of Sacred Fools Press, which has produced three anthologies. I teach Interdisciplinary Arts in Rhode Island.


Aubade


There was no need

for Phoebus

to whisper in my ear when

the lark would do,

or the alarm, your way

of sighing as you turned,

the loudness of my dreams.


Rising, Phoebus wags his finger,

scolding our denial,

yet hopeful as a dog

sooner aware of day.


The dishes done,

the kids away,

our only charge was

to keep the sheets warm.


Nothing was to be done today.

We could just miss it entirely,

“X” it out on the calendar.


I reach for you blindly,

curled up and squinting.

The day has not begun yet.

We have all day to rise.



Sankofa


Sankofa:

Was that the metaphor looked for?

Almost a heart, divided

into two selves, medicinal snakes

spiraling in on themselves

for self-knowledge.


Then the triple-base, the three sides

to the story. The two facing snakes

that speak to each other

across the past.


High school was over,

and who would want to go back?

But in our busy, self-recoiling lives

the third wheel turns us back

and an internet spot pages old friends.


Cut off, your arm grew into its own

starfish, and you find, out

of that tiny sea, your friend

has become a starfish too.


You needed a Beowulf to slice off your arms,

to be faceless and bodiless and reach

past what everyone else had known,

only to grow everything back and reclaim

an identity to call your own.


In excavation, old photos define us,

yet we deny how we were.

We were never perfect.

We return to the source to fetch

the threads of our cocoons,

the molted shells of goofy haircuts

and all-important cliques.


High school was as far away as Africa,

as close as keys under your fingers.

Doors were closed on that life’s chapter,

but windows were open.


Friend, each of us is five parts of ourselves:

Future, Past, Present, Private, Public,

seeking same. Classified

by who we were, who we are, who we want to be.


Turn and take the egg off your back.

Neither one came first

when one needs the other to exist,

to exist one needs the other.

Monday, March 08, 2010

March 16, 2010: Poet Philip Hasouris




My Guest will be Philip Hasouris:

Philip Hasouris has been writing for many years. Like many poets, he began unsure of his words, kept them hidden in notebooks, draws, closets, always in the back of his mind. Started reading publicly, and eventually people started listening. Since then, he has taken every opportunity to share the words.

He has been featured at many local and national venues. He was a founder of the performance group "Spiritous" which combined poetry, music, and movement. He has performed with a variety of musicians in improvisational jazz/poetry, collaborated in the making of the C.D’s Dreams and Schemes, Cross The Double Line", Published Chapbook “Swimming Alone”. Anthologies: Poet Tribe Selected Poems and City Lights with fellow poet James G.H. Moore, Philip co-produced the poetry video series P.L.A.C.E.S. (Poetic Language Artful Communication Elemental Speech) filming poets in their homes, creative space, natural surroundings, giving the audience a virtual tour of the inner workings of poetry, Philip is the co-host of the Brockton Library Poetry Series www.gbspa.org

Linda his wife of 30 years decided to have knee replacement surgery to enhance her life and as sometimes happens bad things happen to good people. She became ill through a series of medical complications the last being Cardiac Arrest which led to an anoxic brain Injury. "Coping and trying to make sense of the madness that enveloped us like those old Oklahoma dust storms, of course poetry presented itself and saved my sanity and out of the insanity came this book" ( Blow Out the Moon)

"I am not a survivor of Brain Injury I was a caretaker of a Brain Injury and I lost which will haunt me for the rest of my life but if I can reach someone and give them comfort, hope, understanding then maybe a little of the pain will ease. So I believe it's important for the book to speak for me, I was a delivery driver that wrote/read/performed poetry caring for his wife his best friend whom he lost and now has to reinvent himself. I'm adjusting to her absence but her presence will always be with me".

Philip Hasouris

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Feb 16 2010 Poet Ruth Lepson 5PM




Our guest Feb 16, 2010 5PM will be Ruth Lepson. Lepson tells us:


Hi. I'm a poet & poet-in-residence at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, MA. In recent years I've been collaborating with musicians, & previously I collaborated with visual artists & with other poets. I spend a lot of time at home doing paperwork. No one should have to do paperwork, but everyone should have some time for an art form. My latest book, I Went Looking for You, came out this year with blazeVOX.org. Artist Rusty Crump and I had a book of prose poems and photos, Morphology, published in 2007 by blazevox.org, which you can read as a free e-book or buy a copy of. Alice James Books published my other book of poems, Dreaming in Color, & in 2004 U of Illinois Press published Poetry from Sojourner: A Feminist Anthology, which I edited. My poems have been in many magazines, lately innovative ones, for example, Carve, EOAGH (where I'm now on the editorial board), Big Bridge, & Shampoo. I've given many readings, including ones in NY and Philadelphia.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Feb 2, 2010: Poet/Performer/Artist Li Min Mo




Li Min Mo is a professional storyteller and artist who was born in China and lived in many parts of the world, before settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Li Min has been teaching art, drama, storytelling and history to children and adults, winning praise and awards for her work for over 20 years. She has brought her exciting programs to schools, universities, and communities all over the country.

Ms. Mo holds an M.A. in Theater and Education from Goddard College in Vermont and an M.F.A. from Emerson College in Creative Writing. In the sixties, she worked with Peter Schuman's Bread and Puppet Theatre and studied with Reality Theatre-Gurdinieze, Japanese Kyogen Players and with Joan Halifax on Shamanism, Buddhism and the Sun Dance Teachings of the Native Americans.

Ms. Mo has received awards and support from local arts councils, the Cultural Education Collaborative, Chapter 636 Grants, Friends of Boston Libraries, and Channel 4's "You Gotta Have Arts." Ms. Mo is listed in the Cultural Resource Directory for programs funded by Mass. Cultural Council.

Thursday, January 07, 2010

My guest Jan 12 5PM will be poet/artist Celia Gilbert


My guest on Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer will be poet/artist Celia Gilbert


CELIA GILBERT

Books:
Something to Exchange, BlazeVOX[books] 09; An Ark of Sorts, Alice
James Books, 1998; Bonfire,Alice James Books, 1983, Queen of
Darkness, Viking, 1976.

published in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Southwest Review, Poetry,
Field, among other places; forthcoming in Fulcrum and in numerous
anthologies.

Studied with Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, Robert Fitzgerald...

Work:
Was Poetry and Fiction Editor of the Boston Phoenix did feature
articles for them among others an interview with Mary Daly and one
with Robert Creeley that Ruth Lepson and I did together. Wrote drama
reviews as well.

Taught workshops at Cambridge and Boston Adult Education Centers

Lived and studied abroad, Paris and then two years in Cambridge, England
married, three children(one deceased)longtime resident of Cambridge.

A visual artist: monotypes and oil painting.(I created the cover for
my latest book) with a studio in the Brickbottom Artists' Building

Awards
first Jane Kenyon Chapbook Award for , An Ark of Sorts,
Discovery Award from the 92nd St Y
From the Poetry Society of America:
Consuelo Ford Award, Emily Dickinson Award

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Jan 5, 2010 Sonia Meyer





My guest will be Sonia Meyer--refugee from Nazi Germany--Gypsy Cultural Scholar--author of the novel "Dosha."