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 11, 2017

Dec 19, 2017 Poet Anne Elezabeth Pluto 5PM






Anne Elezabeth Pluto is Professor of Literature and Theatre at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA where she is the artistic director and one of the founders of the Oxford Street Players, the university’s Shakespeare troupe. She is an alumna of Shakespeare & Company, and has been a member of the Worcester Shakespeare Company since 2011. She was a member of the Boston small press scene in the late 1980s and is one of the founders and editors at Nixes Mate Review.  Her chapbook, The Frog Princess, was published by White Pine Press (1985), her eBook Lubbock Electric, by Argotist ebooks (2012), and her chapbook Benign Protection by Cervana Barva Press (2016). Recent publications include: The Buffalo Evening News, Unlikely Stories: Episode IV, Mat Hat Lit, Pirene's Fountain, The Enchanting Verses Literary Review, Mockingheart Review, Yellow Chair Review, Levure Litteraire – numero 12, The Naugatuck River Review, and Tuesday, An Art Project.


see the show live at  5PM    http://scatvsomerville.org

Friday, November 24, 2017

Dec 5, 2017 Poet Michael Casey

 
Poet Michael Casey







In 1972, Michael Casey won the Yale Younger Poets Prize for Obscenities, a collection of poems drawn from his military experience during the Vietnam War. In his foreword to the book, judge Stanley Kunitz called the work “a kind of anti-poetry that befits a kind of war empty of any kind of glory” and “the first significant book of poems written by an American to spring from the war in Vietnam.” Its raw depictions of war’s mundanity and obscenity resonated with a broad audience, and Obscenities went into a mass market paperback edition, and was stocked in drugstores as well as bookstores. In the decades since, Casey’s poetry has continued to document the places of his work and life. Then and now, his poems foreground the voices around him over that of a single author; they are the words of young American conscripts and their Vietnamese counterparts, coworkers and bosses, neighbors and strangers. His compressed sketches and unadorned monologues have appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, and Rolling Stone. There It Is: New and Selected Poems presents, for the first time, a full tour through Casey’s work, from his 1972 debut to 2011’s Check Points, together with new and uncollected work from the late 60s on. Here are all the locations of Casey’s life and work—Lowell to Landing Zone, dye house to desk—and an ensemble cast with a lot to say.
The publication of Michael Casey's New and Selected Poems, with his quirky portraits of ordinary Americans, is an event to celebrate. Like a photographer snapping pictures relentlessly, he must have written a poem about everyone he ever met with dead-on realism. Compared to him, the Spoon River Anthology is a work for kiddies. If Robert Frost was a poet of the rural New Englander, Michael Casey, also a New Englander, brings to life his mill town background, the guys who didn't go on to college and the larger world, but married the girls they dated in high school and got jobs in the mill. When he's sent to Vietnam he captures his fellow soldiers in their own military jargon. A master of the vernacular, he forces one to question writing in the 'correct' language when so many of us speak it quite differently, the language we think and feel in. Rare among poets, he's willing to explore colloquial speech in all its messiness, and gets it down perfectly – in fact, he's got us all down spot on. This collection, with its wide range of voices, is a unique achievement.”
— Edward Field, author of The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag and After the Fall: Poems Old and New

Tuesday, November 07, 2017

Poet Scott Ruescher Nov 14 5PM




To see the show live go to:  http://scatvsomerville.org 

Scott Ruescher is the author of the poetry collection Waiting for the Light to Change (Prolific Press, 2017). He has won Able Muse’s Write Prize, Poetry Quarterlys Rebecca Lard Award, and, twice, the New England Poetry Clubs Erika Mumford Prize for poetry about travel and international culture. His poems have appeared in PloughsharesSolstice, The Common Ground Review, The Boston Phoenix, and elsewhere. He administers the Arts in Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and teaches English in the Boston University Prison Education Program. (updated 7/2017)

Thursday, November 02, 2017

Nov 7 , 2017 5PM Poet/Publisher Michael McInnis


Michael McInnis




  " I started Nixes Mate in 2016 with Philip Borenstein and Annie Pluto. We all had been zine publishers in late 80s, revolving around my underground bookstore, The Primal Plunge, in Allston. We had this idea of doing an online Review and a yearly "best of" Anthology. When Rusty Barnes asked if there were any local presses interested in doing a small book of poetry, I decided to take the press in that direction. Our 18th book is about to come out. We have another six in the works.

This is from the About page on the web site:

Nixes Mate is a navigational hazard in Boston Harbor.

We want to challenge the preconceived notions of reading on the web by using off-the-shelf technology to build a best-in-breed literary magazine. More than a magazine, it's a website.

We feature writers that use all 26 letters of the alphabet and then some. We're not afraid of punctuation; semicolons don't frighten us. Not even a little bit.

We feature small-batch artisanal literature, created by writers who've been honing their craft the time-honored way: one line at a time."

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Poet Allen West -Oct 17, 2017 5PM

Allen West's sense of loss informs the elegies in Allen West’s new poetry collection, Keeping Night at Bay, is countered by the tenderness they express, the beauty of their lines, and the resilience with which the poet continues to sing.  These are deeply personal poems and at the same time deeply universal in their humanity, allusiveness, and the exquisite way they intertwine with the poet’s Chinese translations accompanied by Gundi Chan’s original calligraphy.  Seldom do we encounter work that is as unabashedly emotional as the poems in Keeping Night at Bay, while also displaying such rare intelligence.  

     

Allen West was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1930, and came to the U.S. with his family after the 1941 invasion of Greece by Germany. Educated at Phillips Academy and Princeton University, he served three years in the U.S. Army, then earned a PhD in chemistry from Cornell University in 1960.  He taught at Williams College and Lawrence University until 1994, when he and his wife Emily moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. While there he was a tutor at Cambridge Rindge & Latin High School and a volunteer at Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic. His wife died in 1999, his son in 2014. He has two daughters and three grandchildren. Since 2007 he has lived in Lexington, Massachusetts.  He began writing poetry in 1983, was a runner-up for the 1992 Grolier Poetry Prize, and won the 2000 chapbook competition of the White Eagle Coffee Store Press, which published The Time of Ripe Figs in 2002.  His full-length poetry collection, Beirut Again, was published in 2010 by Off the Grid Press

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Oct 3--My Guests will be John Harrison and Kim Nagy editors of " Dead in Good Company: A Celebration of Mount Auburn Cemetry"

 
Dead In Good Company is a compelling collection  of essays, poems and wildlife photographs of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sweet Auburn, as it is affectionately known, is America's first garden cemetery.

An amazing group of authors have come together to celebrate this unique resource - including Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz; historical novelist William Martin; former Mayor of Boston and Ambassador to the Vatican, Ray Flynn; Boston author and television icon, Hank Phillippi Ryan; Pulitzer Prize winner, Megan Marshall; mystery/true-crime author Kate Flora; mystery author Katherine Hall Page; medical thriller author Gary Goshgarian (Braver); broadcasting legend Upton Bell; world renowned bird guide author and artist David Sibley; drama critic, author and host of the Theatre World Awards, Peter Filichia; screen writer, author Chris Keane; Mass Audubon's Wayne Petersen; Talkin' Birds radio host, Ray Brown; author, naturalist Peter Alden; founder of Project Coyote, Camilla Fox; Director of the World Bird Sanctuary, Jeff Meshach; senior scientist for wildlife at the Humane Society of the United States, John Hadidian; historian Dee Morris; and sports writer and commentator, Dan Shaughnessy.  Watch it live  at  http://scatvsomerville.org  at 5PM

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Sept 26 5PM Timothy Gager--Poet, and Writer

Timothy Gager





I will talk with Gager about his long and prolific career and his new book of verse -- Chief Jay Strongbow is Real  (Big Table Books)  See it live at 5PM at  http://scatvsomerville.org




Timothy Gager's latest book, Chief Jay Strongbow is Real, is evidence of a new stage for the veteran poet and novelist. Before this book, Gager safely relied on his poetic insight into the struggle we all face, and his powerful phraseology; in this one, he stretches out into the worlds of politics and personality. His eye for the telling detail remains, but his work has become more expansive, more timely, and less hard-bitten. This is a mature poet showing us exactly what he's got: and it's good.
~ Rusty Barnes Author of On Broad Sound and I Am Not Ariel.

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Interview with poet and writer Ed Meek--Sept 19 5PM







ED MEEK is a freelance writer and the author of three books of poetry. His work has appeared in magazines, journals and newspapers, including The Paris Review, The Sun, the North American Review, and The Boston Globe.  He is the author of " Luck," a collection of short stories.He is living the dream with his wife in Somerville and Wellfleet.   See the show live at 5 on Somerville Media Center TV  http://scatvsomerville.org 

Friday, August 04, 2017

Doug Holder interviews Lowell, MA. Poet, Publisher, Writer-- Paul Marion...

Poet Kate Hanson Foster: Aug 8 5PM Poet to Poet SMC TV

Kate Hanson Foster

 

 

Author's Bio

Kate Hanson Foster's first book of poems, Mid Drift, was published by Loom Press and was a finalist for the Massachusetts Center for the Book Award in 2011. Her poetry has appeared in Comstock Review, Harpur Palate, Poet Lore, Tupelo Quarterly and elsewhere. She was recently awarded the NEA Parent Fellowship through the Vermont Studio Center. She can be found on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/khansonfoster and Twitter https://twitter.com/khansonfoster

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

AUG 1--5PM-- Paul Marion- Poet, Writer, Community Organizer--Founder of the Loom Press


Paul Marion of Lowell, MA.





Paul Marion has been a writer and community activist since the 1970s. He is the author of several collections of poetry as well as the editor of the early writings of Jack Kerouac, Atop an Underwood, and other titles. His recent book Mill Power tells the story of the innovative national park in Lowell, Massachusetts, and the city’s acclaimed revival, a model for small industrial cities everywhere. His work has appeared in anthologies and literary journals such as Alaska Quarterly Review and The Massachusetts Review. In 1978 he created Loom Press, a small publishing company that promotes writing from the Merrimack River Valley. Among other accomplishments on the community front, he co-founded the Lowell Folk Festival and Lowell Heritage Partnership, an alliance of people and organizations whose mission is to care for architecture, nature, and culture.  His latest collection of poetry is Union River.

see the show live at 5PM  http://scatvsomerville.org

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

July 25, 2017 Doug Holder interviews Poet Richard Hoffman


Poet Richard Hoffman
See this show live at http://scatvsomerville.org  at 5PM  July 25, 2017

Richard Hoffman is author of the memoirs Half the House and Love & Fury; the poetry collections, Without Paradise; Gold Star Road, winner of the 2006 Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize and the 2008 Sheila Motton Award from the New England Poetry Club; Emblem; and most recently Noon until Night. A fiction writer as well, his Interference & Other Stories was published in 2009. A former Chair of PEN New England, he is Senior Writer in Residence at Emerson College.
Richard can be reached at rchoffman [at] comcast.net

Wednesday, July 05, 2017

Joseph A. Cohen turns 100
William Falcetano

You’ll find him most Saturday mornings seated in the same café with a cheese danish and a black coffee, chatting with his fellow poets, writers, and artists – he is Joe Cohen and he is about to turn one-hundred years old tomorrow, July 13th. The fact that a ninety-nine-year-old gentleman is a “man about town” is in itself noteworthy; but Joseph A. Cohen doesn’t only attend the Bagels and Bards informal weekly meet-up; he also gives public readings of his poetry in such literary settings as the Periodicals Room of the Boston Public Library (for National Poetry Month), the Armory in Somerville, and the Somerville and Cambridge Public Libraries. Joe’s poetry readings are often accompanied by his violinist daughter Beth Bahia Cohen, who teaches world violin traditions at Berklee College of Music and Tufts University.
Joe’s parents were Arabic-speaking Jews from Aleppo, Syria. They emigrated to America in 1911. Six years later, in 1917, Joe was born in the Lower East Side of New York City. The Cohens moved to the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, where they raised a large family of 8 children. Joe’s childhood in the 1920s was straight out of The Little Rascals – he and his pals searched for empty lots for a place to play stick-ball; they went to Ebbets Field to see the Brooklyn Dodgers play baseball (his cousin Sam Nahem pitched for the Dodgers in 1938). But by the time Joe went to New Utrecht High School the Great Depression had descended on America and people were hurting; but Joe got straight into the table linen business after graduation.
As a young man, and a handsome fellow to boot (see wedding picture), Joe was naturally looking for love; and he found it when he met Sonia, who was from a Yiddish-speaking Jewish family from Ukraine. From these two regions of the world, now so mired in misery, they seemed destined to find happiness together in America. To the question: “How’d you met your wife?” Joe shrugged his shoulders and said, “well, we were both lefties and we went to meetings”. He brought Sonia home and said to his disapproving mother (it was a mixed marriage after all): “if you like her I’ll marry her; and if you don’t like her I’ll marry her.”
Then, in December, 1941, America was suddenly at war and Joe joined the U.S. Army. He fought Hitler’s legions as part of an anti-aircraft gun battery in North Africa, Italy (Anzio), France, and Belgium. Joe Cohen went up against Hermann Goering’s dreaded Luftwaffe and shot Messerschmitts and Junkers out of the European skies; but you could never get him to admit it – “hundreds of shots went up but nobody knew whose shot downed the plane”. That’s how real heroes talk; never taking personal credit for their amazing deeds. On Bastille Day last year, Joe was awarded the Legion of Honor from the government of France for his services during the war – that’s no small distinction when a whole country says “Thank You!”
The 1950s were good to the Cohens; Joe’s table linen business boomed and he employed 200 workers selling his wares all over the world. Joe and Sonia had three children; he lived in Great Neck N.Y. for 50 years before he moved to Cambridge at the age of 94. Despite his business success Joe never forgot his political convictions; so he pitched in to help the singer-activist Harry Belafonte fund and organize the legal defense for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Then he fought to desegregate another famous American place – Levittown, N.Y., where the Cohens lived for a time on their journey from Brooklyn to Great Neck.
In the meantime, Joe became a student and later a teacher of photography; he studied with highly acclaimed photographers at The New School in NYC, Parsons School of Design, CW Post; he also taught the art of photography for over 40 years at colleges in the area. His photos were exhibited widely in New York. Joe also took time out to study poetry; and he became a published poet with two fine chapbooks – one book, aptly named A Full Life, shows a photograph of Joe reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace in a foxhole. A second book by the title A New Path, was published in June. Joe’s poems often evoke scenes of Middle Eastern hospitality, food, and music. They reveal a man who pays attention to details and who savors the good things of life – family, friends, the taste of Syrian cuisine, the color of green in springtime.
Joe has been a beloved “Bagel Bard” ever since he arrived in town; and he has graced our table with portraits of each of us, as well as with his poetry readings, his keen observations, and his wry wit. I can report that Joe Cohen still has a strong hand shake, he takes a glass of scotch and soda every night with dinner; his eyes twinkle and his wit is keen. Now don’t be fooled, old age isn’t a walk in the park; it’s not easy being a hundred. After all, most of the people he grew up with are long gone; as Joe complained in a turn of phrase worthy of Yogi Bera: “everybody I know is dead”.
In Joe Cohen, we find a man who was a soldier and a poet, a successful businessman and a civil rights activist, a Jew who speaks Arabic, a beloved husband, an adored father of three and grandfather of five, and a photographer whose long and clear view of life has earned him the right to the title “A Full Life”. But to come out at a hundred with another title – “A New Path” – what can be new at 100? Stay tuned to Joe Cohen and you’ll find out. No wonder why the City of Cambridge has declared July 13th Joseph A. Cohen Day.

Tuesday, July 04, 2017

Somerville Poet Laureate Gloria Mindock Juy 11 5PM

Somerville Poet Laureate Gloria Mindock  Watch the show live at 5PM  Tuesday July 15 at  http://scatvsomerville.org


Gloria Mindock

Please welcome the City's second poet laureate, Gloria Mindock
The Somerville Arts Council is pleased to support and promote our second Poet Laureate, Gloria Mindock.  During 2017 & 18, Gloria is expected to bring poetry to segments of the community that currently have less access or exposure to poetry: senior citizens, youth, and schools.
For those who would be interested in collaborating with Gloria please contact  Gregory Jenkins 
Poetry Roundtable in 2017

Held from 1:30-3:30 every three months in the Cervena Barva Press studio, located in the Arts for the Armory, Basement B8, 191 Highland Avenue, Somerville, MA

The dates are as follows:
Saturday, February 18th
Saturday, May 20th
Saturday, August 19th
Saturday, November 18th

Informal and open to the community, bring your poems to share.  Refreshments will be served.
Office hours once a month.
Available for anyone in the community to come by and talk about poetry, writing, and the arts in the community.
Hours are once a month on the fourth Tuesdays, February thur November 2017, from 6:30-7:30 pm in the Cervena Barva Press studio at the Arts for the Armory, 191 Highland Avenue, Basement, B8, Somerville, MA

Gloria Mindock is the founding editor of Cervena Barva Press and one of the USA editors for Levure Litteraire (France). She is the author of Whiteness of Bone (Glass Lyre Press, 2016), La Portile Raiului (Ars Longa Press, Romania) translated into the Romanian by Flavia Cosma, Nothing Divine Here (U Soku Stampa, Montenegro), and Blood Soaked Dresses (Ibbetson St. Press). Widely published in the USA and abroad, her poetry has been translated and published into the Romanian, Croation, Serbian, Montenegrin, Spanish, Estonian, and French. Gloria was awarded the Ibbetson Street Press Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014, and the Allen Ginsberg Award for community service by the Newton Writing and Publishing Center in 2016. Gloria has been published in numerous journals including Gargoyle, Web Del Sol, Poet Lore, River Styx, Nixes Mate Review, Ibbetson, Muddy River Poetry Review, Constellations, Arabesques (Algeria), Akadeemia (Estonia), Vatra Veche, UNU: Revista de Cultura, and Citadela in Romania. In November, 2016, she was nominated for five Pushcart Prizes.
Special Thanks to Doug Holder and Harris Gardner, our poet advocates.

Saturday, June 17, 2017

June 20 5:30PM--Prema Bangera--Founder of Teen Voices Emerging

 
 
Prema Bangera--founder of Teen Voices Emerging ( Left)
 
 
 
 
My Organization (Teen Voices Emerging) Information:

Organization Mission Statement: 

Teen Voices Emerging (TVE) is an all-girls writing and mentorship program, which aims to empower young urban girls through the power of words and connection. Its philosophy is built on the premise that every young girl should have the opportunity to share her voice with her community to create a social movement that changes the skewed representation and images of women and girls in the media.


Organization Description:

Teen Voices Emerging provides a writing and mentorship after-school program, which serves Boston teen girls (ages 13-19) and focuses on exploring girls’ issues and developing teens’ writing skills. Teen girls learn writing, creative self-expression, research, and analytical skills by writing poetry, short stories, personal narratives, news articles, and other media content for publication. Girls also receive mentorship from strong female professionals and participate in events with a focus on social justice.

Monday, June 05, 2017

Poet Anna M. Warrock, author of "From the Other Room" June 13 5PM




 Somerville poet Anna M. Warrock will be my guest on my Somerville Media Center TV show--Poet to Poet Writer to Writer  http://poettopoetwritertowriter.blogspot.com




Watch it live at 5PM  June 13 at  http://scatvsomerville.org

Anna M. Warrock's publications include the chapbooks From the Other Room, winner of the first Slate Roof Press Chapbook Contest; Horizon; and Smoke and Stone. Her work appears in the anthology Kiss Me Goodnight: Poems and Stories by Women Who Were Girls When Their Mothers Died, Minnesota Book Award Finalist, for which she also wrote the introduction. Besides appearing in a number of literary and multidisciplinary magazines, including Harvard Review, The Sun magazine, The Madison Review, Phoebe, and Poiesis, her poems have been set to music, performed at Boston's Hayden Planetarium, and permanently installed in a Boston-area subway station. She has taught poetry in classes for the elderly, high school students, and adult education, and held seminars on understanding grief and loss through poetry. She lives Somerville, MA.

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Poet Ben Berman May 30, 2017 5PM

Poet Ben Berman
 **** see the show live at 5PM at  http://scatvsomerville.org  


Ben Berman is the author of Strange Borderlands (Able Muse Press), which won the 2014 Peace Corps Writers Award for Best Poetry Book and was a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award. He has received awards from the New England Poetry Club and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and Somerville Arts Council. His latest book of poetry is Figuring in the Figure. He is the Co-Poetry Editor at Solstice Literary Journal and he teaches in the Boston area where he lives with his wife and two daughters. You can visit him at www.ben-berman.com

Sunday, April 30, 2017

May 9 5PM Poet Wendy Drexler

 
Poet Wendy Drexler


 see it live at 5PM  at  http://scatvsomerville.org




Wendy Drexler’s third poetry collection, Before There Was Before, was just published by Iris Press in April 2017. She is the author of Western Motel (Turning Point, 2012), and a chapbook, Drive-ins, Gas Stations, the Bright Motels (Pudding House, 2007), which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Ibbetson Street, Nimrod, Off the Coast, Prairie Schooner, Salamander, The Mid-American Review, The Hudson Review, The Worcester Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and other journals; featured on Verse Daily and WBUR’s Cognoscenti; and in the anthologies Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust and Burning Bright: Passager Celebrates 21 Years. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she grew up Denver, Colorado, and now lives in Belmont, Massachusetts, with her husband. She is a free-lance editor and has been a poetry editor and a cavity-nest monitor for the Massachusetts Audubon Society. In 2016 she co-authored her first children’s book, Buzz, Ruby, and Their City Chicks.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

April 18 5PM Poet Fred Marchant / Poet to Poet Writer to Writer


Wednesday, March 29, 2017

April 4, 2017 5PM Mass Poetry Festival's Sara Siegel and Sharon Amuguni discuss their work and this year's festival!

See it live at 5PM on April 4, 2017  at 5PM  http://scatvsomerville.org


Sara Siegel







Sara Siegel, Program Director

Sara Siegel is a lifelong writer and crafter based in Somerville. After graduating Washington University in St. Louis and working at women's health organizations in NYC, she moved to Burlington, Vermont to earn a Masters in Public Administration at UVM. While there she worked at Vermont Children's Trust Foundation, a grant-making organization working with prevention programs throughout the state. Sara moved to Boston in 2012, and spent nearly three years as the Development and Alumni Relations Associate with School Year Abroad, a high school study abroad and homestay with campuses in China, France, Spain and Italy. Sara's short stories have been published in Wild Violet, Vantage Point, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal and Cleaver Magazine. Her sketch comedy group, Mister Bismuth, regularly performs at ImprovBoston in Cambridge. 


 
SharonAmuguni




 SharonAmuguni
Program Assistant
Summer 2015 -
Sharon is a poet residing in Somerville and is currently attempt to navigate the post-grad life with as much humor and hot tea as possible. She's been published twice in UMass Amherst's Literary journal, Jabberwocky, and once in UMass Amherst's Butterfield Literary Journal. Sharon hopes to one day publish her own poetry book centered on the intersection of resistance, creative production and mental health for marginalized groups, specifically WOC and immigrants.