Poet Dan Tobin April 1, 2014 5PM

Poet Dan Tobin

 Daniel Tobin is the author of seven books of poems, Where the World is Made (University Press of New England, 1999), Double Life (Louisiana State University Press, 2004), The Narrows (Four Way Books, 2005), Second Things (Four Way Books, 2008), Belated Heavens (Four Way Books, 2010), The Net(forthcoming, Four Way Books, 2014), and From Nothing (forthcoming, Four Way Books, 2016). Among his awards are the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry, "The Discovery/​The Nation Award," The Robert Penn Warren Award, the Greensboro Review Prize, the Robert Frost Fellowship, the Katherine Bakeless Nason Prize, a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a fellowship in poetry from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. The Narrows was a featured book on Poetry Daily, as well as a finalist for the ForeWord Magazine Poetry Book Award. His poems have appeared nationally and internationally in such journals as The Nation, The New Republic, The Harvard Review, Poetry, The American Scholar, The Paris Review, The Southern Review, The Sewanee Review, The Hudson Review, The Kenyon Review, Image, The Times Literary Supplement (England), Stand (England), Agenda (England), Descant (Canada), and Poetry Ireland Review. His critical study, Passage to the Center: Imagination and the Sacred in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney, came out to wide praise from the University of Kentucky Press in 1999. His recent book of essays, Awake in America, appeared from the University of Notre Dame Press in 2011. Tobin has also edited The Book of Irish American Poetry from the Eighteenth Century to the Present (University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), Light in the Hand: The Selected Poems Lola Ridge (Quale Press, 2007), and (with Pimone Triplett) Poet’s Work, Poet’s Play: Essays on the Practice and the Art (University of Michigan Press, 2007). His work has been anthologized in Hammer and Blaze, The Bread Loaf Anthology of New American Poets, Poetry Daily Essentials 2007, Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn, Third Rail: The Poetry of Rock and Roll, The Norton Introduction to Poetry, and elsewhere. He has also published numerous essays on modern and contemporary poetry in the United States and abroad. He teaches in the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing at Emerson College in Boston. He has a new collection of poetry coming out in the spring of 2014  The Net.

Journalist, Memorist, Novelist, Dan Gewertz Dec 10, 2013 5PM

Dan Gewertz

Daniel Gewertz made a living as a Boston-based freelance journalist for 28 years, writing largely about music, theater and movies. From 1995 to 2005, he wrote a weekly Boston Herald column on folk and blues music. Over the years, Gewertz has written for periodicals ranging from Harvard Magazine, Boston Globe Magazine and  New York Times, to the Cambridge Chronicle and The Tab.  

In the last 10 years, Daniel turned his attentions toward more creative writing, namely personal essays, short memoir pieces, story-telling and fiction. Recently, he completed his first novel, "Ghost To Genius." He frequently performs his work on stage.  He has taught writing at Cambridge Center for Adult Ed.,, Brookline Center for Adult Ed., Lesley University and Bay State Community College. He holds a B.S. from Boston University in journalism. Or rather, he keeps it in a bottom bureau drawer

Interview with writer/performer Randy Ross 11/19/2013 5PM

Randy Ross

Randy Ross is a Somerville-based writer, performer, and Web consultant. His fiction and humor have appeared in The Drum, Black Heart Magazine, Side B Magazine, Calliope, and For the Girls, a feminist porn site.

 

In 2007, he took a solo trip around the world and can now say in three languages: “Do you speak English?” “How much is the Pepto-Bismol?” and “Excuse me, is this the evacuation helicopter?” !>

 

He is completing a novel inspired by the trip with the working title: “The Loneliest Planet,” which will circulate to agents in 2014.

 

He has performed a one-man show, The Chronic Single's Handbook, based on the novel, at the Washington, D.C., and Portland, Maine, fringe theater festivals. On December 4, he will be performing at Hostelling International Boston. On Dec 10, he will be the featured performer at Story Space in Central Square.

He publishes a popular blog about platform-building and self-promotion for writers. Previously, he was an executive editor for PC World magazine

Nov 5. 2013 5PM author Katrin Schumann "The Secret Power of Middle Children"

Katrin Schumann

"I was born in Germany, but grew up in Brooklyn and London. As a child, I loved listening to my family’s stories—of war and death and love gone wrong—and later I would rewrite them in my head, filling in the details, the motives, and making up new endings. Soon I started writing my stories down and I’ve never stopped.

At some level, family and community is what all my work is about. Everywhere I look there are stories to tell. In my professional life as a writer, editor, and teacher, I work with stories across various genres. My most recent book, The Secret Power of Middle Children (Hudson St/Penguin), is the first nonfiction exploration of the benefits of being stuck in the middle. My current works-in-progress include a book on parenting strategies that can make or break children born into wealth, and a novel about forbidden love and a family torn apart by the division of Germany at the end of WWII. To read an excerpt, click here.
My work has been featured multiple times on the TODAY show and in Woman’s Day, The Times (UK) and on NPR, as well as other national and international media. Early in my career, I was granted the Kogan Media Award for my work at National Public Radio, and as a student, I received academic scholarships to Oxford and Stanford Universities. More recently I’ve been awarded writing residencies at the VCCA, the Norman Mailer Writers Colony and Vermont Studio Center. I live near Boston with my husband and three teenagers, and frequently return to Europe to gather more family stories."

Oct 29, 2013 Poet Timothy Gager author of The Shutting Door

Timothy Gager is the author of ten books of short fiction and poetry. His latest, The Shutting Door (Ibbetson Street Press) is his first full-length book of poetry in nine years. He has hosted the successful Dire Literary Series in Cambridge, Massachusetts every month for the past twelve years and is the co-founder of Somerville News Writers Festival. He has had over 250 works of fiction and poetry published since 2007: nine have been n...ominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work has been read on National Public Radio. He lives on www.timothygager.com  and is employed as a social worker.

Oct 8 2013 Poet Jacquelyn Malone 5PM

Jacquelyn Malone

"I am the writer/editor for masspoetry.org. Before I retired, I was a Senior Web Writer/Editor for both IBM and Lotus Development Corp. I have been a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship grant in poetry. Among other journals, my work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cimarron Review, Cortland Review, and Poetry Northwest. The poem published in Beloit was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. A poem published in Poetry appeared on Poetry Daily.  My chapbook All Waters Run to Lethe was published by Finishing Line Press in 2012. I have an MFA from Warren Wilson where I studied with Thomas Lux, Stephen Dobyns, and Louise Gluck."

Kate Chadbourne: Poet, Harpist, Storyteller--Sept 17 5PM SCAT Channel 3

Kate Chadbourne
Kate Chadbourne is a singer, storyteller, and poet whose performances combine traditional tales with music for voice, harp, flutes, and piano. She holds a Ph.D. in Celtic Languages and Literatures from Harvard where she teaches courses in Irish language and folklore – but the heart of her understanding of Irish folk tradition comes from encounters with singers, storytellers, and great talkers in Ireland.
She has been a “tradition bearer” in the Revels Salon series and in the Gaelic Roots Concert Series at Boston College. Her music was featured recently on NPR’s programs, “Cartalk” and “All Songs Considered,” and songs from her latest CD, The Irishy Girl, are played on Irish radio programs throughout the country. The Harp-Boat, a collection of poems about her father, a Maine lobsterman, won the Kulupi Press 2007 Sense of Place Chapbook Contest and was published in 2008. Whether she is singing, telling stories, teaching, or sharing a poem, she aims to leave her audiences moved, enlivened, and eager for their own adventures. Kind Words A lovely performance…spellbinding! ~ Janet Sartor, Coordinator of Public Programs, Harvard Art Museum “Sheer delight” is how one patron summed up the evening. ~ Ann Wilson, Coordinator, Adult Programs, Groton Public Library Kate’s magical aura and haunting melodies affected listeners of all ages in the audience… Kate ably switched from Irish flute to harp to whistle to keyboard and to an especially enchanting, pure voice. The distance between the Emerald Isle and an American city vanished for an hour as we enjoyed Kate Chadbourne’s lilting melodies and charming tales. ~ Susan Alatalo, Arts Alliance, Hudson, MA We were so pleased to have Kate Chadbourne grace our stage just before Christmas. Her captivating story telling combined with her beautiful voice and eloquent harp playing led to a wonderful evening of song and story. ~ Ben Burdick, Events Coordinator for Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health Kate Chadbourne has twice had audiences at the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology standing in the aisles, enthralled, and singing along to songs they barely knew, led by her silver voice and the crystal-clear tones of her harp, as they effortlessly learned the depths and mysteries of traditional Celtic culture. We hope to have her again. ~ Kevin P. Smith, Deputy Director/Chief Curator of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology (Brown University) Kate wove her spell on all attending last Tuesday evening's uplifting and entertaining performance at the Brookline Chapel in Brookline, NH. The program was a perfect mix of Irish music, enchanting Celtic stories and her poems about the sea; the music ideally suited the venue as Kate's melodic voice reverberated in the stone chapel along with flute and songs and stories accompanied on harp or piano. The audience also had fun participating in several sing-alongs, getting a taste of the Irish language. As the program organizer, Kate was a real pleasure to work with! ~ Debra Reilly, Program Coordinator, Brookline, NH Public Library Kate has performed throughout New England including: Art Centers, Coffeehouses, and Concert Halls ~ Club Passim (Cambridge); Red Door Coffeehouse (Framingham); The Center for Arts (Natick); First Parish Church (Watertown); Amazing Things Art Center (Natick); Bookseller Café (Medford); The Emerson Umbrella (Concord); Springstep Performing Arts Center (Medford); Portland Stage Company (Portland, ME); The Performing Arts Center (Westford); Café Ziba (Acton); The Java Room (Chelmsford); The Side Door Coffeehouse (Jamaica Plain); King Hooper Café (Marblehead) Colleges and Universities ~ Harvard University; Boston College; Brown University; University College Galway (Ireland); Magee College, University of Ulster (Derry, Northern Ireland); University College Cork (Ireland); Johnson & Wales University; Providence College; Bridgewater State College; Plymouth State College; Western Michigan University; Celtic Institute of North America

Sept. 3, 2013 Poet, Editor Ralph Pennel

Ralph Pennel

Ralph Pennel received his BA in Creative Writing from Knox College and his MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University. Ralph's writing has appeared in Common Ground Review, Ropes, The Cape Rock, Apercus Quarterly, Open to Interpretation, Ibbetson Street, The Smoking Poet, Unbound Press, Right Hand Pointing, Monologues From the Road, and various other journals. He has also published reviews with Cervena Barva Press, Wilderness House Literary Review, and Rain Taxi Review of Books. His poetry collection, Any World Less Perfect for Dying In, will be published by Cervena Barva press in the fall of 2014. Ralph teaches literature at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, Massachusetts, and is the fiction editor for Midway Journal (www.midwayjournal.com), an online literary journal publishing out of St. Paul, Minnesota.

Novelist Elizabeth Graver Aug 13, 2013

Elizabeth Graver’s new novel is The End of the Point. She is the author of three other novels: Awake, The Honey Thief, and Unravelling. Her short story collection, Have You Seen Me?, won the 1991 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories (1991, 2001); Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards (1994, 1996, 2001), The Pushcart Prize Anthology (2001), and Best American Essays (1998). Her story “The Mourning Door” received the Cohen Award from Ploughshares Magazine. The mother of two daughters, she teaches English and Creative Writing at Boston College.

Guest: Sheree Pollock: A Psychiatric Nurse with a Creative Flair. Aug 6. 5PM

Sheree Pollock

In my 30 plus years working at a major psychiatric hospital just outside of Boston, I have worked with countless patients and staff on both locked and unlocked settings. One of the most creative of these people is Sheree Pollock, a veteran psychiatric nurse. Pollock is a dramatic personality, and uses her knowledge of theater, literature, gardening and other creative passions to engage the patients on a more human level. The minute she walks through the door her presence is known, and she is not too shy to quote Bette Davis, or Joan Crawford--or belt out a few lyrics from a Judy Garland song to make her point. She is a natural storyteller and thespian--and makes what can often be a purely clinical experience into a richer milieu.  I had the pleasure of interviewing Pollock on my Somerville Community Access TV show Poet to Poet Writer to Writer.

"My goal is to engage every client in an authentic way. I learned long ago that we may not be able to change the clients lives but we can control what happens on a  daily basis while they are with us. So my goal is to improve their lives while they are in the hospital. That may be with Karaoke, Movies, Food, Gardening, Fashion or whatever their personal interests may be. The goal is to engage them. I am dramatic because it is engaging. They may love me or hate me but I hope to get them engaged in the present."

July 16 5PM Poet Dan Sklar author of new poetry collection Flying Cats (actually swooping)

Professor/Poet/Playwright Dan Sklar of Endicott College

    New poetry collection:  Flying Cats ( actually swooping) ( Ibbetson Street Press) by Dan Sklar


"Fans of European 19th century verse, thick with symbolism and multi-syllabic, will find little to love in Dan Sklar’s work. Sklar’s poetry could be characterized as American Primitive, clean and bracing as creek water. Like Whitman, Sklar celebrates the mystery and profundity of the everyday. This is “guy” poetry, muscularly chronicling the days and to-do list of the contemporary American male, helplessly and joyfully committed to the challenges of raising a houseful of boys, teaching sleepy-eyed college students, and handling the ignominies of manuscript rejection letters. Sklar’s poems tumble and sing with enormously universal appeal."

 --Lisa Beatman, Author of Manufacturing America

July 9th Poet/Legislator Denise Provost

Poet/State Rep.--Denise Provost

"I started writing – mainly, but not exclusively poetry – as a child. I got a full scholarship to Bennington College during my sophomore year of high school, based in large part on a manuscript of poetry. In my senior year, I decided to go to law school, after having decided that I was not suited for a graduate degree in English literature.

I graduated from Bennington in 1971, started law school in 1972, graduated from law school in 1982. I worked as a lawyer for the City of Newton, then was recruited by the City of Somerville, to work for reform mayor Eugene Brune. Working in local government gave me ideas about how government could become more transparent and responsive. In 1993, I ran for Ward Alderman in Ward 5, coming very close against a long-time incumbent.

The incumbent resigned a year and two weeks later, and the Board of Alderman appointed a replacement. I ran against the appointee in 1995, again coming close. After that second defeat, I figured my political career was over. Then, in 1999, the ward 5 incumbent did not run for re-election, and one of the at-large aldermen made the same decision. I ran for the latter seat, and won.

I served on the Board of Aldermen for almost seven years, running for state representative in a special election. I won that election in February, 2006, and have since represented Somerville’s 27^th Middlesex District.

As my children got older, I found I was writing more poetry again, and decided that I needed a teacher. I was accepted into Susan Donnelly’s poetry writing workshop in 2010. Since then, I’ve had poetry published in a number of print and on-line journals."

June 25 Poet, Writer, Professor J.D. Scrimgeour

J.D. Scrimgeour

 Scrimgeour teaches at Salem State University. He recently published the poetry collection Territories (Last Automat Press). He has published another book of poetry, The Last Miles, and two books of creative nonfiction, Spin Moves and Themes For English B: A Professor’s Education In and Out of Class. With musician Philip Swanson he formed the performance group, Confluence, and released a CD of poetry and music, Ogunquit & Other Works.

Poet Charles Coe author of " All Sins Forgiven" 6/4/2013 Poet to Poet 5PM

Charles Coe is the author of two collections of poems published by Leapfrog Press: “Picnic on the Moon” (1999) and “All Sins Forgiven: Poems for my Parents” (2013). An accomplished jazz vocalist, Coe is known for his powerful readings and warm and compassionate voice. He is featured on numerous spoken word CDs, including “Get Ready for Boston,” a collection of stories and songs about Boston neighborhoods, and “One Side of the River,” an anthology of Cambridge and Somerville poets.


In “All Sins Forgiven,” Coe writes as a way to understand his own mother and father, and to connect readers with their own parents

.
Marge Piercy describes the collection as “at once an extremely clear-sighted and unsentimental portrait of Coe’s mother and father, and a book written with great tenderness. It’s rare we can come to see our parents in themselves, and even rarer to see all their faults and yet express love and understanding, as these poems do.”
“My Mother Cut My Hair” begins: “As she stood behind me / dressed in motherhood’s ill-fitting robe / I wonder what messages she read / in the hair that settled around her feet / like snow from some private winter.”
Coe is a program officer for the Massachusetts Cultural Council and a long-time activist with the National Writers Union, a labor union of freelance writers. He lives in Boston.

May 21, 2013 Poet Philip E. Burnham, Jr

Philip E. Burnham, Jr

Philip E. Burnham, Jr. lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was born in Rochester, New York, and grew up in New England. He attended Groton School, the University of Edinburgh, and Harvard College. A former member of the United States Foreign Service, he served as American Vice Consul in Marseille, France, from 1962 through 1964. For the next 35 years he taught history in both public and private secondary schools and colleges in the Boston area. He holds a PhD in Medieval History from Tufts University. He has traveled extensively in Europe and spent two sabbatical years abroad, one at Cambridge University and another in Paris. He was married to Louise Hassel for 42 years and has three children and four grandchildren, all of whom live in California

Poet to Poet Writer to Writer May 14 Poet Tim Suermondt

   

 BIO

Tim Suermondt is the author of two full-length collections: TRYING TO HELP THE

ELEPHANT MAN DANCE ( The Backwaters Press, 2007 ) and JUST BEAUTIFUL from

New York Quarterly Books, 2010. He has published poems in Poetry, The Georgia Review,

Blackbird, Able Muse, Prairie Schooner, PANK, Bellevue Literary Review and Stand Magazine

(U.K.) and has poems forthcoming in Gargoyle, A Narrow Fellow and DMQ Review among others. After many years in Queens and Brooklyn, he has moved to Cambridge with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.

Apirl 2, 2013-- 5PM-- Poet Sassan Tabatabai

Born in Tehran, Iran, Sassan Tabatabai has lived in the United States since 1980. As a poet and scholar of medieval Persian poetry, he is the author of Father of Persian Verse: Rudaki and His Poetry (Leiden University Press, 2010). He teaches humanities and Persian literature at Boston University and Boston College, and is Poetry Editor of the literary journal News from the Republic of Letters.

Most recently, Tabatabai is the author of Uzunburun, a collection of poetry and translations published in 2011 by Pen & Anvil Press --

March 26 2013 5PM Meikle Paschal

Meikle Paschal   author of the memoir  

The Black Buddhist 

The Black Buddhist by Meikle Paschal (Ibbetson Street Press) http://ibbetsonpress.com  $15

Review by Afaa Michael Weaver

In sentences that are as sincere as they are nostalgic, Meikle Paschal gives us a valuable portrait of the journey of his life from the poor neighborhoods of Boston to the comfort of a consciousness furnished by the loving kindness of his Buddhist principles, principles that save him from the bitterness and resentment that can occupy the mind of someone who has fought adversity for his entire life. An African American man gifted with unusual intelligence and a keen intuition, he is lifted also by a penchant for forgiveness. As a reader, I am especially endeared to his portraits of a Boston I could never have known, the old Boston of the mid twentieth century. Paschal seems remarkably adept at recognizing and seizing the chance in life, even when he was not aware of the fuller meanings of his actions at the time. He implies repeatedly that something saved him, and it is that hope he offers the reader, namely that if we would just believe there is a way, the way will reveal itself to us. He is not blind to the tragedies of life, as he notes the people who did not have or see the chance, people who fell victim to things we would rather not imagine, but he offers his own encounters with those chances. He explores the vicissitudes of upward mobility in stories that are insightful and inspiring. In admitting the perfection possible in life, he admits the imperfections, the double binds, the impasses, and he continues on with life, even as the apparent paradise proves itself over and over to be only that and not something ultimately real. Paschal lets us see only the journey is real.
To order:
http://tinyurl.com/cxgxdhh

March 12 Author Ira Wood

Ira Wood is an author, a teacher, a former publisher, and the host of a weekly radio program called The Lowdown on WOMR-FM, Cape Cod’s Community Radio Station, a Pacifica affiliate with studios in Provincetown, Massachusetts. You’re Married to HER? his new book of autobiographical essays was released in August, 2012.
Ira’s three novels are The Kitchen Man, Going Public, and Storm Tide, co-authored by Marge Piercy, with whom he has also written So You Want to Write, an award-winning book about the craft of writing fiction and memoirs which is based on their popular course. His short pieces have been published in ‘Ploughshares,’ ‘Tikkun,’ ‘Fifth Wednesday,’ ‘The St. Petersburg Review,’ and the ‘Utne Reader’ among many literary magazines. In 1996 he and Marge Piercy established the Leapfrog Press, an internationally distributed ‘boutique’ publishing company, which the Boston Globe called “the pulse of what’s hot in the publishing world.” Although they sold it in 2007 it has continued their mission of publishing cutting edge literature and has more than tripled in size.
Ira has been praised for his ability to work with writing students to overcome the inner censor, his darkly funny and wildly confessional readingss from his own work, and his lectures on everything from the publishing industry, to obsessional gardening to using the Tao Te Ching as guide to governing a small New England town. For over a decade he has taught regularly at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, the Rowe Conference Center, and more recently Kripalu.
While an editor at Leapfrog he specialized in the resurrection of near misses: books that had come close to being published by mainstream New York publishers but lacked certain elements, sometimes just big numbers for the author’s previous books, but that notwithstanding, a compelling beginning, a tighter plot, a selling title, or simply a great marketing campaign—as wll as the patience to keep a book in print until it found its audience. With a hand in the marketing of every one of Leapfrog’s books, his small press titles received national media attention, some becoming regional best sellers, BookSense and best-of-the-year picks.
For over 30 years Ira has made his home in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, a small fishing village celebrated for its oysters, art galleries, and the colony of well known writers, architects, painters and intellectuals who have settled in this rugged outpost near the tip of Cape Cod. Indulging his interest in public affairs, he has spent over twenty years in town government, serving for twelve years as a selectman—one of a board of five women and men elected the principal administrative officers of the town.
Zazen meditation is an important practice for him as is organic gardening, which he indulges with far too much passion resulting in way too many tomatoes. In 2010 he began hosting a series of bi-monthly political debates on public radio which morphed into a weekly interview show called The Lowdown, which airs on WOMR/WFMR-FM (broadcasting the length of Cape Cod and the North and South shores of Boston). Interviewing authors, politicians, activists, and newsmakers, enables him to indulge a lifelong compulsion to pester people with questions. His essays and book reviews are often aired on the station’s Friday news magazine.
Ira’s writing tends to reflect his life experience. His first novel, The Kitchen Man, details the secret life of a gourmet waiter. His second, Going Public, is set in the early years of the burgeoning dot.com industry, while Storm Tide considers politics in a New England town. You’re Married to HER?, a collection of essays is a compendium of tales about sex, drugs, teaching, politics, publishing, and everything he did instead of writing.

 

Since 1982 he has been married to the poet/novelist Marge Piercy. They live on four hilly acres of land surrounded by pine and oak forest, midway between the Atlantic Ocean and Cape Cod Bay. They share their space with six cats (again, way too many).

Feb 26, 2013 5PM Poet Donna Johnson

Donna Johnson grew up in Tennessee, but now lives with her family outside of Boston. Her poems and reviews have been published in Birmingham Poetry Review, Blue Unicorn, Café Review, Green Mountains Review, Ibbetson Street, Marco Polo, Perihelion, Tulane Review, Two Rivers Review, and others. In 2010 she won Cutbank magazine’s annual poetry contest and was a finalist for the Patricia Dobler Award. In 2011 her full-length manuscript, Selvage, was chosen by Carnegie Mellon during its open reading period and will be published in February 2013. Ms. Johnson currently works in the educational software publishing field.