March 6, 2012 Rosie Rosenzweig Scholar, Playwright, Poet

Rosie Rosenzweig

Rosenzweig’s early poetry was anthologized in the first gender-friendly American Hebrew prayer book as well as in various feminist anthologies. As the founder of the Jewish Poetry Festival in Sudbury Massachusetts, she hosted outstanding luminaries like the former the poet laureate Robert Pinsky. Her more current poetry is being collected in a work-in-progress.

Rosenzweig’s interpretations of Biblical women appear in Reading Between the Lines, All the Women Followed Her, and Praise Her Works: Conversations with Biblical Women. Her essays have appeared in Ethical Wills, Making the Jewish Journey from Mid-life through the Elder Years, and the Foreword. Her travel memoir, A Jewish Mother in Shangri-la describes the Jewish Buddhist World of meditation.

Women’s Intergenerational issues have been a focus of her work and a recently completed a play, “Myths and Ms.” At Brandeis for almost a decade, she has been interviewing artists in various media and hosting a yearly panel at the Brandeis Rose Art Museum on the creative process in an effort to understand the psychological and spiritual state of consciousness present at the moment of creation. Defining how creativity can transform the artist, she has currently coined a term called MotherArtTM.
Current Projects

I am writing a book to define the process of creativity based on ten years of interviews with women artists. My recent journal article demonstratives the transformative affects of the creative process. Presently a preliminary book proposal will help to develop and define the experience and sources of creativity.
Representative Publications

Rosenzweig, Rosie. “MotherArtTM and Maternal Health: Transformation from Grief To Compassion.” Journal of the Association for Research in Mothering. York University, Toronto, Canada. Volume 11. Number 1. (2009): 224–238.

Rosenzweig, Rosie. “Post-triumphalism and the New Haskalah.” in New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future edited by Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, 397–403. Woodstock Vermont: Jewish Lights Publications, 2009.

Feb 28, 2012 Poet Bernard Horn

Bernard Horn’s most recent book of poetry, Our Daily Words, was selected as a “Must Read” book and a finalist for the 2011 Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry, by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. About a quarter of the poems in the book concern Israel and were written during the nine months the author spent there in 2001, teaching at Haifa University. Winner of a Fulbright and five fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Horn’s poems and translations of Israel’s premier poet, Yehuda Amichai, have appeared in The New Yorker, The Manhattan Review, The Mississippi Review, Moment Magazine, and other publications. After teaching in the English Department at Northern Essex Community College for 13 years, Bernie moved on to his present position as Professor of English at Framingham State College, where he received the 2010 Distinguished Faculty Award. On Wednesday, November 16th, at 7:00 p.m., Bernard Horn will present, “Poetry & Terror: The Times & Life of a Family Man.” The program will include the author’s reflections on cross-cultural interrelationships – both in the challenges of translating Yehuda Amichai’s work and in his own poetry. He also will discuss how the activity of translating and the reality of history, in the form of terrorism, impact his writing process, which is grounded in his identity, not as an isolated individual, but as a member of a family and a first generation American.

Feb 7, 2012 Poets January Gil O'Neil/ Jennifer Jean

January Gil O'Neil Executive Director, Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Professor, Salem State University. Author of Underlife (CavanKerry Press 2009) and the forthcoming Misery Islands (CavanKerry Press 2014)! Trying to celebrate the extraordinay in the ordinary every day.

Jennifer Jean is the author of three poetry collections: The Archivist (Big Table Publishing); the multi-media venture: Fishwife (Whale Sound Press); and, In the War (Big Table Publishing). As well, she’s released, with composer Sarah Eide, a collaborative CD called Fishwife Tales which is comprised of art songs, recitations and rock ballads. It can be purchased at CDbaby and on iTunes. Her poetry, essays, literary interviews, and reviews have been published in numerous journals; her poem "The Women" was anthologized in Linebreak's inaugural anthology Two Weeks; her poem "Fishwife with Child," as set to music by Sarah Eide, won the 2011 Curtain Up! Prize; as well, she's received an Agnes Butler Award from the Academy of American Poets, and her long poem, The Legend of Liban the Merrow, was a finalist for the 2010 Firewheel Chapbook Award. Jennifer is a feature writer for the arts and lifestyle magazine Art Throb, an active member of the committee producing the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, and she teaches writing and literature at Salem State University and Endicott College.

Jan 10, 2012 Poet Linda Larson

Linda Larson was born and educated in the Midwest and spent childhood vacations and more than a decade of her adult life in Madison County, Mississippi. While in Mississippi, she worked as a feature writer for The Capitol Reporter and The Jackson Advocate. Larson relocated to the Boston/ Cambridge area where she has lived and worked for the past twenty years.

For five years she served as editor of and contributor to Spare Change News, a homeless newspaper based in Cambridge.

Over the years Larson has struggled with mental illness, homelessness and alcohol addiction.
She has been recognized by both houses of the Massachusetts Legislature for her advocacy work on behalf of people with mental illnesses.

As Larson’s life has become more manageable, she has been able to realize her long-term goal in putting together a collection of poetry, Washing the Stones, published by Ibbetson Press, August, 2007. These poems go a long way towards recapturing her promise as a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars in the Seventies and as a teaching fellow in the creative writing doctoral program at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Her second collection of poetry is titled Mississippi Poems (ISCS PRESS).

Her new work in progress is tentatively entitled Hard Rain Falling.

Poet Robert K. Johnson Tuesday Oct. 20, 2011

Robert K. Johnson was the original poetry editor for the Ibbetson Street Press. A retired Professor of English/Suffolk University-Boston, Johnson has had a number of collections of poetry out, most recently "Choir of Day" (Ibbetson Street Press). Johnson is a recipient of the Ibbetson Street Press Lifetime Achievement Award, and has been widely published.

Dec. 13, 2011 Poet/ Publisher Gloria Mindock

Gloria Mindock, author of the poetry collections, Blood Soaked Dresses (Ibbetson St. Press, 2007) and Nothing Divine Here (U Soku Stampa, 2010), is editor and publisher of Cervena Barva Press, and in 2007, became the editor of the Istanbul Literary Review, an online journal based in Turkey.

Mindock is also the author of two poetry chapbooks, Doppelganger (S. Press) and Oh Angel (U Soku Stampa), and her poems have been published in numerous journals, including River Styx, Phoebe, Poesia, and Poet Lore, to name a few, as well as appearing in several anthologies. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and was awarded a fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council distributed by the Somerville Arts Council.

Gloria Mindock

From 1984-1994. Mindock edited the Boston Literary Review/Blur and was co-founder of Theatre S & S Press, Inc. During its existence, Theatre S. received grants from the Polaroid Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Globe Foundation, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her poetry collection, Doppelganger, served as the text for theatre piece of the same name performed by Theatre S.

Over the years, Mindock has performed, acted, composed music, and sang in the theatre. Her most recent performance piece, Walking In El Salvador. is scheduled to debut this September.

Mindock lives in Somerville, MA, where she has worked as Social Worker, and also does freelance editing of manuscripts and conducts workshops for writers.

Nov. 15, 2011 Poet/Philosopher Jody Azzouni

Jody Azzouni was born in New York City, and returns there as often as possible. He is a Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University. He has published books in philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science with Cambridge University Press, and Routledge (respectively), as well as a book of poetry, "The Lust for Blueprints," with The Poet's Press. He has published or will be publishing poems in places such as Artful Dodge, The Bitter Oleander, and Spillway. Samples of published poems and short stories of hers may be viewed at his website, http://www.azzouni.com/

Nov 8, 2011 5PM is poet, performer James Caroline

My Guest on Poet to Poet Nov 8, 2011 5PM is poet, performer James Caroline

Over the past 4 years, the award winning poet and performer Jme, also known as James Caroline, has made a name for himself nationally through slams and features. In February of 2006 he toured the West Coast with Def Poetry's Caroline Harvey on the highly successful I See Red tour. James is currently the front man for the band Miette with Matt Vears. His work is a rare mix of literary craft and vulnerability, and the intensity of his performances has garnered comparisons to Patti Smith.

James was voted Best Local Author in the 2006 Boston Phoenix poll. He is a multiple winner of Cambridge Poetry Awards for Best Erotic Male Performance Poet and Best Slam Poet Male. He has guest-lectured and performed at Mount Ida College, Hampshire College, Emerson College and Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. In May of 2007 he taught and performed at The Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans. He has studied with Anya Achtenberg, Patricia Smith, Regie Gibson, Sascha Feinstein, and Toni Amato. During the spring of 2004 he directed and performed in Musician and the Muse, a performance of poetry and music at The Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center featuring Nicole Terez, Tom Daley, Regie Gibson, and Iyeoka Okoawo.

He has competed with two National Slam teams, and represented the Cantab Lounge in the first Individual World Poetry Slam. In 1997 he was commissioned to write the vocal text and act as artistic sound director for Naked Truths: Voices of Shame, Sexuality, and Eating Disorders in Women, which was performed at HERE multimedia center in Manhattan. He's been published in Quarry, Subliminal, Pinned Down by Pronouns (a Lambda Literary Award Finalist for 2004), The Shadow Sacrament, the Cascadia Review, and Painted Bride Quarterly.

Oct 4, 2011: Paul Steven Stone talks to "To You Who Are Different"

Paul Steven Stone bio:

Paul Steven Stone’s writings have appeared in Cricket Magazine, Point South, Wisdom Magazine, Bagel Bards Anthologies 4,5 & 6 and a boatload of newspapers and magazines. His comic novel, "Or So It Seems", has been called “A rollicking spiritual page-turner!” His story collection, “How to Train A Rock”, was culled from 25 years of genre- and mind-bending newspaper columns. Having written and produced over 100 TV commercials during his long advertising career, Stone most recently wrote and directed a video for teens entitled “To You Who Are Different” (viewable on YouTube) to encourage and support those youth who feel “different” or apart from the mainstream. Currently Director of Advertising for W.B. Mason, Stone lives in Cambridge with his lovely wife, Amy.

“To You Who Are Different” write-up:

"To You Who Are Different" is a powerful video, that features high school students from Randolph, Massachusetts, speaking directly to their peers (the viewers) to help them survive and surmount being different. The film is also a compelling plea for tolerance and respect amongst school-age peers, building on the premise "Everyone of us is different". Very powerful. Teens talking to teens. “To You Who Are Different” has been selected as a core element in Randolph High School’s anti-bullying program.

To view “To You Who Are Different” on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IJA-uxretY

Sept 13 2011 Writer, Publisher, Alan Ball founder of Happeningnow!everywhere magazine

Bio Sketch Alan Ball



Alan Ball is not the celebrated screenwriter, that’s someone else. Not the world cup soccer player either, that’s another one. Alan’s been writing since he was a kid, as he has told one of his favorite students, he started a novel one Saturday when he was about 11, wrote a page and never finished it (yet). He started a notebook which was a take-off on some of the funny stuff around at the time, and in junior high was writing this and that about politics which was pointless since he didn’t know what he was talking about. He started writing free verse at 16 and around 20 also got back to fiction.

His first 2 published poems (1969) were accepted by the East Harlem Writing Center for their Uptown Beat.

Not enrolled there as a student, he and a friend who was and the friend’s writing roommates organized and began creative writing sessions at Bensalem College of Fordham University on Sunday evenings. This soon resulted in their editing and publishing the journal Grub Street. After 4 issues the group dispersed, but Alan and new associates published a 5th through 10th issue during the mid to late 70’s.

Alan married New York City native Patricia Russell in 1974 and completed a degree in creative writing at Empire State College of the State University of New York in 1978 (it involved writing the degree program). Soon thereafter he and Pat relocated to Somerville, Massachusetts. He took a day job and eventually he and Pat started a family. Raising two children brought with its joy the motivation and opportunity to collaborate with kids in writing. Gratitude for the education daughter Emily and son James received in the Somerville public schools led to his working with school kids and receipt of compounding returns from that work. “The reward of hard work is more hard work,” he tells his students.

He has worked for over 25 years as a medical journalist primarily in the role of managing editor of the peer-review academic journals Lasers in Surgery and Medicine and Ophthalmic Surgery, Lasers & Imaging.

Having worked several years with 3rd and 4th graders in writing and poetry as a classroom volunteer, in 2003 Alan organized an afterschool creative writing group at the A.D. Healey School, a K-8 Somerville public school, and with the students in that group and with the support of other students throughout the school, he advised their establishment of a student newspaper that has been a laboratory for writing development utilizing correspondingly developing publishing projects. The magazines that this newspaper has spawned, although small in print circulation, nevertheless are of a national and international reach. Submission is web-based and editorial evaluation is done via email, and all writers under 20 from any part of the world are invited.

To date the discovery of effective and practical publishing methods that address the challenges and employ opportunities afforded by electronic media has resulted from this collaboration. It has successfully derived ways to identify, develop and distribute literature for free while enhancing its intrinsic value, and to maintain a major print component, for the artistic and practical worth of the old medium.

Happeningnow!everywhere (aka Happening Publications) is a loosely organized collective of young writers coordinated and advised by adult mentors to publish multimedia, non-commercial periodicals that serve as teaching tools and quality offerings for young readers.

Guided largely by the interests and direction of the students working with them we now have 3 magazines, all written by young people-- by kids and young adult students-- and advised by peer editors. Happeningnow!everywhere is for writers under 20 and a reading audience age 12 through adult, 12! is for 10agers through young teens and Snowflake! is for age 10 and under. They all are general interest magazines that include informative articles, reviews, personal essays, opinion, fiction, humor and poetry. Art and popular culture are major focuses. All three are published in print and online. The project is informed by our contributing writers and responsive to their needs and points of view. These publications are selective and edited. The editors are recruited from among the contributing writers. The selections are made on the basis of reader interest, originality and quality of craft. The young writers and editors participate in the critical evaluation of innovative approaches and experimentation in seeking solutions to real-life challenges that are faced by writers and publishers.

Recent developments at Happening Publications include print collections of poetry sold for special purpose fundraising (Poetry for Haiti, Poetry for the Species and Poetry for the Healey School & fiction stories). New to the online component of Happeningnow!everywhere is a “self-print” poetry feature where visitors to the website may select and print poems for inclusion in their own loose-leaf collections. Also in view is a magazine for kids containing contributions by kids, young adults and older mentors writing for kids, and direct collaborations between kids and grownup writers.

Submissions for all the magazines are welcome via email or the websites www.happeningnoweverywhere.com and http://12zine.com .

Sept 20, 2011 DEWITT HENRY-- Founding Editor of PLOUGHSHARES and author of " SWEET DREAMS"

July 19, 2011 5PM Poet Margaret Young

Margaret Young, winner of Bright Hill Press's Poetry Book Competition for ALMOND TOWN, grew up in Oberlin, Ohio. After graduating from Yale, she helped found the Open Door Theater Company, performing Shakespeare and children's plays in small Pennsylvania communities. She earned an MA in creative writing at the University of California, Davis, and her first poetry collection, Willow from the Willow, was published by Cleveland State University Press in 2002. She teaches at Endicott College and lives in Beverly, Massachusetts, with her husband and son.

July 12, 2011 5PM Kitty Beers author of " Human Scale."

About Kitty Beers

Kitty is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, the National Writers Union, and Grub Street. She has a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.A. from Cornell University. Her articles and stories have appeared in, for example, the Amicus Journal, the Ithaca Journal, Facets magazine, the HILR Review, and Harvard Magazine. Her futuristic screenplay, Home, placed in the 2004 PAGE International Screenwriting Awards contest. Human Scale won honorable mention in the 2010 Hollywood Book Festival contest.

June 14 5PM Poet Linda Lerner

June 14 5PM Poet Linda Lerner





Takes Guts and Years some time, (NYQ) a poetry book by Linda Lerner has been released. Linda has been previously published by Ibbetson Street "Koan from Samsara." She will be having a book signing at the Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Harvard Square from 2 to 3PM ( June 14)--hope you can attend!




The New York Quarterly Foundation, Inc.
™
New York, New York

www.nyqbooks.org/author/lindalerner • PO Box 2015 • Old Chelsea Station • New York, NY 10113
For Release: Immediately Contact: Raymond Hammond, Editor; 917.843.8825; rhammond@nyquarterly.org
Publication Information: 5.5 x 8.5 in.; 280 Pages; ISBN: 978-1-935520-31-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011926466 Publication Date: June 1, 2011


Website: http://www.nyqbooks.org/author/lindalerner

NYQ Books™ announces the publication of Takes Guts and Years Sometimes
by Linda Lerner



May 1, 2011 - New York, NY - NYQ Books™ is proud to announce the release of Takes Guts and Years Sometimes: New and Selected Poems by Linda Lerner. Linda Lerner’s latest book is a collection ofpoems dating from the early 80’s to the present. An immigrant daughter’s courageous search forher identity, her refusal to compromise who she is for a paycheck or for love is viewed in the backdrop of major public events. Upheavals in her personal life are paralleled by those in the larger world. There’s the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and the subsequent attack in 2001 six blocks from her home. This latter event triggers memories of stories her estranged father told about his escape from Russia. There are the hardships caused by gentrification. The locale is primarily New York City, but it could be any place, where the fault lines of vulnerability in individual lives suddenly give way to tremors outside, and the earth shifts beneath them.



“As one of Whitman’s children, Linda Lerner’s poems are breathless and pulsing, alive with a hunger to taste, devour, smell, witness and embrace. She is insatiable, open, doesn’t want to miss anything.


The poems have an urgency. She is famished for life, is starved for what is hot and spicy, real and she takes risks, refusing to settle. Fascinated by people, she writes movingly not just about her self and her lovers but about her family with its Russian immigrant roots and background and conflict and pain but also about ordinary people in the Bowery, old men and ruined women, the woman in a box, the young with their hormones bursting. She makes the city shimmer with its smells—pastrami and rye and cream soda, smoke, tar, sewer smells, garbage—the beauties and terrors—the World Trade Center attacks, the dangerous streets she refuses to let scare her away. Even the poems of the blues and rawness of life celebrate in
the way the blues celebrate.” —Lyn Lifshin


Linda Lerner is a New York City Poet, born and raised in Brooklyn where she now lives. She is the author of thirteen poetry collections and has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her most recent collections are: Something Is Burning In Brooklyn, (Iniquity Press / Vendetta books, 2009), Living In Dangerous Times (Presa Press, 2007) & City Woman, (March Street Press,2006 ; (The last two
were Small Press Reviews’ Pick of the Month) In 1995, she and Andrew Gettler founded POETS on the line (http://www.echonyc.com/~poets) the first poetry anthology available on the internet.

May 24,2011: Kim Triedman/Patrick Sylvain /Marilene Phipps-Kettlewell,

Kim Triedman Editor of Poets For Haiti (Anthology) and contributors Patrick Sylvain /Marilene Phipps-Ketwell







On February 23, 2010 — six weeks after the city of Port-au-Prince was brought to its knees by one of the most destructive earthquakes on record — 18 remarkable writers joined together on the Harvard University campus and demonstrated just what poetry could achieve. (…)

The poets assembled for the reading represented a remarkable and diverse group. Given the time imperative it became a very democratic and almost incidental kind of assemblage, which was one of the things I most appreciated about the experience. Everyone owned the evening : the poet laureate shared the stage with the high school senior ; the university professors introduced the workaday poets ; the Haitian-born writers were there to speak for themselves. There was no grandstanding. Poets were introduced by name only. People were there to do something as sometimes only a group can — to make themselves heard.

As we were organizing this event, I keep thinking back to a children's book I used to read to my daughters called Miss Rumphius about a little girl named Alice. Alice's grandfather was a retired sea captain living out his old age on the coast of Maine. He tells her about all the wonderful places he has seen on his journeys. When Alice announces that she, too, will travel the world and then find a place by the sea, he replies : « That is all very well, little Alice, but you must also find a way to make the world more beautiful ».

I often think of that line, even after so many years. It's something I take very personally — the imperative, and the privilege. On February 23rd, poets of the greater Boston community came together to read some breathtaking poetry, to a huge audience that had assembled to support a stunning and critically important cause. Like little Alice, who grew old scattering lupine seeds over the hillside of Maine, we had all found a small way, that night, to make the world more beautiful.

Steven Luria Ablon/ Poet--- May 10 2011

Steven Luria Ablon, MD, is an adult and child training and supervising analyst and associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University Medical School. He is a recipient of an Academy of American Poets Award. Dr. Ablon just published his fourth collection of poetry Night Call, in which he explores the experience of doctors from schooling through training to practice. He has three previous collections of poetry: Tornado Weather, Flying Over Tasmania, and Blue Damsels. His poetry has been included in many literary magazines.

Aug 2, 2011 Poet Jennifer Jean

Jennifer Jean is the author of the poetry chapbook In the War (Big Table Publishing Co., 2010). Her poetry, essays, literary interviews, and reviews have been published in numerous journals, including North Dakota Quarterly, Denver Quarterly, Awakenings Review, Santa Clara Review, Southern California Review, Caketrain, Relief Quarterly, The Wilderness House Review, The MOM Egg Journal, Art Throb and Megaera; as well, she is a feature writer for the arts and lifestyle magazine Art Throb and has received an Agnes Butler Award from the Academy of American Poets. Jennifer directs Thursday’s Theatre of Words & Music artist’s performance series and is the librettist for the Fishwife Music Project; she's an active member of the committee producing the 2011 Massachusetts Poetry Festival and she teaches writing and literature at Salem State University

March 29, 2011 Michelle Hoover author of "The Quickening"

(Photo by Sanjay Subbanna)


Michelle Hoover


Michelle Hoover teaches writing at Boston University and Grub Street.

She has published fiction in Confrontation, The Massachusetts Review, Prairie Schooner, and Best New American Voices, among others. She has been a Bread Loaf Writer's Conference scholar, the Philip Roth Writer-in-Residence at Bucknell University, a MacDowell fellow, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and in 2005 the winner of the PEN/New England Discovery Award for Fiction. The Quickening was shortlisted for the Center for Fiction's Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize and is a finalist for the 2010 Indies Choice Debut of the Year.

She was born in Ames, Iowa, the granddaughter of four longtime farming families.

March 1, 2011 Poet Ruth Kramer Baden author of "East of the Moon"

Review of EAST OF THE MOON by Ruth Kramer Baden, Ibbetson Street Press, 25 School Street, Somerville, MA 02143, 2010.
Book design by Steve Glines (ISCSPress.com)

Review By Barbara Bialick

The poetry collection, East of the Moon, is at once mythic, narrative, story telling and bursting with flavor beads of some great stand-alone poems. As she takes the reader through the lifecycles of a mature woman, age 70, we see the span of a full first collection, which has obviously been writing itself in the back of her mind for a long time. It may be a first book, but not a first-time writer. The work echoes with the awful meanings behind fairy tales, the things that the original tellers didn’t dare to say but to imply. It also seems influenced by William Blake’s voices of innocence and experience.

The cover design and inside black and white ink drawings add a lot to the fairy tale theme. But the royal blue cover and its own painting quoting “Schoen ve de le vune”—you are lovely like the moon.—makes its own stamp on the collection as it literally feels like nubuck leather boots, which mimic the boots of the Cossacks and others roaring through history, using and abusing women and everyone else.

Some examples from the book:

“She was the clever one,/Hansel had always been slow./She knew they could not go back/their stepmother would break them/their father would betray them…”(“Gretel Ever After”).“She told the prince, If I married you/I would become a frostbitter woman/who could not hear my children/sing or cry/…Touch me and I will kill you…He ran… /She made her lonely way over roots and rocks…(to where) a rosewood piano stood/Her hands spanned octaves./She played a Bach prelude.” (“The Sleeping Princess”)Compare this narrative style to poetry later into the life cycle—a grandmother’s poetry:In “Consider the Trees,” she writes sheer lyric poetry: “how I have grown like the cypress/crouched on a cliff/sentinel searching/the inhospitable sea/…all that grows/…must find a way to live.” Or “Rachel’s Birthday Poem”: “You sail into your second year/wobbling and yawing in front/I in your wake/You are the music language makes,/you are the golden heart of the plum.”


Ruth Kramer Baden has been a 1950s married mother, a creator of a local chapter of the National Organization of Women, a journalist, a consultant on children for Wellesley College, and at age 50, she graduated law school! (She practiced elder law). She’s currently working on her retirement dream of becoming a poet. Give her book a try.

Mike Ansara and January O'Neil of the Mass. Poetry Festival

My guest Tuesday Feb. 15, 2011 will be Mike Ansara founder of the Mass. Poetry Festival, and January O'Neil award-winning poet and board member of MPF.





MassPoetry.org is a new program to connect poets and poetry with larger audiences. The project grew out of roundtables with poets in every part of the state to explore that condition of poetry in Massachusetts. Those roundtables were a collaborative effort between MassPoetry.org, the Mass Cultural Council and MassHumanities.

The purpose of MassPoetry.org is to create resources to aid and support the Massachusetts poetry community, to reconnect poetry to more mainstream culture, to create new audiences for poetry and to organize the poetry community throughout the state. MassPoetry.org works to support poets and poetry in a number of ways:

•The Massachusetts Poetry Festival – a unique 2 day gathering of poets and poetry lovers from across the Commonwealth for readings, workshops, panels, concerts, a small press fair and more
•Taking poetry to people: we sponsor poets to work in schools, senior centers, prisons and communities.
•Assisting more readers to read and reconnect with poetry
•Working with teachers to assist them to work with poetry in the classroom
•Creating a central information center for poets and poetry readers and lovers to find reading series, workshops, MFA programs, and other resources
•Building a robust website to support all of these activities
•Linking together all the dispirit strands of the Massachusetts poetry community to promote more collaboration, respect and communication
MassPoetry.org also has a few core principles that inform and guide our work. First, we insist on supporting and giving voice to the full range of poetry across the Commonwealth. This means we work with and support poets of all different styles, schools and approaches, from academic poets at major universities to performance poets in clubs. We work with the full range of ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity, from poets writing exclusively in English to those writing in Creole, Portuguese, and Cambodian. It means we are committed to working with poets from the Berkshires to Cape Cod, from Newburyport to Fall River, in Worcester and the Merrimack Valley, in Chelsea as well as Cambridge. We are committed to expanding the audience for poetry in all those communities and not just in the universities and private prep schools.

Finally we are committed whenever and wherever possible to actually pay our poets for their creative time. Far, far too often poets are asked to donate their time and the results of hours and hours of hard creative work. We value poetry and we value poets. And so whenever possible we pay them for their work.

MassPoetry.org is proud of the start we have made. The Festival has been created and two successful Festivals have been held. We have started pilot programs in schools, in the community and with teachers. We have 59 partner organizations, schools, and institutions across the state. We have a broad, diverse and talented Advisory Board. But as much as we have been able to do, far more remains to be done.

Feb 1, 2011 5PM Kim Triedman, Marilene Phipps-Kettlewell, Patrick Sylvain: Poets For Haiti

Kim Triedman editor for the acclaimed anthology "Poets for Haiti," as well as contributing poets Patrick Sylvain and Marilene Phipps-Kettlewell will appear on "Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer."

Jan 25, 2011 W.E. Butts New Hampshire Poet Laureate

W.E.Butts


New Hampshire Poet Laureate 2009-2014
Welcome

W.E. Butts is the author of several poetry collections, including Sunday Evening at the Stardust Café, which was chosen as a finalist for the 2005 Philip Levine Prize in Poetry and selected winner of the 2006 Iowa Source Poetry Book Prize, and the chapbooks What to Say if the Birds Ask (Pudding House Publications, 2007) Sunday Factory (Finishing Line Press, 2006), White Bees (Oyster River Press, 2001), and A Season of Crows (Igneus Press, 2000). He has received two Pushcart Prize nominations and a Massachusetts Artists Foundation Award, and has taught in poetry workshops at the University of New Hampshire and has been a featured presenter at several community events and conferences. In 2007, he was a visiting writer at Cornell College, Iowa. He is a member of the faculty of the BFA in Writing Program at Goddard College, and is listed in two editions of Who's Who Among America's Teachers. His poems appear frequently in such magazines as Atlanta Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Cimarron Review, Mid-American Review, and Poetry East, and have been anthologized in The Anthology of Magazine Verse (Monitor Books), Under the Legislature of Stars: 62 New Hampshire Poets (Oyster River Press, 1999), Open Door: A Poet Lore Anthology, 1980 – 1996, (Writer’s Center Editions, 1996), Heartbeat of New England: Contemporary Nature Poetry (Tiger Moon Press, 2000), Leaves by Night, Flowers by Day (Iowa Source, 2006), and elsewhere.

Jan 11, 2011 Poet Mignon Ariel King

Mignon Ariel King is an urban womanist writer who was born in Boston’s City Hospital in 1964. An alumna of Simmons College and a former English instructor, she created MAPS-ONE (the Memoir and Poetry Sisterhood of New England) through which she edits the online journal MoJo! and its sister site Extra MoJo!; organizes A Century of Black Voices annual poetry readings to honor Black History Month; and plans future workshops and book contests. She has been reading at open mics since 1998. Her autobio- graphical trilogy (in three genres–memoir, poetry trilogy, novella) is based on a lifetime spent in Greater Boston.


Ms. King’s first published poetry collection is The Woods Have Words (Ibbetson Street Press, 2009). The third volume of her poetry trilogy, Words of Flight, is a series of dramatic monologues of New Englanders, dedicated to her late mother who grew up in New Hampshire. Currently revising and submitting the memoir and novella components of the trilogy, Ms. King is also writing a second novella, set in her childhood neighborhood in Roxbury, Massachuse

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Jan 5, 2010 Sonia Meyer

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