Dec 9, 2014 Interview with Christopher Busa, founder of Provincetown Arts magazine.

Christopher Busa

Christopher Busa, founder and editor of Provincetown Arts magazine, was born in New York City in 1946, the son of a painter who participated in the formative years of  Abstract Expressionism. Spending part of every year in Provincetown  since infancy, he slowly absorbed its mythology as a place where artists  and writers gather to work and live. After graduation from the University of Minnesota, he studied for a year in Paris at the Sorbonne, and then pursued a Ph.D. for ten years while teaching English at Rutgers University. His interviews and profiles of artists and writers have appeared in the Paris Review, Arts, Partisan Review, Garden Design, and other magazines. Two published pieces were reprinted in Interviews and Encounters with Stanley Kunitz, edited by Stanley Moss (Sheep Meadow Press). Another essay, “Being a Great Man Is a Thesis Invented by Others,” appeared in Such Desperate Joy: Imagining Jackson Pollock (Thunder’s Mouth Press). He has curated exhibitions and written catalog introductions for many artists. He co-edited and introduced the Erotic Works of D.H. Lawrence (Crown, 1989), the subject of his dissertation. He is the author of The Provincetown Artists Cookbook, with Written Sketches of the Artists Creating a Contemporary Portrait of the Town as an Art Colony (Abingdon, 1988).Over the past 20 years he has taped several hundred interviews and created files on over 1000 artists and writers in preparation for a comprehensive title about the century-long history of the art colony.  His WOMR FM 92.1 radio program, “ArtTalk,” airs three times a month over the past five years, introducing new and established artists, performers, and writers discussing their current project and what moves them to do it.He is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), based in Paris, and he is one of 16 members of the American New England Chapter, which selects two dozen “Best of” exhibitions annually in museums, commercial galleries, and university art galleries in painting, sculpture, and architecture. He is on the board of the Norman Mailer Society and on the editorial board of the Mailer Review,published by the Society and by the University of South Florida. He teaches one semester a year in the low-residency Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania.

Dec 2, 2104 Poet Pui Ying Wong

PUI YING WONG

   



Pui Ying Wong was born in Hong Kong. She is the author of a full length book of poetry Yellow Plum Season (New York Quarterly Books, 2010), two chapbooks: Mementos (Finishing Line Press, 2007), Sonnet for a New Country (Pudding House Press, 2008) and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, The Southampton Review, New York Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review,  Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong), Desde Hong Kong: poets in conversation with Octavio Paz, Chameleon Press (Hong Kong), The Brooklyner, Brooklyn Voice, Angle Poetry (U.K.), The Asian Pacific American Journal, Taos Journal of Poetry & Art, 2Bridges Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Ucity Review, Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, Constellations, Crannog (Ireland), Gargoyle, 5 AM, decomP, A Narrow Fellow, The New Poet, Blood Lotus Journal, Slippery Elm, Blue Fifth Review, Chiron Review, Foundling Review,  Literary Bohemian, The Boiler Journal, , DMQ Review, , Gravel, Mojave River Review, Offcourse, Pirene’s Fountain, Red River Review, Cavalier Literary Couture, Reprint Poetry, Up the Staircase Quarterly among others.  Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Web and she was a finalist for the 2011 Sundress Best of the Net editions. She is also a book reviewer for Cervena Barba Press.  After living many years in Brooklyn, she moved to Cambridge, MA with her husband, the poet Tim Suermondt.

Poet Elizabeth McKim 5PM Nov 4, 2014

Poet Elizabeth McKim

See the show live at:  Poet to Poet with host Doug Holder



Elizabeth Gordon McKim has published five books of poetry, the latest being The Red Thread (Leapfrog Press). She is a teacher, performance poet, spoken word artist, and has been an adjunct professor for forty years in the department of Creative Arts in Learning at Lesley University. McKim is the poet laureate of the European Graduate School, and the Jazz Poet of Lynn where she lives, in a renovated shoe factory. She is included with four others in the new anthology, Wild Women of Lynn, published by Blaine Hebbel and The Ring of Bone Press.

Poet/Educator David DiSarro Oct 14, 2014 5PM

David R. DiSarro is currently an Assistant Professor of English and the Director of the Writing Center at Endicott College in Beverly, MA.  He received his Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition from Ball State University, his M.A. in Creative Writing from Southern Connecticut State University, where he was also a graduate research fellow, and his B.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Maine at Farmington. David's work has previously appeared in The Hawaii Pacific Review, Shot Glass Poetry Journal, Haiku Journal, The Ibbetson Street Magazine, The Orange Room Review, Breadcrumb Scabs, Third Wednesday, among others.

Oct 7, 2014 Poet/Vocalist/Musician Jennifer Matthews 5PM

SINGER/SONGWRITER JENNIFER MATTHEWS: An artist of the road, heart and life.

Jennifer Matthews  (Photo by Syed Zaman)

Poet/Vocalist/Musician   Jennifer Matthews is releasing a 7^th CD  "Tales of a Salty Sweetheart."  She has engineered this album herself and it was mixed by Phil Greene ( 25- time Grammy Award-winning engineer) who according to Matthews told her, “Tales of a Salty Sweetheart is one of my favorite records I have mixed in the last 10 years.” Matthews had a number of musician preform on this album including Russell Chudnofsky who played the Dobro slide guitar. The CD will be released by the label Thundamoon Records founded by her manager Rose Gardina, who also founded the Boston Girl Guide website and magazine.

Matthews, who is studying  at Salem State University for her degree in English, said when she writes lyrics she literally locks herself in a room. She smiled "I can’t be disturbed.” And like the poem finding the poet ,the song finds Matthews. Matthews says she is in touch with her “inner voice.” Her lyrics can be ethereal and transcendent and she counts Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan as spiritual masters who have influenced both her lyrics and music.

 

Matthews has been collaborating on poem song projects with poets Doug Holder and Dennis Daly, and will be taking on new projects as time allows.

For more information about upcoming events go to:Jennifer Matthews

Poet Krikor Der Hohannesian Sept 16, 2014 5PM

Krikor Der Hohannesian lives in Medford, MA. His poems have appeared in many literary journals including The South Carolina Review, Atlanta Review, Comstock Review, Peregrine and Connecticut Review. His first chapbook, “Ghosts and Whispers”, was published by Finishing Line Press (2010) and was nominated for the Pen New England and Mass Book Awards. A second chapbook, “Refuge in the Shadows”, has just been released (Cervena Barva Press). He can be contacted at krikorndh@verizon.net for anyone wishing to order copies ($10 including shipping and postage).


"In Krikor Der Hohannesian's poetry, we hear things we might not be able to hear otherwise. "A man is down" signals the wind and rain coming in from the east, and the poet listens. In another poem a wife is keening, a child is crying, and the poet listens, listens with all his imagination and his heart. We hear colonial whispers emanating from the Granary Burial Ground. We hear the particular beauty of the names of the winds in many languages, and in another poem we hear the equally specific sadness of parents grieving a lost child. We hear final words, and words that should have been said, and we hear in several of these poems the long, agonized memory traces of the Armenian genocide. In all there is a deeply empathic imagination at work, and these poems give the poet and the reader alike a place of refuge, a place in the shadows in which to hold onto what is so profoundly dear and filled with meaning." -Fred Marchant, Author of The Looking House

Sept 9, 2014 Poet X. J. Kennedy 5PM

 

 

 

 

X.J. Kennedy

(known to his friends as Joe) was born in Dover, N. J., on August 21, 1929, shortly before the crash of the stock market. Irked by the hardship of having the name of Joseph Kennedy, he stuck the X on and has been stuck with it ever since.
Kennedy grew up in Dover, went to Seton Hall (B.Sc. ’50) and Columbia (M.A., ’51), then spent four years in the Navy as an enlisted journalist, serving aboard destroyers. He studied at the Sorbonne in 1955-56, then devoted the next six years to failing to complete a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. But he did meet Dorothy there.
He has taught English at Michigan, at the Woman’s College of the U. of North Carolina (now UNC Greensboro), and from 1963 through 1978 at Tufts, with visiting sojourns at Wellesley, U. of California Irvine, and the U. of Leeds. In 1978, he became a free-lance writer.
Recognitions include the Lamont Award of the Academy of American Poets (for his first book, Nude Descending a Staircase in 1961), the Los Angeles Book Award for poetry (for Cross Ties: Selected Poems, 1985), the Aiken-Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry (given by the University of the South and The Sewanee Review), Guggenheim and National Arts Council fellowships, the first Michael Braude Award for light verse (given by the American Academy & Institute of Arts & Letters to a poet of any nation), the Shelley Memorial Award, the Golden Rose of the New England Poetry Club, honorary degrees from Lawrence and Adelphi universities and Westfield State College, the National Council of Teachers of English Year 2000 Award for Excellence in Children’s Poetry, and in 2004 the Poets’ Prize (for The Lords of Misrule: Poems 1992-2002). In spring 2009 the Poetry Society of America gave him the Robert Frost Medal for lifetime service to poetry.
The Kennedys have five grown children and six grandchildren. They now live in Lexington, Mass., in a house half century-old and half new.

Aug 19 5PM Sam Cornish

Poet Sam Cornish

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

 Sam Cornish

b. 1935

http://www.samcornish.com/

Born in Baltimore in 1935, poet Sam Cornish was educated at Goddard College and Northwestern University. Associated with the Black Arts Movement, Cornish incorporates history and family and takes on topics such as race and class in his short-lined poems. He is the author of more than half a dozen collections of poetry, including Dead Beats (2011), An Apron Full of Beans: New and Selected Poems (2008), Songs of Jubilee: New and Selected Poems 1969–1983 (1986), and Generations (1971). A theatrical production of An Apron Full of Beans was presented in Boston in 2012.

Cornish wrote the children’s books Your Hand in Mine (1970) and Grandmother’s Pictures (1967) and co-edited the anthology Chicory: Young Voices from the Black Ghetto (1969). With Hugh Fox, he co-edited The Living Underground: An Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry (1969). Cornish’s work has been featured in numerous anthologies, including Black Fire (1968), The New Black Poetry (1969), American Literary Anthology (1970), and The Poetry of Black America (1973).

Cornish’s honors include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Somerville Arts/Ibbetson Press Lifetime Achievement Award, and a grant from the Massachusetts Council on the Arts.

Poet laureate of Boston since 2008, Cornish has taught at Emerson College and for a number of years ran a bookstore in Brookline, Massachusetts. He also ran the small press Beanbag Press. He lives in Boston.

Aug 5, 2014 Poet Joanne Reynolds

Joanne DeSimone Reynolds has published poems in such journals

as Salamander, Ibbetson Street Press, Wilderness House Literary Review,

and Sanctuary Magazine. A graduate of Boston University, she is a member

of the Concord Poetry Center. She writes reviews for Boston Area Small Press,

and lives in Scituate, Massachusetts. Her chapbook Comes a Blossom

was just published by Main Street Rag. 

July 22, 2014 5PM Poet Kathleen Aguero

Poet Kathleen Aguero

In addition to After That (Tiger Bark Press), Kathleen Aguero’s poetry collections includeInvestigations: The Mystery of the Girl Sleuth(Cervena Barva Press), Daughter Of(Cedar Hill Books), The Real Weather (Hanging Loose), and Thirsty Day (Alice James Books). She has also co-edited three volumes of multi-cultural literature for the University of Georgia Press (A Gift of Tongues, An Ear to the Ground, and Daily Fare) and is consulting poetry editor of Solstice Literary Magazine. She is a winner of the 2012 Firman Houghton Award from the New England Poetry Club and a recipient of grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Elgin-Cox Foundation. She teaches the low-residency M.F.A. program in Creative Writing at Pine Manor College and in Changing Lives through Literature, an alternative sentencing program.

July8 5PM Zachary Bos

 
Zachary Bos studied in the graduate poetry program at Boston University. He's been on the editorial staff of publications including News from the Republic of Letters, Fulcrum, Clarion, and The Battersea Review, and is current editor of Poetry Northeast. From the Pen & Anvil Press sharespace on Newbury Street, he publishes books, periodicals, literary posters, and chapbooks, including a new series of poems that have been hand-written, burned, and then "published" as ashes in corked glass bottle reliquaries. He lives in Lunenburg with his fiancee and family.

July 1 , 2014 5PM Poetry Editor of Ibbetson Street lit mag Harris Gardner

( Doug Holder left/ Harris Gardner right)

Harris Gardner --poetry editor of Ibbetson Street will join me to discuss the new release of Ibbetson Street 35. We will read selected poems from the issue...

June 17, 2014 Janice Silverman Rebibo 5PM

Janice Silverman Rebibo

Janice Silverman Rebibo (born 1950) is an Israeli poet who began writing in Hebrew in the mid-1980s.
Rebibo’s poems have been admired for having, “a new strength and the kind of courage that comprises a strategic breakthrough, a stance of both audacity and humor that adds something new to the war of independence of Israel’s consciousness – a revolution of language, spirit and mind.” (critic Menahem Ben).^[1] Rebibo is an Israeli poet born in Boston, who began writing in Hebrew while studying Hebrew language and literature at Hebrew College. Dozens of her poems have appeared in Israel’s major newspapers and journals. Recently, an anthology of Israeli writers of English included several of Rebibo's poems and the journal, Iton 77, featured her Hebrew poem, Etzb’a Elohim (God’s finger).^[2] The first of her four poetry collections, Zara (a stranger-woman, referring to the figure in Proverbs), was published in 1997.^[3] She later served as chief translator for Natan Yonatan, completing Within the Song to Live, his bilingual volume of selected work, following that popular poet’s death in 2004.^[4] Zara Betzion: shirim 1984-2006 (a stranger-woman in Zion), a blend of two literary traditions, is Rebibo’s latest collection, which received a President of Israel Award and other prizes.^[5] Her poems have been set to music by multi-hit composer, Gidi Koren. In addition to the English libretto for composer Matti Kovler's The Escape of Jonah, Rebibo also collaborated with Kovler to write the libretto for Here Comes Messiah!, performed at Carnegie Hall in 2009 and at Boston’s Jordan Hall in 2010.^[6]

Janice Silverman Rebibo's first collection of poetry in English, My Beautiful Ballooning Heart, was published in July, 2013.^[7] How Many Edens, Rebibo's most recent poetry chapbook, was published in April, 2014 ^[8] Using allusions, humor and eroticism, much of Rebibo's poetry shows how relationships are shaped by language, culture, religion, and politics. Her first Hebrew poems appeared in 1984 in the literary supplement of the Hebrew language newspaper Davar on the recommendation of Israeli poet Haim Gouri.^[9] Since then, Rebibo’s poems and short stories have appeared frequently in Israel's literary pages and journals ^[10] and four books of her Hebrew poetry have been published and characterized in the press as a bold blend of two rich poetic traditions.^[11] Zara in Zion: Collected Poems 1984-2006 by Janice Rebibo, published in 2007,^[12] includes Hebrew poetry from her three earlier books and new work previously published in Israel's literary journals, as well as a chapter entitled Zion by Itself containing poems Rebibo has written in English.^[13] Rebibo has translated Hebrew poetry into English, notably for poet Natan Yonatan.^[14] Her poems have been set to music and recorded. Hazman Ozel (time is running out), music by Gidi Koren, was released in 2009 by NMC on a live performance DVD by The Brothers and The Sisters.^[15] She has also collaborated with composers on texts and librettos. Here Comes Messiah!,^[16] a monodrama for soprano and chamber orchestra by Matti Kovler, libretto by Janice Silverman Rebibo and Matti Kovler, was premiered at Carnegie Hall with soprano, Tehila Nini Goldstein, on May 9, 2009 at the Osvaldo Golijov and Dawn Upshaw Young Artists Concert.^[17] Rebibo has edited and translated prose for novelist, Yizhar Smilansky (S. Yizhar), Toronto filmmaker Avi Lev,^[18] Prof. Moshe Bar-Asher at the Academy of the Hebrew Language, and for other leading Israelis in literary criticism, linguistics, business, and technology.

In addition to her literary work, Janice Rebibo directed an innovative school-pairing program to promote tolerance, friendship, and cooperation in Israeli society and serves as SPO at a non-profit for the advancement of Hebrew language teaching and learning in North America.

June 3 Bonnie ZoBell author of What Happened Here

Author Bonnie ZoBell

Bonnie ZoBell’s new connected collection, What Happened Here, a novella and stories centered on the site PSA Flight 182 crashed in the North Park area of San Diego, will be published in February 2014 by Press 53. Her chapbook, The Whack-Job Girls was released by Monkey Puzzle Press in March 2013. She has  received an NEA fellowship in fiction, the Capricorn Novel Award, A PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, the Los Angeles Review nominated one of her stories for a Pushcart Award, a place on Wigleaf’s Top 50, and a story published by Storyglossia was named as a notable story in story South’s Million Writers Award.  Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Night Train, The Greensboro Review, New Plains Review, PANK, and The Connotation Press. ZoBell has been a fellow at such residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, Wurlitzer, and Villa Montalvo, and attended such conferences as the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Tin House Summer Workshop, and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. After receiving an MFA from Columbia on fellowship, she has been teaching at San Diego Mesa College where she is a Creative Writing Coordinator. Currently she is Associate Editor for The Northville Review and Flash Fiction Chronicles. She lives in a casita in San Diego with her husband, two dogs, two cats, and quite a few succulents.

MAY 27 Poet/Publisher Cynthia Brackett-Vincent

 

 Author's Bio

  New Poetry Collection  Questions About Home

Cynthia Brackett-Vincent is currently earning her MA in English/Creative Writing—Poetry at Southern New Hampshire University. She holds a BFA in Creative Writing with a minor in Psychology from the University of Maine at Farmington and an AA in Social Sciences (Quincy College, MA, where she served as an editor of Stepping Stone and a member of Phi Theta Kappa). As well, she studied English at Bridgewater State College in MA. Cynthia has served as Membership Chairperson of The Maine Poets Society. A Pushcart Prize nominated and award-winning poet, Cynthia has had over 100 poems published in such journals as Avocet, YankeeMagazine.com, and Ibbetson Street; in her chapbook, the 95 Poems; and the online journals, Mannequin Envy, The Orange Room Review, Pirene's Fountain and others. Her nonfiction and poetry appear abroad. She has served as co-editor of a 45-church district newsletter and she co-founded the Tidepool Poets of Plymouth, MA in 2001. Three of her articles appear in Educators as Writers: Publishing for Professional and Personal Development (Carol Smallwood, ed., Peter Lang, 2006). Among other honors, her poetry has received an Honorable Mention in New England Writers, a citation in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, and Second Place twice in Maine Poets Society contests. Cynthia has judged poetry locally, regionally and nationally for such contests as the Writer's Digest annual writing competition. Cynthia gives poetry workshops focusing on inspiration and images and she has a special interest in bringing poetry to elementary students.

Publications and Prizes

Books:

Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching (McFarland, 2012)

Chapbooks:

The 95 Poems (Musclehead Press, 2005)

Journals:

Avocet, Bear Creek Haiku, Decanto, Ibbetson Street, Pirene's Fountain, Sandy River Review, Tapestries, The Orange Room Review, Yankee Magazine

May 6, 2014 5 PM Anthony M. Sammarco author of LOST BOSTON

 The show can be viewed live at     http://scatvsomerville.org

A nostalgic journey back in time to visit some of the disappeared buildings and places in all their grandeur, before the wrecking ball and decline set in

From the 1870s up to the present day, 68 different losses are represented here, including schools, churches, theaters, grand mansions, dockyards, racetracks, parks, stores, hotels, offices, and factories. Organized chronologically starting with the earliest losses and ending with the latest, the book features much-loved insitutions that failed to stand the test of time, along with old-fashioned hotels and sports facilities that were beyond updating or refurbishment. Losses include Franklin Place, Boston City Hall, Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Hancock House, Gleason’s Publishing Hall, Fort Hill, Franklin Street, Boston Coliseum, Boylston Market, Merchants Exchange, Haymarket Square, Boston Public Library, Horticultural Hall, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Revere House (Hotel), Huntington Avenue Grounds, Charlestown City Hall, Molasses Tank, Cyclorama, Readville Trotting Park and Race Track, East Boston Airport, Boston Latin School, East Boston Ferries, Braves Field, Massachusetts State Prison, Boston Opera House, Boston Aquarium, The Howard Athenaeum, and Dudley Street Station.

Poet Michael Todd Steffen

Michael Todd Steffen

Michael Todd Steffen will talk about his new poetry collection Partner, Orchard, Day Moon. Steffen's work has appeared in Ibbetson Street, Another  Chicago Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Connecticut Review and elsewhere. For many years he taught in France, and translated Ronsard throughout the 1990s.

 

 

 

Partner, Orchard, Day Moon by Michael Todd Steffen, published by Cervena Barva Press $17.00  http://www.cervena barvapress.com

 

‘I’ve just come back from reading the poems in Partner, Orchard, Day Moon, full of admiration. Steffen is so alive in his writing, keen with observation, both of what things actually look like, what the wind feels like, how things grow and rot, and also of character, his own, his uncles’, anybody’s he sees. The book gives us many wonderfully memorable lines using his chosen meter for all its worth. This is very good work.’- David Ferry

Guest Poet/ Dan Tobin/ 4/1/2014

Poet Dan Tobin

Daniel Tobin is the author of five previous books of poems, Where the World is Made, Double Life, The Narrows, Second Things, and Belated Heavens (winner of the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry, 2011), along with the critical studies Passage to the Center and Awake in America. He is the editor of The Book of Irish American Poetry from the Eighteenth Century to the Present, Light in Hand: The Selected Early Poems and Lola Ridge, and (with Pimone Triplett) Poet’s Work, Poet’s Play: Essays on the Practice and the Art.  His awards include the “Discovery” / The Nation Award, the Robert Penn Warren Award, the Robert Frost Fellowship, the Katharine Bakeless Nason Prize, and creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.

March 25, 2014 Alice Plouchard Stelzer

Alice Plouchard Stelzer

Alice Plouchard Stelzer will discuss her book Female Adventurers: The Women Who Helped Colonize Massachusetts and Connecticut at West Dennis Library, Sunday, March 2nd at 1pm. The book profiles a dozen unsung heroes who are representative of all the courageous women who left comfort behind and migrated into the wilderness of New England in the 1630s. Readers will gain insight into the commitment that their foremothers made and the challenges they encountered.
Author Alice Plouchard Stelzer has been writing for over 25 years as a publisher and editor, columnist, journalist, and public relations consultant. During that time, she has also worked hard to find ways to support the women's community. She is a strong supporter of women in history and hopes to see more books on the subject published in the near future

March 4, 2014 Poet Alan Feldman

Poet Alan Feldman




 Alan Feldman's A Sail to Great Island (2004) won the Pollak Prize for Poetry from the University of Wisconsin. The Happy Genius (1978) won the annual George Elliston Book Award for the best collection published by a small, U.S. non-profit press. His work has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, and Kenyon Review, among many other magazines, and included in The Best American Poetry 2001 (edited by Robert Hass) and BAP 2011 (edited by Kevin Young). Feldman's recent work appears in Hanging Loose, Cimarron Review, upstreet, Southern Review, Yale Review, Salamander, Southwest Review, Cincinnati Review, Catamaran, Worcester Review, and online in Boston Poetry Magazine and Cortland Review. His poem "A Man and A Woman" was featured in Tony Hoagland's 2013 article for Harper's, "Twenty Little Poems That Could Save America."

Feldman was a professor and chair of English at Framingham State University, and for 22 years taught the advanced creative writing class at Harvard University's Radcliffe Seminars. He offers free, drop-in poetry workshops at the Framingham (MA) public library near his home, and in the summer at the Wellfleet library.

Poet Emily Pineau Feb 11, 2014 5PM

Poet Emily Pineau

Emily Pineau studies creative writing at Endicott College. Her poetry has appeared in the anthology, Like One: Poems For Boston, and in newspapers and literary journals such as the Somerville News, The Endicott Observer, The Endicott Review, Ibbetson Street, and Muddy River Poetry Review. In 2012 her poem, "I would for you" was nominated for a pushcart prize. In 2013 The Ibbetson Street Press published her poetry collection, No Need to Speak as part of the Endicott College/Ibbetson Street Press/Young Poet Series.

Poet Andrew Sofer Jan 7, 2013

Andrew Sofer

 

Andrew Sofer is literary critic based in Boston for the past 14 years (since 1999). My book of poetry, WAVE, came out in 2010 from Main Street Rag Publishing Company; it was previously a finalist for nine national contests, including the Morse Prize, the Donald Justice Award, and the NEW CRITERION Prize. My poems--which are mostly in meter and verse and accessible to a general audience--have received a number of awards, including SOUTHWEST REVIEW's Morton Marr Prize, ATLANTA REVIEW's International Publication Prize, First Prize in the IAMBS & TROCHEES Contest, and several awards from New England Poetry Club, including best poem published by a member.

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

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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.