May 2 5PM My guest will be thr Rev. Steve Edington, the author of the "Beat Face of God..."


This book is an exploration of some of the underlying spiritual and religious currents found in the writings and lives of a loose constellation of writers and poets who came together in America after World War II, and came to be known as the Beat Generation writers. Among their more prominent figures were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Gary Snyder, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, to name just a few.

Writing from the perspective of a liberal religious minister (Unitarian Universalist) and a Beat Generation scholar, Rev. Stephen Edington expands upon, and delves into, Jack Kerouac's contention that the Beat Generation was a religious generation. These writers and poets, each in his or her own way, were articulating and setting forth an "alternative spirituality" in the face of the prevailing cultural ethos of the America of the 1950s.

This is not primarily, however, a literary review of a group of writers from over a half-century ago. Their work is as powerful today as it was in their day, especially for those pursuing a spiritual path of their own. Edington weaves much of the spiritual journeys of the Beats into the evolution of his own spirituality.

Also, the ways in which the Beats challenged the culture and politics of America in the 1950s resonates strongly in today's post-9/11 America as well, as this book's concluding chapter demonstrates.

About the Author

Rev. Stephen Edington is the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Nashua, New Hampshire. He is a member of the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Committee and an adjunct faculty member of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. His previous book is Kerouac's Nashua Connection.

March 7 2006: My guest will be comedian Emily Singer. We will discuss her creative life as a performer and comedy writer. Here is an article about Emily in "The Somerville News."

by Karmyn E. Guthrie

Emily Singer, local comedian and spokesperson for Jimmy Tingle’s Off-Broadway, spoke at the Somerville News contributors meeting February 18thSinger does public relations and marketing for the Davis Square theater, a job that utilizes her genuine passion for comedy, in general, and Jimmy Tingle’s, in particular.
“Comedy is extremely addictive,” said Singer. And she’d like to help all of us get our fix. “We’d like to reach out to the community so they feel like they have a place to go every night of the week.”
Jimmy Tingle’s, a 200-seat theater, was founded by its namesake in November of 2002. Already, some of the biggest names in comedy have graced its stage, including the founder himself. Tingle, who you may have seen on just about any of the late night talk show, 60 Minutes II, or his HBO special has
become one of the most well-respected comedians around, choosing to keep this lively yet intimate Somerville venue as his home theater.
“Jimmy is one of the most creative people I’ve ever met,” said Singer, who opened for him recently. She credits him, as well as the other top-of-their-game performers at the theater, as a valuable influence on her own career. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to learn from the masters,” she said.
Singer has been doing stand-up since 1997, gravitating to it from acting then improv. “Comedy is so multifaceted. “ she said, “I see how people can spend their whole lives doing it.”
With her soft voice and gentle, unassuming manner, she doesn’t strike one as typical for someone in her field. “When people find out I’m a comedian they’re really shocked, “ she said.
But after watching her act, it makes sense. Her routine, which incorporates everything from massage parlors to speed dating to getting organized, works well with her personality, and her jokes are both offbeat and natural.
“It’s best to start from something natural then spin it,” Singer said. “My favorite jokes are things that just happen to me. She savors little absurdities of life, such as riding a bus to New York and noticing a fellow passenger who was, inexplicably, wearing a gorilla suit.
Singer also said that humor can also come from the tragedies and annoyances of life. “Comedy is a great healer, “ she said. She said that live comedy is a good way for audiences to put everything else behind, and that at Jimmy Tingle’s the audiences have been great. “The thing that everyone says about the theater is that it’s got great vibes, “ she said.


Emily Singer has performed throughout the New England area and in Los Angeles, New York and Madison, entertaining audiences with her unique comedic view of the world. For four years in a row (thru 2005), she has been picked to play The Boston International Comedy & Movie Festival. She has also performed in the 2003 California New Talent Comedy Contest, and the 2003 London New Talent Comedy Contest. She has hosted the Women In Comedy series at Jimmy Tingle’s OFF BROADWAY Theater.

She has performed at benefit shows for causes such as The Emerson Baseball Team, Habitat for Humanity and The Advent School. She is among several comedians who share their memories of children’s television pioneer Rex Trailer in the documentary “Rex Trailer’s Boomtown” which aired on CBS-TV 4 in June 2005 and is archived in the Museum of TV and Radio in NYC. She has performed comedy at numerous venues, including Bradley Playhouse, Putnam CT, The Improv Comedy Club, New York, NY, The Comedy Club, Madison WI, and Stand Up-NY, New York, NY. For more info please visit: www.emilysinger.com

Emily teaches acting at Brookline Adult & Community Education (since 1997), where she has at times taught Stand-Up Comedy and Improv. Since Fall 2003 she has worked as a teacher’s assistant to Bronia Wheeler in Acting classes at Harvard University Extension School and Harvard University Summer School.
http://emilysinger.com

Feb. 28 2006: My Guests will be Grey Held and Shelby Allen

From Grey Held:

I co-teach a poetry workshop with Shelby Allen at the Northeastern
Correctional Center in Concord.
Before that I volunteered in a program at Baystate Correctional Center in
Norfolk, MA.
I enjoy teaching poetry in prison. The guys in the class are eager to tell
their stories and are quite talented.
I'm continually moved by how smart these guys are--about themselves and
about connecting with others.
Some of them did something stupid under the influence of drugs twenty years
ago and have had twenty years to think and reflect on their actions.

April 18 2006: My guest will be David McNamara. McNamara founded and operates sunnyoutside, an independent press, in Somerville, Massachusetts. He studied literature at Long Island University, Ohio State University, the Poets' House in Ireland, Wroxton College (England), and Fairleigh Dickinson University, where he earned his BA in English Language. He also holds a graduate certificate in Publishing from Emerson College. Widely published in the small press, he was the director of )ism(, based in Seattle, in the late 1990s, before moving to Massachusetts and launching sunnyoutside. Still writing and submitting occasionally, his collection Or is forthcoming from Hemispherical Press.

My guest April 11,2006: Sarah Getty is an award-winning poet and fiction writer living near Boston, Mass. Her second book of poems, Bring Me Her Heart, will be published by Higganum Hill Press in March 2006. Her first collection, The Land of Milk and Honey, was published by the University of South Carolina Press as part of the James Dickey Contemporary Poetry Series. It won the Cambridge Poetry Prize in the Publication category in March, 2002. Sarah’s poem “That Woman” is included in the anthology Birds in the Hand, published in April, 2004 by Farrar, Straus, Giroux. In 2004 she received the Barbara Bradley Prize from the New England Poetry Club and was one of five finalists in the grub street, inc. poetry contest.
In July of 2006, Sarah will lead a 10-day poetry workshop at the Villa Virgiliana on the Bay of Naples in Italy. More details can be found in the Workshops section of this web site.
Sarah Getty’s poetry can also be found in magazines such as The Paris Review, The Western Humanities Review, and The Massachusetts Review. Her poem “Ciphers” has been set to music by Adam Grossman in a piece for mixed chorus and flute choir.
Getty’s short fiction has been published in the Iowa Review and the Larcom Review. Her story “Forces” will appear in the anthology Great Old Broads, forthcoming from Haworth Press in 2005.
"Makes radiant the role of women over more than a century of physical and metaphysical voyaging. Here, poignantly, are "mortals, telling their stories."
--Maxine Kumin
"Plain statements, everyday situations, ordinary American lives, yet suddenly with a last image, or a final line of great beauty and transcendence, and you realize that you are in the presence of a poet. Like Oliver's these poems have that weird, exhilarating combination of clarity of statement, story, or situation, with depth of feeling that reveals the mystery beneath the everyday."
-- The Virginia Quarterly Review
more about Sarah Getty>>
home • poetry • fiction • readings workshops • links • guestbook • email

March 28 2006 5 PM My guest will be: Edward J. Carvalho. Ed is a twice-nominated Pushcart Prize writer (2004-2005) who has been writing poetry for over 20 years. A persona who is very much like part Dimebag Darrell Abbott and part Walt Whitman, his poetry is often described as having a style that is 'original, innovative, imaginative and brutal.' Sometimes filled with satire and other times lyrical poignancy, Carvalho's work is always teeming with the unexpected. He is the author of several self-published chapbooks and full-length collections of poetry, including the latest manuscript, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short", which is currently being shopped to publishers around the United States. His poetry - lauded by Nobel laureate, Elie Wiesel and poet, Martin Espada - has appeared in various national journals around the country. Mr. Carvalho holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from Goddard College with future academic plans that include the pursuit of a doctorate in literature and criticism focusing on Walt Whitman. He currently resides in Boston, MA. For more information, please visit http://www.edwardjcarvalho.com"

Jan. 24 2006 : My Guests will be Lee Kidd and Jessa Lynne, founders of the "Squawk Coffeehouse" in Harvard Square.









Somerville News
On any given day, at the Sherman Cafe, in Union Square, you are bound to run into any number of poets, writers, and artists nursing their respective cups of java.
On this particular Saturday I ran into the former owner of House of Sarah Books in Inman Sq. and June Gross who co-wrote the play “The Dangers of Empathy.” But, who I was really waiting for was Lee Kidd and Jessa Lynne, of the “Squawk Coffeehouse,” a long-time venue of music, poetry and performance housed at the Harvard Epworth Methodist Church just outside Harvard Square.
Since 1988, the coffeehouse has presented such folks as the poet/writer Ed Sanders, the singer and 60’s activist John Sinclair, the jazz musician and Kerouac confidant David Amram, and a host of local poets and musicians. Their other brainchild is “Squawk Magazine” an art and poetry journal that they have put out with artist/poet Mick Cusimano and others. There are 57 issues of the print magazine, and now “Squawk” is solely online, but a new print run may be in the works.
Lee Kidd, one of the founders of the “Squawk” enterprise, is decidedly a Renaissance man. Since 1976, he has owned and operated a language school in Harvard Square that specializes in foreign language immersion. Kidd is not just a self-educated bohemian. He attended Harvard Divinity School; he is a Fulbright scholar, and has been published in “The New Yorker.”
Jessa Lynne has an equally fascinating background. Originally from the Milwaukee area; she moved here looking for a counterculture venue when she heard of the “Naked City,” an earlier incarnation of “Squawk,” which was located at the “Allston Mall” in Allston. “I was impressed with the warm and open environment,” she said. Since then, she has graced the stage at “Squawk.” She has performed skits, political satire, dance and other modes of expression.
Lynne works at Harvard, and also has a gig where she portrays historical figures like Susan B. Anthony, Emilia Earhart, and other notable women, at libraries and schools in the area. Kidd said that “Squawk” has changed a lot from 1988 to 2005. Before it was basically music and poetry, now there is anything from jugglers to book signings, he said. “We are more eclectic now. We have a coffeehouse consciousness, a mix of people from the homeless to Harvard professors,” he said. Kidd and Lynne are optimistic for the future of “Squawk.” Kidd said, “There will a great golden age of music and poetry in the third millennium, and we'll be part of it.” “Squawk” meets every Thursday night at 9 p.m. at the Harvard Epworth Methodist Church, 1555 Mass. Ave., Harvard Square, Cambridge. More information is available at www.angelfire.com/music/squawk.

Feb 14 2006 5PM : My guest will be
poet Sarah Hannah.


Sarah Hannah
sarahhannah@writersartists.net


Sarah Hannah received a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.F.A. from Columbia University. She is currently completing her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia University's Graduate School of the Arts and Sciences. Her poems have appeared in Parnassus, The Southern Review, Pivot, Barrow Street, Michigan Quarterly Review, Crab Orchard Review, Gulf Coast, and other journals. She was awarded a Governor's Fellowship for residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts for summer 2001 and 2002. The original manuscript which became Longing Distance was a semi-finalist for the Yale Younger Poets Prize in 2002.

Governor's Fellowship, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts
Davidoff Fellowship, Wesleyan Writers' Conference
Semi-finalist, Yale Younger Poets Prize, 2002

Sarah Hannah has taught creative writing and composition at Wesleyan University, Columbia University, the 92nd Street Y, and in private workshops in New York City.
She currently teaches a poetry workshop at the Makor Center of the 92nd Street Y.
AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) convention in Chicago, April 2004.


Longing Distance, Tupelo Press 2004.


This is an extremely moving work. I'm struck by her intelligence of emotion, and her unmistakable voice. These poems are at once determined, vulnerable, and fierce; she looks it all straight in the eye. Shadow and lover beware: these poems will fix you. Sarah Hannah is a true original. I love this book. —Annie Dillard

The distance of longing, the proximity of oblivion: the motives that animate these poems are the contours of perception in a mortal coil. Sarah Hannah is a physiologist of sight, devoutest scribe to the almost-seen, the intimated world, even, or especially, as that world is about to be lost. She is also a worker of wonders. See how, in her hands, the sonnet becomes an instrument of twenty-first-century meditation. See how the fish in the marketplace "in greens and ices swimming" suddenly brings to life again the "river lined with briars." —Linda Gregerson

Sarah Hannah's poems are subtly alive to the many ways the natural world interpenetrates and informs and interprets human experience. But what impresses me most about them is their engagement with language itself—words and the forms they assume—as the link between us and the circumambient universe. Her work says something at once new and very old, and something we badly need to hear. —James Olney

Jan 10 2006 5PM: My guest will be Tufts University Lecturer and poet Rebecca Kaiser Gibson. Gibson, a Somerville resident, has an eclectic background in the Arts, and she will talk about her creative life and energies.

Oberlin College, BA; Teachers College, Columbia University, MAT (Theatre); University of Pittsburgh, MA, (Theatre Directing); Boston University, MA (Creative Writing: Poetry)


Background

Major Awards:
MacDowell Colony, writing residency

rebecca.kaisergibson@tufts.edu

Poetry:Northwest Review, "Inside the Church" (forthcoming publication) Field, Number 70: “Global Warming”Northwest Review, XXXVIII-1: “Fever Passage” ”Mothering, No. 68: “When He Carried His Baby Across the Hall” Agni, 42: “The Loomfixer” The Boston Phoenix: “Sacrificial” The Boston Review, Volume XXI, Number 5: “Dunkin’ Donuts --Somerville, Mass.”The Antigonish Review, Number 93-94: “Lester and Martha” Fiction, Essays and Reviews:Pleiades, review of Anne Winters’ “The Displaced of Capital”Harvard Review, Number 17: “Of Paradise”Northwest Review, Vol 41, No. 3: "Why He Calls”Pleiades, 24:2: review of “The Unexpected Aviary” by L.R. Berger The Boston Book Review, Vol. 6, issue 2 “It Was Proper Form”: review of Martha Collins’ “Some Things Words Can Do.”Radio Broadcast:Radio for the Blind TIC, Marshfield, MA 2003

My guest Dec. 6 2005 will be poet and host of the Poet's Theatre at the Club Passim (Harvard Square), Richard Cambridge.

Interview
with
Richard Cambridge
by
Jessa Piaia
[excerpted from SQUAWKMagazine, Issue #46]
June 1991
Jessa: Richard, what poets have influenced you most?

Richard: Certainly everything in Elliot's poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred PruFrock," speaks to me how I feel as a poet. Written in rhyme and free verse, it's a combination that has always attracted me. I'm never quite happy in either form, and his was such a perfect blending. The poem itself just blew me away. I thought, "If I can write like that, that's a yardstick to measure myself against."
Leonard Cohen really opened me up the widest, through his songs, poetry, and novel, Beautiful Flowers. He has the ability of combining the sacred and the profane, by elevating the profane as to make it beautiful and holy. His theory of being an artist, a poet, a creative person was to be totally vulnerable, dwelling in this openness, allowing it to run through you, and then working it out from there. One of his sayings was, "Openness is our art form; spontaneity is genius." I said, "Okay, no matter what happens, I'm going to do this. No matter where it takes me, I'll follow it."
Also in Beautiful Flowers, Cohen defines a saint, not the old-Christian type, but a 20th century one. He says, "A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of LOVE. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. I do not think the saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an 'escaped ski.' His course is a caress of the hill; something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance." Just the whole notion of being an 'escaped ski,' like a ski run wild, wherever the curve of the mountain rut takes you is where you go. You're totally given over. This just blew me away!
More than other poets, Keats and Yeats both impressed me as poets who wrote from the inside out; they expressed the inner understanding and knowledge that comes when you've in touch with the truth of something, because you've identified internally and have become empathic, in a sense.

Jessa: What have been your sources of inspiration?Richard: Nature, relationship, political struggles, including the Native American movement, and the struggle of women expressed in my Halloween poem.

My poem, "The Life of a Man," is autobiographic. It details my passage of starting off as a poet, but then having to put down the pen, to participate in the fight for both civil rights and to end the war in Southeast Asia. The last line, "What is a twist of rhyme to a Black man doing time?" questions the significance of poetry if people are unjustly imprisoned or getting blown away in foreign countries in wars that we have no business participating in. I've always had that struggle of social conscience.

Jessa: Tell us more about your philosophy of poetry.

Richard: I think as artists we have to speak for our time and for what is eternal. All great art transcends its time, while speaking for its time. It's not a matter of tripping out to do a retro thing of sheer romanticism. We have to deal with the hard issues of the day: AIDS, the S & L mess, the Gulf War. The Gulf War was wrong; and all war, eternally, is wrong. That's our challenge and responsibility as artists, to be part of the greater community, to address our present reality, as we weave in timelessness to transcend the human condition. Bob Dylan approached this in his song, "Blowing in the Wind."

Nov. 1 2005 5PM: My guest will be Timothy Gager cofounder of
“The Somerville News Writers Festival”

Three years. In the world of literary ventures, venues, etc.... this can seem like a lifetime. Tim Gager and I started “The Somerville News Writers festival,” a few years ago, when “The Somerville News,” was undergoing big changes with new ownership and staffing. I asked Tim to join me in this venture because of his reputation for running an excellent reading series for fiction writers, “Dire Reader,” at the “ Out of the Blue Art Gallery,” in Cambridge. Since then Tim and I have presented poets and writers like Andre Dubus lll, Tom Perrotta, Jack Powers, Marc Goldfinger, Deborah Priestly, Robert K. Johnson, Steve Almond, and others, at the “Jimmy Tingle Theatre,” in Davis square.
To tell you the truth, I am surprised that we lasted this long. It takes a lot of work, and a cadre of loyal interns, not to mention money, to put on these literary gigs. There is always the clash of personalities and considerable egos, along with the attempts to attract an often indifferent media to contend with. But with the backing of “The Somerville News,” both owners and board of directors, we have presented what we believe is fitting for the impressive literary community Somerville has become.
This year, Nov. 13 2005, to be exact, we are moving to a larger space at the historic “Somerville Theatre,” in Davis Square. We will be housed in a 900 seat theatre, and have an impressive roster of readers. On board will be two Pulitzer Prize winners poet Franz Wright and novelist Robert Olen Butler. Louisa Solano, owner of the famed “Grolier Poetry Book Shop,” will be presented with the “Ibbetson Street Press Life Time Achievement Award,” and poets and writers such as Sue Miller (“The Good Mother”), Alex Beam (“Gracefully Insane”), Lan Samantha Chang, the new head of the “Iowa Writers Workshop,” Susie Davidson (“I Refused to Die...”), Steve Almond (“My Life in Heavy Metal”), Afaa Michael Weaver ( “These Hands I Know), Tim Gager (“Short Street), Hallie Ephron and Donald Davidoff ( “Delusion,”), will read from their impressive body of work.
The music will provided by that gifted poet/singer/ songwriter Jennifer Matthews. Matthews is a published poet, who has just released a critically acclaimed CD “The Wheel,” (Thunda Moon Records).
We are keeping the ticket prices low at $9, to make this an accessible festival. Both Tim and I feel strongly that the rich artistic milieu of Somerville, Mass. should have a festival that aspires for national recognition, but still stays true to its local roots.
*For info. About tickets contact

Nov. 29 2005: 5PM My guest will be poet Michael Brown.


Biography
Michael R. Brown

"the Jerry Garcia of performance poetry" --WBUR/NPR"ein Dichter und Weltenbummler" --Die Welt"rascal-artist-angel-wonder...at the same time" -- Paul Stokstad, "Poets at 8"
Along with Finnish performance poet Erkki Lappalainen, President of the International Organization of Performance Poets, Michael Brown, the organization's General Secretary, produced the first Poetry Olympics held October 1998 in Stockholm, Europe's Cultural Capital. Poets from twelve countries competed in four separate categories. Plans are underway for a larger Olympics during the next several years in another European country.
Michael Brown's first book of poetry, Falling Wallendas (Chicago: Tia Chucha, 1994) resulted from a performance piece presented around the USA for the previous three years. The point of view is that of someone who has lived a full life and finds it too easy to look back in comfortable memory and not too difficult to look ahead. Much of the political attitude stems from a quote from an old organizer, "The most radical thing you can have in America is a long memory." In 1995 Brown's new performance piece, Prof. Perfpo lectures on performing poetry, premiered at Passim's in Cambridge. Susquehanna, his new book-length poetry manuscript, presents persona poems from small town life. He is currently working on two more poetry books, one of which is The Martin Bormann Dog Care Book containing political poems.
Michael Brown's first published poem appeared in the premiere issue of Beyond Baroque in 1968. Over the past 30 years his poems have been in (among others) Amandla Ngewethu!, Another Chicago Magazine, Blue Cloud, Defined Providence, Galley Sail, Greenfield Review, Kudzu, Oyez, On the Bus, Pembroke, Red Brick Review, West Coast Poetry Review, and in Since Feeling Is First (Scott, Foresman, 1972), The Vagaries of Invention (Sidewinder, 1982) and Stray Bullets: Chicago Saloon Poets 1991 (Tia Chucha, 1992). He has also had travel articles in The Chicago Tribune, "Homage to Robert Hayden" in Commentary (1980), fiction in Wormwood, feature articles in The Chicago Reader, and occasional columns in The Korea Times.
An itinerant professor, Brown has been teaching for 39 years, including five years of high school and stints at Michigan, East Texas State, Central (Ohio) State, Western Michigan, Illinois-Chicago, the Uptown Chicago Center of Elmhurst and North Park, Roosevelt, Rhode Island, Suffolk, and his best-loved of all, Chicago State. Currently Professor of Communications at Mount Ida College, he teaches writing, Intercultural Communications, and English as a Second Language.
Brown holds a Ph.D. in English and Education from the University of Michigan. His dissertation, directed by Robert Hayden, was a literary history of the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. In 1986 and 1987 Brown taught at Suwon University in South Korea and traveled extensively in Asia. In 1988 he lectured on English as a second language at the National Normal University in Taipeh. In 1991 he lectured at the University of Stockholm on African American literature and performed his poetry at Kaffe 44. In 1998 he lectured on performance poetry at Hamburg University and performed in London, England; Halmstad, Umea and Stockholm, Sweden; Dusseldorf and Hamburg, Germany; Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Jerusalem.
Brown began doing slam and performance poetry when he returned from Korea. After honing his skills in the bars of Chicago, including the infamous Weeds, he and his wife brought competitive poetry to the Northeast. They co-hosted the Boston slam, and they were members of the 1993 National Championship team from Boston. Brown organized the 1992 International Poetry Slam Championships. He founded Slam! the International Performance Poetry Newsletter, official publication of the Poetry Olympics and the US national slam, and he is creator of for international poetry news. He has several times performed his poem "Chorus" as part of Beat Cafe, an original ballet choreographed by former Joffrey dancer Anthony Williams. He recently completed a play , The Duchess of York. He appeared in the documentary film SlamNation. He continues to write, teach, perform, plan, and dream.

Oct 11 2005: 5PM My guest will be storyteller 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.

Oct 18, 2005 5PM: My guest will be poet Ifeanyi Menkiti

Born in Onitsha, Nigeria, Ifeanyi Menkiti first came to the United States to attend Pomona College from which he received his undergraduate degree. Later he went on to Columbia University and New York University for further studies. He received his Ph.D in Philosophy from Harvard University. He has taught Philosophy at Wellesley College for more than 30 years.


Ifeanyi Menkiti is the author of two previous collections of poetry, Affirmations (1971) and The Jubilation of Falling Bodies (1978). Other poems have appeared in journals and periodicals such as the Sewanee Review, Ploughshares, New Directions, New Letters, the Massachusetts Review. In addition, such other publications as the Evergreen Review, Stony Brook, Bitterroot, the Southwest Review, Chelsea and theAfrican journals Okike, Transition and Nigeria Magazine have also carried his work. In 1975, he was honored with a fellowship in poetry from Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities through the Artists Foundation, followed in 1978 by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Menkiti's poetry has also been aired on National Public Radio and he has given public readings in the New York City public schools under the auspices of the Academy of American Poets as well as for radio stations WBAI (NYC) and WGBH (Boston).
Ifeanyi Menkiti's new edition of poetry, Of Altair, the Bright Light has been published by Earthwinds Editions Spring 2005.

Dec 13 2005 5PM: My guest will be Tam Lin Neville.

Tam Lin Neville, (like myself) was born in New York City, but now after stints in Philadelphia, Indiana, China and Japan she has made the 'Ville her home. Neville's poetry has appeared in such respected journals as the American Poetry Review, The Massachusetts Review, Crazyhorse and others. She has worked as a creative writing teaching fellow at Butler University in Indianapolis, and her chapbook, "Dreaming in Chinese," won the Calypso Press' first chapbook competition in the Spring of 1995. Neville uses striking imagery from nature to illuminate personal intimacy and the intricacies of the soul. Her poems have been described as, "...profoundly original in their way of being moral, mysterious and intimate, all at once." Her most recent poetry collection is "Journey Cake," that deals with her experiences in China.

My guest Nov 8 2005 5PM will be Naomi F. Chase:

Author of three books of poetry, two nonfiction titles, numerous short stories, and articles for the The Village Voice, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, Naomi Feigelson Chase will be at Porter Square Books to read from her "novel in verse," Gittel, the Would-Be Messiah, which was nominated for the Turning Point Press Award of 2005. In 2003, she won the 2003 Flume Press Poetry Chapbook Award for One Blue Thread.

Sept 13- 5PM We will rebroadcast an interview with Hallie Ephron, and Doc. Donald Davidoff, the co-authors of the Peter Zak mystery series. They will both be reading at The Somerville News Writers Festival 3 Nov. 13 2005 7PM The Somerville Theatre Davis Sq. Somerville http://somervillenewswritersfestival.com

Sept 6 2005: Susie Davidson. We will rebroadcast an earlier interview with Davidson concerning her Holocaust compliation "I Refused to Die...." http://www.irefusedtodie.com

8/30 5PM Channel 3 SCAT: This will be a re-broadcast of an earlier interview with poet and singer/songwriter Jennifer Matthews. http://jennifermatthews.com Matthews has a new CD out "The Wheel," and she will be performing at "The Somerville News Writers Festival" Nov 13 2005 7PM at The Somerville Theatre. http://somervillenewswritersfestival.com

Sept 20 5PM: My guest will be Jim Kates, publisher of Zephyr Press of Brookline, Mass.

Zephyr Press, a non-profit arts and education 501(c)(3) organization, publishes literary titles that foster deeper understanding of cultures and languages.
Since its first forays into American poetry and prose in 1980, Zephyr has expanded its list to include a series of Russian and Slavic literature, and most recently an East Asian line of books. Zephyr has also initiated a collaborative venture with the series Adventures in Poetry—a small press with a thirty-year history.
To further our commitment to cross-cultural exchange, we organize bilingual readings, translation workshops in schools, and other educational and cultural events.