POETS AGAINST THE KILLING FIELDS
(Anthology); Trilingual Press; Cambridge, MA; $12.95
If you can turn off “American Idol,” forget for a moment the Red Sox and the Patriots, and take a hard look at the phase of late capitalism in which we find ourselves here in America, in 2007, you might just want to vomit. More likely you would have tuned back into “American Idol” long before you got to that point. The various poets of this anthology are not going to let you do that. They have your head in a vice and toothpicks propping your eyes open. And you are going to look. And you WILL see.
They shouldn’t have to do that to you. You could have seen for yourself. It’s a matter of record that Al Gore won the 2000 election. It’s a matter of record that the United States invaded Iraq for reasons having nothing to do with America’s security. It’s laughable that Saddam Hussein would have anything to do with Islamic jihadists like al-Queada. Contrary to the blatant lies of George W. Bush, the US has introduced torture as a standard operating procedure in interrogating detainees regardless of how much evidence there may or may not be that they are involved with terrorists. Waterboarding is a method of torture used as far back as the Inquisition. How interesting that torture is instituted by a President that used to enjoy blowing up frogs as a kid. But I digress.
The US turned Iraq, which had a large middle class and was a developed nation, albeit under dictatorial rule, into a nightmarish hell-hole. And the US will not leave even when Iraq’s oil is in the hands of American oil companies. Iraqi families have seen their loved ones gunned down or imprisoned almost at random by either rival militias, gangs of thugs or US troops.
My point here is that all too many Americans are oblivious to the suffering of others around the world even when that suffering is directly caused by the US or its client, Israel. All too many Americans are oblivious that our country is moving closer to authoritarianism every day. And this anthology may make you uncomfortable if you are one of the oblivious. And if you are, read deeply then throw your TV remote in the trash; become a citizen of the world. Let yourself address the “small girl playing with bullets found on war ground” as Aldo Tambellini does in “March 14, 2005.”
has the killing bullet
replaced your toy doll innocence
after your baptism by fire
did your parents survive
“In A Shout for Yusuf Hawkins,” Jill Netchinsky writes:
Bensonhurst
cardboard theater figures
drunk Italian inlaws
a gun on New Year’s Eve
Veterans reminisce
“Let’s go beat up some nigguhs”
The Poets Against the Killing Fields are here to tell you that the world is experienced very differently by third-world people under the thumb of US imperialism, and by working people and people of color here in America, than the unfair and unbalanced networks like Faux News would have you believe. Perhaps as you peruse these pages the scales will fall off your eyes as well and you too will find your clenched fist beginning to rise. Now say it with me: Fuck “American Idol!”
Richard Wilhelm
Ibbetson Update
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Watermark by Jacquelyn Pope Review by Doug Holder
September 14, 2005
Watermark by Jacquelyn Pope (Marsh Hawk Press PO BOX 206 East Rockaway, NY 11518 2005) http://web.archive.org/web/20060506015704/http://marshhawkpress.com/ $13.
Jacquelyn Pope's new collection of poetry "Watermark" ( Marsh Hawk Press) is an undeniably melancholy, haunting, and accomplished collection of poetry. Pope's use of language is fine-tuned, clear, clipped, concise and most of all evocative. I was most impressed with the poems that dealt with human relationships. Her imagery beautifully defines estrangement, and the ultimately unknowable entity the "other." In "Mrs. Robinson," ( I'm assuming modeled after that disaffected, booze-swilling cipher of "The Graduate" fame), Pope paints a portrait of an empty woman with chilling precision: " He's fixed her off the page, where she'sabandoned: mid-century,semi-continential. Cold sunlightstabs the medicated air.Too bored to sitand suck the mentholated tipof her malaise, she wondersat the nerve that led him on" (41) In " By Light," Pope skillfully traces a woman's realization that even in what we feel are the most intimate relationships; we are ultimately strangers to one another. It is impressive how Pope uses the most banal of things such as: lamplight, and shadows on a wall to bring the poem home: " ...I sat/ in my own pool of light,/ still wholly/ untranslated into rooms that had/ learned you long ago. Our shadows/ hovered on their walls, dark forms/ drawn across the future./ Time flickered,/ fading from the room the night/ I saw our boundaries were drawn..." (39) When I read the work of some contemporary poets, often I find that the poems are obscure, inaccessible, and I simply can't relate to them. And just as often when I read small press poets whose work is accessible, I found that the poems are too facile and lack the heightened language a poem requires. Pope has written a collection that most of us non-academic poets can understand, relate to, and go back to in years to come.
Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ Somerville, Mass. 2004/ Sept. 2005
Watermark by Jacquelyn Pope (Marsh Hawk Press PO BOX 206 East Rockaway, NY 11518 2005) http://web.archive.org/web/20060506015704/http://marshhawkpress.com/ $13.
Jacquelyn Pope's new collection of poetry "Watermark" ( Marsh Hawk Press) is an undeniably melancholy, haunting, and accomplished collection of poetry. Pope's use of language is fine-tuned, clear, clipped, concise and most of all evocative. I was most impressed with the poems that dealt with human relationships. Her imagery beautifully defines estrangement, and the ultimately unknowable entity the "other." In "Mrs. Robinson," ( I'm assuming modeled after that disaffected, booze-swilling cipher of "The Graduate" fame), Pope paints a portrait of an empty woman with chilling precision: " He's fixed her off the page, where she'sabandoned: mid-century,semi-continential. Cold sunlightstabs the medicated air.Too bored to sitand suck the mentholated tipof her malaise, she wondersat the nerve that led him on" (41) In " By Light," Pope skillfully traces a woman's realization that even in what we feel are the most intimate relationships; we are ultimately strangers to one another. It is impressive how Pope uses the most banal of things such as: lamplight, and shadows on a wall to bring the poem home: " ...I sat/ in my own pool of light,/ still wholly/ untranslated into rooms that had/ learned you long ago. Our shadows/ hovered on their walls, dark forms/ drawn across the future./ Time flickered,/ fading from the room the night/ I saw our boundaries were drawn..." (39) When I read the work of some contemporary poets, often I find that the poems are obscure, inaccessible, and I simply can't relate to them. And just as often when I read small press poets whose work is accessible, I found that the poems are too facile and lack the heightened language a poem requires. Pope has written a collection that most of us non-academic poets can understand, relate to, and go back to in years to come.
Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ Somerville, Mass. 2004/ Sept. 2005
Rafts by Simon Perchik
Rafts
simon Perchik
Parsifal press 2007
13.95 U.S.
16.00 Can
ISBN 978-0-9739960-3-6
Review by Irene Koronas
RAFTS
This book of poetry shifts back and forth, time tides, small ocean pools we can gaze into for small bits, living matters. “you can hear the dirt, the shallow foothold, the hand to hand.” The poem’s relationships have a natural commitment with family - lovers as close as trees. “and nothing underneath but this orange this half brother, half sister, head down-there’s still room, the healing bigger than ever, returning from a pasture and covered with wet grass.”
The intimacy of Simon Perchik’s poetry astounds, the reader immediately recognizes and identifies with the persistent struggle to identify with all around oneself. “it’s a scary scratching, squeaks right through the heart as when falling stars cry out the light that is not morning and leaf by leaf, surrounded by a fence.”
Mostly, this collection of poems, melds into an epic like Homer, but not Homer, like sublime, but not sublime; these poems are narrative sublimity in that they also capture, take us on the journey. and what is the journey? is it simply in narrative in nature, the going forth, coming back? perhaps. “anything is possible-they hatch til the stones whose common ancestor in the moon…they keep the dead company.” we carry his words up the hill. pile them in neat piles, then the phrases tumble down and find another configuration. Rafts is a poetry book which dares to be its own. “once you reach the emptiness it will still answer…”
Irene Koronas is the poetry editor of the Wilderness House Literary Review, and a member of the "Bagel Bards," a writers' group in the Boston area.
simon Perchik
Parsifal press 2007
13.95 U.S.
16.00 Can
ISBN 978-0-9739960-3-6
Review by Irene Koronas
RAFTS
This book of poetry shifts back and forth, time tides, small ocean pools we can gaze into for small bits, living matters. “you can hear the dirt, the shallow foothold, the hand to hand.” The poem’s relationships have a natural commitment with family - lovers as close as trees. “and nothing underneath but this orange this half brother, half sister, head down-there’s still room, the healing bigger than ever, returning from a pasture and covered with wet grass.”
The intimacy of Simon Perchik’s poetry astounds, the reader immediately recognizes and identifies with the persistent struggle to identify with all around oneself. “it’s a scary scratching, squeaks right through the heart as when falling stars cry out the light that is not morning and leaf by leaf, surrounded by a fence.”
Mostly, this collection of poems, melds into an epic like Homer, but not Homer, like sublime, but not sublime; these poems are narrative sublimity in that they also capture, take us on the journey. and what is the journey? is it simply in narrative in nature, the going forth, coming back? perhaps. “anything is possible-they hatch til the stones whose common ancestor in the moon…they keep the dead company.” we carry his words up the hill. pile them in neat piles, then the phrases tumble down and find another configuration. Rafts is a poetry book which dares to be its own. “once you reach the emptiness it will still answer…”
Irene Koronas is the poetry editor of the Wilderness House Literary Review, and a member of the "Bagel Bards," a writers' group in the Boston area.
Lois Ames: Confidante to Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.”
“Lois Ames: Confidante to Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.”
Recently I was privileged to hear Lois Ames speak at the “Wilderness House
Literary Retreat,” in Littleton, Mass. Lois Ames is a poet, biographer and
psychotherapist. She was a confidante of the poet Anne Sexton, and has
published many essays on both Sexton and Sylvia Plath including: “A
Biographical Note,” in Plath’s “Bell Jar,” She also was the editor of “Anne
Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters.’ I talked with her on my Somerville
Community Access TV show “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: Is it a natural fit for “confessional” poets like Sexton and
Plath to have a trained social worker , and a literary historian, as a
confidante?
Lois Ames: I don’t think it is usual. I don’t think that’s why I was their
friend or confidante. I knew Sylvia from high school and Smith College. Anne
I once met in high school, but I didn’t know her till much later. I was then
a trained social worker, but I don’t think that’s why we became friends.
Anne certainly asked me to go to McLean Hospital when she first started
teaching poetry there. She wanted someone trained to help her when she
reviewed the patient poems. She didn’t want to hurt these fragile patients’
feelings. She wanted me to monitor what she said. She turned out to be
superb.
Doug Holder: You wrote the biographical note for the “Bell Jar.” Did you
ever want to do a complete biography of Plath and Sexton?
Lois Ames: I did. The book “Anne Sexton: Self-Portrait in Letters.” was my
idea. It was done partly to get an understanding about what material was
there. She had appointed me her official biographer. But it was also to help
her children to understand aspects of their mother’s life they weren’t aware
of. I thought if I was there for them we could go through the letters, and
this would be very helpful.
I was the first one to be asked to do the biography of Sylvia Plath. I had
a contract with the family. Harper and Row was my publisher. It became
increasingly difficult for me to do this, as other biographers have found
out. And I finally decided for the sake of my own sanity and my family; that
it was better to pay back the advance to Harper’s. I always felt it was a
wise decision.
Doug Holder: Did Plath have any interest in teaching poetry at McLean
Hospital, like Sexton?
Lois Ames: Oh, no, I don’t think so. Sylvia was a junior in college when she
was at McLean. In those days she wasn’t trained to do anything like that.
She went to England after she graduated Smith. There was no reason for her
to even think of doing that. That was not Sylvia’s interest. Anne loved
teaching. Sylvia found teaching very difficult. She taught one year at Smith
College and felt that it drained her. I assume going to England with Ted
Hughes and leaving Smith, was a wonderful opportunity for her.
Doug Holder: Anne was not formally educated beyond high school. If say, she
was educated in the Liberal Arts at Harvard, would she be a different poet?
Lois Ames: She was very interested in form when she first started and she
studied it very diligently. When she was in Robert Lowell’s workshop she
studied it as well. She read a great deal. She tried to make up for the
great gaps in her education. Her teachers in public school gave up on her
very early. They told her parents that she was hopeless. She was sent to the
“Garland School,” a finishing school for girls at the time. She said she
learned to make perfect white sauce there, but that was it. But she was
writing poetry when she was there and it was published in a magazine the
school put out.
Doug Holder: Have you had any clients since Sexton and Plath who have
reached literary heights?
Lois Ames: I knew a lot of the people in the workshop Anne ran. I am sworn
to confidentiality however. But a lot of people, who came out of the
workshop, have been or are published poets. They do very well in the poetry
world.
Doug Holder: Is your own poetry influence by either poet?
Lois Ames: Anne certainly taught me a lot about reading. She taught me to
get as many critiques as possible. Have I ever tried to follow the style of
either of them? No. And no one has ever accused me of that.
Doug Holder: Do you think if Plath didn’t have this dramatic background of
suicide, Smith, and marriage toTed Hughes, etc...and was a working-stiff
from Waltham, would she be as celebrated as she is today?
Lois Ames: I am wondering where Plath will stand in a hundred years. Ted
Hughes was very good at marketing Plath. He kept her reputation growing by
the astute publication of her work. I think the fact that she and Ted Hughes
had a passionate romance, were from a tumultuous family, and the fact that
Sylvia killed herself, all lead to the mystique. It contributes to her
present fame. Some of Plath’s poems were superb and she knew a lot about
poetic form.
Doug Holder: Where will Sexton’s work stand in a hundred years?
Lois Ames: I think it will fare well. I think Sexton was more daring than
Plath. The problem is that people don’t read Sexton today. I don’t think she
is promoted. She hasn’t been marketed the way Plath is today.
Doug Holder: The poet Ted Hughes, Plath’s husband, has been much maligned.
Both Plath and his other wife committed suicide. It has been said he drove
Plath to suicide through his infidelity, etc... What’s your take?
Lois Ames: Ted had a lover during their marriage that he later had a child
with. This was the source of Sylvia’s rage. Later she killed herself the
same way Sylvia did. I felt extreme sympathy for Ted. There is nothing more
rage full to do to other people than to kill yourself. I don’t think other
people are responsible for other people’s suicides. With the medications we
have now maybe Sylvia and Ann could have been saved.
Doug Holder: Did the limitations on women coming of age in the 50’s play a
role in these untimely deaths?
Lois Ames: Each of us was a warrior trying to find herself. Every
achievement was huge. To get out from under the dishwashing, the daycare,
and to create anything took enormous courage, and strength. I am sure it
took its toll.
Doug Holder: Did Sexton and Plath’s mental illness contribute positively to
their poetry?
Lois Ames: Each wrote in spite of their illness. It took enormous courage to
do this.
Recently I was privileged to hear Lois Ames speak at the “Wilderness House
Literary Retreat,” in Littleton, Mass. Lois Ames is a poet, biographer and
psychotherapist. She was a confidante of the poet Anne Sexton, and has
published many essays on both Sexton and Sylvia Plath including: “A
Biographical Note,” in Plath’s “Bell Jar,” She also was the editor of “Anne
Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters.’ I talked with her on my Somerville
Community Access TV show “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: Is it a natural fit for “confessional” poets like Sexton and
Plath to have a trained social worker , and a literary historian, as a
confidante?
Lois Ames: I don’t think it is usual. I don’t think that’s why I was their
friend or confidante. I knew Sylvia from high school and Smith College. Anne
I once met in high school, but I didn’t know her till much later. I was then
a trained social worker, but I don’t think that’s why we became friends.
Anne certainly asked me to go to McLean Hospital when she first started
teaching poetry there. She wanted someone trained to help her when she
reviewed the patient poems. She didn’t want to hurt these fragile patients’
feelings. She wanted me to monitor what she said. She turned out to be
superb.
Doug Holder: You wrote the biographical note for the “Bell Jar.” Did you
ever want to do a complete biography of Plath and Sexton?
Lois Ames: I did. The book “Anne Sexton: Self-Portrait in Letters.” was my
idea. It was done partly to get an understanding about what material was
there. She had appointed me her official biographer. But it was also to help
her children to understand aspects of their mother’s life they weren’t aware
of. I thought if I was there for them we could go through the letters, and
this would be very helpful.
I was the first one to be asked to do the biography of Sylvia Plath. I had
a contract with the family. Harper and Row was my publisher. It became
increasingly difficult for me to do this, as other biographers have found
out. And I finally decided for the sake of my own sanity and my family; that
it was better to pay back the advance to Harper’s. I always felt it was a
wise decision.
Doug Holder: Did Plath have any interest in teaching poetry at McLean
Hospital, like Sexton?
Lois Ames: Oh, no, I don’t think so. Sylvia was a junior in college when she
was at McLean. In those days she wasn’t trained to do anything like that.
She went to England after she graduated Smith. There was no reason for her
to even think of doing that. That was not Sylvia’s interest. Anne loved
teaching. Sylvia found teaching very difficult. She taught one year at Smith
College and felt that it drained her. I assume going to England with Ted
Hughes and leaving Smith, was a wonderful opportunity for her.
Doug Holder: Anne was not formally educated beyond high school. If say, she
was educated in the Liberal Arts at Harvard, would she be a different poet?
Lois Ames: She was very interested in form when she first started and she
studied it very diligently. When she was in Robert Lowell’s workshop she
studied it as well. She read a great deal. She tried to make up for the
great gaps in her education. Her teachers in public school gave up on her
very early. They told her parents that she was hopeless. She was sent to the
“Garland School,” a finishing school for girls at the time. She said she
learned to make perfect white sauce there, but that was it. But she was
writing poetry when she was there and it was published in a magazine the
school put out.
Doug Holder: Have you had any clients since Sexton and Plath who have
reached literary heights?
Lois Ames: I knew a lot of the people in the workshop Anne ran. I am sworn
to confidentiality however. But a lot of people, who came out of the
workshop, have been or are published poets. They do very well in the poetry
world.
Doug Holder: Is your own poetry influence by either poet?
Lois Ames: Anne certainly taught me a lot about reading. She taught me to
get as many critiques as possible. Have I ever tried to follow the style of
either of them? No. And no one has ever accused me of that.
Doug Holder: Do you think if Plath didn’t have this dramatic background of
suicide, Smith, and marriage toTed Hughes, etc...and was a working-stiff
from Waltham, would she be as celebrated as she is today?
Lois Ames: I am wondering where Plath will stand in a hundred years. Ted
Hughes was very good at marketing Plath. He kept her reputation growing by
the astute publication of her work. I think the fact that she and Ted Hughes
had a passionate romance, were from a tumultuous family, and the fact that
Sylvia killed herself, all lead to the mystique. It contributes to her
present fame. Some of Plath’s poems were superb and she knew a lot about
poetic form.
Doug Holder: Where will Sexton’s work stand in a hundred years?
Lois Ames: I think it will fare well. I think Sexton was more daring than
Plath. The problem is that people don’t read Sexton today. I don’t think she
is promoted. She hasn’t been marketed the way Plath is today.
Doug Holder: The poet Ted Hughes, Plath’s husband, has been much maligned.
Both Plath and his other wife committed suicide. It has been said he drove
Plath to suicide through his infidelity, etc... What’s your take?
Lois Ames: Ted had a lover during their marriage that he later had a child
with. This was the source of Sylvia’s rage. Later she killed herself the
same way Sylvia did. I felt extreme sympathy for Ted. There is nothing more
rage full to do to other people than to kill yourself. I don’t think other
people are responsible for other people’s suicides. With the medications we
have now maybe Sylvia and Ann could have been saved.
Doug Holder: Did the limitations on women coming of age in the 50’s play a
role in these untimely deaths?
Lois Ames: Each of us was a warrior trying to find herself. Every
achievement was huge. To get out from under the dishwashing, the daycare,
and to create anything took enormous courage, and strength. I am sure it
took its toll.
Doug Holder: Did Sexton and Plath’s mental illness contribute positively to
their poetry?
Lois Ames: Each wrote in spite of their illness. It took enormous courage to
do this.
Close those goddamn doors: An Afternoon With Louisa Solano
" Close those goddamn doors!: An Afternoon with Louisa Solano: Memories of the Grolier Poetry Book Shop"At the Wilderness House Literary Retreat http://www.wildernesshouse.org
By Doug Holder
On Aug 6 2006 at the Wilderness House Literary Retreat Louisa Solano, former owner of the Grolier Poetry Book Shop held court for a few hours of casual conversation concerning her experiences running the famed Harvard Square bookshop for over 30 years. It seems that almost every major contemporary poet passed through these doors at one time. Here is a sampler of what Solano had to say about the times and poets she knew:
Gordon Cairnie: (the founder of the store)
“These goddamn browsers, close those goddamn, doors!” This was a declaration often heard by Solano. Cairnie was “quirky,” and did have a temper according to Solano. Solano said, “After I bought the store I had a whole line of people who told me that Gordon ruined them emotionally. It was the way he talked to them.” Cairnie in part was reacting to the browsers who never bought a book, and the ones who shoplifted. Obviously keeping people out of the store was not good business sense. But Solano felt there was a prevailing attitude at the time that poets were abused by society, so poetry and commerce were viewed as totally separate entities. After he died Solano recalled that many folks thought it was a “sin” that she took over the store.
Solano on shoplifting:
“According to a study 98% of people steal. People steal because it is an adventure, a high. It’s like shooting up; you have to do more and more. You become an expert on justification.” Solano said that studies indicate that shoplifting is highest among people in religious orders. She recalled that a monk with a flowing robe ripped her off. She said, “His robe was a little less flowing when he went out."
Solano on Harvard Square:
"Whatever part of the country people come from, the suburbs or little working communities, they come to the square and reality diminishes. She continued:"People are walking in a state of grandeur. I remember being accompanied down the street by someone who said he was going to kill me because I was a Harvard capitalist!”
Solano on Robert Lowell:
“I met him twice. I thought he was homeless. He was carrying two bags full of newspapers, and he was disheveled. The first time he said to me: “Young lady. I want you to know that Gordon talked too much, and you should never do that.” He walked out of the store. A week later he came and said, “Young lady. You are not following Gordon. You don’t talk to customers.” I found out later that this was Robert Lowell.”
Solano’s favorite poet:
“Philip Levine. He has always been my favorite. I think his approach to poetry is wide open. He loved an audience. He was a great standup comic. I loved the love he had for the Jewish community. I really love him.”
Solano on the small press:
“I always thought the small press was the most interesting part of poetry. When I took over the store there was a big small press movement going on. This was the 70’s. Some magazines were printed on colored tissue papers, different sizes, etc… Most of the bigger presses were publishing Lowell, Sexton and Plath. They were not particularly democratic. Diana Di Prima was first published by a small press and then started her own, and it is still going strong. She has done translations, and poetry publishing.The University of Texas/Austin was wild about the small press. They probably now (besides the University of Buffalo) have the best small press collection.’“Black Sparrow Press’ started out selling books with three or four poems for a dollar. Most of the bookstores today would not accept these.”Even if you were published just in the small press; the fact was you were in a book on a public shelf. Then if things went well you would do another small press book. If things continued to go well, you would get known.
Solano on Charles Bukowski:
"He sent his poems out virtually everyday to every small press magazine out there. This totally demolished the myth of him as a disorganized drunk. He wouldn’t be able to do this if he was."
Solano on Ed Hogan founder of “Aspect” magazine and “Zephyr Press”:
“Ed was brilliant. He had a lot of energy. He talked endlessly and rapidly. He got a great group of local poets together, and got the magazine out.”
Solano on Allen Ginsberg.
“I loved Allen. When he died I thought the world would cave in. He visited the store when he was quite ill. He looked yellowish and diminished. I was shocked. I thought of him as immortal. He brought poetry in the open from a very closed 1950’s America."
On Jack Kerouac:
“When I first met him he was sitting down at Lowell House. (Harvard University.) He was wearing a checkered shirt, and sloppy chinos, partly because he was so fat. The audience loved him because he was what they expected. He was the crazy writer. At the end of the reading, Desmond O’Grady, a wild Irish poet (I was madly in love with him), and I escorted him to a bar in Cambridge. There was a young woman who announced to Kerouac and all the guys around him that she wanted a “multiple lay.” Kerouac didn’t do anything and just waddled off to the bar. We got him back to where he was staying and he passed out. The next day we met him at the Oxford Grill on Church St. in Harvard Square. The news came out that Plath committed suicide. Desmond threw his arms around Jack and very dramatically said “We are the only ones left.” Jack said,” Stay away from me.” He was homophobic. The last we saw of him he was walking down Church St. with two Harvard undergraduates looking for the perfect “Gold,” --
marijuana. "
*The Ibbetson Street Press has released the book "Louisa Solano: The Grolier Poetry Book Shop"by Doug Holder and Steve Glines which can be purchased from Ibbetson Street Press 25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143 $10 or through http://lulu.com
By Doug Holder
On Aug 6 2006 at the Wilderness House Literary Retreat Louisa Solano, former owner of the Grolier Poetry Book Shop held court for a few hours of casual conversation concerning her experiences running the famed Harvard Square bookshop for over 30 years. It seems that almost every major contemporary poet passed through these doors at one time. Here is a sampler of what Solano had to say about the times and poets she knew:
Gordon Cairnie: (the founder of the store)
“These goddamn browsers, close those goddamn, doors!” This was a declaration often heard by Solano. Cairnie was “quirky,” and did have a temper according to Solano. Solano said, “After I bought the store I had a whole line of people who told me that Gordon ruined them emotionally. It was the way he talked to them.” Cairnie in part was reacting to the browsers who never bought a book, and the ones who shoplifted. Obviously keeping people out of the store was not good business sense. But Solano felt there was a prevailing attitude at the time that poets were abused by society, so poetry and commerce were viewed as totally separate entities. After he died Solano recalled that many folks thought it was a “sin” that she took over the store.
Solano on shoplifting:
“According to a study 98% of people steal. People steal because it is an adventure, a high. It’s like shooting up; you have to do more and more. You become an expert on justification.” Solano said that studies indicate that shoplifting is highest among people in religious orders. She recalled that a monk with a flowing robe ripped her off. She said, “His robe was a little less flowing when he went out."
Solano on Harvard Square:
"Whatever part of the country people come from, the suburbs or little working communities, they come to the square and reality diminishes. She continued:"People are walking in a state of grandeur. I remember being accompanied down the street by someone who said he was going to kill me because I was a Harvard capitalist!”
Solano on Robert Lowell:
“I met him twice. I thought he was homeless. He was carrying two bags full of newspapers, and he was disheveled. The first time he said to me: “Young lady. I want you to know that Gordon talked too much, and you should never do that.” He walked out of the store. A week later he came and said, “Young lady. You are not following Gordon. You don’t talk to customers.” I found out later that this was Robert Lowell.”
Solano’s favorite poet:
“Philip Levine. He has always been my favorite. I think his approach to poetry is wide open. He loved an audience. He was a great standup comic. I loved the love he had for the Jewish community. I really love him.”
Solano on the small press:
“I always thought the small press was the most interesting part of poetry. When I took over the store there was a big small press movement going on. This was the 70’s. Some magazines were printed on colored tissue papers, different sizes, etc… Most of the bigger presses were publishing Lowell, Sexton and Plath. They were not particularly democratic. Diana Di Prima was first published by a small press and then started her own, and it is still going strong. She has done translations, and poetry publishing.The University of Texas/Austin was wild about the small press. They probably now (besides the University of Buffalo) have the best small press collection.’“Black Sparrow Press’ started out selling books with three or four poems for a dollar. Most of the bookstores today would not accept these.”Even if you were published just in the small press; the fact was you were in a book on a public shelf. Then if things went well you would do another small press book. If things continued to go well, you would get known.
Solano on Charles Bukowski:
"He sent his poems out virtually everyday to every small press magazine out there. This totally demolished the myth of him as a disorganized drunk. He wouldn’t be able to do this if he was."
Solano on Ed Hogan founder of “Aspect” magazine and “Zephyr Press”:
“Ed was brilliant. He had a lot of energy. He talked endlessly and rapidly. He got a great group of local poets together, and got the magazine out.”
Solano on Allen Ginsberg.
“I loved Allen. When he died I thought the world would cave in. He visited the store when he was quite ill. He looked yellowish and diminished. I was shocked. I thought of him as immortal. He brought poetry in the open from a very closed 1950’s America."
On Jack Kerouac:
“When I first met him he was sitting down at Lowell House. (Harvard University.) He was wearing a checkered shirt, and sloppy chinos, partly because he was so fat. The audience loved him because he was what they expected. He was the crazy writer. At the end of the reading, Desmond O’Grady, a wild Irish poet (I was madly in love with him), and I escorted him to a bar in Cambridge. There was a young woman who announced to Kerouac and all the guys around him that she wanted a “multiple lay.” Kerouac didn’t do anything and just waddled off to the bar. We got him back to where he was staying and he passed out. The next day we met him at the Oxford Grill on Church St. in Harvard Square. The news came out that Plath committed suicide. Desmond threw his arms around Jack and very dramatically said “We are the only ones left.” Jack said,” Stay away from me.” He was homophobic. The last we saw of him he was walking down Church St. with two Harvard undergraduates looking for the perfect “Gold,” --
marijuana. "
*The Ibbetson Street Press has released the book "Louisa Solano: The Grolier Poetry Book Shop"by Doug Holder and Steve Glines which can be purchased from Ibbetson Street Press 25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143 $10 or through http://lulu.com
Jim Kates and the Zephyr Press
Jim Kates and the Zephyr Press
Probably the most significant of small presses birthed in Somerville, Mass. is the “Zephyr Press,” (now based in Brookline, Mass.) that was founded by the late Somerville publisher Ed Hogan. Hogan, started the much-heralded “Aspect,” magazine in the 1970’s. In 1980 he and a group of his editors formed “Zephyr,” and for seven years the press published a small but significant list of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. In 1990, Zephyr published its hallmark collection of Russian poetry: “The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova” translated by Judith Hemschemeyer. After this collection of work by this groundbreaking early 20th Century maverick female writer, other titles from Russia followed, as well as the first anthology of Ukrainian writing in English, “From Three Worlds.” With the untimely death of Hogan, Kates, an old friend of Hogan’s, assumed responsibility for the press and relaunched it in 2000. Since then Zephyr has published numerous books of translations, including the work of Nobel-nominated Chinese poet Bei Dao. Zephyr also has an imprint, “Adventures in Poetry,” that publishes fiction and poetry, and they cooperatively publish a British-based journal “Modern Poetry in Translation.
To interview publisher Jim Kates is no problem because he is an affable man, who seems to have an endless supply of information about the “Zephyr Press,” and the literary world at-large. Kates describes “Zephyr,” as an “alternative” press, an alternative to the commercial presses, who Kates feels has all but abandoned serious literature. Kates realizes that running a “small” independent press is usually a money-losing and often all consuming undertaking. He doesn’t make a living running Zephyr, and the press lives “hand to mouth,” from grants, be it state, federal or private. Zephyr only has one paid employee on staff, and now its office is based in Brookline, Mass.; although it makes no secret of its Somerville roots. The late Ed Hogan, the Somerville publisher was according to Kates “...a child of Somerville, and Somerville was an essential part of his vision.” Unfortunately when Hogan died in a freak canoe accident Zephyr was forced to move to Brookline.
Asked to remember what the Somerville literary scene in the 1970’s was like, Kates’ memory was somewhat cloudy. However he did mention his memory of the “100 Flower Bookstore,” and Hogan’s wife June Gross’ lit mag. “Dark Horse.” Somerville in the 70’s and 80’s was not like the gentrified city it is today, Kates said. He remembers one poet who got a Cambridge PO BOX, so it wouldn’t be known that she lived in Somerville. “It just looked better to be in Cambridge,” Kates said.
Since Zephyr published the Akhmatova anthology many subsequent books on the great poet have hit the market. This anthology according to Kates, “opened up the gates,” for the others. Later, June Gross, inspired Kates to publish an anthology of contemporary Russian poets, and more recently Zephyr published the acclaimed Chinese poet Bei Dao. Dao, was a member of the dissident “Misty” poets group in China and has been a champion of Chinese writers. Dao often sends promising Chinese writers ‘Zephyr’s” way. Zephyr published a collection of Dao’s essays concerning his dislocation from his motherland: “Blue House.”
Surprisingly, American readers are buying Chinese poetry. Another popular title of the press is: “Iraqi Poetry Today,” that gives Americans a much needed window into Iraqi culture.
Kates and I could have talked much longer. He had a plethora stories about the fiction titles the press has released, and the translation group he is part of. Kates’ enthusiasm is contagious, and after speaking with him I found myself brainstorming for my own small press. Kates brings me back to my belief that a man or a woman who has a true passion for something, is a very lucky person indeed.
Probably the most significant of small presses birthed in Somerville, Mass. is the “Zephyr Press,” (now based in Brookline, Mass.) that was founded by the late Somerville publisher Ed Hogan. Hogan, started the much-heralded “Aspect,” magazine in the 1970’s. In 1980 he and a group of his editors formed “Zephyr,” and for seven years the press published a small but significant list of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. In 1990, Zephyr published its hallmark collection of Russian poetry: “The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova” translated by Judith Hemschemeyer. After this collection of work by this groundbreaking early 20th Century maverick female writer, other titles from Russia followed, as well as the first anthology of Ukrainian writing in English, “From Three Worlds.” With the untimely death of Hogan, Kates, an old friend of Hogan’s, assumed responsibility for the press and relaunched it in 2000. Since then Zephyr has published numerous books of translations, including the work of Nobel-nominated Chinese poet Bei Dao. Zephyr also has an imprint, “Adventures in Poetry,” that publishes fiction and poetry, and they cooperatively publish a British-based journal “Modern Poetry in Translation.
To interview publisher Jim Kates is no problem because he is an affable man, who seems to have an endless supply of information about the “Zephyr Press,” and the literary world at-large. Kates describes “Zephyr,” as an “alternative” press, an alternative to the commercial presses, who Kates feels has all but abandoned serious literature. Kates realizes that running a “small” independent press is usually a money-losing and often all consuming undertaking. He doesn’t make a living running Zephyr, and the press lives “hand to mouth,” from grants, be it state, federal or private. Zephyr only has one paid employee on staff, and now its office is based in Brookline, Mass.; although it makes no secret of its Somerville roots. The late Ed Hogan, the Somerville publisher was according to Kates “...a child of Somerville, and Somerville was an essential part of his vision.” Unfortunately when Hogan died in a freak canoe accident Zephyr was forced to move to Brookline.
Asked to remember what the Somerville literary scene in the 1970’s was like, Kates’ memory was somewhat cloudy. However he did mention his memory of the “100 Flower Bookstore,” and Hogan’s wife June Gross’ lit mag. “Dark Horse.” Somerville in the 70’s and 80’s was not like the gentrified city it is today, Kates said. He remembers one poet who got a Cambridge PO BOX, so it wouldn’t be known that she lived in Somerville. “It just looked better to be in Cambridge,” Kates said.
Since Zephyr published the Akhmatova anthology many subsequent books on the great poet have hit the market. This anthology according to Kates, “opened up the gates,” for the others. Later, June Gross, inspired Kates to publish an anthology of contemporary Russian poets, and more recently Zephyr published the acclaimed Chinese poet Bei Dao. Dao, was a member of the dissident “Misty” poets group in China and has been a champion of Chinese writers. Dao often sends promising Chinese writers ‘Zephyr’s” way. Zephyr published a collection of Dao’s essays concerning his dislocation from his motherland: “Blue House.”
Surprisingly, American readers are buying Chinese poetry. Another popular title of the press is: “Iraqi Poetry Today,” that gives Americans a much needed window into Iraqi culture.
Kates and I could have talked much longer. He had a plethora stories about the fiction titles the press has released, and the translation group he is part of. Kates’ enthusiasm is contagious, and after speaking with him I found myself brainstorming for my own small press. Kates brings me back to my belief that a man or a woman who has a true passion for something, is a very lucky person indeed.
Steve Almond: Funny in any language: Interview with Eleanor Goodman
Almond: Funny in any language
By Eleanor Goodman
Steve Almond’s book of essays, “Not That You Asked” has just been published by Random House to widespread praise. He is the author of two collections of short stories, a candy-centered memoir, and a novel written in collaboration with Julia Baggott. He also teaches at Grub Street and is the proud father of a baby girl. He will be one of the featured readers at the Somerville News Writers Festival on Nov. 11.
Q: I found your newest book, (Not That You Asked) shelved next to Woody Allen’s latest in the bookstore. Is this a good thing?
SA: Yeah, I guess. I’m happy to be in the company of the man who made “Annie Hall.” And we’re both self-doubting Jews with wives who are way too good looking for us.
Q: In your book, you quote Kurt Vonnegut as saying, “I think the world is ending. Our own intelligence tells us we’re perfectly awful animals.” Do you agree with his assessment of humanity?
SA: I agree that human beings can, and do, behave in a perfectly awful manner. Here in America, for instance, we have far more food and energy than we really need, and yet we do very little to help those who don’t have enough. There’s no way to argue that that isn’t cruel. But I remain hopeful that we can behave more decently. Vonnegut himself was an incredibly hopeful, even idealistic, guy. That’s why he was so
Q: “Not That You Asked” involves some embarrassing moments in your life. Do you worry about exposing yourself too much in your writing?
SA: The path to the truth runs through shame. That’s just how it works. Over the years, I’ve come to find it unburdening to admit what an idiot I’ve been. Because everyone feels like that, at times, on the inside. I’m just saying it out loud.
Q: You have published both fiction and non-fiction. Do you find one better suited to humor than the other?
SA: No. You can be funny in any genre or language. It’s a matter, most often, of forgiving yourself for what a big, fat jerk you, or your characters, have been. It’s a way of telling the truth that doesn’t sting quite so much.
Q: Your work is funny in part because you deal with serious topics – politics, the deadening of our culture, fatherhood. Are there any topics you think have no potential for humor?
SA: Well, I mean, genocide, rape, extreme cruelty — those are not topics that you want to make light of. But the point of comedy isn’t to gloss over tragedy, but sometimes to get us to admit to our own unbearable feelings or fears. That’s why so many great comics, from Richard Pryor to Lenny Bruce, grappled with serious issues.
Q: You write beautifully about the terror of becoming a father. Do you still worry about inadvertently killing your daughter Josephine?
SA: Yes, I don’t think that fear ever goes away. It’s a function of responsibility and love crashing into one another. That said, I’m down to about one potential killing a day.
Q: How has baby Josephine affected your work?
SA: Well, I get less time to write. But who cares? She totally rocks. I’d rather hang out with her than write most of the time, anyway.
Q: You will be appearing at the fifth annual Somerville News Writer’s Festival on Nov. 11 along with Tom Perrotta, Robert Pinsky, and other luminaries. Have you ever been intimidated by someone you’ve shared the stage with?
SA: Maybe a little. But mostly I’m happy to be able to hear folks like Tom Perrotta or Tim Gager read. It’s just a joy to be there.
By Eleanor Goodman
Steve Almond’s book of essays, “Not That You Asked” has just been published by Random House to widespread praise. He is the author of two collections of short stories, a candy-centered memoir, and a novel written in collaboration with Julia Baggott. He also teaches at Grub Street and is the proud father of a baby girl. He will be one of the featured readers at the Somerville News Writers Festival on Nov. 11.
Q: I found your newest book, (Not That You Asked) shelved next to Woody Allen’s latest in the bookstore. Is this a good thing?
SA: Yeah, I guess. I’m happy to be in the company of the man who made “Annie Hall.” And we’re both self-doubting Jews with wives who are way too good looking for us.
Q: In your book, you quote Kurt Vonnegut as saying, “I think the world is ending. Our own intelligence tells us we’re perfectly awful animals.” Do you agree with his assessment of humanity?
SA: I agree that human beings can, and do, behave in a perfectly awful manner. Here in America, for instance, we have far more food and energy than we really need, and yet we do very little to help those who don’t have enough. There’s no way to argue that that isn’t cruel. But I remain hopeful that we can behave more decently. Vonnegut himself was an incredibly hopeful, even idealistic, guy. That’s why he was so
Q: “Not That You Asked” involves some embarrassing moments in your life. Do you worry about exposing yourself too much in your writing?
SA: The path to the truth runs through shame. That’s just how it works. Over the years, I’ve come to find it unburdening to admit what an idiot I’ve been. Because everyone feels like that, at times, on the inside. I’m just saying it out loud.
Q: You have published both fiction and non-fiction. Do you find one better suited to humor than the other?
SA: No. You can be funny in any genre or language. It’s a matter, most often, of forgiving yourself for what a big, fat jerk you, or your characters, have been. It’s a way of telling the truth that doesn’t sting quite so much.
Q: Your work is funny in part because you deal with serious topics – politics, the deadening of our culture, fatherhood. Are there any topics you think have no potential for humor?
SA: Well, I mean, genocide, rape, extreme cruelty — those are not topics that you want to make light of. But the point of comedy isn’t to gloss over tragedy, but sometimes to get us to admit to our own unbearable feelings or fears. That’s why so many great comics, from Richard Pryor to Lenny Bruce, grappled with serious issues.
Q: You write beautifully about the terror of becoming a father. Do you still worry about inadvertently killing your daughter Josephine?
SA: Yes, I don’t think that fear ever goes away. It’s a function of responsibility and love crashing into one another. That said, I’m down to about one potential killing a day.
Q: How has baby Josephine affected your work?
SA: Well, I get less time to write. But who cares? She totally rocks. I’d rather hang out with her than write most of the time, anyway.
Q: You will be appearing at the fifth annual Somerville News Writer’s Festival on Nov. 11 along with Tom Perrotta, Robert Pinsky, and other luminaries. Have you ever been intimidated by someone you’ve shared the stage with?
SA: Maybe a little. But mostly I’m happy to be able to hear folks like Tom Perrotta or Tim Gager read. It’s just a joy to be there.
POET MARTHA COLLINS PUTS UP A “BLUE FRONT”
POET MARTHA COLLINS PUTS UP A “BLUE FRONT”
Interview with Doug Holder
Martha Collins, the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection “Blue Front” ( Graywolf, 2006) walks into a room and exudes energy, intelligence and warmth. Collins who established the Creative Writing Program at U/Mass Boston, and currently holds the Pauline Delaney Chair in Creative Writing at Oberlin College, seems to have abounding enthusiasm for her work and an infectious curiosity about the world-at-large. Born in Omaha Nebraska in 1940, she earned a B.A. at Stanford University and holds a PhD from the University of Iowa. Collins is the author of five books of poetry, a chapbook “Gone So Far,” and two co-translated poetry collections from the Vietnamese. Her honors include fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation and others.
In her most recent collection “Blue Front,” Collins dissects a lynching her father experienced when he was a child in Cairo, Illinois. I spoke with Collins on my Somerville Community Access TV Show “ Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: The poet Richard Wollman told me he lives the “poetic life.” What would that be for you- and do you live it?
Martha Collins: I do. I write it. I’m not sure what it is. I think being a poet shapes the way you look at the world. I don’t write all the time. I don’t worry about it. There are periods when what I am doing is figuring out what I am going to do next.
It is work. It is natural work. It is work that engages me on every level. Both on the intellectual and emotional level.
So I don’t really know what the “poetic life” is. I am a poet, and my life gets filtered through that fact in ways I don’t even know.
DH: In your most recent poetry collection “ Blue Front” you dissect a horrible lynching that occurred in your father’s hometown of Cairo, Illinois. How much in detail did you father go into about this event?
MC: He didn’t say much at all. And when I was much younger I wasn’t asking a lot of questions. Once when I was a child we were driving through Cairo and my father told me that he saw someone hanged there. I had an image of a grizzly, public execution. Later I saw an exhibit of lynching postcards in New York City in 2001. The images were shocking. (This collection is now available online.) There were messages on the back of these cards. People kept them as souvenirs. I came across a series of postcards about the Cairo lynching. And for the first time I realized that this “hanging” that my father saw was a public lynching. By-the-time I came to this awareness my father had passed away—so I couldn’t ask him of course.
The point-of-view in this book is one of wonder. I did a tremendous amount of research, and used the Illinois State Archives extensively.
I visited Cairo several times.
DH: Is there a Southern sensibility down there?
MC. It is very Southern. Cairo is at the very tip of the state, where the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers come together. On one side of one river is Kentucky and the other side Missouri.
DH: How were you received down there when you were doing your research?
MC: People down there were terrific. The librarian was extremely helpful. I got into the vault and was able to look at the city directories. I talked to the city treasurer down there who was involved in the short and unsuccessful civil rights movement in Cairo from 1967 to 1973.
DH: Were you a Civil Rights activist?
MC: I was not much of an activist. I wasn’t unconcerned but I wasn’t an activist. I really became an activist during the Vietnam War.
DH: In the poem “Hung” from “Blue Front” you use stripped down language, short staccato bursts of language with great effect:
“ as a mirror on a wall, or the fall of a dress. A dress, a shirt on a line, to fasten to dry… with rope, like a swing, from a tree… from a pole, like a flag,… in the night, in the air, like a shirt, without, or without, or without only a shirt, without, like an empty sleeve.”
Was this approach used to convey the shock of the event?
MC: People asked about the style. I wrote it as I was finding out things. I didn’t know a lot when I started writing. I could not leave the subject alone. I was in Santa Fe on a residency, and I started playing around on the internet. I typed in “lynching,” etc.. The point of view of the book is “wondering.” What happened? I kept approaching it from different angels.
I obsessed about several aspects of the lynching. I just took a word: hang, shoot, burn, and sort of played with the various meanings of the words. It is a way of trying to get into the subject matter.
DH: You are known for your translations of Vietnamese poetry. How did you become involved with the language?
MC: Through a specific poet. This began at the William Joiner Center at U/Mass Boston. The center started as a veterans group in the late 80s’. Later they opened the workshop. From the very beginning they brought Vietnamese to the workshops. One of the amazing things was to see veterans from both sides reading together. I met Nguyen Tang Shih there and wound up translating him.
DH: Did you actually learn the language?
MC: I did. Kevin Bowen ( the director of William Joiner) called me up and said there is a course at Harvard and did I want to take it? I said sure. I took Vietnamese for most of a year.
DH: You are an editor of a literary magazine—right?
MC: I am the editor of Field magazine. It is published at Oberlin College in Ohio.
DH: You started the creative writing program at U/Mass Boston. Can you tell me about this?
MC: I started it in 1979. There were creative writing courses before. What I did was to give it structure.
DH: Dana Goodyear wrote in the New York Times Book Review of your book “Blue Front” that in least in regard to your syntax you are a language poet.
MC: I never considered myself in any school. There is an experimental quality in my poetry.
---Doug Holder
Martha Collins, the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection “Blue Front” ( Graywolf, 2006) walks into a room and exudes energy, intelligence and warmth. Collins who established the Creative Writing Program at U/Mass Boston, and currently holds the Pauline Delaney Chair in Creative Writing at Oberlin College, seems to have abounding enthusiasm for her work and an infectious curiosity about the world-at-large. Born in Omaha Nebraska in 1940, she earned a B.A. at Stanford University and holds a PhD from the University of Iowa. Collins is the author of five books of poetry, a chapbook “Gone So Far,” and two co-translated poetry collections from the Vietnamese. Her honors include fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation and others.
In her most recent collection “Blue Front,” Collins dissects a lynching her father experienced when he was a child in Cairo, Illinois. I spoke with Collins on my Somerville Community Access TV Show “ Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: The poet Richard Wollman told me he lives the “poetic life.” What would that be for you- and do you live it?
Martha Collins: I do. I write it. I’m not sure what it is. I think being a poet shapes the way you look at the world. I don’t write all the time. I don’t worry about it. There are periods when what I am doing is figuring out what I am going to do next.
It is work. It is natural work. It is work that engages me on every level. Both on the intellectual and emotional level.
So I don’t really know what the “poetic life” is. I am a poet, and my life gets filtered through that fact in ways I don’t even know.
DH: In your most recent poetry collection “ Blue Front” you dissect a horrible lynching that occurred in your father’s hometown of Cairo, Illinois. How much in detail did you father go into about this event?
MC: He didn’t say much at all. And when I was much younger I wasn’t asking a lot of questions. Once when I was a child we were driving through Cairo and my father told me that he saw someone hanged there. I had an image of a grizzly, public execution. Later I saw an exhibit of lynching postcards in New York City in 2001. The images were shocking. (This collection is now available online.) There were messages on the back of these cards. People kept them as souvenirs. I came across a series of postcards about the Cairo lynching. And for the first time I realized that this “hanging” that my father saw was a public lynching. By-the-time I came to this awareness my father had passed away—so I couldn’t ask him of course.
The point-of-view in this book is one of wonder. I did a tremendous amount of research, and used the Illinois State Archives extensively.
I visited Cairo several times.
DH: Is there a Southern sensibility down there?
MC. It is very Southern. Cairo is at the very tip of the state, where the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers come together. On one side of one river is Kentucky and the other side Missouri.
DH: How were you received down there when you were doing your research?
MC: People down there were terrific. The librarian was extremely helpful. I got into the vault and was able to look at the city directories. I talked to the city treasurer down there who was involved in the short and unsuccessful civil rights movement in Cairo from 1957 to 1963.
DH: Were you a Civil Rights activist?
MC: I was not much of an activist. I wasn’t unconcerned but I wasn’t an activist. I really became an activist during the Vietnam War.
DH: In the poem “Hung” from “Blue Front” you use stripped down language, short staccato bursts of language with great effect:
“ as a mirror on a wall, or the fall of a dress. A dress, a shirt on a line, to fasten to dry… with rope, like a swing, from a tree… from a pole, like a flag,… in the night, in the air, like a shirt, without, or without, or without only a shirt, without, like an empty sleeve.”
Was this approach used to convey the shock of the event?
MC: People asked about the style. I wrote it as I was finding out things. I didn’t know a lot when I started writing. I could not leave the subject alone. I was in Santa Fe on a residency, and I started playing around on the internet. I typed in “lynching,” etc.. The point of view of the book is “wondering.” What happened? I kept approaching it from different angels.
I obsessed about several aspects of the lynching. I just took a word: hang, shoot, burn, and sort of played with the various meanings of the words. It is a way of trying to get into the subject matter.
DH: You are known for your translations of Vietnamese poetry. How did you become involved with the language?
MC: Through a specific poet. This began at the William Joiner Center at U/Mass Boston. The center started as a veterans group in the late 80s’. Later they opened the workshop. From the very beginning they brought Vietnamese to the workshops. One of the amazing things was to see veterans from both sides reading together. I met Nguyen Tang Shih there and wound up translating him.
DH: Did you actually learn the language?
MC: I did. Kevin Bowen ( the director of William Joiner) called me up and said there is a course at Harvard and did I want to take it? I said sure. I took Vietnamese for most of a year.
DH: You are an editor of a literary magazine—right?
MC: I am the editor of Field magazine. It is published at Oberlin College in Ohio.
DH: You started the creative writing program at U/Mass Boston. Can you tell me about this?
MC: I started it in 1979. There were creative writing courses before. What I did was to give it structure.
DH: Dana Goodyear wrote in the New York Times Book Review of your book “Blue Front” that in least in regard to your syntax you are a language poet.
MC: I never considered myself in any school. There is an experimental quality in my poetry.
Interview with Doug Holder
Martha Collins, the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection “Blue Front” ( Graywolf, 2006) walks into a room and exudes energy, intelligence and warmth. Collins who established the Creative Writing Program at U/Mass Boston, and currently holds the Pauline Delaney Chair in Creative Writing at Oberlin College, seems to have abounding enthusiasm for her work and an infectious curiosity about the world-at-large. Born in Omaha Nebraska in 1940, she earned a B.A. at Stanford University and holds a PhD from the University of Iowa. Collins is the author of five books of poetry, a chapbook “Gone So Far,” and two co-translated poetry collections from the Vietnamese. Her honors include fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation and others.
In her most recent collection “Blue Front,” Collins dissects a lynching her father experienced when he was a child in Cairo, Illinois. I spoke with Collins on my Somerville Community Access TV Show “ Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: The poet Richard Wollman told me he lives the “poetic life.” What would that be for you- and do you live it?
Martha Collins: I do. I write it. I’m not sure what it is. I think being a poet shapes the way you look at the world. I don’t write all the time. I don’t worry about it. There are periods when what I am doing is figuring out what I am going to do next.
It is work. It is natural work. It is work that engages me on every level. Both on the intellectual and emotional level.
So I don’t really know what the “poetic life” is. I am a poet, and my life gets filtered through that fact in ways I don’t even know.
DH: In your most recent poetry collection “ Blue Front” you dissect a horrible lynching that occurred in your father’s hometown of Cairo, Illinois. How much in detail did you father go into about this event?
MC: He didn’t say much at all. And when I was much younger I wasn’t asking a lot of questions. Once when I was a child we were driving through Cairo and my father told me that he saw someone hanged there. I had an image of a grizzly, public execution. Later I saw an exhibit of lynching postcards in New York City in 2001. The images were shocking. (This collection is now available online.) There were messages on the back of these cards. People kept them as souvenirs. I came across a series of postcards about the Cairo lynching. And for the first time I realized that this “hanging” that my father saw was a public lynching. By-the-time I came to this awareness my father had passed away—so I couldn’t ask him of course.
The point-of-view in this book is one of wonder. I did a tremendous amount of research, and used the Illinois State Archives extensively.
I visited Cairo several times.
DH: Is there a Southern sensibility down there?
MC. It is very Southern. Cairo is at the very tip of the state, where the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers come together. On one side of one river is Kentucky and the other side Missouri.
DH: How were you received down there when you were doing your research?
MC: People down there were terrific. The librarian was extremely helpful. I got into the vault and was able to look at the city directories. I talked to the city treasurer down there who was involved in the short and unsuccessful civil rights movement in Cairo from 1967 to 1973.
DH: Were you a Civil Rights activist?
MC: I was not much of an activist. I wasn’t unconcerned but I wasn’t an activist. I really became an activist during the Vietnam War.
DH: In the poem “Hung” from “Blue Front” you use stripped down language, short staccato bursts of language with great effect:
“ as a mirror on a wall, or the fall of a dress. A dress, a shirt on a line, to fasten to dry… with rope, like a swing, from a tree… from a pole, like a flag,… in the night, in the air, like a shirt, without, or without, or without only a shirt, without, like an empty sleeve.”
Was this approach used to convey the shock of the event?
MC: People asked about the style. I wrote it as I was finding out things. I didn’t know a lot when I started writing. I could not leave the subject alone. I was in Santa Fe on a residency, and I started playing around on the internet. I typed in “lynching,” etc.. The point of view of the book is “wondering.” What happened? I kept approaching it from different angels.
I obsessed about several aspects of the lynching. I just took a word: hang, shoot, burn, and sort of played with the various meanings of the words. It is a way of trying to get into the subject matter.
DH: You are known for your translations of Vietnamese poetry. How did you become involved with the language?
MC: Through a specific poet. This began at the William Joiner Center at U/Mass Boston. The center started as a veterans group in the late 80s’. Later they opened the workshop. From the very beginning they brought Vietnamese to the workshops. One of the amazing things was to see veterans from both sides reading together. I met Nguyen Tang Shih there and wound up translating him.
DH: Did you actually learn the language?
MC: I did. Kevin Bowen ( the director of William Joiner) called me up and said there is a course at Harvard and did I want to take it? I said sure. I took Vietnamese for most of a year.
DH: You are an editor of a literary magazine—right?
MC: I am the editor of Field magazine. It is published at Oberlin College in Ohio.
DH: You started the creative writing program at U/Mass Boston. Can you tell me about this?
MC: I started it in 1979. There were creative writing courses before. What I did was to give it structure.
DH: Dana Goodyear wrote in the New York Times Book Review of your book “Blue Front” that in least in regard to your syntax you are a language poet.
MC: I never considered myself in any school. There is an experimental quality in my poetry.
---Doug Holder
Martha Collins, the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection “Blue Front” ( Graywolf, 2006) walks into a room and exudes energy, intelligence and warmth. Collins who established the Creative Writing Program at U/Mass Boston, and currently holds the Pauline Delaney Chair in Creative Writing at Oberlin College, seems to have abounding enthusiasm for her work and an infectious curiosity about the world-at-large. Born in Omaha Nebraska in 1940, she earned a B.A. at Stanford University and holds a PhD from the University of Iowa. Collins is the author of five books of poetry, a chapbook “Gone So Far,” and two co-translated poetry collections from the Vietnamese. Her honors include fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation and others.
In her most recent collection “Blue Front,” Collins dissects a lynching her father experienced when he was a child in Cairo, Illinois. I spoke with Collins on my Somerville Community Access TV Show “ Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: The poet Richard Wollman told me he lives the “poetic life.” What would that be for you- and do you live it?
Martha Collins: I do. I write it. I’m not sure what it is. I think being a poet shapes the way you look at the world. I don’t write all the time. I don’t worry about it. There are periods when what I am doing is figuring out what I am going to do next.
It is work. It is natural work. It is work that engages me on every level. Both on the intellectual and emotional level.
So I don’t really know what the “poetic life” is. I am a poet, and my life gets filtered through that fact in ways I don’t even know.
DH: In your most recent poetry collection “ Blue Front” you dissect a horrible lynching that occurred in your father’s hometown of Cairo, Illinois. How much in detail did you father go into about this event?
MC: He didn’t say much at all. And when I was much younger I wasn’t asking a lot of questions. Once when I was a child we were driving through Cairo and my father told me that he saw someone hanged there. I had an image of a grizzly, public execution. Later I saw an exhibit of lynching postcards in New York City in 2001. The images were shocking. (This collection is now available online.) There were messages on the back of these cards. People kept them as souvenirs. I came across a series of postcards about the Cairo lynching. And for the first time I realized that this “hanging” that my father saw was a public lynching. By-the-time I came to this awareness my father had passed away—so I couldn’t ask him of course.
The point-of-view in this book is one of wonder. I did a tremendous amount of research, and used the Illinois State Archives extensively.
I visited Cairo several times.
DH: Is there a Southern sensibility down there?
MC. It is very Southern. Cairo is at the very tip of the state, where the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers come together. On one side of one river is Kentucky and the other side Missouri.
DH: How were you received down there when you were doing your research?
MC: People down there were terrific. The librarian was extremely helpful. I got into the vault and was able to look at the city directories. I talked to the city treasurer down there who was involved in the short and unsuccessful civil rights movement in Cairo from 1957 to 1963.
DH: Were you a Civil Rights activist?
MC: I was not much of an activist. I wasn’t unconcerned but I wasn’t an activist. I really became an activist during the Vietnam War.
DH: In the poem “Hung” from “Blue Front” you use stripped down language, short staccato bursts of language with great effect:
“ as a mirror on a wall, or the fall of a dress. A dress, a shirt on a line, to fasten to dry… with rope, like a swing, from a tree… from a pole, like a flag,… in the night, in the air, like a shirt, without, or without, or without only a shirt, without, like an empty sleeve.”
Was this approach used to convey the shock of the event?
MC: People asked about the style. I wrote it as I was finding out things. I didn’t know a lot when I started writing. I could not leave the subject alone. I was in Santa Fe on a residency, and I started playing around on the internet. I typed in “lynching,” etc.. The point of view of the book is “wondering.” What happened? I kept approaching it from different angels.
I obsessed about several aspects of the lynching. I just took a word: hang, shoot, burn, and sort of played with the various meanings of the words. It is a way of trying to get into the subject matter.
DH: You are known for your translations of Vietnamese poetry. How did you become involved with the language?
MC: Through a specific poet. This began at the William Joiner Center at U/Mass Boston. The center started as a veterans group in the late 80s’. Later they opened the workshop. From the very beginning they brought Vietnamese to the workshops. One of the amazing things was to see veterans from both sides reading together. I met Nguyen Tang Shih there and wound up translating him.
DH: Did you actually learn the language?
MC: I did. Kevin Bowen ( the director of William Joiner) called me up and said there is a course at Harvard and did I want to take it? I said sure. I took Vietnamese for most of a year.
DH: You are an editor of a literary magazine—right?
MC: I am the editor of Field magazine. It is published at Oberlin College in Ohio.
DH: You started the creative writing program at U/Mass Boston. Can you tell me about this?
MC: I started it in 1979. There were creative writing courses before. What I did was to give it structure.
DH: Dana Goodyear wrote in the New York Times Book Review of your book “Blue Front” that in least in regard to your syntax you are a language poet.
MC: I never considered myself in any school. There is an experimental quality in my poetry.
Interview with Doug Holder
Martha Collins, the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection “Blue Front” ( Graywolf, 2006) walks into a room and exudes energy, intelligence and warmth. Collins who established the Creative Writing Program at U/Mass Boston, and currently holds the Pauline Delaney Chair in Creative Writing at Oberlin College, seems to have abounding enthusiasm for her work and an infectious curiosity about the world-at-large. Born in Omaha Nebraska in 1940, she earned a B.A. at Stanford University and holds a PhD from the University of Iowa. Collins is the author of five books of poetry, a chapbook “Gone So Far,” and two co-translated poetry collections from the Vietnamese. Her honors include fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation and others.
In her most recent collection “Blue Front,” Collins dissects a lynching her father experienced when he was a child in Cairo, Illinois. I spoke with Collins on my Somerville Community Access TV Show “ Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: The poet Richard Wollman told me he lives the “poetic life.” What would that be for you- and do you live it?
Martha Collins: I do. I write it. I’m not sure what it is. I think being a poet shapes the way you look at the world. I don’t write all the time. I don’t worry about it. There are periods when what I am doing is figuring out what I am going to do next.
It is work. It is natural work. It is work that engages me on every level. Both on the intellectual and emotional level.
So I don’t really know what the “poetic life” is. I am a poet, and my life gets filtered through that fact in ways I don’t even know.
DH: In your most recent poetry collection “ Blue Front” you dissect a horrible lynching that occurred in your father’s hometown of Cairo, Illinois. How much in detail did you father go into about this event?
MC: He didn’t say much at all. And when I was much younger I wasn’t asking a lot of questions. Once when I was a child we were driving through Cairo and my father told me that he saw someone hanged there. I had an image of a grizzly, public execution. Later I saw an exhibit of lynching postcards in New York City in 2001. The images were shocking. (This collection is now available online.) There were messages on the back of these cards. People kept them as souvenirs. I came across a series of postcards about the Cairo lynching. And for the first time I realized that this “hanging” that my father saw was a public lynching. By-the-time I came to this awareness my father had passed away—so I couldn’t ask him of course.
The point-of-view in this book is one of wonder. I did a tremendous amount of research, and used the Illinois State Archives extensively.
I visited Cairo several times.
DH: Is there a Southern sensibility down there?
MC. It is very Southern. Cairo is at the very tip of the state, where the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers come together. On one side of one river is Kentucky and the other side Missouri.
DH: How were you received down there when you were doing your research?
MC: People down there were terrific. The librarian was extremely helpful. I got into the vault and was able to look at the city directories. I talked to the city treasurer down there who was involved in the short and unsuccessful civil rights movement in Cairo from 1967 to 1973.
DH: Were you a Civil Rights activist?
MC: I was not much of an activist. I wasn’t unconcerned but I wasn’t an activist. I really became an activist during the Vietnam War.
DH: In the poem “Hung” from “Blue Front” you use stripped down language, short staccato bursts of language with great effect:
“ as a mirror on a wall, or the fall of a dress. A dress, a shirt on a line, to fasten to dry… with rope, like a swing, from a tree… from a pole, like a flag,… in the night, in the air, like a shirt, without, or without, or without only a shirt, without, like an empty sleeve.”
Was this approach used to convey the shock of the event?
MC: People asked about the style. I wrote it as I was finding out things. I didn’t know a lot when I started writing. I could not leave the subject alone. I was in Santa Fe on a residency, and I started playing around on the internet. I typed in “lynching,” etc.. The point of view of the book is “wondering.” What happened? I kept approaching it from different angels.
I obsessed about several aspects of the lynching. I just took a word: hang, shoot, burn, and sort of played with the various meanings of the words. It is a way of trying to get into the subject matter.
DH: You are known for your translations of Vietnamese poetry. How did you become involved with the language?
MC: Through a specific poet. This began at the William Joiner Center at U/Mass Boston. The center started as a veterans group in the late 80s’. Later they opened the workshop. From the very beginning they brought Vietnamese to the workshops. One of the amazing things was to see veterans from both sides reading together. I met Nguyen Tang Shih there and wound up translating him.
DH: Did you actually learn the language?
MC: I did. Kevin Bowen ( the director of William Joiner) called me up and said there is a course at Harvard and did I want to take it? I said sure. I took Vietnamese for most of a year.
DH: You are an editor of a literary magazine—right?
MC: I am the editor of Field magazine. It is published at Oberlin College in Ohio.
DH: You started the creative writing program at U/Mass Boston. Can you tell me about this?
MC: I started it in 1979. There were creative writing courses before. What I did was to give it structure.
DH: Dana Goodyear wrote in the New York Times Book Review of your book “Blue Front” that in least in regard to your syntax you are a language poet.
MC: I never considered myself in any school. There is an experimental quality in my poetry.
---Doug Holder
Martha Collins, the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection “Blue Front” ( Graywolf, 2006) walks into a room and exudes energy, intelligence and warmth. Collins who established the Creative Writing Program at U/Mass Boston, and currently holds the Pauline Delaney Chair in Creative Writing at Oberlin College, seems to have abounding enthusiasm for her work and an infectious curiosity about the world-at-large. Born in Omaha Nebraska in 1940, she earned a B.A. at Stanford University and holds a PhD from the University of Iowa. Collins is the author of five books of poetry, a chapbook “Gone So Far,” and two co-translated poetry collections from the Vietnamese. Her honors include fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation and others.
In her most recent collection “Blue Front,” Collins dissects a lynching her father experienced when he was a child in Cairo, Illinois. I spoke with Collins on my Somerville Community Access TV Show “ Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: The poet Richard Wollman told me he lives the “poetic life.” What would that be for you- and do you live it?
Martha Collins: I do. I write it. I’m not sure what it is. I think being a poet shapes the way you look at the world. I don’t write all the time. I don’t worry about it. There are periods when what I am doing is figuring out what I am going to do next.
It is work. It is natural work. It is work that engages me on every level. Both on the intellectual and emotional level.
So I don’t really know what the “poetic life” is. I am a poet, and my life gets filtered through that fact in ways I don’t even know.
DH: In your most recent poetry collection “ Blue Front” you dissect a horrible lynching that occurred in your father’s hometown of Cairo, Illinois. How much in detail did you father go into about this event?
MC: He didn’t say much at all. And when I was much younger I wasn’t asking a lot of questions. Once when I was a child we were driving through Cairo and my father told me that he saw someone hanged there. I had an image of a grizzly, public execution. Later I saw an exhibit of lynching postcards in New York City in 2001. The images were shocking. (This collection is now available online.) There were messages on the back of these cards. People kept them as souvenirs. I came across a series of postcards about the Cairo lynching. And for the first time I realized that this “hanging” that my father saw was a public lynching. By-the-time I came to this awareness my father had passed away—so I couldn’t ask him of course.
The point-of-view in this book is one of wonder. I did a tremendous amount of research, and used the Illinois State Archives extensively.
I visited Cairo several times.
DH: Is there a Southern sensibility down there?
MC. It is very Southern. Cairo is at the very tip of the state, where the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers come together. On one side of one river is Kentucky and the other side Missouri.
DH: How were you received down there when you were doing your research?
MC: People down there were terrific. The librarian was extremely helpful. I got into the vault and was able to look at the city directories. I talked to the city treasurer down there who was involved in the short and unsuccessful civil rights movement in Cairo from 1957 to 1963.
DH: Were you a Civil Rights activist?
MC: I was not much of an activist. I wasn’t unconcerned but I wasn’t an activist. I really became an activist during the Vietnam War.
DH: In the poem “Hung” from “Blue Front” you use stripped down language, short staccato bursts of language with great effect:
“ as a mirror on a wall, or the fall of a dress. A dress, a shirt on a line, to fasten to dry… with rope, like a swing, from a tree… from a pole, like a flag,… in the night, in the air, like a shirt, without, or without, or without only a shirt, without, like an empty sleeve.”
Was this approach used to convey the shock of the event?
MC: People asked about the style. I wrote it as I was finding out things. I didn’t know a lot when I started writing. I could not leave the subject alone. I was in Santa Fe on a residency, and I started playing around on the internet. I typed in “lynching,” etc.. The point of view of the book is “wondering.” What happened? I kept approaching it from different angels.
I obsessed about several aspects of the lynching. I just took a word: hang, shoot, burn, and sort of played with the various meanings of the words. It is a way of trying to get into the subject matter.
DH: You are known for your translations of Vietnamese poetry. How did you become involved with the language?
MC: Through a specific poet. This began at the William Joiner Center at U/Mass Boston. The center started as a veterans group in the late 80s’. Later they opened the workshop. From the very beginning they brought Vietnamese to the workshops. One of the amazing things was to see veterans from both sides reading together. I met Nguyen Tang Shih there and wound up translating him.
DH: Did you actually learn the language?
MC: I did. Kevin Bowen ( the director of William Joiner) called me up and said there is a course at Harvard and did I want to take it? I said sure. I took Vietnamese for most of a year.
DH: You are an editor of a literary magazine—right?
MC: I am the editor of Field magazine. It is published at Oberlin College in Ohio.
DH: You started the creative writing program at U/Mass Boston. Can you tell me about this?
MC: I started it in 1979. There were creative writing courses before. What I did was to give it structure.
DH: Dana Goodyear wrote in the New York Times Book Review of your book “Blue Front” that in least in regard to your syntax you are a language poet.
MC: I never considered myself in any school. There is an experimental quality in my poetry.
Interview with Doug Holder
Martha Collins, the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection “Blue Front” ( Graywolf, 2006) walks into a room and exudes energy, intelligence and warmth. Collins who established the Creative Writing Program at U/Mass Boston, and currently holds the Pauline Delaney Chair in Creative Writing at Oberlin College, seems to have abounding enthusiasm for her work and an infectious curiosity about the world-at-large. Born in Omaha Nebraska in 1940, she earned a B.A. at Stanford University and holds a PhD from the University of Iowa. Collins is the author of five books of poetry, a chapbook “Gone So Far,” and two co-translated poetry collections from the Vietnamese. Her honors include fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation and others.
In her most recent collection “Blue Front,” Collins dissects a lynching her father experienced when he was a child in Cairo, Illinois. I spoke with Collins on my Somerville Community Access TV Show “ Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: The poet Richard Wollman told me he lives the “poetic life.” What would that be for you- and do you live it?
Martha Collins: I do. I write it. I’m not sure what it is. I think being a poet shapes the way you look at the world. I don’t write all the time. I don’t worry about it. There are periods when what I am doing is figuring out what I am going to do next.
It is work. It is natural work. It is work that engages me on every level. Both on the intellectual and emotional level.
So I don’t really know what the “poetic life” is. I am a poet, and my life gets filtered through that fact in ways I don’t even know.
DH: In your most recent poetry collection “ Blue Front” you dissect a horrible lynching that occurred in your father’s hometown of Cairo, Illinois. How much in detail did you father go into about this event?
MC: He didn’t say much at all. And when I was much younger I wasn’t asking a lot of questions. Once when I was a child we were driving through Cairo and my father told me that he saw someone hanged there. I had an image of a grizzly, public execution. Later I saw an exhibit of lynching postcards in New York City in 2001. The images were shocking. (This collection is now available online.) There were messages on the back of these cards. People kept them as souvenirs. I came across a series of postcards about the Cairo lynching. And for the first time I realized that this “hanging” that my father saw was a public lynching. By-the-time I came to this awareness my father had passed away—so I couldn’t ask him of course.
The point-of-view in this book is one of wonder. I did a tremendous amount of research, and used the Illinois State Archives extensively.
I visited Cairo several times.
DH: Is there a Southern sensibility down there?
MC. It is very Southern. Cairo is at the very tip of the state, where the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers come together. On one side of one river is Kentucky and the other side Missouri.
DH: How were you received down there when you were doing your research?
MC: People down there were terrific. The librarian was extremely helpful. I got into the vault and was able to look at the city directories. I talked to the city treasurer down there who was involved in the short and unsuccessful civil rights movement in Cairo from 1967 to 1973.
DH: Were you a Civil Rights activist?
MC: I was not much of an activist. I wasn’t unconcerned but I wasn’t an activist. I really became an activist during the Vietnam War.
DH: In the poem “Hung” from “Blue Front” you use stripped down language, short staccato bursts of language with great effect:
“ as a mirror on a wall, or the fall of a dress. A dress, a shirt on a line, to fasten to dry… with rope, like a swing, from a tree… from a pole, like a flag,… in the night, in the air, like a shirt, without, or without, or without only a shirt, without, like an empty sleeve.”
Was this approach used to convey the shock of the event?
MC: People asked about the style. I wrote it as I was finding out things. I didn’t know a lot when I started writing. I could not leave the subject alone. I was in Santa Fe on a residency, and I started playing around on the internet. I typed in “lynching,” etc.. The point of view of the book is “wondering.” What happened? I kept approaching it from different angels.
I obsessed about several aspects of the lynching. I just took a word: hang, shoot, burn, and sort of played with the various meanings of the words. It is a way of trying to get into the subject matter.
DH: You are known for your translations of Vietnamese poetry. How did you become involved with the language?
MC: Through a specific poet. This began at the William Joiner Center at U/Mass Boston. The center started as a veterans group in the late 80s’. Later they opened the workshop. From the very beginning they brought Vietnamese to the workshops. One of the amazing things was to see veterans from both sides reading together. I met Nguyen Tang Shih there and wound up translating him.
DH: Did you actually learn the language?
MC: I did. Kevin Bowen ( the director of William Joiner) called me up and said there is a course at Harvard and did I want to take it? I said sure. I took Vietnamese for most of a year.
DH: You are an editor of a literary magazine—right?
MC: I am the editor of Field magazine. It is published at Oberlin College in Ohio.
DH: You started the creative writing program at U/Mass Boston. Can you tell me about this?
MC: I started it in 1979. There were creative writing courses before. What I did was to give it structure.
DH: Dana Goodyear wrote in the New York Times Book Review of your book “Blue Front” that in least in regard to your syntax you are a language poet.
MC: I never considered myself in any school. There is an experimental quality in my poetry.
---Doug Holder
Martha Collins, the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection “Blue Front” ( Graywolf, 2006) walks into a room and exudes energy, intelligence and warmth. Collins who established the Creative Writing Program at U/Mass Boston, and currently holds the Pauline Delaney Chair in Creative Writing at Oberlin College, seems to have abounding enthusiasm for her work and an infectious curiosity about the world-at-large. Born in Omaha Nebraska in 1940, she earned a B.A. at Stanford University and holds a PhD from the University of Iowa. Collins is the author of five books of poetry, a chapbook “Gone So Far,” and two co-translated poetry collections from the Vietnamese. Her honors include fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation and others.
In her most recent collection “Blue Front,” Collins dissects a lynching her father experienced when he was a child in Cairo, Illinois. I spoke with Collins on my Somerville Community Access TV Show “ Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: The poet Richard Wollman told me he lives the “poetic life.” What would that be for you- and do you live it?
Martha Collins: I do. I write it. I’m not sure what it is. I think being a poet shapes the way you look at the world. I don’t write all the time. I don’t worry about it. There are periods when what I am doing is figuring out what I am going to do next.
It is work. It is natural work. It is work that engages me on every level. Both on the intellectual and emotional level.
So I don’t really know what the “poetic life” is. I am a poet, and my life gets filtered through that fact in ways I don’t even know.
DH: In your most recent poetry collection “ Blue Front” you dissect a horrible lynching that occurred in your father’s hometown of Cairo, Illinois. How much in detail did you father go into about this event?
MC: He didn’t say much at all. And when I was much younger I wasn’t asking a lot of questions. Once when I was a child we were driving through Cairo and my father told me that he saw someone hanged there. I had an image of a grizzly, public execution. Later I saw an exhibit of lynching postcards in New York City in 2001. The images were shocking. (This collection is now available online.) There were messages on the back of these cards. People kept them as souvenirs. I came across a series of postcards about the Cairo lynching. And for the first time I realized that this “hanging” that my father saw was a public lynching. By-the-time I came to this awareness my father had passed away—so I couldn’t ask him of course.
The point-of-view in this book is one of wonder. I did a tremendous amount of research, and used the Illinois State Archives extensively.
I visited Cairo several times.
DH: Is there a Southern sensibility down there?
MC. It is very Southern. Cairo is at the very tip of the state, where the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers come together. On one side of one river is Kentucky and the other side Missouri.
DH: How were you received down there when you were doing your research?
MC: People down there were terrific. The librarian was extremely helpful. I got into the vault and was able to look at the city directories. I talked to the city treasurer down there who was involved in the short and unsuccessful civil rights movement in Cairo from 1957 to 1963.
DH: Were you a Civil Rights activist?
MC: I was not much of an activist. I wasn’t unconcerned but I wasn’t an activist. I really became an activist during the Vietnam War.
DH: In the poem “Hung” from “Blue Front” you use stripped down language, short staccato bursts of language with great effect:
“ as a mirror on a wall, or the fall of a dress. A dress, a shirt on a line, to fasten to dry… with rope, like a swing, from a tree… from a pole, like a flag,… in the night, in the air, like a shirt, without, or without, or without only a shirt, without, like an empty sleeve.”
Was this approach used to convey the shock of the event?
MC: People asked about the style. I wrote it as I was finding out things. I didn’t know a lot when I started writing. I could not leave the subject alone. I was in Santa Fe on a residency, and I started playing around on the internet. I typed in “lynching,” etc.. The point of view of the book is “wondering.” What happened? I kept approaching it from different angels.
I obsessed about several aspects of the lynching. I just took a word: hang, shoot, burn, and sort of played with the various meanings of the words. It is a way of trying to get into the subject matter.
DH: You are known for your translations of Vietnamese poetry. How did you become involved with the language?
MC: Through a specific poet. This began at the William Joiner Center at U/Mass Boston. The center started as a veterans group in the late 80s’. Later they opened the workshop. From the very beginning they brought Vietnamese to the workshops. One of the amazing things was to see veterans from both sides reading together. I met Nguyen Tang Shih there and wound up translating him.
DH: Did you actually learn the language?
MC: I did. Kevin Bowen ( the director of William Joiner) called me up and said there is a course at Harvard and did I want to take it? I said sure. I took Vietnamese for most of a year.
DH: You are an editor of a literary magazine—right?
MC: I am the editor of Field magazine. It is published at Oberlin College in Ohio.
DH: You started the creative writing program at U/Mass Boston. Can you tell me about this?
MC: I started it in 1979. There were creative writing courses before. What I did was to give it structure.
DH: Dana Goodyear wrote in the New York Times Book Review of your book “Blue Front” that in least in regard to your syntax you are a language poet.
MC: I never considered myself in any school. There is an experimental quality in my poetry.
Feeding My Heart To The Wind: Selected Short Poems. 1999-2005 Michael Kriesel
Feeding My Heart To The Wind: Selected Short Poems. 1999-2005 Michael Kriesel. $6. (http://www.sunnyoutside.com/ )
Dave McNamara, the founder of the Somerville independent press “sunnyoutside,” is not only an editor but a very serious designer of books. The look of the book is almost as important as the contents. McNamara writes of the design of “Feeding My Heart… “ The cover text was set by hand in Alternate Gothic No. 2, along with a linocut by Adrian Rodriquez…” And so on. But it’s all over my head.
However…these short poems by Kriesel are accessible, tightly written, economical and well-constructed. Kriesel, seems to have studied the short form and serves it to us on a fully fleshed plate. Here is an inspired little ditty “ Cabbage Moths.”
Walking
Past the garden
Startled
By confetti
Rising
Up
And in “American Haiku” I can’t but stop thinking about our debacle in Iraq:
Bull frogs
Stop
To ponder
That last
Cherry bomb
This is another tasty poetic morsel from the folks at “sunnyoutside”
Dave McNamara, the founder of the Somerville independent press “sunnyoutside,” is not only an editor but a very serious designer of books. The look of the book is almost as important as the contents. McNamara writes of the design of “Feeding My Heart… “ The cover text was set by hand in Alternate Gothic No. 2, along with a linocut by Adrian Rodriquez…” And so on. But it’s all over my head.
However…these short poems by Kriesel are accessible, tightly written, economical and well-constructed. Kriesel, seems to have studied the short form and serves it to us on a fully fleshed plate. Here is an inspired little ditty “ Cabbage Moths.”
Walking
Past the garden
Startled
By confetti
Rising
Up
And in “American Haiku” I can’t but stop thinking about our debacle in Iraq:
Bull frogs
Stop
To ponder
That last
Cherry bomb
This is another tasty poetic morsel from the folks at “sunnyoutside”
Poet Bob Clawson talks about Anne Sexton at the Wilderness House Literary Retreat
Poet Bob Clawson talks about Anne Sexton at the Wilderness House Literary Retreat
Bob Clawson: Sharing his experience with poet Anne Sexton at the Wilderness House Literary Retreat.
Doug Holder
On May 19 at the Wilderness House Literary Retreat in Littleton, Mass. poet, writer, journalist, educator Bob Clawson talked with a group of literature lovers about his friendship with the acclaimed, Pulitzer-Prize winning poet, the late Anne Sexton. Clawson showered his audience with his fascinating anecdotes and experiences with Sexton, who wrote “To Bedlam and Part Way Back,” among other critically acclaimed poetry collections.
Clawson explained that he was teaching English at Weston High School in Weston, Mass. in 1963. He had students read the works of contemporary poets to stoke the interest of his young charges. While reading Sexton’s poem “Menstruation at 40” in the faculty room, the gym teacher asked Clawson if he was a fan of Sexton. When he answered in the affirmative; the teacher said he was a friend of the poet and he would introduce him to her.
It seems that Sexton lived in Weston, and she eventually invited Clawson for a visit. Clawson described Sexton as being not what he expected for a lady poet of the time. She was certainly not dowdy and was adorned in a shocking pink dress. Eventually Sexton read at Weston High School and was a great hit. They needed a large auditorium to handle the crowd the second time around.
Sexton campaigned to be Poet-In-Residence at Weston High, but it seems the headmaster felt she shamelessly flirted with him and told Clawson, “We can’t have this here!’
Clawson was reluctant to talk of Sexton’s mental illness that eventually lead to her suicide. Clawson recalled: “She wasn’t really diagnosed. She told me she heard voices.. Her husband, a wool merchant, was said to have beaten her, which couldn’t help matters.” According to Clawson, Sexton would sometimes call him around midnight and want him come to her house stating “I’m desperate.”
For such an accomplished poet it is surprising that she never finished college. Clawson said she eloped during junior college and never went back. She was self-educated and widely read. Clawson said he was always under the impression he was speaking with a highly intelligent and knowledgeable person.
Sexton had eclectic tastes, and could not be placed in one particular school of poetry. She respected Allen Ginsberg, and was not a snob about who she admired. And although she had no formal higher education, she was welcomed with open arms by the academy according to Clawson.
Later, Clawson, Sexton, and a couple of musicians put together a “chamber rock” group to put Sexton’s poems to music. The group's name: “Anne Sexton and Her kind.” Her poems were adapted to the demands of musical composition. Sexton read while the musicians complimented her with accomplished guitar and bass accompaniment.”
The group had many gigs from the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Mass., Jordan Hall in Boston, to venues throughout the country.
Sexton found the concerts extremely draining, and could only do a limited amount. But from the musical tapes that Clawson brought in, it was evident that she was an accomplished performer with a beautiful and haunting voice, not to mention breathtaking poetry.
Doug Holder
Bob Clawson: Sharing his experience with poet Anne Sexton at the Wilderness House Literary Retreat.
Doug Holder
On May 19 at the Wilderness House Literary Retreat in Littleton, Mass. poet, writer, journalist, educator Bob Clawson talked with a group of literature lovers about his friendship with the acclaimed, Pulitzer-Prize winning poet, the late Anne Sexton. Clawson showered his audience with his fascinating anecdotes and experiences with Sexton, who wrote “To Bedlam and Part Way Back,” among other critically acclaimed poetry collections.
Clawson explained that he was teaching English at Weston High School in Weston, Mass. in 1963. He had students read the works of contemporary poets to stoke the interest of his young charges. While reading Sexton’s poem “Menstruation at 40” in the faculty room, the gym teacher asked Clawson if he was a fan of Sexton. When he answered in the affirmative; the teacher said he was a friend of the poet and he would introduce him to her.
It seems that Sexton lived in Weston, and she eventually invited Clawson for a visit. Clawson described Sexton as being not what he expected for a lady poet of the time. She was certainly not dowdy and was adorned in a shocking pink dress. Eventually Sexton read at Weston High School and was a great hit. They needed a large auditorium to handle the crowd the second time around.
Sexton campaigned to be Poet-In-Residence at Weston High, but it seems the headmaster felt she shamelessly flirted with him and told Clawson, “We can’t have this here!’
Clawson was reluctant to talk of Sexton’s mental illness that eventually lead to her suicide. Clawson recalled: “She wasn’t really diagnosed. She told me she heard voices.. Her husband, a wool merchant, was said to have beaten her, which couldn’t help matters.” According to Clawson, Sexton would sometimes call him around midnight and want him come to her house stating “I’m desperate.”
For such an accomplished poet it is surprising that she never finished college. Clawson said she eloped during junior college and never went back. She was self-educated and widely read. Clawson said he was always under the impression he was speaking with a highly intelligent and knowledgeable person.
Sexton had eclectic tastes, and could not be placed in one particular school of poetry. She respected Allen Ginsberg, and was not a snob about who she admired. And although she had no formal higher education, she was welcomed with open arms by the academy according to Clawson.
Later, Clawson, Sexton, and a couple of musicians put together a “chamber rock” group to put Sexton’s poems to music. The group's name: “Anne Sexton and Her kind.” Her poems were adapted to the demands of musical composition. Sexton read while the musicians complimented her with accomplished guitar and bass accompaniment.”
The group had many gigs from the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Mass., Jordan Hall in Boston, to venues throughout the country.
Sexton found the concerts extremely draining, and could only do a limited amount. But from the musical tapes that Clawson brought in, it was evident that she was an accomplished performer with a beautiful and haunting voice, not to mention breathtaking poetry.
Doug Holder
Interview with poet Dan Sklar with Doug Holder
Interview with Dan Sklar
Poet Dan Sklar: Author of “Hack Writer” is no “Hack”
Poet Dan Sklar seems to be a man who enjoys life. He is not a brooding, booze-swilling tortured artist, but a middle-aged man with an engaging smile, and an unabashed love for the written word. Sklar, the author of the poetry collection “Hack Writer” is the head of Creative Writing at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass, the faculty editor of the undergraduate literary magazine “The Endicott Review,” a published poet, playwright, and kibitzer of the first order. Sklar’s poetry has appeared in the “Harvard Review,” “Ibbetson Street” and many small press journals. Sklar is a great admirer of little magazines, and uses them as a teaching tool in his classes at the college.
I talked with Sklar on my Somerville Community Access TV program: “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer:”
Doug Holder: Dan being a small press freak myself, I am impressed by use of small press journals in the classroom. What’s the method behind your madness?
Dan Sklar: I think that students really do better when they read poems from people who are alive. There is an urgency there—a real life urgency. They say: “Hey—I know what that person is talking about.” I mean they dig Walt Whitman and Charles Bukowski, but as Gertrude Stein said “the contemporary is the thing.’ What’s happening in our time—that’s what I like to use. There so many gems out there that someday will be classics.
DH: What do you read?
DS: I read every small press magazine I get. I read mostly small press magazines, but yes, I do read “The New Yorker.”
DH: Any favorite small press journals:
DS: I like the “Main St. Rag,” and “Free Verse.”
DH: You have ambitions for an MFA program at Endicott College. You say you want it “non-competitive.” What do you mean by that?
DS: It’s interesting. Many of these MFA programs say: “highly competitive.” The students are competing against themselves. Our feeling is that students write better when they feel safe. You feel safe to express yourself. You take more risks. You don’t have to best the other guy.
DH: You know how brutal workshops can be. How will you foster constructive, supportive criticism?
DS: Someone who is serious about writing will come to it on their own, without me saying anything. The more they read, etc… it will come to pass. I have had students come to me with these poems—and they are bad. They are full of clichés and sentimental. Do you know how many poems end with: “I will love you forever!” With these people, I talk with them and see how serious they are. If they are serious I’ll tell them to take a writing class. I never criticize. Instead of that I ask them to get into details, description etc… If I criticize them too much they will become guarded.
DH: You write that your playwrighting style is in the “Absurdist” school. Explain.
DS: I like characters to be so quirky. I want them to say what they are thinking and feeling at the moment. I am not worried about what goes along with the plot. The characters have to be “characters.” I let the characters be who they fully are. But not ordinary.
The plots always turn out absurd. But they start out ordinary. There are so many plots. But my concern is to have the characters fully imagined.
DH: In your poem “Something to be a Hack” from your collection “Hack Writer” you use the sight of your son putting your manuscript on a shelf to give the reader an insight into your philosophy of your writing life.
DS: I’m not sure why I write. I’m not doing it for fame. I am doing it because I am compelled to do it. I didn’t know where I was going with that poem—I just saw my son stacking manuscripts.
DH: Can you talk about the art/expansion at Endicott, particularly the college’s affiliation with “the new renaissance” lit mag?
DS: When you approached me about a home for tnr at Endicott, I thought it sounded great—not much chance—but I thought I would try. “the new renaissance” is a wonderful, eclectic magazine. It is a magazine that has art, covers politics, and presents poetry.
DH: And the new Arts Center?
DS: Yes a new, big center for the arts is in the making. It will include a Black Box theatre, art studios, high tech publishing workshops, you name it...
Poet Dan Sklar: Author of “Hack Writer” is no “Hack”
Poet Dan Sklar seems to be a man who enjoys life. He is not a brooding, booze-swilling tortured artist, but a middle-aged man with an engaging smile, and an unabashed love for the written word. Sklar, the author of the poetry collection “Hack Writer” is the head of Creative Writing at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass, the faculty editor of the undergraduate literary magazine “The Endicott Review,” a published poet, playwright, and kibitzer of the first order. Sklar’s poetry has appeared in the “Harvard Review,” “Ibbetson Street” and many small press journals. Sklar is a great admirer of little magazines, and uses them as a teaching tool in his classes at the college.
I talked with Sklar on my Somerville Community Access TV program: “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer:”
Doug Holder: Dan being a small press freak myself, I am impressed by use of small press journals in the classroom. What’s the method behind your madness?
Dan Sklar: I think that students really do better when they read poems from people who are alive. There is an urgency there—a real life urgency. They say: “Hey—I know what that person is talking about.” I mean they dig Walt Whitman and Charles Bukowski, but as Gertrude Stein said “the contemporary is the thing.’ What’s happening in our time—that’s what I like to use. There so many gems out there that someday will be classics.
DH: What do you read?
DS: I read every small press magazine I get. I read mostly small press magazines, but yes, I do read “The New Yorker.”
DH: Any favorite small press journals:
DS: I like the “Main St. Rag,” and “Free Verse.”
DH: You have ambitions for an MFA program at Endicott College. You say you want it “non-competitive.” What do you mean by that?
DS: It’s interesting. Many of these MFA programs say: “highly competitive.” The students are competing against themselves. Our feeling is that students write better when they feel safe. You feel safe to express yourself. You take more risks. You don’t have to best the other guy.
DH: You know how brutal workshops can be. How will you foster constructive, supportive criticism?
DS: Someone who is serious about writing will come to it on their own, without me saying anything. The more they read, etc… it will come to pass. I have had students come to me with these poems—and they are bad. They are full of clichés and sentimental. Do you know how many poems end with: “I will love you forever!” With these people, I talk with them and see how serious they are. If they are serious I’ll tell them to take a writing class. I never criticize. Instead of that I ask them to get into details, description etc… If I criticize them too much they will become guarded.
DH: You write that your playwrighting style is in the “Absurdist” school. Explain.
DS: I like characters to be so quirky. I want them to say what they are thinking and feeling at the moment. I am not worried about what goes along with the plot. The characters have to be “characters.” I let the characters be who they fully are. But not ordinary.
The plots always turn out absurd. But they start out ordinary. There are so many plots. But my concern is to have the characters fully imagined.
DH: In your poem “Something to be a Hack” from your collection “Hack Writer” you use the sight of your son putting your manuscript on a shelf to give the reader an insight into your philosophy of your writing life.
DS: I’m not sure why I write. I’m not doing it for fame. I am doing it because I am compelled to do it. I didn’t know where I was going with that poem—I just saw my son stacking manuscripts.
DH: Can you talk about the art/expansion at Endicott, particularly the college’s affiliation with “the new renaissance” lit mag?
DS: When you approached me about a home for tnr at Endicott, I thought it sounded great—not much chance—but I thought I would try. “the new renaissance” is a wonderful, eclectic magazine. It is a magazine that has art, covers politics, and presents poetry.
DH: And the new Arts Center?
DS: Yes a new, big center for the arts is in the making. It will include a Black Box theatre, art studios, high tech publishing workshops, you name it...
Sparks in the Dark by Jacques Fleury
A review by Doug Holder,
Sparks in the Dark: Lighter Shade Of Blue. A Poetic Memoir. Jacques Fleury. “The Haitian Firefly” $12. Contact: haitianfirefly@yahoo.com
Jacques Fleury writes that he was born with a humongous head. He reflects: “When my mom was birthing me, I was told that she ran out of the hospital just as I was coming out of the darkness of her womb, valiantly striving to reach the light. So just as I was coming out she made a giant leap for ‘pain kind’ out of bed and bolted out of the door and caught a cab home.”
Jacques Fleury
To this day Fleury has a dramatic head both physically and metaphorically. He often adorns it with large hats and outrageous sunglasses that he wears in the dead-of-night. He is an exotic even in Cambridge’s teeming and diverse Central Square. And so is his writing. His poetry is not sedate and understated, but much like a lush, colorful, exotic plume; at times gaudy and blinding, and for the most part joyful in spite of the pain he has suffered in his 30- something years.
Fleury was born in Haiti and is a working journalist, poet, columnist, and community TV host. His first full poetry collection: “Sparks in the Dark…” is large, ambitious, and covers a lot of ground.
It’s hard being a Blackman, much less a Haitian Blackman in a white society. Fleury rages against this inequity in his poem: “Unrequited Rage:”
“How dare you judge me/ my color does not define me/ you should be appalled for Dissing me! / unleash your dirty heart/ you will find me!... / I am only a mere man pregnant with error/ a walking Disaster!!!/ So use me like a mirror, / if you want to see the reflection of your Brother!!!/
And Fleury knows that the “womb makes the man,” and he urges mothers to treat their children well, or else it’s a short passage to a worldly hell, in his poem:
“Women! Women From Your Wombs!”
“Women! Women from your wombs/ you gonna yell to break the spell/ women! Women from your wombs/ you too one day/ face drooping dripping down in the dumps/ with creases like beaten down leather/ established breasts hardened, eager and perky/ like the buds of spring./ swollen like balloons since in your mouth men/ blow bubbles…/ since from your wombs babies are born/ bearing your sins/ and looked down as / fools for sucking in anger/and resentment seeping from/ your congested chests/ have come into this world/ entangled in your mess.”
Fleury’s work is provocative and evocative, but at times it needs pruning, because it grows like wild jungle vegetation. Of course that might be the point.
Sparks in the Dark: Lighter Shade Of Blue. A Poetic Memoir. Jacques Fleury. “The Haitian Firefly” $12. Contact: haitianfirefly@yahoo.com
Jacques Fleury writes that he was born with a humongous head. He reflects: “When my mom was birthing me, I was told that she ran out of the hospital just as I was coming out of the darkness of her womb, valiantly striving to reach the light. So just as I was coming out she made a giant leap for ‘pain kind’ out of bed and bolted out of the door and caught a cab home.”
Jacques Fleury
To this day Fleury has a dramatic head both physically and metaphorically. He often adorns it with large hats and outrageous sunglasses that he wears in the dead-of-night. He is an exotic even in Cambridge’s teeming and diverse Central Square. And so is his writing. His poetry is not sedate and understated, but much like a lush, colorful, exotic plume; at times gaudy and blinding, and for the most part joyful in spite of the pain he has suffered in his 30- something years.
Fleury was born in Haiti and is a working journalist, poet, columnist, and community TV host. His first full poetry collection: “Sparks in the Dark…” is large, ambitious, and covers a lot of ground.
It’s hard being a Blackman, much less a Haitian Blackman in a white society. Fleury rages against this inequity in his poem: “Unrequited Rage:”
“How dare you judge me/ my color does not define me/ you should be appalled for Dissing me! / unleash your dirty heart/ you will find me!... / I am only a mere man pregnant with error/ a walking Disaster!!!/ So use me like a mirror, / if you want to see the reflection of your Brother!!!/
And Fleury knows that the “womb makes the man,” and he urges mothers to treat their children well, or else it’s a short passage to a worldly hell, in his poem:
“Women! Women From Your Wombs!”
“Women! Women from your wombs/ you gonna yell to break the spell/ women! Women from your wombs/ you too one day/ face drooping dripping down in the dumps/ with creases like beaten down leather/ established breasts hardened, eager and perky/ like the buds of spring./ swollen like balloons since in your mouth men/ blow bubbles…/ since from your wombs babies are born/ bearing your sins/ and looked down as / fools for sucking in anger/and resentment seeping from/ your congested chests/ have come into this world/ entangled in your mess.”
Fleury’s work is provocative and evocative, but at times it needs pruning, because it grows like wild jungle vegetation. Of course that might be the point.
Poet Michael Mack Brings His Art to Mental Illness
Poet Michael Mack Brings His Art to Mental Illness
Doug Holder
In many cases it is said that “great pain brings great art.” In the case of local poet Michael Mack it has a brought a performance piece “Hearing Voices: Speaking In Tongues” that deals with Mack’s experience of growing up with a schizophrenic mother. Mack’s evocative and heart wrenching performance piece engages his genius for words and dramatic
portrayal in dealing with a very tragic disease. He has also penned a poetry collection “Homework” that deals with his less-than-ideal childhood.
Michael Mack served in the Air Force, and later worked a number of factory and general labor jobs before going back to school and completing a degree in Creative Writing from MIT. His poems have appeared in such journals as: “Beliot Poetry Journal,” “The Cumberland Poetry Journal,” as well as being aired on NPR. He has received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and other organizations. Mack has performed at New York City’s Midtown International Theatre Festival, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and the Austin International Poetry Festival. Mack regularly presents his one man play “Hearing Voices…” for consumers and providers of mental health services and for faculty and students of Harvard Medical School.
Doug Holder: Do you think your mother’s mental illness was responsible for you becoming a poet?
Michael Mack: I think I would headed somewhere in an artistic direction eventually. But it clearly gives me material to work with. It was certainly the first larger issue that I was writing about. It was compelling for me to delve into it and find some kind of creative expression.
DH: You are not schizophrenic yourself. How were you able to create this psychotic environment on stage?
MM: I think that was one of the gifts my mother gave me. A sense of her interior world both by her talking about it and seeing her experience it. I could have sufficient empathy to understand her experience without going through the grueling life of a mentally ill person.
DH: Do you feel artists are affected to a higher degree by mental illness in comparison to the general public?
MM: Yes. I believe there is a book out by a psychotherapist Kay Redfield Jameson “Touched With Fire.” Redfield, who is herself afflicted with a Bipolar Disorder, explores the relationship between mental illness and the arts. In this book she looked at the relationship between mental illness and poets. She found there is a higher percentage of poets than other artist who suffer from mental illness.
DH: You studied with Maxine Kumin, the celebrated Pulitzer-Prize winning poet, when you were at MIT. Can you talk about this experience?
MM: She saw something in me that I wasn’t able to see yet. Her’s was the third poetry class that I ever had and she gave me a tremendous amount of encouragement. She saw something in my writing that was worth tapping into, worth pursuing. She saw it as rich terrain, and saw the possibility of me doing something with it. She took me under her wing and we developed a friendship. Sometimes I would go to her farm in New Hampshire and help her out with farm work. I think of her as a mentor. She gave me guidance where and when I needed it.
DH: I have run poetry groups for psychiatric patients for years now. I found the reaction to it often positive and sometimes visceral. And when you perform in state hospitals what ha been your experience?
MM: My experience I am pleased to say has been tremendously positive. I have presented in a number of state hospital settings, and as you know in these setting folks have been there for a long time. I was really concerned about presenting this work. It is so close to home for them. I was pleased to see the response was positive because it gives voice to their experience.
Before I was to do a show at two hospitals recently I was told that the patients were up and down and easily distracted. But this wasn’t true when I presented this work. It must have been rewarding them to have their experience reflected back to them.
I present the material in a very loving way. I am very respectful of my mother’s life. I think my mother and father acted heroically in the context of their lives. Neither of them ended up with the life they envisioned for themselves. My father stuck by my mother for longer than most would.
DH: Did you resent the childhood that you were given?
MM: When I first wrote about these years ago I experienced a lot of anger. I was angry that I was cheated out of a childhood. But the more I explored the experience I realized that they had a heck of job. All things considered they pulled it together remarkably. It was through the writing of this work I understood both my parents in a much deeper way.
DH: Were you influenced by Plath and Sexton’s poetry?
MM: Plath was really my first love. She was the poet I responded to most. Partly because of the experience she was writing about. But also I found a tremendous amount of energy in her writing. I was drawn to both of these poets.
DH: In your poetry collection: “Homework” you write in the poem “Tardive Dyskinesia” about the involuntary movements of your mother caused by psychiatric medications:
“On the twigs of her wrists, my mother’s hands
bobolink, titmouse, linnet, finch
Flutter in her lap, peck her blouse’s buttons
Wagtail, waxwing, solitaire, brambling
Curl into nests, shivering fists
rose finch, siskin, tanager…”
This is almost like a beautifully choreographed dance with mental illness. Do you much unexpected beauty here?
MM: In a word yes. I think one of the things about my mother’s mental illness that she had insights and a wonderful use of language. It gave me a chance to appreciate the beautiful and surprising ways she used it. The words I used in the poem you mentioned were names of birds. I thought there was something bird-like in her tremors from Tardive Dyskinesia.
Doug Holder
In many cases it is said that “great pain brings great art.” In the case of local poet Michael Mack it has a brought a performance piece “Hearing Voices: Speaking In Tongues” that deals with Mack’s experience of growing up with a schizophrenic mother. Mack’s evocative and heart wrenching performance piece engages his genius for words and dramatic
portrayal in dealing with a very tragic disease. He has also penned a poetry collection “Homework” that deals with his less-than-ideal childhood.
Michael Mack served in the Air Force, and later worked a number of factory and general labor jobs before going back to school and completing a degree in Creative Writing from MIT. His poems have appeared in such journals as: “Beliot Poetry Journal,” “The Cumberland Poetry Journal,” as well as being aired on NPR. He has received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and other organizations. Mack has performed at New York City’s Midtown International Theatre Festival, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and the Austin International Poetry Festival. Mack regularly presents his one man play “Hearing Voices…” for consumers and providers of mental health services and for faculty and students of Harvard Medical School.
Doug Holder: Do you think your mother’s mental illness was responsible for you becoming a poet?
Michael Mack: I think I would headed somewhere in an artistic direction eventually. But it clearly gives me material to work with. It was certainly the first larger issue that I was writing about. It was compelling for me to delve into it and find some kind of creative expression.
DH: You are not schizophrenic yourself. How were you able to create this psychotic environment on stage?
MM: I think that was one of the gifts my mother gave me. A sense of her interior world both by her talking about it and seeing her experience it. I could have sufficient empathy to understand her experience without going through the grueling life of a mentally ill person.
DH: Do you feel artists are affected to a higher degree by mental illness in comparison to the general public?
MM: Yes. I believe there is a book out by a psychotherapist Kay Redfield Jameson “Touched With Fire.” Redfield, who is herself afflicted with a Bipolar Disorder, explores the relationship between mental illness and the arts. In this book she looked at the relationship between mental illness and poets. She found there is a higher percentage of poets than other artist who suffer from mental illness.
DH: You studied with Maxine Kumin, the celebrated Pulitzer-Prize winning poet, when you were at MIT. Can you talk about this experience?
MM: She saw something in me that I wasn’t able to see yet. Her’s was the third poetry class that I ever had and she gave me a tremendous amount of encouragement. She saw something in my writing that was worth tapping into, worth pursuing. She saw it as rich terrain, and saw the possibility of me doing something with it. She took me under her wing and we developed a friendship. Sometimes I would go to her farm in New Hampshire and help her out with farm work. I think of her as a mentor. She gave me guidance where and when I needed it.
DH: I have run poetry groups for psychiatric patients for years now. I found the reaction to it often positive and sometimes visceral. And when you perform in state hospitals what ha been your experience?
MM: My experience I am pleased to say has been tremendously positive. I have presented in a number of state hospital settings, and as you know in these setting folks have been there for a long time. I was really concerned about presenting this work. It is so close to home for them. I was pleased to see the response was positive because it gives voice to their experience.
Before I was to do a show at two hospitals recently I was told that the patients were up and down and easily distracted. But this wasn’t true when I presented this work. It must have been rewarding them to have their experience reflected back to them.
I present the material in a very loving way. I am very respectful of my mother’s life. I think my mother and father acted heroically in the context of their lives. Neither of them ended up with the life they envisioned for themselves. My father stuck by my mother for longer than most would.
DH: Did you resent the childhood that you were given?
MM: When I first wrote about these years ago I experienced a lot of anger. I was angry that I was cheated out of a childhood. But the more I explored the experience I realized that they had a heck of job. All things considered they pulled it together remarkably. It was through the writing of this work I understood both my parents in a much deeper way.
DH: Were you influenced by Plath and Sexton’s poetry?
MM: Plath was really my first love. She was the poet I responded to most. Partly because of the experience she was writing about. But also I found a tremendous amount of energy in her writing. I was drawn to both of these poets.
DH: In your poetry collection: “Homework” you write in the poem “Tardive Dyskinesia” about the involuntary movements of your mother caused by psychiatric medications:
“On the twigs of her wrists, my mother’s hands
bobolink, titmouse, linnet, finch
Flutter in her lap, peck her blouse’s buttons
Wagtail, waxwing, solitaire, brambling
Curl into nests, shivering fists
rose finch, siskin, tanager…”
This is almost like a beautifully choreographed dance with mental illness. Do you much unexpected beauty here?
MM: In a word yes. I think one of the things about my mother’s mental illness that she had insights and a wonderful use of language. It gave me a chance to appreciate the beautiful and surprising ways she used it. The words I used in the poem you mentioned were names of birds. I thought there was something bird-like in her tremors from Tardive Dyskinesia.
Author loves baseball, Beatles: Interview with Luke Salisbury
Author loves baseball, Beatles
By Doug Holder
Luke Salisbury is an English professor at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston. Salisbury, 60, is a man with a gift for gab and the well-turned phrase. With his signature rapid-fire cadence and disarming laugh, he can regale you with anecdotes, an impressive knowledge of baseball and his alternative universe of film, books and political intrigue that he has spent many years pondering and writing about. He is the author of a number of fiction titles including “The Answer is Baseball” (Time Books, 1989), “The Cleveland Indian” (Smith, 1992) and his novel about the great filmmaker D.W. Griffith “Hollywood and Sunset” (2007). His writing has appeared in such publications as The Boston Globe, Ploughshares, Cooperstown Review, Pulp-smith and others. Salisbury received his M.A. in Creative Writing from Boston University and lives in Chelsea with his wife Barbara. I interviewed Salisbury on my Somerville Community Access Television show “Poet to Poet/ Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: You said the dawn of Elvis and the Beatles liberated you from the buttoned-down, all boys purgatory, prep school world you grew up in. Who were the writers that liberated you when you were coming of age?
Luke Salisbury: I went away to an all boy’s school when I was fourteen. I hadn’t been a big star with girls in the seventh and eighth grade. I felt I was isolated. I felt that I was never going to get off. There were things that kept my soul together: rock ‘n roll, literature and baseball. My life was changed—saved or ruined—when I read the “ The Great Gatsby” when I was 17. I never wanted to do anything but write a book that good. I never will. Maybe no one else will. The book explains even in the first page the whole world. Its pressures, its nuances, its mystery. Faulkner would be another influence. Why? Because there is something about being a teenager reading something you can barely understand, and you know it is over your head, but by God, you know it is worthwhile.
DH: Did you feel liberated by any 60s era writers?
LS: I got that from rock ‘n roll, not from 60s literature. I was not a Jack Kerouac person. I was not reading that stuff as it was being done. Later in the 60s when I really needed to be on an island protected from my own demons and the demons around me, Nabokov became my obsession. I was traveling around Europe in the summer of 1968 buying his paperbacks at kiosks in railroad stations .I was always in an alternative world of baseball, literature and rock ’n roll. I’d love to name some 60s poets but none of them were important as the “Rolling Stones.” And also what I considered classic literature. In the 60s, I spent a long time reading “Tristan Shandy” and “Tom Jones.”
DH: Did you engage in any of the “excesses” of the era?
LS: As many as I could. But there were three things going on. Political revolution which I thought was bullshit because I didn’t actually see anyone go out and fighting. Then there was the drug revolution. I always thought I was wrapped a little too tight to do the heavy duty stuff. Then there was the sexual revolution. It was a wonderful time to be a young man, I mean the middle and late 60s, not the stuff that comes to us post “Easy Rider.” Love and peace that stuff was bullshit. It was about resistance. It was about resisting the draft and authority.
DH: You wrote two assasination novels. One was “Blue Eden.” Did you find the elitist intrigue, the possibilities of nefarious cabals behind the Kennedy assassination a source of fascination?
LS: It was. Because in the late 60s, I’d sit around and think about the novels I would like to write. I became obsessed with the Kennedy assassination. This stuff happens in front of your face. You don’t know what it is. There is subtext, there are stories. This is raw material. Everybody was taking a crack at it, the big time writers like Mailer and DeLillo. But once you get into it, you can’t get out.
DH: So who really killed Kennedy?
LS: I have no idea. Maybe Oswald, but he certainly wasn’t alone. It’s fascinating but it is like drugs and then you go home to detox and get out.
DH: In a recent book you penned “Hollywood and Sunset” you write of D.W. Griffith, the famed filmmaker, whose signature work was “The Birth of a Nation.” You refer to Griffith and others of his ilk as “sellers of light.” What are novelist’s sellers of?
LS: Ah… Inner light. All sorts of light. I got interested in Hollywood because it is really the center of power. Basically, D.W. Griffith invented Hollywood. He did everything with the two-dimensional movie that could be done. He made the most racist movie ever produced: “The Birth of a Nation.” It made a huge amount of money and it took advantage of a racist sensibility of the time. What could be more American? You had a frontier of the movies in his time. What happens when America hits the Pacific? We invent a dream-factory Hollywood. So I became very interested.
DH: How does this American sensibility differ from the European?
LS: We have to keep moving. We never stop. The past is used up.
DH: Does obsession help a writer?
LS: Yes. Who the hell is willing to sit and write a novel and then another novel without it getting published? If they finally do get published, the only people who read them is an obscure reviewer somewhere. But you keep doing it. It is madness. Poets can write a poem in five minutes or five years. There is no way to do this as a novelist. Someone has to support you, or you have to support yourself. Many of us teach. So, yes, obsession helps. But just having obsession doesn’t mean that God will give you success or that you have much talent. But it makes life worth living.
DH: Many writers work a variety of odd jobs to support themselves. You worked as a security guard for a number of years. How did that help or hinder your writing life?
LS: While I was a security guard I read “Gravity’s Rainbow,” and “Remembrances of Things Past.” I worked at Polaroid during the night shift. You have to survive if you are a writer, especially if you are not in the generous bosom of a university. Faulkner said the best job for a writer is a piano player at a bordello. The hours are good and there is a lot of interesting company around. I had many jobs in the 70s. I worked in the Welfare Department, I worked for a school board in the Bronx, etc.
DH: You have taught at Bunker Hill Community College for over 20 years. How has this been?
LS: I have taught for 22 years, and it’s a great job. The average of the students is 30 years old. People come from everywhere, and there are no yuppies. This isn’t Boston University. The kids and older people don’t think I am an idiot because I don’t make much money. Most of the students at Bunker Hill are there to learn skills, learn English, etc. I don’t think you can do better teaching adults in a public school in a big city. It’s not the hell-hole that “Good Will Hunting” characterized it as.
DH: You have been published by Harry Smith the legendary small press figure.
LS: Yes. Harry was basically a poet and published poets. He had a magazine from 1964 to 1998 “The Smith.” He had a policy of publishing unpublished writers. Half the magazine was devoted to their work. I had sent him something in 1970, and he turned it down. Five years later, I sent him something and he sent me back an envelope with a “yes” written across the front. He discovered me and my friend the poet Jared Smith. He help start COSMEP—the seminal small press organization.
DH: So you have an affinity for the small press?
LS: Oh yes. There would be a lot less literature if it wasn’t for the small press. Where do we go if we are not one of the 20 people writing novels? I thank God for the small press and the internet. We can find each other here.
DH: You have written extensively about baseball. Why?
LS: You get a tremendous amount of respect knowing about sports. Baseball was that alternative world for me. It saved me.
By Doug Holder
Luke Salisbury is an English professor at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston. Salisbury, 60, is a man with a gift for gab and the well-turned phrase. With his signature rapid-fire cadence and disarming laugh, he can regale you with anecdotes, an impressive knowledge of baseball and his alternative universe of film, books and political intrigue that he has spent many years pondering and writing about. He is the author of a number of fiction titles including “The Answer is Baseball” (Time Books, 1989), “The Cleveland Indian” (Smith, 1992) and his novel about the great filmmaker D.W. Griffith “Hollywood and Sunset” (2007). His writing has appeared in such publications as The Boston Globe, Ploughshares, Cooperstown Review, Pulp-smith and others. Salisbury received his M.A. in Creative Writing from Boston University and lives in Chelsea with his wife Barbara. I interviewed Salisbury on my Somerville Community Access Television show “Poet to Poet/ Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: You said the dawn of Elvis and the Beatles liberated you from the buttoned-down, all boys purgatory, prep school world you grew up in. Who were the writers that liberated you when you were coming of age?
Luke Salisbury: I went away to an all boy’s school when I was fourteen. I hadn’t been a big star with girls in the seventh and eighth grade. I felt I was isolated. I felt that I was never going to get off. There were things that kept my soul together: rock ‘n roll, literature and baseball. My life was changed—saved or ruined—when I read the “ The Great Gatsby” when I was 17. I never wanted to do anything but write a book that good. I never will. Maybe no one else will. The book explains even in the first page the whole world. Its pressures, its nuances, its mystery. Faulkner would be another influence. Why? Because there is something about being a teenager reading something you can barely understand, and you know it is over your head, but by God, you know it is worthwhile.
DH: Did you feel liberated by any 60s era writers?
LS: I got that from rock ‘n roll, not from 60s literature. I was not a Jack Kerouac person. I was not reading that stuff as it was being done. Later in the 60s when I really needed to be on an island protected from my own demons and the demons around me, Nabokov became my obsession. I was traveling around Europe in the summer of 1968 buying his paperbacks at kiosks in railroad stations .I was always in an alternative world of baseball, literature and rock ’n roll. I’d love to name some 60s poets but none of them were important as the “Rolling Stones.” And also what I considered classic literature. In the 60s, I spent a long time reading “Tristan Shandy” and “Tom Jones.”
DH: Did you engage in any of the “excesses” of the era?
LS: As many as I could. But there were three things going on. Political revolution which I thought was bullshit because I didn’t actually see anyone go out and fighting. Then there was the drug revolution. I always thought I was wrapped a little too tight to do the heavy duty stuff. Then there was the sexual revolution. It was a wonderful time to be a young man, I mean the middle and late 60s, not the stuff that comes to us post “Easy Rider.” Love and peace that stuff was bullshit. It was about resistance. It was about resisting the draft and authority.
DH: You wrote two assasination novels. One was “Blue Eden.” Did you find the elitist intrigue, the possibilities of nefarious cabals behind the Kennedy assassination a source of fascination?
LS: It was. Because in the late 60s, I’d sit around and think about the novels I would like to write. I became obsessed with the Kennedy assassination. This stuff happens in front of your face. You don’t know what it is. There is subtext, there are stories. This is raw material. Everybody was taking a crack at it, the big time writers like Mailer and DeLillo. But once you get into it, you can’t get out.
DH: So who really killed Kennedy?
LS: I have no idea. Maybe Oswald, but he certainly wasn’t alone. It’s fascinating but it is like drugs and then you go home to detox and get out.
DH: In a recent book you penned “Hollywood and Sunset” you write of D.W. Griffith, the famed filmmaker, whose signature work was “The Birth of a Nation.” You refer to Griffith and others of his ilk as “sellers of light.” What are novelist’s sellers of?
LS: Ah… Inner light. All sorts of light. I got interested in Hollywood because it is really the center of power. Basically, D.W. Griffith invented Hollywood. He did everything with the two-dimensional movie that could be done. He made the most racist movie ever produced: “The Birth of a Nation.” It made a huge amount of money and it took advantage of a racist sensibility of the time. What could be more American? You had a frontier of the movies in his time. What happens when America hits the Pacific? We invent a dream-factory Hollywood. So I became very interested.
DH: How does this American sensibility differ from the European?
LS: We have to keep moving. We never stop. The past is used up.
DH: Does obsession help a writer?
LS: Yes. Who the hell is willing to sit and write a novel and then another novel without it getting published? If they finally do get published, the only people who read them is an obscure reviewer somewhere. But you keep doing it. It is madness. Poets can write a poem in five minutes or five years. There is no way to do this as a novelist. Someone has to support you, or you have to support yourself. Many of us teach. So, yes, obsession helps. But just having obsession doesn’t mean that God will give you success or that you have much talent. But it makes life worth living.
DH: Many writers work a variety of odd jobs to support themselves. You worked as a security guard for a number of years. How did that help or hinder your writing life?
LS: While I was a security guard I read “Gravity’s Rainbow,” and “Remembrances of Things Past.” I worked at Polaroid during the night shift. You have to survive if you are a writer, especially if you are not in the generous bosom of a university. Faulkner said the best job for a writer is a piano player at a bordello. The hours are good and there is a lot of interesting company around. I had many jobs in the 70s. I worked in the Welfare Department, I worked for a school board in the Bronx, etc.
DH: You have taught at Bunker Hill Community College for over 20 years. How has this been?
LS: I have taught for 22 years, and it’s a great job. The average of the students is 30 years old. People come from everywhere, and there are no yuppies. This isn’t Boston University. The kids and older people don’t think I am an idiot because I don’t make much money. Most of the students at Bunker Hill are there to learn skills, learn English, etc. I don’t think you can do better teaching adults in a public school in a big city. It’s not the hell-hole that “Good Will Hunting” characterized it as.
DH: You have been published by Harry Smith the legendary small press figure.
LS: Yes. Harry was basically a poet and published poets. He had a magazine from 1964 to 1998 “The Smith.” He had a policy of publishing unpublished writers. Half the magazine was devoted to their work. I had sent him something in 1970, and he turned it down. Five years later, I sent him something and he sent me back an envelope with a “yes” written across the front. He discovered me and my friend the poet Jared Smith. He help start COSMEP—the seminal small press organization.
DH: So you have an affinity for the small press?
LS: Oh yes. There would be a lot less literature if it wasn’t for the small press. Where do we go if we are not one of the 20 people writing novels? I thank God for the small press and the internet. We can find each other here.
DH: You have written extensively about baseball. Why?
LS: You get a tremendous amount of respect knowing about sports. Baseball was that alternative world for me. It saved me.
The Pavement Picasso Celebrates the Peoples’ Poet: Jack Powers: Interview with Sidewalk Sam
The Pavement Picasso Celebrates the Peoples’ Poet: Jack Powers: Interview with Sidewalk Sam
The Pavement Picasso Celebrates the Peoples’ Poet: Jack Powers: Interview with
Sidewalk Sam
By Doug Holder
Sidewalk Sam is a Boston-based street artist, who often uses sidewalks of the Hub as a canvas for his work. Sam believes bringing art to the people through his sidewalk paintings, outreach, and through his organization “Art Street.” So it seemed natural for Sam to be organizing a 70th birthday party for Boston’s poet of the people and founder of the venerable “Stone Soup Poets.” Stone Soup, since it was founded by Jack Powers on the foot of Beacon Hill in Boston in 1971 has been a venue for readings, and publishing. Powers and his band of brothers have published poetry books by folks like the San-Francisco poet and “City Lights” bookstore owner, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and other known and unknown poets over the years. A slew of poets like Lyn Lifshin, Frannie Lindsay, Gregory Corso have read and passed through these poetic portals. And many more have got their first reading experience at this supportive venue. Currently “Stone Soup” is housed at the ‘Out of the Blue Gallery” 106 Prospect St. Cambridge, Mass., and meets at 8PM. I spoke with Sam on my “Somerville Community Access TV show “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: I am told John Kerry discovered while you were painting on the street in Boston, and helped you get funding for your organization “Art Street.”
Sidewalk Sam: He said: “I want to connect you with a community group you could associate with.” He helped with “Art Street” which is an association of artists, poets, actors, musicians, who go out to the streets of Boston to celebrate humankind.
DH: You are organizing a birthday party for Jack Powers’ the founder of Stone Soup Poets. How his mission does compare to yours?
SS: I am a voice crying in the desert, making straight to the way of the Lord. And in a way that “Lord” is Jack Powers. Let me explain to you the vital role he plays in the 21st century. Society—modern life has been corrupted by commercialism and abstract giant powers working their will on we the little people. A gentle, giant began to fight out against this some forty or fifty years ago. A man named Jack Powers who was born into the projects of Boston and had every disadvantage given to him, but yet he emerged as a holy man. A visionary, a poet, someone who sees the beauty in daily life. And he brought his poetry out so that he could celebrate all of us. He has been doing this celebration of “you and me’ in his poetry for fifty years, without once thinking of personal gain, without making it an advantage for him, without caring about his own future. He wanted to bring beauty into the world and notice and mark the goodness in people. He has done this more completely than anyone I know in modern day life. He has it done it more than priests and nuns, philosophers, more than politicians. He brings a kind of “love” to “You and Me” and into all the things he does. It is almost a religious experience. What I hope to do is pause on his 70th birthday and have all of us appreciate people like this. Jack has turned every little gesture of everyday life into a prayer.
DH: How did you first meet Jack?
SS: I was doing drawings of old master paintings on the sidewalk: Rembrandts, DiVinci and so forth. Jack was reading poets like Ferlinghetti—poets of the Beat Generation. We were both celebrating little acts of consciousness in daily life, and we drawn instantly to each other. This was some fifty years ago when we were both in our late teens. We did not know how to be “great”’ or “imposing” or make it into the cultural scene. We thought that by being good and doing decent things was the way to go.
DH: You were the son of a Harvard professor. Jack was a son of the projects. Interesting chemistry for a friendship, no?
SS: But we noticed a similarity. Both of us were castoffs, but both of us were believers. I think of the early mystics, knowing their mission, and when they were in touch with a good human being.
DH: Can you talk about some of the projects you two have been involved with over the years?
SS: Oh, we had lovely projects. There was a derelict entrance way in the North End that passed under the elevated expressway, only a few short years ago. The Freedom Trail passed under the expressway. It seemed to lose itself in the ghoulish land of the underpass. The underpinnings of the expressway were dark and gooey, dripping and rusted. It was a scab on the city. I didn’t understand why such a place could exist in the entrance to the North End, one of the glorious parts of Boston. This was in the 80’s. We painted the underside of the overpass in bright blue. We painted gold stars on the ceiling and had cherubs flying on the walls. We painted pillars as if they were important cathedral pillars. We painted the sidewalk—we put in flower boxes, we put paintings on the wall, we had poetry and music on the street. The underpass was turned into a delightful place and people in the North End loved it!
DH: Jack moved from Beacon Hill to the North End, right?
SS: Jack lived on Beacon Hill at a time when it was known as: “Beatnik Hill.” He was gorgeous person in that area and era. He was a handsome and noble leader. Every inch a poet.
DH: Jack was known as a political and poetry activist. He established a food bank at Columbia Point, had poetry on the Boston Commons, started the Beacon Hill Free School, protested the Vietnam War, etc... But he is also a fine poet in his own right.
SS: I think he is a very good poet. His poetry has a strong sense of spirituality. He makes words special. He has the gift of having a large dramatic vision. But he has the ability to bring it down to the everyday. As an artist using the name: “Jacques Debris,” a genius name, he has used all kinds of left over things on the street and turns them into art. He found a piece of white stone and put it on a pouch on a plaque. This is in my opinion is one of the most beautiful, insightful pieces of art in the city of Boston. Jack has expanded his art into the field of social responsibility.
DH: You talk about rampant commercialism in art today. Do you think artist are more careerist as opposed to the 60’s?
SS: People have always looked out for themselves as best they could. I think each “age” of people has people looking out for themselves. But what is unique about Jack is that he is almost a saint, in the way he doesn’t look out for himself. He is a holy fool. He is willing to preach to the birds and bees because there is glory in it. He has respect for humans on the tiniest level.
DH: I was surprised with all that Jack did over the years he never had a teaching position in a university, etc… Do you think the “academy” didn’t know how to take him?
SS: This is the case. Because he wasn’t self-promoting, he runs the risk of passing away unknown. I think that would be enormous mistake.
The Pavement Picasso Celebrates the Peoples’ Poet: Jack Powers: Interview with
Sidewalk Sam
By Doug Holder
Sidewalk Sam is a Boston-based street artist, who often uses sidewalks of the Hub as a canvas for his work. Sam believes bringing art to the people through his sidewalk paintings, outreach, and through his organization “Art Street.” So it seemed natural for Sam to be organizing a 70th birthday party for Boston’s poet of the people and founder of the venerable “Stone Soup Poets.” Stone Soup, since it was founded by Jack Powers on the foot of Beacon Hill in Boston in 1971 has been a venue for readings, and publishing. Powers and his band of brothers have published poetry books by folks like the San-Francisco poet and “City Lights” bookstore owner, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and other known and unknown poets over the years. A slew of poets like Lyn Lifshin, Frannie Lindsay, Gregory Corso have read and passed through these poetic portals. And many more have got their first reading experience at this supportive venue. Currently “Stone Soup” is housed at the ‘Out of the Blue Gallery” 106 Prospect St. Cambridge, Mass., and meets at 8PM. I spoke with Sam on my “Somerville Community Access TV show “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”
Doug Holder: I am told John Kerry discovered while you were painting on the street in Boston, and helped you get funding for your organization “Art Street.”
Sidewalk Sam: He said: “I want to connect you with a community group you could associate with.” He helped with “Art Street” which is an association of artists, poets, actors, musicians, who go out to the streets of Boston to celebrate humankind.
DH: You are organizing a birthday party for Jack Powers’ the founder of Stone Soup Poets. How his mission does compare to yours?
SS: I am a voice crying in the desert, making straight to the way of the Lord. And in a way that “Lord” is Jack Powers. Let me explain to you the vital role he plays in the 21st century. Society—modern life has been corrupted by commercialism and abstract giant powers working their will on we the little people. A gentle, giant began to fight out against this some forty or fifty years ago. A man named Jack Powers who was born into the projects of Boston and had every disadvantage given to him, but yet he emerged as a holy man. A visionary, a poet, someone who sees the beauty in daily life. And he brought his poetry out so that he could celebrate all of us. He has been doing this celebration of “you and me’ in his poetry for fifty years, without once thinking of personal gain, without making it an advantage for him, without caring about his own future. He wanted to bring beauty into the world and notice and mark the goodness in people. He has done this more completely than anyone I know in modern day life. He has it done it more than priests and nuns, philosophers, more than politicians. He brings a kind of “love” to “You and Me” and into all the things he does. It is almost a religious experience. What I hope to do is pause on his 70th birthday and have all of us appreciate people like this. Jack has turned every little gesture of everyday life into a prayer.
DH: How did you first meet Jack?
SS: I was doing drawings of old master paintings on the sidewalk: Rembrandts, DiVinci and so forth. Jack was reading poets like Ferlinghetti—poets of the Beat Generation. We were both celebrating little acts of consciousness in daily life, and we drawn instantly to each other. This was some fifty years ago when we were both in our late teens. We did not know how to be “great”’ or “imposing” or make it into the cultural scene. We thought that by being good and doing decent things was the way to go.
DH: You were the son of a Harvard professor. Jack was a son of the projects. Interesting chemistry for a friendship, no?
SS: But we noticed a similarity. Both of us were castoffs, but both of us were believers. I think of the early mystics, knowing their mission, and when they were in touch with a good human being.
DH: Can you talk about some of the projects you two have been involved with over the years?
SS: Oh, we had lovely projects. There was a derelict entrance way in the North End that passed under the elevated expressway, only a few short years ago. The Freedom Trail passed under the expressway. It seemed to lose itself in the ghoulish land of the underpass. The underpinnings of the expressway were dark and gooey, dripping and rusted. It was a scab on the city. I didn’t understand why such a place could exist in the entrance to the North End, one of the glorious parts of Boston. This was in the 80’s. We painted the underside of the overpass in bright blue. We painted gold stars on the ceiling and had cherubs flying on the walls. We painted pillars as if they were important cathedral pillars. We painted the sidewalk—we put in flower boxes, we put paintings on the wall, we had poetry and music on the street. The underpass was turned into a delightful place and people in the North End loved it!
DH: Jack moved from Beacon Hill to the North End, right?
SS: Jack lived on Beacon Hill at a time when it was known as: “Beatnik Hill.” He was gorgeous person in that area and era. He was a handsome and noble leader. Every inch a poet.
DH: Jack was known as a political and poetry activist. He established a food bank at Columbia Point, had poetry on the Boston Commons, started the Beacon Hill Free School, protested the Vietnam War, etc... But he is also a fine poet in his own right.
SS: I think he is a very good poet. His poetry has a strong sense of spirituality. He makes words special. He has the gift of having a large dramatic vision. But he has the ability to bring it down to the everyday. As an artist using the name: “Jacques Debris,” a genius name, he has used all kinds of left over things on the street and turns them into art. He found a piece of white stone and put it on a pouch on a plaque. This is in my opinion is one of the most beautiful, insightful pieces of art in the city of Boston. Jack has expanded his art into the field of social responsibility.
DH: You talk about rampant commercialism in art today. Do you think artist are more careerist as opposed to the 60’s?
SS: People have always looked out for themselves as best they could. I think each “age” of people has people looking out for themselves. But what is unique about Jack is that he is almost a saint, in the way he doesn’t look out for himself. He is a holy fool. He is willing to preach to the birds and bees because there is glory in it. He has respect for humans on the tiniest level.
DH: I was surprised with all that Jack did over the years he never had a teaching position in a university, etc… Do you think the “academy” didn’t know how to take him?
SS: This is the case. Because he wasn’t self-promoting, he runs the risk of passing away unknown. I think that would be enormous mistake.
Thunderbird. Alexander Parsons. (sunnyoutside PO BOX 441429 Somerville, Mass. 02144) $10 http://www.sunnyoutside.com
Thunderbird. Alexander Parsons. (sunnyoutside PO BOX 441429 Somerville, Mass. 02144) $10 http://www.sunnyoutside.com
Sunnyoutside, a small press based in Somerville, Mass. has released a chapbook of short fiction by NEA Literary Fellowship recipient Alexander Parsons: “Thunderbird.” This limited edition release is signed by the author, and features a hand-set, letter-press printed cover, hand-stitch binding and prints of six original woodcuts by Boston artist Adrian Rodriguez. The short story “Thunderbird,” appeared in the “Mid-American Review,” in 2003. The story is about a young man who loses his job, girlfriend, health and sanity in a bad car accident. Because of intolerably painful migraines as a result of the accident, the protagonist lets his life slowly slip away:
“It wasn’t that I stopped thinking about unemployment, eviction, destitution and the rest of respectability’s quick dissolution, but that these thought slowed so much that they stretched into long, unintelligible notes, like those deep, layered chants of Tibetan monks.”
As it happens our hapless hero hooks up with another lost soul “V.P.,” and begins a sojourn across the country by boxcar like a hobo of yore. Through V.P., a delusional and most likely a psychotic self-proclaimed visionary figure, he gains insight about his own condition and the prison of his mind. In this passage V.P. literally takes flight from the boxcar and his traveling partner:
“V.P. watched the passing lights intently. He turned to me and grasped my head between his hands as though he meant to crush my skull. “There’s still time to write another act,” he said, squeezing. He released me and I fell back in fear. I was sure he could have killed me. He turned and sprang from our perch. The headlamps of a passing truck pulled him into sharp focus for an instant, illuminating him with his arms outstretched, as if they were willing himself to fly.”
This is original, provocative writing from a very original small press.
Doug Holder/Ibbetson Update/ Somerville, Mass. Jan. 2006
Sunnyoutside, a small press based in Somerville, Mass. has released a chapbook of short fiction by NEA Literary Fellowship recipient Alexander Parsons: “Thunderbird.” This limited edition release is signed by the author, and features a hand-set, letter-press printed cover, hand-stitch binding and prints of six original woodcuts by Boston artist Adrian Rodriguez. The short story “Thunderbird,” appeared in the “Mid-American Review,” in 2003. The story is about a young man who loses his job, girlfriend, health and sanity in a bad car accident. Because of intolerably painful migraines as a result of the accident, the protagonist lets his life slowly slip away:
“It wasn’t that I stopped thinking about unemployment, eviction, destitution and the rest of respectability’s quick dissolution, but that these thought slowed so much that they stretched into long, unintelligible notes, like those deep, layered chants of Tibetan monks.”
As it happens our hapless hero hooks up with another lost soul “V.P.,” and begins a sojourn across the country by boxcar like a hobo of yore. Through V.P., a delusional and most likely a psychotic self-proclaimed visionary figure, he gains insight about his own condition and the prison of his mind. In this passage V.P. literally takes flight from the boxcar and his traveling partner:
“V.P. watched the passing lights intently. He turned to me and grasped my head between his hands as though he meant to crush my skull. “There’s still time to write another act,” he said, squeezing. He released me and I fell back in fear. I was sure he could have killed me. He turned and sprang from our perch. The headlamps of a passing truck pulled him into sharp focus for an instant, illuminating him with his arms outstretched, as if they were willing himself to fly.”
This is original, provocative writing from a very original small press.
Doug Holder/Ibbetson Update/ Somerville, Mass. Jan. 2006
Irene Koronas: An inventive writer and experimental poet
Irene Koronas: An inventive writer and experimental poet
by Doug Holder
Irene Koronas (left): With Bagel Bards: Doug Holder, Harris Gardner, and Linda Haviland Conte.
Irene Koronas, like many poets in the area, is a denizen of coffee shops. Some years ago we met at Breuger Bagels in Porter Square, Cambridge, Mass. the birthplace of the Ibbetson Street Press. Later Irene became the scribe for the weekly “Bagel Bards” meeting now held at the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square, Somerville, Mass. Irene is currently the poetry editor for the “Wilderness House Literary Review,” has numerous publication credits, and has read extensively in the area.
Koronas, who has been creating since age 12, said in an interview with Cambridge Alewife poetry editor Lo Galluccio , that she first explored language by reading and writing poetry, and eventually fell in love with Octavio Paz, Yannos Ritos, and others. Koronas is also a graduate of the Mass. College of Art, and uses her skills to produce her own handmade chapbooks. Her poetry is often accompanied by her art. Koronas is a self-described experimental poet, and she tries to contemplate the meaning, image and representation of symbols and words in all their infinite forms.
Doug Holder: You describe yourself as an experimental poet. Can you define that?
Irene Koronas: For me experimental means I like to play with words. I like to use words that I haven’t used myself. I want the reader to look up words and think about them. I’ve been thinking more about what I do. It feels like a grid… my poetry that is. I juxtapose words next to each other. Sometimes it is meaningless. But sometimes it means something. It’s like a painting or grid. The colors positioned next to each other—will change each other.
Doug Holder: Can talk about whom influences you.
Irene Koronas. I try to be my own person. I don’t want to be so heavily influenced by everyone else. My mother told me that I was the most gullible child she ever had. Now I am more confident about what I am doing—who I am—and the fact that I like to play. I like to think now. I never had time just to think before. I was always working and raising a family.
Doug Holder: What do you think about?
Irene koronas: I think about what words mean, and how to position them. Right now I don’t use punctuation.
Doug Holder: How has your “outside of the box” work been accepted in the poetry community?
Irene Koronas: It took awhile for some people to accept the way I am writing. I hang out with people who know what I am doing. But I can write narrative poetry—I have for many years. If I am reading somewhere I consider the audience. Even if poetry is experimental they can relate to the rhythm.
Doug Holder: You have talked to me about “ageism” in the poetry scene. You are a woman “of a certain age.” How have you been treated?
Irene Koronas: I will be 65 years old in September. I have gotten used to it. When I turned 60 I really noticed that I wasn’t getting the attention I got when I was younger. It was more physical than anything else. It is not as easy to get younger poets to listen to me. I am a moderator on an experimental poetry internet site. I had to put in my profile that I was a grandmother. I was getting a lot of email from very young experimental poets. I let it go for awhile because it was exciting being exposed to new ideas. It got so that it wasn’t real, so I stopped. It’s hard for some younger people to understand that older poets still experiment.
Doug Holder: You make beautiful handmade chapbooks. Can you talk about this?
Irene Koronas: I like to make things. I like the idea of hand making a book. I like to actually hold a book. Everything is about the computer these days. It’s easy for me. I like the sewing of the book…the texture. I don’t make books as often as I used to.
Doug Holder: Are you as interested in the look of the book as you are the content?
Irene Koronas: I am as interested in the look of the poem as I am in the content. I am interested in the look of the letters on the page—the whole thing.
Doug Holder: You are the “scribe” for the “Bagel Bards,” a group of poets and writers that meets at 9AM every Saturday at the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square, Somerville, Mass. You write a weekly column for the Bards. What does being a group “scribe” entail?
Irene Koronas: Part of my work as an experimental poet is to catch word or phrases on the subway, etc… So at the meetings I catch phrases and conversations and form an essay. Last week we talked about string Theory, prejudice in the 60’s, and then the Holocaust. So I started to think about a single word: “Madness”. I thought about its meaning. When I looked up the word in the dictionary it was defined as “enthusiastic.” That was confusing. So in my column “Word Catcher” I try to make my experimen
Irene Koronas, like many poets in the area, is a denizen of coffee shops. Some years ago we met at Breuger Bagels in Porter Square, Cambridge, Mass. the birthplace of the Ibbetson Street Press. Later Irene became the scribe for the weekly “Bagel Bards” meeting now held at the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square, Somerville, Mass. Irene is currently the poetry editor for the “Wilderness House Literary Review,” has numerous publication credits, and has read extensively in the area.
Koronas, who has been creating since age 12, said in an interview with Cambridge Alewife poetry editor Lo Galluccio , that she first explored language by reading and writing poetry, and eventually fell in love with Octavio Paz, Yannos Ritos, and others. Koronas is also a graduate of the Mass. College of Art, and uses her skills to produce her own handmade chapbooks. Her poetry is often accompanied by her art. Koronas is a self-described experimental poet, and she tries to contemplate the meaning, image and representation of symbols and words in all their infinite forms.
Doug Holder: You describe yourself as an experimental poet. Can you define that?
Irene Koronas: For me experimental means I like to play with words. I like to use words that I haven’t used myself. I want the reader to look up words and think about them. I’ve been thinking more about what I do. It feels like a grid… my poetry that is. I juxtapose words next to each other. Sometimes it is meaningless. But sometimes it means something. It’s like a painting or grid. The colors positioned next to each other—will change each other.
Doug Holder: Can talk about whom influences you.
Irene Koronas. I try to be my own person. I don’t want to be so heavily influenced by everyone else. My mother told me that I was the most gullible child she ever had. Now I am more confident about what I am doing—who I am—and the fact that I like to play. I like to think now. I never had time just to think before. I was always working and raising a family.
Doug Holder: What do you think about?
Irene koronas: I think about what words mean, and how to position them. Right now I don’t use punctuation.
Doug Holder: How has your “outside of the box” work been accepted in the poetry community?
Irene Koronas: It took awhile for some people to accept the way I am writing. I hang out with people who know what I am doing. But I can write narrative poetry—I have for many years. If I am reading somewhere I consider the audience. Even if poetry is experimental they can relate to the rhythm.
Doug Holder: You have talked to me about “ageism” in the poetry scene. You are a woman “of a certain age.” How have you been treated?
Irene Koronas: I will be 65 years old in September. I have gotten used to it. When I turned 60 I really noticed that I wasn’t getting the attention I got when I was younger. It was more physical than anything else. It is not as easy to get younger poets to listen to me. I am a moderator on an experimental poetry internet site. I had to put in my profile that I was a grandmother. I was getting a lot of email from very young experimental poets. I let it go for awhile because it was exciting being exposed to new ideas. It got so that it wasn’t real, so I stopped. It’s hard for some younger people to understand that older poets still experiment.
Doug Holder: You make beautiful handmade chapbooks. Can you talk about this?
Irene Koronas: I like to make things. I like the idea of hand making a book. I like to actually hold a book. Everything is about the computer these days. It’s easy for me. I like the sewing of the book…the texture. I don’t make books as often as I used to.
Doug Holder: Are you as interested in the look of the book as you are the content?
Irene Koronas: I am as interested in the look of the poem as I am in the content. I am interested in the look of the letters on the page—the whole thing.
Doug Holder: You are the “scribe” for the “Bagel Bards,” a group of poets and writers that meets at 9AM every Saturday at the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square, Somerville, Mass. You write a weekly column for the Bards. What does being a group “scribe” entail?
Irene Koronas: Part of my work as an experimental poet is to catch word or phrases on the subway, etc… So at the meetings I catch phrases and conversations and form an essay. Last week we talked about string Theory, prejudice in the 60’s, and then the Holocaust. So I started to think about a single word: “Madness”. I thought about its meaning. When I looked up the word in the dictionary it was defined as “enthusiastic.” That was confusing. So in my column “Word Catcher” I try to make my experimen
by Doug Holder
Irene Koronas (left): With Bagel Bards: Doug Holder, Harris Gardner, and Linda Haviland Conte.
Irene Koronas, like many poets in the area, is a denizen of coffee shops. Some years ago we met at Breuger Bagels in Porter Square, Cambridge, Mass. the birthplace of the Ibbetson Street Press. Later Irene became the scribe for the weekly “Bagel Bards” meeting now held at the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square, Somerville, Mass. Irene is currently the poetry editor for the “Wilderness House Literary Review,” has numerous publication credits, and has read extensively in the area.
Koronas, who has been creating since age 12, said in an interview with Cambridge Alewife poetry editor Lo Galluccio , that she first explored language by reading and writing poetry, and eventually fell in love with Octavio Paz, Yannos Ritos, and others. Koronas is also a graduate of the Mass. College of Art, and uses her skills to produce her own handmade chapbooks. Her poetry is often accompanied by her art. Koronas is a self-described experimental poet, and she tries to contemplate the meaning, image and representation of symbols and words in all their infinite forms.
Doug Holder: You describe yourself as an experimental poet. Can you define that?
Irene Koronas: For me experimental means I like to play with words. I like to use words that I haven’t used myself. I want the reader to look up words and think about them. I’ve been thinking more about what I do. It feels like a grid… my poetry that is. I juxtapose words next to each other. Sometimes it is meaningless. But sometimes it means something. It’s like a painting or grid. The colors positioned next to each other—will change each other.
Doug Holder: Can talk about whom influences you.
Irene Koronas. I try to be my own person. I don’t want to be so heavily influenced by everyone else. My mother told me that I was the most gullible child she ever had. Now I am more confident about what I am doing—who I am—and the fact that I like to play. I like to think now. I never had time just to think before. I was always working and raising a family.
Doug Holder: What do you think about?
Irene koronas: I think about what words mean, and how to position them. Right now I don’t use punctuation.
Doug Holder: How has your “outside of the box” work been accepted in the poetry community?
Irene Koronas: It took awhile for some people to accept the way I am writing. I hang out with people who know what I am doing. But I can write narrative poetry—I have for many years. If I am reading somewhere I consider the audience. Even if poetry is experimental they can relate to the rhythm.
Doug Holder: You have talked to me about “ageism” in the poetry scene. You are a woman “of a certain age.” How have you been treated?
Irene Koronas: I will be 65 years old in September. I have gotten used to it. When I turned 60 I really noticed that I wasn’t getting the attention I got when I was younger. It was more physical than anything else. It is not as easy to get younger poets to listen to me. I am a moderator on an experimental poetry internet site. I had to put in my profile that I was a grandmother. I was getting a lot of email from very young experimental poets. I let it go for awhile because it was exciting being exposed to new ideas. It got so that it wasn’t real, so I stopped. It’s hard for some younger people to understand that older poets still experiment.
Doug Holder: You make beautiful handmade chapbooks. Can you talk about this?
Irene Koronas: I like to make things. I like the idea of hand making a book. I like to actually hold a book. Everything is about the computer these days. It’s easy for me. I like the sewing of the book…the texture. I don’t make books as often as I used to.
Doug Holder: Are you as interested in the look of the book as you are the content?
Irene Koronas: I am as interested in the look of the poem as I am in the content. I am interested in the look of the letters on the page—the whole thing.
Doug Holder: You are the “scribe” for the “Bagel Bards,” a group of poets and writers that meets at 9AM every Saturday at the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square, Somerville, Mass. You write a weekly column for the Bards. What does being a group “scribe” entail?
Irene Koronas: Part of my work as an experimental poet is to catch word or phrases on the subway, etc… So at the meetings I catch phrases and conversations and form an essay. Last week we talked about string Theory, prejudice in the 60’s, and then the Holocaust. So I started to think about a single word: “Madness”. I thought about its meaning. When I looked up the word in the dictionary it was defined as “enthusiastic.” That was confusing. So in my column “Word Catcher” I try to make my experimen
Irene Koronas, like many poets in the area, is a denizen of coffee shops. Some years ago we met at Breuger Bagels in Porter Square, Cambridge, Mass. the birthplace of the Ibbetson Street Press. Later Irene became the scribe for the weekly “Bagel Bards” meeting now held at the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square, Somerville, Mass. Irene is currently the poetry editor for the “Wilderness House Literary Review,” has numerous publication credits, and has read extensively in the area.
Koronas, who has been creating since age 12, said in an interview with Cambridge Alewife poetry editor Lo Galluccio , that she first explored language by reading and writing poetry, and eventually fell in love with Octavio Paz, Yannos Ritos, and others. Koronas is also a graduate of the Mass. College of Art, and uses her skills to produce her own handmade chapbooks. Her poetry is often accompanied by her art. Koronas is a self-described experimental poet, and she tries to contemplate the meaning, image and representation of symbols and words in all their infinite forms.
Doug Holder: You describe yourself as an experimental poet. Can you define that?
Irene Koronas: For me experimental means I like to play with words. I like to use words that I haven’t used myself. I want the reader to look up words and think about them. I’ve been thinking more about what I do. It feels like a grid… my poetry that is. I juxtapose words next to each other. Sometimes it is meaningless. But sometimes it means something. It’s like a painting or grid. The colors positioned next to each other—will change each other.
Doug Holder: Can talk about whom influences you.
Irene Koronas. I try to be my own person. I don’t want to be so heavily influenced by everyone else. My mother told me that I was the most gullible child she ever had. Now I am more confident about what I am doing—who I am—and the fact that I like to play. I like to think now. I never had time just to think before. I was always working and raising a family.
Doug Holder: What do you think about?
Irene koronas: I think about what words mean, and how to position them. Right now I don’t use punctuation.
Doug Holder: How has your “outside of the box” work been accepted in the poetry community?
Irene Koronas: It took awhile for some people to accept the way I am writing. I hang out with people who know what I am doing. But I can write narrative poetry—I have for many years. If I am reading somewhere I consider the audience. Even if poetry is experimental they can relate to the rhythm.
Doug Holder: You have talked to me about “ageism” in the poetry scene. You are a woman “of a certain age.” How have you been treated?
Irene Koronas: I will be 65 years old in September. I have gotten used to it. When I turned 60 I really noticed that I wasn’t getting the attention I got when I was younger. It was more physical than anything else. It is not as easy to get younger poets to listen to me. I am a moderator on an experimental poetry internet site. I had to put in my profile that I was a grandmother. I was getting a lot of email from very young experimental poets. I let it go for awhile because it was exciting being exposed to new ideas. It got so that it wasn’t real, so I stopped. It’s hard for some younger people to understand that older poets still experiment.
Doug Holder: You make beautiful handmade chapbooks. Can you talk about this?
Irene Koronas: I like to make things. I like the idea of hand making a book. I like to actually hold a book. Everything is about the computer these days. It’s easy for me. I like the sewing of the book…the texture. I don’t make books as often as I used to.
Doug Holder: Are you as interested in the look of the book as you are the content?
Irene Koronas: I am as interested in the look of the poem as I am in the content. I am interested in the look of the letters on the page—the whole thing.
Doug Holder: You are the “scribe” for the “Bagel Bards,” a group of poets and writers that meets at 9AM every Saturday at the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square, Somerville, Mass. You write a weekly column for the Bards. What does being a group “scribe” entail?
Irene Koronas: Part of my work as an experimental poet is to catch word or phrases on the subway, etc… So at the meetings I catch phrases and conversations and form an essay. Last week we talked about string Theory, prejudice in the 60’s, and then the Holocaust. So I started to think about a single word: “Madness”. I thought about its meaning. When I looked up the word in the dictionary it was defined as “enthusiastic.” That was confusing. So in my column “Word Catcher” I try to make my experimen
Inside Light by Deborah DeNicola
Inside Light by Deborah DeNicola
Eleanor Goodman is a new reviewer for the Ibbetson Update. She has an M.F.A. from Boston University. She is also a member of the "Bagel Bards," and teacher at Grub Street in Boston.
Inside Light
by Deborah DeNicola
Finishing Line Press
$14.
Art and religion are inextricably intertwined. Poets as diverse as Czeslaw Milosz, Wang Wei, and the Sufi poet Jelaluddin Rumi have attempted to express the inexpressible in their work. In her short collection of poems titled “Inside Light”, Deborah DeNicola makes a lively foray into this tradition.
The poems, twenty-seven in all, are unified by the common themes of Christianity, family, ekphrasis, and ecstatic experience. DeNicola retells some of the familiar biblical stories from new perspectives, and manages to enliven this well-trodden territory. In “John Baptizing Jesus”, the tone is of feverish discovery: “They say he lived on wild honey and the long torsos / of locusts, that he dressed in fetid camel pelts / and rags, and that he ranted / as if he had a finger in a messianic / socket”.
This intensity of language serves DeNicola well throughout the book, as does her ability to combine the ancient with the modern – bathtubs with higher beings, molecules with “notes of Gregorian chant”. This grounding in the everyday saves the poems from being overly esoteric, although fortunately DeNicola also allows herself moments of true revelation. In “Last Judgment”, she writes of “those reliquaries deep in the solar plexus, / dousing the fiery fields where fear is eaten whole by risk.” Religious experience speaks to fear, and to fire, and to the sense that the physical body is both intrinsic and vulnerable to the heat. It is an impressive feat that this sense of peril is captured in nearly every poem in the collection.
Vivid detail and creative juxtaposition are also among many DeNicola’s strengths. In “Magdalen”, she writes of “The Sorceress of Magdala, I knew / the patterns of imbalance / which horn beam cured. / Tranquility induced by larch and beech. / Stirring palliatives of aspen and clematis / in a slow boil of weeds, I mixed elixirs for dropsy / and warts.” The consonances running through these lines demonstrate a fine ear for the music of language.
Some of the most touching poems deal with family. In “Mother Incarnate”, DeNicola explores the issues involved in coping with an aging parent with unusual sensitivity and depth. “Proud mother who says outloud nonetheless, / she’s aware of her mind’s decay.” It takes a poet – such a painful profession! – to see in one’s mother “the visible skull behind her smile”.
The lesson to take out of this collection, aside from simply admiring the talent and effort of honesty it took to write it, is expressed in the very first poem, “The Bath Tub Is Optional”. DeNicola writes: “The busyness of quietude, / the eventually banished will, / waftage of oxygen / pouring through pores, new atoms magnetized / till your chanting stills, though the spooks / warbling through your throat rewire you / completely, so you’ll cry at nothing at all / because everything matters.”
Eleanor Goodman
Eleanor Goodman is a new reviewer for the Ibbetson Update. She has an M.F.A. from Boston University. She is also a member of the "Bagel Bards," and teacher at Grub Street in Boston.
Inside Light
by Deborah DeNicola
Finishing Line Press
$14.
Art and religion are inextricably intertwined. Poets as diverse as Czeslaw Milosz, Wang Wei, and the Sufi poet Jelaluddin Rumi have attempted to express the inexpressible in their work. In her short collection of poems titled “Inside Light”, Deborah DeNicola makes a lively foray into this tradition.
The poems, twenty-seven in all, are unified by the common themes of Christianity, family, ekphrasis, and ecstatic experience. DeNicola retells some of the familiar biblical stories from new perspectives, and manages to enliven this well-trodden territory. In “John Baptizing Jesus”, the tone is of feverish discovery: “They say he lived on wild honey and the long torsos / of locusts, that he dressed in fetid camel pelts / and rags, and that he ranted / as if he had a finger in a messianic / socket”.
This intensity of language serves DeNicola well throughout the book, as does her ability to combine the ancient with the modern – bathtubs with higher beings, molecules with “notes of Gregorian chant”. This grounding in the everyday saves the poems from being overly esoteric, although fortunately DeNicola also allows herself moments of true revelation. In “Last Judgment”, she writes of “those reliquaries deep in the solar plexus, / dousing the fiery fields where fear is eaten whole by risk.” Religious experience speaks to fear, and to fire, and to the sense that the physical body is both intrinsic and vulnerable to the heat. It is an impressive feat that this sense of peril is captured in nearly every poem in the collection.
Vivid detail and creative juxtaposition are also among many DeNicola’s strengths. In “Magdalen”, she writes of “The Sorceress of Magdala, I knew / the patterns of imbalance / which horn beam cured. / Tranquility induced by larch and beech. / Stirring palliatives of aspen and clematis / in a slow boil of weeds, I mixed elixirs for dropsy / and warts.” The consonances running through these lines demonstrate a fine ear for the music of language.
Some of the most touching poems deal with family. In “Mother Incarnate”, DeNicola explores the issues involved in coping with an aging parent with unusual sensitivity and depth. “Proud mother who says outloud nonetheless, / she’s aware of her mind’s decay.” It takes a poet – such a painful profession! – to see in one’s mother “the visible skull behind her smile”.
The lesson to take out of this collection, aside from simply admiring the talent and effort of honesty it took to write it, is expressed in the very first poem, “The Bath Tub Is Optional”. DeNicola writes: “The busyness of quietude, / the eventually banished will, / waftage of oxygen / pouring through pores, new atoms magnetized / till your chanting stills, though the spooks / warbling through your throat rewire you / completely, so you’ll cry at nothing at all / because everything matters.”
Eleanor Goodman
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