Setting Fire To The White Picket Fences Of An Imaginary Nation

Raised in Darien, CT, Susan Cossette-Eng, tonight’s featured Open Mic poet, writes frequently in rebellious defense of genuine relationships, love and the sanctity of just plain individual humanity (especially relating to women) against the Plasticville artifice and faux freedom of the American suburban ideal that keeps us from effective engagement with the larger world.

Here is a sample from last October:

A scene from Bryan Forbes’ The Stepford Wives 

(1975), shot in Darien’s Goodwives’ Shopping Center

unhinged

Unhinged, unglued,
unspeakable

this is nothing new–

These doors wide open,
window screens torn
white picket fence, now kindling–

My new normal is born.

Unusual,
Unreal,
Unstoppable

The train on its tracks–

tilt-shifted photo of an actual tract housing develop-
ment betrays the toy-like unreality of suburban life 

Racing toward nothing,
an unnamed station
in an imaginary nation

There’s no turning back.

Such sparse eloquence is currently being collected in Life: Version 2.1, a forthcoming chapbook and can also be enjoyed at “MusePalace”, Susan’s blog of her latest poetry, ruminations and links to the writing of others addressing consonant themes, like Denise Duhamel’s “Kinky”  (a piece that translates the stylized imagery of the iconic Barbie and Ken dolls into the realm of flesh-and-blood eroticism) and the ouvre of James Scully, the acclaimed poet with whom she studied (along with Marilyn Nelson Wamiek).

book accessory for 1965 Slumber Party Barbie

A graduate with an M.A. in English from UConn-Storrs, Susan is a two-time recipient of the university’s Wallace Stevens Prize for Poetry and has also done post-graduate work at the City University of New York Graduate Center.   

Find out more about Susan at AuthorsDen.

Hosted by Frank Chambers and PoemAlley's Nick Miele, the Barnes & Noble's Open Mic Poetry program meets the second Monday of each month in the cookbook section on the main floor of the bookstore (located in the Stamford Down Center), beginning at 7:15 p.m.

For more information, contact:

Barnes & Noble

100 Greyrock Place Suite H009

Stamford, CT 06901

203-323-1248

Though dated, the following music video to Rush’s “Subdivisions” expresses the suffocating alienation still peculiar to growing up in today’s built-up “apocalypse”:

_____
Of related interest:

Books

The Way We Never Were: American Families And The Nostalgia Trap, Stephanie Coontz (Basic Books, 2000)

Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck (North Point Press, 2010) 

Class:a Guide Through the American Status System, Paul Fussell (Touchstone, 1994)

The Fifties: a Women’s Oral History, Brett Harvey (HarperCollins, 1993)

Too Much Magic: WishfulThinking, Technology and the Fate of the Nation, James Howard Kunstler (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2012)

Online

“Is Barbie Based On a German Sex Doll?”, Adja’s Blog, June 2011

"'Don't eat!': Controversial 1965 Slumber PartyBarbie came with scales permanently set to just 110lbs and 1a diet book tellingher not to eat", Martha De Lacey, Daily Mail, November 2012

SECOND New Date: … Not Without Love and Care: A “Peaceful Revolutionary” Returns

Walter Pietsch, Korea-based Army veteran, noted, in particular, for his attempted citizen’s arrest of Richard Nixon and his record-breaking entanglements with the Supreme Court, comes to Curley’s Diner for a second visit with PoemAlley this Tuesday, December 11, to present his hot-off-the-presses autobiography, Walter Pietsch: Evolution of a Peaceful Revolutionary.

Walter and his wife, Anita

Credited by acclaimed actor/activist Edward Asner as “a fighter for the right things that occupy our lives and are usually ignored,” Walter will discuss the humorous and, at times, heart-breaking development of his tenacious passion for domestic and universal justice, how it interwove with the meeting of his wife, Anita, his lifetime enthusiasm for golf and the formation of the non-profit ARISE, from which springs his three-point proposal for “expanding democracy.”

"Highway of Death", Iraq, 1991

South Vietnam, 1969

A self-published effort, following Walter’s 2009 release, They Stole Our Country: We’re Taking Her Back!, Peaceful Revolutionary was produced with significant support from two of our Curley’s regulars, Rolf Maurer and Richard Duffee. The evening will also be an occasion to acknowledge and appreciate their efforts in helping bring out a book with great potential for changing our political landscape, hence our lives.

contemporary tent city, Sacramento

homeless veterans' families
celebrate July 4th, 2009

Adds Ralph Nazareth, founder of Yuganta Press and PA moderator, who served as consultant on his friend’s new project, "Walter’s life and work are testament to his beliefs that there is no poetry that’s not political and that no positive change is possible without love and care.”

... tomorrow?

drone victim, Pakistan, 2011

Inspiration for what is possible along these lines can be found in this contemporary rendering of Charlie Chaplin's stirring closing words from 1940's The Great Dictator, extolling the grace of our shared humanity over the exploitive misery of always being afraid of one another:

“My Roots In Sparta, My Branches In Stamford”

In proximity to Stamford’s high-ticket commercial and corporate core, Curley’s Diner remains a resilient testament to real community that has served customers 24-hours-a-day for decades.

As co-owner with her sister Maria, Monday’s featured Barnes & Noble Open Mic poet, Elena Begetis Anastos, opened the doors of Curley’s to sustain PoemAlley and its various functions since its inception with the same combination of firmness and unhesitating generosity with which she serves and assists her customers, earning her the affection nickname, “Big Mama”.

Big Mama, her 2009 poetry collection (Turn of River Press), like all her work, flows prodigiously with first-hand peeks into human behavior and trials, love and nature, all delivered through a special brand of magical expression shaped by her childhood experiences and the mythic tradition of her homeland, Greece. Her poetry has also appeared in assorted magazines in New York and Connecticut, as well as the PoemAlley collections Beyond the Fence, Eating Our Hearts Out and Wednesdays at Curley’s. You can read selections from Big Mama, or order a copy at http://test10.itexvideo.com/.


Hosted by Frank Chambers and PoemAlley's Nick Miele, the Barnes & Noble's Open Mic Poetry program meets the second Monday of each month in the cookbook section on the main floor of the bookstore (located in the Stamford Down Center), beginning at 7:15 p.m.

For more information, contact:

Barnes & Noble

100 Greyrock Place Suite H009

Stamford, CT 06901

203-323-1248 

Same Time This Year

 Following her previous guest appearance in the Stamford area at Curley's Diner last October, last night's Barnes & Noble Open Mic program shared the work of featured poet Kaaren Whitney, a former Connecticut resident and contemporary universalist, who has run a homeopathic practice in the UK for more than forty years.
 
Devoted to the promotion of the environment and a reawakening of humanity's spiritual ties to it, Kaaren serves as a guardian of a local labyrinth and Tree Circle in England. Much of her work inspired by these themes can be found in Painting to Poem (2006), Leaves of Hope (2006), A Book of Graces (2009), Shades of Light and Dark (also 2009), as well as several anthologies. You can find her latest work on the prose and poetry webzine Ink, Sweat and Tears, to which she is a frequent contributor. Click on Bill Buschel's video above from her 2011 PoemAlley reading to get the flavor of her material and presentation.

A commended winner of the Fakenham Poetry Competition in 2008, Kaaren has read at the Halesworth Fringe Festival and other open mic events in the United States, the UK and as removed as Australia. Kaaren's work often accentuates the Living Wheel of the Year, an English website celebrating Celtic festivals and different aspects of nature culture.   

Hosted by Frank Chambers and PoemAlley's Nick Miele, Barnes & Noble Open Mic meets the second Monday of each month in the cookbook section on the main floor of the bookstore (located in the Stamford Down Center), beginning at 7:30 p.m.

For more information, contact:

Barnes & Noble

100 Greyrock Place Suite H009

Stamford, CT 06901

203-323-1248

Declarations On the Power of Time and Place

An antique dealer/bookkeeper, Jeanne DeLarm-Neri, featured reader at tonight's Barnes & Noble's Open Mic, enjoys writing poetry and fiction and has placed two pieces in the Winter 2011 and Winter 2012 editions of Times of Brunswick, published in Greenwich. "DeLarm-A Single Tear or An Elm Tree" was her prize-winning entry in the Winter 2011 "Connecticut Maple Leaf" essay contest.

A graduate of Fairfield University's MFA in Writing program, her occupational delvings into the historical resonance of time and place finds expression through several new projects, such as a series of stories taking place in Stamford, a novel about a small-town girl and a collection of poems inspired by antique photos. Below is a spooky, seasonally appropriate excerpt from her story, "Springdale Haunt": 

“A nice yard, it was, with a twisted apple tree. I climbed that tree, hiding in the leaves. When the Dooneys moved away, the next people smashed off the coal bin attached to the house wall. That made my mother breathe easier, she said. She couldn’t see that coal bin without imagining what happened inside of it.”

Kathi hugged herself, feeling a chill from the trees overhead. “What happened inside? You mean, rats or mice living in there, or something?”

The old man’s eyes shifted away from the conversational link between them, to a place on the driveway, some place in his memory. “We all lived with rats. But that’s not what I mean.” He frowned, caressing his chin with his hand. “It’s a funny thing. One of my earliest memories is of the wailing coming from that kitchen.”

You can email Jeanne at delarmneri@gmail.com.

Hosted by Frank Chambers and PoemAlley's Nick Miele, the Barnes & Noble's Open Mic Poetry program meets the second Monday of each month in the cookbook section on the main floor of the bookstore (located in the Stamford Down Center), beginning at 7:30 p.m.

For more information, contact:

Barnes & Noble

100 Greyrock Place Suite H009

Stamford, CT 06901

203-323-1248

Breaking The Silence

Join members of PoemAlley tomorrow morning for the annual summer poetry service held in the Sanctuary of the Unitarian Universalist Society in Stamford, located downtown directly across from the Avon Theatre on Bedford Street.

   Breaking the Silence, this year’s theme, includes Agnes Roberts, Ralph Nazareth, Richard Duffee and several other PA members exercising the imperative of the poet to speak out against suffering or run the risk of being complicit with the forces of oppression, whatever they may be. While poetry has many faces and serves various needs, in this reading it will mostly present itself as an instrument for living meaningfully in these dark times.

Refreshments will be served in the Social Room following the service. Housed in a 142-year-old church, the UUSIS is the parent organization of PoemAlley. You can learn more about it under "Associated Links" to the left.

When:

Sunday, August 25, 2012

10-11am

Where:

20 Forest Street,

Stamford, CT 06901

(free parking available in the municipal lot across the Forest Street entrance)

Phone/Email:

203-348-0708

admin@uusis.org

Learning To Fly When Time Has Wings

In a first-time collaboration, Franklin Street Works and PoemAlley will present tomorrow evening "Nine Works Of Art, A Dozen Poets, A Dozen Poems", a cross-disciplinary presentation where poets from Curley's will offer interpretations of pieces comprising the non-profit contemporary art space's current exhibit, These Transitional Spaces.

 Rainbow Painter, Dana Hoey

Curated by Seth Kelly, Spaces features compelling pieces employing photography, painting, free-standing sculpture, audio and video-projected construction to represent particular collective and subjective ideas of time and space, while simultaneously suggesting the impossibility of fully capturing such fleeting experiences.

"Untitled",  Adam Putnam

Matthew Buckierin, Dana Hoey, Adam Putnam, Karsten Krejcarek and Aura Rosenberg are among the nine artists contributing to the program, which began June 30 and will conclude August 26. For an advance peek of this and upcoming shows--as well as the elegant environment housing them, go to www.franklinstreetworks.org.

PA members reading include Ralph Nazareth, Veronica Jones, Caroline Holme, Jim Janke, Rolf Maurer, Rona Schenkerman, Cora Santaguida, Catherine Ednie (PoemAlley co-founder), Eleni P. Begetis Anastos (co-owner of Curley's Diner), Richard Duffee, Eva-Maria Palevich and PoemAlley Advisory Committee Chair Bill Buschel. Copies of a complimentary 'zine containing their work will be available both in the two-floor gallery and cafe areas.

Situated in an old row house near the UCONN campus, Franklin Street Works is less than one hour from New York City via Metro North and about one mile (a 15 minute walk) from the Stamford train station. On-street parking is available on Franklin Street (metered until 6 pm except on Sunday), and paid parking is available nearby in a lot on Franklin Street and in the Summer Street Garage (100 Summer Street), behind Target.

When:

Thursday, August 23, 2012

5-7 PM

Where:

Franklin Street Works

41 Franklin Street

Stamford, CT 06901

Phone/e-mail:
203-595-5211

info@franklinstreetworks.org

The poets of PoemAlley would like to thank the management and staff of Franklin Street Works for their generosity of spirit and for the opportunity to read in their wonderful space!

The Song Of The Written Word

Sharing selections from her Illusian Sequence, a series of genre-hopping speculative novels, tonight’s PoemAlley guest reader, C.A. Rodriguez, has been writing poetry, fiction and plays for numerous years and has translated two Golden Age Spanish plays considered major analogues of "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Duchess of Malfi". After a quarter of a century, both translations, along with her ground-breaking comparative analyses, are still in print.

While sharing a common thematic thread, each of Rodriguez’s books can be read independently and are shaped by the different concentrations in the author’s studies in English and Comparative Literature, for which she earned an M.A. and Ph.D. 

For fans of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon, or the currently popular Wicked Years series by Gregory Maguire, Rashingor (2007), the first Illusian entry, is of particular appeal, as it involves three sisters in a fairytale setting, in a plot described as a feminist challenge to Cinderella.

Besides her scholarship in Renaissance/Baroque drama and the epic/romance tradition,  Rodriguez’s studies in the nineteenth century novel also find expression in Volume II, St. Peter’s Wood (2007), which  combines a more subtle magic realism with the mood and character struggles of the British rural novel of the same century.

An accomplished artist as
well as writer, Rodriguez also
designs many of the covers
of her novels

As with her other fiction, her most recent effort, 2011's The Street of Secrets, is published through her own imprint, March House Press (carodriguez.com). You can contact Dr. Rodriguez at cynthia@carodriguez.com. Click on the titles below to look further into her acclaimed translations of Lope de Vega’s Renaissance plays “Castelvins andMonteses” and “The Duchess of Amalfi’s Steward”.