Dec 12, 2013

The Season Asks “Joy, First”

Partake of words, food and entertainment at Holiday Cheer at Mapleview Towers, a festive afternoon gathering organized by regular PoemAlley contributor Jane Wickham, to be held this Saturday in Mapleview's Community Room for residents of the Stamford apartment complex.
Eleni Begetis Anastos

Open to area poets and members of Tuesdays at Curley’s (hosted by Curley’s Diner co-owner and poet Elena Begetis Anastos), Saturday’s celebration of seasonal hope, fellowship and spoken art encourages all to share a favorite short piece (to be read by someone else, if preferred) in an atmosphere accented by refreshments, live music provided by PA members, as well as movie screenings spanning the Transcendental and Beat periods, including 1978's Emily Dickinson: "A Certain Slant of Light" (check out the poet's moody winter meditation "There's a Certain Slant of Light" here), featuring Julie Harris, and the 2006 documentary, The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg.

Newly-discovered, this 1860 daguerreo-
type is purportedly only the second photo of
Dickinson (to left, with friend Kate Scott
Turner) found
Here’s a portion of Harris’ brilliant take on the private 19th century poet from 1976's The Belle of Amherst...





















... and here's the trailer for the Ginsberg film by Jerry Aronson, with commentary by Joan Baez, William F. Buckley, Ken Kesey and others:


New to Ginsberg? This deliriously animated version of "Howl" (created as part of the eponymously-titled 2010 film by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman) demonstrates the enduring socio/political impact of his work, fifty-seven years after its first controversial publication:



When:
Saturday, December 14, 2013
3-6 PM

Where:
Mapleview Towers
Community Room
51 Grove Street
Stamford, CT 06901

Contact:
Jane Wickham, 203-274-5474    

Nov 11, 2013

The Lure Of Black Friday, The Blackening Of Hearts

Fresh from his latest run for office with the Green Party of Connecticut, Richard Duffee brings to this evening's Barnes and Noble’s Open Mic program a mix of whimsical wordplay, intriguing dream-inspired writing and unflinching dissections into the irrational, yet oddly enthralling, priorities that keep us in the mutual death grip of exploitation and inequality.

In particular, when forced recently to crash a candidate forum at the Yerwood Center in order to debate five other candidates for the Board of Education, the profound association between Richard’s political insight and this latter aspect of his creative ouvre was made clear.

While others spoke in customary itemized fashion regarding budgetary, facilities allocation and other issues, Richard’s responses, as with the first volume of his cross-cultural/cross-time passages in The Slow News of Need (2008, see "Collections and Anthologies" section below), suggested an integrated and fundamental approach that subtly questioned the self-limiting assumptions implicit in the very questions posed by the representative from the Stamford Parent Teacher Council.

Rather than favoring a tony quick-fix to bullying or anxiety (like fitting student cell phones with a special teen help-line “app”), Richard proposed constructive departures from the conflict and competitive fallout associated with youth “snitch” culture that would generate so much misery to begin with, learned from his involvement in the Quaker Alternatives to Violence Project, during his years of creative writing and legal justice instruction in youth and adult detention settings in the Northeast.

With each new sermon from his satirically-charged series, “The Unified High Church of Money”—a popular and highly participatory staple at PoemAlley—Richard further explicates what he’s observed from many years in India and other countries on how the roots of the dysfunction and suffering in human affairs at all levels and ages originates with the conflicting roles we are conditioned to play from the personal, economic, social and political dimensions as members of society. Tonight being three weeks out from “Black Friday”, the example below is especially appropriate:

Liturgy #2: On Meaning
Priest: Oh, my children, I heard a horrible complaint is circulating among you. It grieves my heart to hear it.
Congregation: What is it, Father? You know we hate to see you in pain.
P: I can hardly bear to speak it, it is so foul, so over-the-top, so unworthy of you.
C: Tell us, let us bear the burden with you.
P: I’m not sure I should, Children. After all, it may only be a few of you, a few possessed by some demon, a few who are so misguided.
C: Tell us, Father, we’ll take care of them. People like that, if we see them, well, you know what we do [drawing their fingers across their throats.]
P: All right, all right, I will entrust you with it.
C: Please, Father, we hate to see you suffer.
P: I’m sure it must only be a few of you, maybe even only those of you who do not attend the services regularly, maybe even only parishioners who are not here in person today.
C: It’s all right, Father, whoever it is, we’ll deal with them.
P: Well, children, this complaint is of lack of meaning.
[A hush falls on the cathedral. Then, out of the silence:]
Parishioner: Lack of meaning? Whatever can that mean? How can someone lack meaning?
P: I have been pondering just that. Why, when there is meaning everywhere, how can someone lack it?
C: Yes, Father, explain to us.
P: I was as shocked as you, Children. I went into the holy vault to meditate. There I listened quietly to Money.
C: What did it say, Father?
P: It said, “Meaning? I give you all the meaning you will ever need. Look at all you can sell!”
C: Yes, that’s it! Of course!
P: That’s what I heard. It said, “Every exchange is meaningful. Don’t your customers find meaning in what they buy?”
C: “We do, we do!”
P: Every exchange is meaningful. Think of the joy of buying jewels! The joy of buying stocks and futures, the joy of derivatives! Do these people mean to say they do not want to give others this joy?”
C: Who are they? Tell us who they are, these selfish bastards!”
P: Oh, please, Children, let us not talk that way in this holy place. Never should those two words be joined.
C: Sorry, Father, sorry.
P: There are people who do not want to sell. But just think, if no one sells, no one can buy! And then no wonder they have no meaning!”
C: How can they be so stupid, Father?
P: This is what I went to the holy vault to understand. And the vault said, “I give you meaning every minute! Here, you want meaning? Do I not give you everything in Macy’s to sell and buy? And what of Sears? Of Walmart? Why look at Lord and Taylor! You want meaning? Look at any convenience store? What do you see there but a thousand things that people seek, all the things that fill their lives—the Coca Colas, the Cap’n Crunch, the T-shirts, the gas additives! There’s meaning everywhere!
C: Tell us where, Father!
P: Why look at any country. Say you’re in Colombia. We give you your flag, your national animal, your national song, everything you desire! Or say you’re in Singapore. We ship you things from all around the world so you can add value to them and ship them back. Meaning, meaning everywhere, in everything you touch!
A hundred years ago where was there meaning in Singapore? Now it has camera parts, computer modules, woofers and tweeters everywhere!
C: How ungrateful these people must be!
P: Yes, they can’t see what’s in front of their faces! They cannot see the joy of things!
C: They have no hearts!
P: Exactly! And we give them everything! With just a little loyalty and honesty and a little work, they can sell whatever they want! Freedom and plenty! They can sell whatever can be bought from us! And they can buy and buy! Buy anything we sell!
C: A cornucopia of plenty!
P: Yes, an endless vault! Endless and infinite! Let us pray.
C: Dear Father, let us have all the goods we can earn.
P: Yes, dear Children, and we’ll give you all the credit you can carry, and even more at times.
C: Thank you, Father, thank you.
P: Go in peace, my Children, but forget not to compete. Remember, you must earn. Only if each of us earns can others earn, and only if each of us earns can we buy. Go thou then and buy. Go forth to earn and buy. There is thy meaning.                                         

Material from “The Unified High Church of Money” is currently being adapted into a stage production by local architectural preservationist and Loft Artists Association member, Renee Kahn.

Check out Richard’s thoughts, videos, writing (including such essays as “The Common Sense of the Right to Live in the Age of Weapons of Mass Destruction” and “The Outlines of Joyce's Perception of Social Power”, as well as information on past political activities at his website www.richardduffee.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

Oct 17, 2013

Bearing Surprise And Spreading Responsibility

Beginning at 7 tonight, The Poetry Institute of New Haven presents its Fifth Annual Favorite Poem Evening, an open mic reading introduced by featured speakers Jerry Waxman, Evelyn Atreya and PoemAlley facilitator Ralph Nazareth, each sharing a selection of pieces by their particular muses.

While part of the fun is being surprised by which poet recites whose work and why, Guilford Poets Guild member Evelyn Atreya leaves a clue to some of her own inspiration through participation in an 83rd birthday celebration of Hamden native and National Medal of Art winner Donald Hall (The Back ChamberHoughton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), where she read in homage, “Meeting Professor Hall” at the Thornton Wilder Hall of Miller Library in 2011. Find out more here

In Ralph’s case you can get an idea for his preferences from this series of 2009 video interviews recorded from his home in Stamford fohttp://BentPin.net, where he articulates the wordsmith’s calling to rattle cages of complacency and convention:



See his Ferrying Secrets and On This Crust of Earth (which he edited) under the Yuganta Press link at the bottom of the page.

As tonight’s moderator and pi-New Haven Co-Director (who sometimes feels he was brought up by bears), Mark McGuire-Schwartz sees poetry as a channel for sharing warmth and humor--and with close to thirty years’ rich experience working in state government to mine for his own inspiration, Mark has placed material in Caduceus, Fairfield Review, Connecticut River Review and the Connecticut Law Journal, among other publications, as well as in the collection Loss and Laughs, Love and Fauna (CreateSpace, 2013). His newest book is 289, a book of 17s.


An eclectic celebration of the form, The Poetry Institute’s Open Mic Poetry program meets the third Thursday of each month in the warm setting of the New Haven-based Young Men’s Institute Library reading room on the second floor, beginning at 7:00 pm (please arrive early to sign up to read). Refreshments are served. 

For more information, contact The pi-New Haven at:

The Institute Library
847 Chapel Street
New Haven, CT

Oct 6, 2013

Casting Out Satan From The Mills—And The Hypo

A resident of England since 1971, where she maintains a homeopathic practice and serves as guardian of a local labyrinth and Sacred Circle, Connecticut native Kaaren Whitney returns to Stamford Monday night, October 14. as featured poet at Barnes & Noble’s Open Mic.
Besides contributing work to Painting to Poem (2006), A Book of Graces (2009) and numerous anthologies, Kaaren has read at the Halesworth Fringe Festival and open mic events around the world. A commended winner of the Fakenham Poetry Competition in 2008, Karen maintains an active online presence in the UK, including a blog for Poetry Aloud and frequent contributions to the webzine Ink, Sweat and Tears. Kaaren is also a member of the Suffolk Poetry Society.
While much of her writing is known for its focus on nature (see past postings here and here),the full continuum of her work and activities as poet, healer/health freedom activist (see her Facebook link in support of vilified vaccine researcher Andrew Wakefield) and metaphoric observer show that no matter how much we might let ourselves be lulled by the abundant wares and ways of mass industrial production, the transition from mere existence to true thriving depends on embracing the link between our experience as individual human beings and the living environment in which humanity evolved.

In its multi-layered meditation of a man atop a ladder restoring the thatch roof of a simple dwelling and the Gaia-centric purpose to which he would put it, Kaaren’s 2011 poem “Balance” builds on the anthropologically-themed “And They Made Tools” (see below), a 2009 ekphrastic piece derived from a John Tuckett cyanotype (see above, left), toward a firm advocacy for a more compassionate proportion in future between what we can do for--as opposed to to--one another and the planet:

And They Made Tools
simple at first, a stick, a sharpened bone,
extensions of coarse fingers, rough ragged
from grubbing soil to get at starch tubers,
roots for the blood clan's sustenance, once mashed,
stone pounding fibre into flat pulp,
sweeter, easier to eat.
Walking the land, they learned by feel its skin,
discovered food from the earth-speak terrain.
They found river pebbles, half cracked, thonged them
stick fashion, granting more accurate aim.
Flaked flints, 'slicers', scraped clean small mammal hides,
destined to become medicine bags, clan
clothing for these nomadic gatherers
who captured prey in nettle woven nets,
traps sprung from tree limbs, from stick covered holes.
Survival their goal, uniformity
a surety, but new ways of doing,
living, becoming tool makers took hold.
They walked the land upright.
They lived in community.
They made tools.
And they survived.

Kaaren Whitney, 2009

Though the rebel do-it-yourself movement typified by the advent of 3D printing technology looks to recharge consumerism with a more personalized form of mass production, it is the current convention of hit marathon-length “slow TV” programming in Norway that makes for a better example of Kaaren’s themes in action. 
NRK broadcasting’s counter-intuitive utilization of video—the medium that’s done more to foment a culture of distraction and creative impatience than anything else in the last 70 years—is reacquainting stressed contemporary viewers with the frantic-less pace and dedication associated with traditionally absorbing pursuits, like knitting, fishing, fire stoking and even rail travel, all presented in real-time detail, much like the field-to-kitchen table experience evoked by Kaaren’s “Berries This Year”


Keep up with Kaaren and her work on Facebook here



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

________

Additional Information:

 

The Case for Working with Your Hands, Or, Why Office Work Is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good
Matthew B. Crawford
Penguin Viking, 2011

Mark Frauenfelder
Portfolio, 2012

Carl Honore
HarperOne, 2005

The Global Heart Awakens: Humanity's Rite of Passage from the Love of Power to the Power of Love
Anodea Judith
Shift Books, 2013

The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community
David C. Korten
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006

Toolmaker Koan (novel)
John C McLoughlin
Baen, 1987

The Craftsman
Richard Sennett
Yale University Press, 2009

Sep 9, 2013

Sharing The Odyssey Of Love, Fear And Laughter

Fresh from teaching a June course on speaking at the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center, following an appearance the same month at the famous Cornelia Street Café in Manhattan, poet, radio host/voice artist, blogger and videographer Bill Buschel returns this evening to Barnes and Noble’s Open Mic after a two-year absence as featured reader.

Bill is unmistakable for the humanity and atmospheric depth he brings to bear in his writing, as well as in the weight and timing of his spoken delivery. As the former chair of the PoemAlley Advisory Committee, he has been instrumental in varying capacities over the years organizing numerous PA events, from last month’s al fresco Café Night to the popular April 2010 Green Fuse event (recorded here by Bill), both held at the Unitarian Universalist Society in Stamford.

It is his series of commentaries and interviews broadcast on Graffiti, the arts program he hosts on Hellenic Public Radio (Cosmos FM 91.5), however, that constitutes the main platform for his interest in Greek history, culture and the ancient world. Graffiti guests have included novelist Jeff Siger, author of the Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis mystery series, and Professor William A.P. Childs, co-curator of the Princeton University  archaeological exhibit “City of Gold: Tomb and Temple in Ancient Cyprus” from 2012.

Edited with a supportive, if looser, focus, Bill’s blogs, Just My Eyes: The World As I See It and Things We Need (To Make it Thru the Day), offer more eclectic and multi-media observations, from pieces on fine cooking and baseball to audio of classic folk performers, like the late Stan Rogers, and video clips of stand-out performances from cable TV.

Speaking of video, Life in a Day is one of numerous engagingly provocative pieces shot and edited by Bill in his ongoing assay of the creative and human scene in the Connecticut/New York area:


Hosted by Frank Chambers and PoemAlley's Nick Miele, the Barnes & Noble 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

Aug 12, 2013

Cutting Out To Cut A Rug of One’s Own

Following-up on her December appearance, Susan Cossette-Eng will be sharing work this evening at Barnes and Noble's Open Mic in Stamford from Peggy Sue Messed Up… and other poems, her latest chapbook coming out this fall.
As the eponymous sample below conveys, Susan’s writing often invokes a self-determinate rebuke of the frustrations of love, rejection, loss, as well as middle-age, borne of the denaturing demands—especially upon women--of growing up in the upscale suburban environment of her native Darien, where, appropriately enough, much of the original Stepford Wives was filmed in 1975 (see the movie trailer at the end of this entry).

Deemed lacking in sufficient “Stepfordosity” to play an extra even in the more tongue-in-cheek Nicole Kidman remake shot in New Canaan nearly thirty years later, Susan currently works in town as a fundraiser. 
Peggy Sue Messed Up
Maybe it was the crinolines…
Which itched.
I dunno.
Or the unrealistic expectations of perfection—
The ideal girl, with her Aquanet curls.

I gave up.                                 

I ditched the dance,
Dumped the dude in the sharkskin suit—
with his flask in the ass pocket,
his whiskey breath and mindless promises
and his cock
pressed against me during the cha cha cha.

I gave up.

Took my yellow Edsel ,
Golden chariot–
drove clear cross town
To the bluffs of Ithaka,
 overlooking the crashing sea

The glittering lights
From the heights
Of the world before me—

The prom queen is complete.
She is done.
You, Neptune, take my tiara.
I never wanted it.

I give up.

Susan is a two-time recipient of University of Connecticut’s Wallace Stevens Prize for Poetry (where she earned her MA in English studying with James Scully) and has done post-graduate work at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Besides Scully, some of her major writing influences include Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Constantine Cavafy. Keep up with her writing and thoughts at her blog, MusePalace.     

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 cooking 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