Singing About The Dark Times—Now And Then

In association with the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, PoemAlley celebrates the release of Tuesday Night Live (Turn of River Press, 2018) this Saturday afternoon in downtown Stamford.

Ralph Nazareth and Eleni Anastos Begetis

Hoby Rosen and Alex McDonald

The fourth in a series of PA member anthologies edited by group facilitator Ralph Nazareth, Tuesday Night will be dramatized with a series of live readings by numerous contributors both local and from the tri-state area, such as Rona Schenkerman, Cora Santaguida and Eleni Begetis Anastos, who, as co-owner of Curley’s Diner, has generously provided a regular weekly home for this uniquely dynamic gathering of poets, essayists, musicians and other artists since PoemAlley’s founding by Ann Yarmal and Catherine Ednie in the late 1990s. Over this span, the group has grown, not just in attendance, but in warmth, interchange and community, notably embodied by many departed members over the years, including Herb Davison, Alex McDonald, Hoby Rosen, Eddie Smith, Diva, and, most recently, Eva-Maria Palevich.

From 9/11, perpetual global wars, erosion of civil liberties, to the current nadir of what seems to be a comprehensively regressive time, Tuesday nights at Curley’s Diner endures as an irrepressible haven for open thought, singing and joy.

While you can scroll to the bottom of this post for further details, this is also a good time to catch up on other books produced by individual PA members over the last few years:    

Former Fairfield County resident Susan Cossette Eng’s Peggy Sue Messed Up (CreateSpace, 2017) applies the home-base theme of growing up female in a bastion of suburban conformity as a launch pad for weighing the ethics of the Atomic Age, confronting the consequences of poverty and inequality and highlighting Elizabeth Warren’s refusal to cringe before Beltway patriarchy in defense of reproductive rights, among other affecting, timely topics. Below is a video collage version of “Struldbrug at the Wine Bar” (her musings on European musical culture),  one of several engaging adaptations of her pieces posted on her Youtube channel: 

Now residing out-of-state, Susan collaborated frequently with fellow PA member Neddy Smith, a Norwalk-based musician, who has played both solo and with bands live and in the recording studio in Jazz, Funk, Brazilian, Caribbean and other genres. His positive zeal for music both as performer and as enthusiastic educator has been extended to fiction with the publication last year of Valerie Palmary: A Small-Town Girl (NedGJean Publishing, 2017). A novel of creative and entrepreneurial self-discovery in the aftermath of family tragedy, Neddy regards it as a prose vehicle to further his own and his company, NedGJean International's, commitment to "help guide young writers to follow their dreams with a passion for producing projects and (making their) dreams become a reality." He maintains a  blog called "Words and Music".

One of the earliest contributors to this blog, Enzo Malaglisi published Castelforte, his first collection, in 2017 (Xlibris), showcasing a powerful body of work dealing with desperation, love, fear, the irresistible comfort of needing things, as well as more large-scale subjects like freedom and justice—all unified by the theme of redemption. Click here to read his remarkable “At the Mercy Of a Higher Hand” from 2011.

Saturday’s Tuesday Night Live launch party is free and open to the public; refreshments will be served (and bring your lungs, too, as there will be singing).

When:
3-6 pm
Saturday
October 20, 2018

Where:
Unitarian Universalist Congregation
20 Forest Street
Stamford, CT 06901

Contact:
Ralph Nazareth
203-570-2168

“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