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

Souls Who Knew Things

Hoby Rosen in his studio at
Loft Artists Association

This evening PoemAlley will be holding a special group reading in front of Curley’s Diner to honor the memories and contributions of Herb Davison, Alex McDonald and Hoby Rosen, three cherished members who have passed away in recent years.

Fellow poets will gather to read some of their favorite pieces compiled for distribution by Veronica Jones in Columbus Park, embodying three lifetimes’ experience, moving observation and humor, to be followed by dinner inside.

Below is a tribute to Herb (killed on his way to PoemAlley five years ago), written by Curley’s co-owner, Eleni Anastos Begetis:

Herb Davison

At the end of your voyage, of your Stygian ride
Heed not the ebb tides with the death of the light-
dark rises shadows in the pond of the dead-
Of people like us, loved ones whom you left behind,
Lest you torture yourself those long days and restless nights.
But in the full moon, when the earth swims in static,
On those Tuesday nights when our club is alive,
Climb to the granite hills and look up to the sky.
In every star is the face of a poet,
In each breath of the wind is a poem.
Within our hearts there is sorrow,
Within our minds there is a word of wonder.

Even when you don't hear our electric comments to celebrate the spirits as we orbit,
The simple in life, our passion for poetry--to which you gave your life,
I know you are sure we speak of you as though you never left us,
Because your 'soul knows things,' like mine.

Hoby and Alex McDonald at Curley's

Besides their writing, the output of these men’s lives have encompassed--directly and indirectly--a remarkable range of areas, with profound impacts on family, friends, community and the region, from Hoby’s sculptural work and his co-founding of a summer camp for girls, Herb’s jewelry-making and his striking self-designed geodesic residence in Stamford, to Alex’s contribution of a state political figure via his son, Andrew J. McDonald, currently serving as Associate Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court.

Find out more about some these sorely-missed friends here.

Where:
Curley’s Diner
62 W. Park Place
(between Target and Columbus Park)

When:
Tuesday
September 2, 2014
7 pm

Stern Looks With So Much Love Behind Them

As attested to by the numerous interspersed sentiments expressed below by past and present PA members since the May 19 passing of Hobart (Hoby) Rosen, the wit, inspiring productivity and generous life experience of this eighty-nine-year-old poet, photographer/artist has inspired a swell of treasured memories among friends and creative associates of arts organizations in the Stamford area and beyond.

"He was such a lovely man. A gentle man, an artist and a man who loved life."

--Bill Buschel 

A shaper of words as much as light, bronze and other media in his Canal Street studio space at the Loft Artists Association (see the interview below beginning at 3:49), Baltimore-born Hoby initially studied film at Johns Hopkins and the University of Southern California, fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II as a nineteen-year-old infantryman (which he recounted as part of his featured presentation at Curley’s in 2012) and went on to work in the animation field (see the personable puppet characterizations in the clip from a stop-motion animated version of Hansel & Gretel near the end of this post).

While convalescing in an English hospital following the war, his extensive romantic correspondence with Norma Lipman, his cousin’s university roommate, culminated in marriage during a Manhattan  blizzard in 1948.

                                  

Less than ten years later, his traumatic wartime experiences were ultimately addressed with a tranquil, life-affirming undertaking in the form of the Point O’Pines camp for girls, located in New York’s beautiful Adirondack Mountains. Founded by Norma and Hoby, the camp is now in its fifty-seventh season and is still going strong. The galactic, long view is likewise contrasted with miracles implicit in everyday life and small-scale observation in his reading of “Questions for You”, found here as part of his multi-disciplinary Youtube page.

"He was a complete man. I shall miss him. No doubt we all will." 

                                                                                                                              

   --John O'Keefe 

Upon learning of his death, one of the many reminiscences from campers (known as “Hoby’s Girls”) and staffers perfectly represents the quiet enthusiasm and muti-layered humor for which he was so well known in Stamford: “"I never knew anyone who could pull off such stern looks with so much love behind them." After retiring from the camp, he continued his support of youth through the Horizons Art Happening program in New Canaan, where he shared his love of sculpture with children.

Predeceased by Norma, and his daughter, Emily, Hoby is remembered by by his son, Andy Rosen (Paula), daughter, Julie Bowman (Tom), and companion, Sandy Semel, along with five grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, cousins, nieces, and nephews.

"… this is a moment to reflect on the moments we each have to use our lives to the fullest and creatively not put off anything we need to do.

I met Hoby at the Artists Studios down on Canal Street - he had a studio there and patiently showed me his work - so it was very wonderful to meet him again at Curleys.  He was so artful in turning a phrase that had stark simplicity and layers of meaning.  I miss him.

Peace to you and everyone in our Curley's family."

--Renee Neely

            

   "Hoby was an amazing man. I miss him all ready. This is so sad."

--Nicholas Miele

One War's One-Month Twilight: WWII Veteran Hoby Rosen To Speak At Curley's This Tuesday

This week's featured poet and artist, Hoby Rosen, will be sharing his recollections of his military service during the grueling closing winter months of World War II in Western Europe. Launched on December 16, 1944 in a rash attempt to break up the American/British/French alliance by crippling Allied supply channels, Hitler's surprise Ardennes Offensive became more widely known as the Battle of the Bulge for the bulge it created in the Allies' front line.

Me-262 "Swallow" jet fighter-bomber

From the misery of trench foot and the historic, if ineffectual, introduction of the first jet-propelled fighter, to the melancholy of wartime holidays and the atrocity of the Malmédy Massacre, the conflict, involving the biggest engagement of the war by U.S. forces, (600,000 soldiers) and costing more than 190,000 lives all around, encapsulated the pyrrhic confusion of horror, hope, suffering, ingenuity and cruelty that characterizes all wars. 

POW massacre, Malmedy, Belgium, 1945

Hoby went on to study at Johns Hopkins and the University of Southern California, where he concentrated on writing, drama and film production.

Soldiers exchanging Christmas gifts, 1944

PoemAlley member and sculptor--with studio space at Stamford's Loft Artists Association (one of numerous art organizations with which he is affiliated), Hoby enjoys working in wax for bronze casting, though he also dabbles in treated paper, glass casting and wood. Click here to see some of his work. He can be reached at hobyart@aol.com.

PA Poet & Sculptor Hoby Rosen Shares His Work With Public At LAA Fall Event

Bronze Stoneworks II (1986)

PoemAlley participant Hoby Rosen is one of 40+ photographers, ceramicists, line artists and other creative professionals of the Loft Artists Association, opening their studios to the public this weekend. Since its inception over 30 years ago, the LAA is a non-profit cooperative, presently located in a former printing plant in the South End, committed to supporting the visual arts in Fairfield County and to educational outreach to the general public.

A graduate of Johns Hopkins and the University of Southern California, Hoby studied writing, drama and film production. He works primarily in wax for bronze casting and has work represented in galleries and shows in the CT/Westchester area, as well as in private collections.

Rebound (1993)

Tipping It In (1988)

Among his current projects are a new series of nudes in treated paper and wood, glass castings, sculptures made from electronic components, as well as dynamic figurative pieces drawing from his former background in puppet animation which replicate the elan found in today's athletes.

In addition to the LAA, Hoby is a member of the Stamford Art Association, the Greenwich Art Society, the New Canaan Society for the Arts and is also on the UCONN Stamford Arts Committee. Contact Hoby at hobyart@aol.com. 

Open Studio Hours:
Friday, November 4, 6-9pm
Saturday, November 5, Noon-6pm
Sunday, November 6, Noon-6pm

Location:
Loft Artists Association
845 Canal Street, Stamford, CT 06902

Phone/E-mail:
203-323-4153/http://www.loftartists.com/

The Open Studio is sponsored in part by: The City Arts Partnership Program Grant; Michael A. Pavia, Mayor; Harbor Point; Kim Harris; The Louis J. Kuriansky Fund; Alex & Ricki Miller; Wagner Instruments; WSTC 1400 & WNLK 1350.