Kaaren Whitney: Turning Of The Year--And Turning A New Global Leaf

Tomorrow night's Open Mic speaker is Kaaren Whitney, a UK-based homeopath, who returns this month each year to the Connecticut from which she originally hails, sharing her most recent poetry and observations on the alternating tensions and acts of tenderness defining our associations with one another and the natural world.

Protected behind the furious media competition as to whether the terminal degradation of the biosphere will be irreversible in some twelve years, can be technologically remediated in thirty, is irreversible right now (or is even happening at all), lies a seemingly collective, half-conscious unwillingness to acknowledge the only fruitful responses that are as time-tested as they are unavoidable to any outcome—adaptation and reciprocity.

Kaaren's 2016 collaboration with photographer Jim Nind, The Turning Of the Year: A Book for 8 Seasons (Solstice-Equinox Press), marking the annual times honoring celestial shifts and ancient celebrations, is part of an ouvre which serenely, yet firmly draws attention to the interplay between these neglected perspectives and the dominant ones of obsessive appropriation and indifference.  

This weekend’s Typhoon Hagibis striking Japan is just the latest consequence of this current disregard for the wilderness beyond a collective solipsistic idea of a worthwhile reality, having struck Fukushima Prefecture--site of the world's largest ongoing nuclear disaster, which has been killing life in the Pacific for eight years.

Complementing her homeopathic practice in Suffolk, Kaaren has also constructed her own Labyrinth and walks this as a form of meditation, enhancing what she brings to several ritual groups.  In addition to taking part in three area poetry groups, Karen has appeared at the Halesworth Fringe Festival and has participated in poetry events as far as Australia. 

Catch up on some of her past appearances in Stamford here, here and here.

Hosted by Frank Chambers, Barnes & Noble Open Mic meets the second Monday, each month in the movie/music section on the main floor of the Stamford bookstore at 7:15 pm. For more information and directions, contact:

Barnes & Noble

100 Greyrock Place, Suite H009

Stamford, Ct 06901

 203-323-1248

The Returning And The Cherished

Opening with Kaaren Whitney reading tomorrow evening at 7:15 at Barnes & Noble's Open Mic program in the Stamford Town Center, this week features two consecutive events recognizing seasonal and foundational members of the local poetry community.

Following on two prior autumnal appearances to the area (click here and here), Kaaren, a UK resident originally from  Connecticut, practices homeopathy and is active in the English contemporary universalist community. She will be reading selections from The Turning Of the Year: A Book for 8 Seasons (Solstice-Equinox Press, 2016), a chapbook collaboration with Jim Nind of forty-four new pieces, accompanied by full-color photographs.

Among her credits as part of a body of work honoring the natural world, the environment and the urgency of our better stewardship of it, Kaaren has contributed to  Voicing Visions, a 2009 DVD/booklet release featuring assorted artists and poets, England's 2006 National Poetry Anthology and Moonwise Diary (2007 through 2009).

Kaaren has also appeared at the Halesworth Fringe Festival and open mic programs in England, the United States and Australia. Below is her reading from Aldeburgh Beach in UK’s Suffolk County of “The Coming of Light” by the late Mark Strand as part of the 2015 National Poetry Day:

Hosted by Frank Chambers, Barnes & Noble Open Mic meets the second Monday, each month in the cooking section on the main floor of the Stamford bookstore. For more information and directions, contact:

Barnes & Noble
100 Greyrock Place, Suite H009
Stamford, Ct 06901

203-323-1248

A retired professor of literature and peace activist at Nassau Community College, Ralph Nazareth has generously extended his academic chops as moderator/facilitator and creative nurturer to PoemAlley's eclectic assortment of poets and other artists for well over ten years, now, consistently introducing members to new expressive perspectives spanning art, foreign affairs, family, travel, illness and other topics through his energetic organizing of special public readings and frequent appearances of guest readers and performers at Curley's Diner.

In appreciation, the Tuesdays At Curley's group has decided to return the favor by asking Ralph to be this week's featured poet, reading work from his new collection Between Us The Long Road (Owlfeather Collective, 2017).

Ralph is managing editor of of Stamford-based Yuganta Press and president of Grace Works International, a charitable foundation involved in outreach in the developing world (proceeds from the sales of Between Us will be donated to GWI). Ralph has participated in poetry festivals in India, the Middle East, and in Latin America and has placed work in numerous books and magazines both in the United States and abroad, including Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry (University of Arkansas Press, 2010) and Multilingual Anthology: The Americas Poetry Festival of New York 2014. His collection Glass: Selected Poems, was published by El Quirófano Ediciones in Ecuador in 2015.

He uses the title poem from the latter to examine the multi-layered role of metaphor in this clip from a 2009 discussion for the Bent Pin (http://BentPin.net):

All are welcome to hear this patient, inquisitive and dedicated advocate for the importance of engaging in, and being engaged by,  the written and spoken word in upholding the human in human affairs.