Downtown Open Mic Returns

With the recent announcement of the impending closure of Barnes and Noble bookstores in

Norwalk and elsewhere in Fairfield County, the return tomorrow evening of the Open Mic poetry program held in the chain’s largest regional bookstore in Stamford is welcome news.  Facilitated by founder Frank Chambers, prior to going on hiatus, the monthly program was previously co-hosted by PoemAlley’s own Nick Miele, who left his position last summer as president of the PA Committee to pursue teaching in South America.

Nick Miele

 All are welcome to share their own or a favorite poet’s work, or to simply come and listen. Refreshments are available from the nearby in-store café.   


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 Town Center), now beginning at 7:15 p.m.

For more information, contact:

Barnes & Noble

100 Greyrock Place, Suite H009

Stamford, Ct 06901

 203-323-1248

  


 

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

A Dalliance That Transforms God

Who we are, where we are going and how love, pain and the weight of experience determine why these questions matter to us are some of the themes constellated in the compact, yet uncommonly forthright work of Duane Esposito, tonight’s Barnes & Noble Open Mic featured poet.

A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee (2003 and 2009), Duane will read selections from Declaration of Your Bones, his latest collection (Yuganta Press, 2012), following up on Cadillac Battleship, published by Broken Tribe Press in 2005. Duane released his first poetry collection, Book of Bubba, through Brown Dog Press in 1998.

Along with PoemAlley facilitator, Ralph Nazareth, Duane teaches at Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York, where he is an Associate Professor of English. He holds an MA from SUNY Brockport and received an MFA from the University of Arizona. His writing was also selected by Diane Glancy for an Academy of American Poets Award in 1994.

For more information—and to get a feel for his sonorous reading style, click BlogTalkRadio for a 2009 interview with Marcia McNair, or check out the entry covering his previous area appearance at PoemAlley just over a year ago.

The following piece evokes the commonplace with the cosmogonic to pit mortality, regret and other undeniable realities against the still-more-undeniable need to confront, adapt, or move on. 

The Loons
by Duane Esposito

1
The rain falls steadily inside your head.
You will die quite cloistered by autistic music.

The leaves these days
drift toward home.

If you fail to fly, 
they will murder your psyche.

Do you know dalliance
transforms God into a spook? 

2
To close the distance between vast shores, 
I cease being tired of memory.

To no longer chew the bruises of history, 
I speak for the constancy of love.

To no longer wonder 
what it means to be alive,

I refuse to be dragged 
through infantile desires.

Here’s the terror I’ve had to bury: 
you left me with a paralyzed, half-body.

I announce my obsession with rain.
I’m sorry for the stardust that led to creation. 

3
Sometimes, when clouds 
touch water, you’ll soon arrive.

I reach for you-- my gone father-- 
for the blank you left behind.

But loons, once in the whitecaps of pain, 
have left these lakes for winter.

In dream they sleep near my head
& twitch against my neck.

Keep up with Duane online at www.duaneesposito.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

(Silent?) Spring 'Round The Corner

The turmoil of Hurricane Sandy, floods, drought and the inconsistent severity of recent winter storms add a layer of near-frantic anticipation to the annual ritual of turning our clocks forward an hour and its comforting auguring of seasonal transition--while it still remains relatively reliable.

With that sentiment in mind, as it might apply to rebounding Nature, individual opportunity, or engagement in building a more honestly convivial future for one another and the lattice of viability of which we are a part, all are encouraged to share in, or just support, tonight's reading of poetry in celebration of springtime renewal, or whatever is uppermost in readers' minds.

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.

Below, see how near-reckless commitment, hazardous ice spelunking and majesterial arctic vistas make the documentary Chasing Ice a humbling testimony to the engines of macro-scale seasonal change:

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

Dressing To The Nines At 7:15

In acknowledgement of National Poetry Month, this evening's featured speaker at Barnes & Noble's Open Mic is David Messineo, founder, publisher, researcher and editor of the highly-accoladed Sensations Magazine (www.sensationsmagazine.com), which will release its final regular issue on April 15, following a quarter-century's worth of celebrating freedom of speech and expression. In the thematic spirit of Formal, his 2006 collection of formal, structured and art-inspired, or ekphrastic verse, David will present his work wearing a tuxedo and invites the audience and fellow poets, if they like, to "dress to impress" for an elegant evening. 

Author of five previous collections, including First Impressions, Suburban Gothic and Restoration, David has shared his work in performance readings in 48 of the 50 states before turning 40--a feat attained by few others--and is one of fewer than 40 people in the United States to serve as a literary magazine publisher and poetry editor for over 25 years, earning him a 2009 New Jersey State Jefferson Award for Public Service and Sensations, a National American Literary Magazine Award three times from 1994 to 1996.

For his equal devotion to historical research into the craft, the New Jersey Institute of Technology gave David an Author Award in 1994 for his extensive "Rediscovering America in Poetry" series--the first multicultural collection of American poetry, spanning the years 1565 through 1700, which ran in Sensations serially from 1990 to 1999. Most recently, he also earned the 2011 Dwyer Award for Journalism in New Jersey History. 

Reflecting the magazine's uniquelly non-grant funded, independent commitment to community and social outreach, David Messineo is especially proud of Sensations' successful raising/distribution of $6,500 to the needy, including $2,400 to New Jersey-based food pantries in 2010 and 2011.   

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
Stamford Town Center
100 Greyrock Place Suite H009, Stamford, CT 06901

203-323-1248

Navigating Dual Skies: PA's Nick Miele To Lead Barnes & Noble's Open Mic

Nick Miele went to college in Long Island and joined the United States Air Force as an avionics specialist servicing F-15 fighter craft, during which time he received an MA in Aeronautical Science. Currently he is with AirCastle, LLC, a Stamford-based firm specializing in supplying aircraft to commercial fleets worldwide.

Complementing these technical pursuits, Nick will take many of his selections, shared tonight at the cafe in the Stamford Barnes & Noble, from a series of progressively more challenging PoemAlley offerings spanning the last couple of years, building to a mosaical critique of stateside life during a time of dramatic economic and political upheaval.

Currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Fairfield University, Nick will be one of the participants in the upcoming PA reading at the Edgehill Retirement Community in Stamford, scheduled for 20th at 4 PM. In the meantime, click on his own blog, Wordsmiths: A Gaggle of Poets, under "Associated Links" on the left for his latest observations, sources of inspiration and activities.   

Barnes & Noble's Open Mic night, hosted by Frank Chambers, begins the second Monday of each month at 7:15 pm in the Cooking section of the Stamford Town Center location.

For more information, contact:
Barnes & Noble
Stamford Town Center
100 Greyrock Place Suite H009
Stamford, CT 06901

203-323-1248

Nick Miele To Participate In Writers' Opening Of New Fairfield University Bookstore

Join Nick Miele and other Fairfield University students tomorrow night as they celebrate the October opening of the university's new bookstore. Located on the site of the old Borders in downtown Fairfield, the new off-campus location is operated by Barnes & Noble and will be hosting "Stories, Stories, Stories", presenting selected essays, poetry and short fiction read by Nick and others newly-enrolled in the school's MFA in Creative Writing program.

Using his contributions to PoemAlley to dissect the subtlety with which the day-to-day and large-scale political worlds trade off one another's dysfunctionality, Nick works in Stamford, where he uses his Air Force background to provide technical analysis services at Aircastle, LLC, a company that leases and sells commercial jets to air carriers worldwide.
For a sampling of his poetry and literary commentary, go here, here and here. And don't forget to check out his blog, Wordsmiths: A Gaggle of Poets under "Associated Links" on the left.




Among the highlights of the evening will be excerpts from Where the Tall Grass Grows, a novel-in-progress set in Mali by award winning writer and editor, Adele Annesi. Nick's Ridgefield-based classmate also runs a monthly online workshop on editing from her blog, Adele M. Annesi and Word for Words, LLC at http://www.adeleannesi.com/Online-Writing-Workshop.html.

When:
Wednesday, December 7, 7 pm

Where:
Fairfield University Bookstore
1499 Post Road
Fairfield, CT 06824

Phone: 203-255-7756