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

Writing For Democracy This Evening In Norwalk

Laurel Peterson

A movement that started on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday this year, involving writers from across the country to “re-inaugurate” democracy, continues today in a three-hour program at Norwalk Community College.

Writers Resist at NCC is organized by Norwalk’s Poet Laureate Laurel Peterson and NCC professors Rebecca Hussey and Hannah Moeckel-Rieke, featuring area authors reading from their own works, or that of other admired writers who have something significant to say about the preciousness of open society and its sustenance.

 

Hannah Moeckel-Rieke

Drawing on the voices and writings of close to thirty participants, this program will include NCC President Dr. David Levinson, CT Poet Laureate Rennie McQuilkin, novelist Joanne Dobson (author of the Professor Karen Pelletier mystery series),  Santia Rene, Editor of Musings, as well as PoemAlley members Ralph Nazareth, Susan Cossette Eng (Peggy Sue Messed Up… and Other Poems [Princess Press, 2017]), Dr. Marianela Medrano and  Richard Duffee (The Slow News ofNeed [Yuganta Press, 2008]).

 

Rennie McQuilkin

In a time of growing anti-intellectualism and multi-media distraction masquerading as social discourse, Ralph makes a pointed defense in this 2009 Bent Pin interview for the invaluable necessity of poetry as a reflective and inescapably empathetic means to delve into the heart of that which affects our lives, those of others, our society and our world:

The readings will be broken up with musical interludes provided by Greg and Madeleine Golda.

Our democracy is at risk. Growing public cynicism and an alarming disdain for truth is eroding our most dearly-held democratic ideals. As writers we have tremendous power to bypass empty political discourse and focus public attention on the ideals of a free, just, and compassionate society. 

The event is free and open to the public. All are welcome. 

Where:

Norwalk Community College

East Campus Atrium
188 Richards Avenue 
Norwalk, CT

When:

4:00-7:00

Thursday, April 27^th, 2017

Contact:

203-857-7000