Economic Justice & The Universality Of Heartache

At different times over the years serving as a lawyer, teacher and political candidate--while consistently throughout a writer and social justice activist, Richard Duffee returns to Barnes & Noble’s Open Mic as tomorrow night’s featured reader.

Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2014

Ferguson, MO, 2014

Richard’s past residence and travels in India, Nepal and numerous other countries lends universal texture to his poetry, satires, commentaries and critiques, which frequently reveal the personal heartache when the forces of culture, social policy and economics collide with human need, rights and aspirations.

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.

Watertown, MA, 2013

For more information, contact:

Barnes & Noble

100 Greyrock Place, Suite H009

Stamford, CT 06901

 203-323-1248

Poise, Power and the Pen

Committed to forums of healing, multifarious avenues of creative expression and female affirmation, this Monday’s Barnes & Noble Open Mic guest reader, Northampton, Massachusetts-based Janet Aalfs, has spent more than three decades as performer, safety/movement arts instructor, community activist (first kindled through her father’s teaching her about the civil rights movement) and published writer.

 Janet’s poetry and essays have run in numerous publications, such as Sinister Wisdom, Onion River Review,  A Fierce Brightness: 25 Years of Women's Poetry (Calyx Books, 2002) and North Atlantic Book’s 1993 Women in the Martial Arts (she also holds a a seventh-degree black belt in Shuri-ryū and a fifth-degree black belt in Modern Arnis).

Dissecting relationships, nature, love, gender violence and other topics, Janet’s collections include 1996’s Full Open (released through her own Orogeny Press) and Lubec Tides—a 2007 finalist in the Bright Hill Literary Center Chapbook Contest. Reviewing her most recent title, Bird of a Thousand Eyes (Levellers Press, 2010), Thomas Sayers Ellis admires the author’s honest and lyrical eagerness to mix schools and play with customary structure, encouraging those “… comfortable with the narrow limitations of linear approaches to ‘Subject’… to open and read with all their senses.”

Women at the Helm

Janet Aalfs

Doves rise over harbor waves as sun
ignites the dance. Quill and bone, wind
and blood, hearts lost cradled undersea

the chant alive: nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Anguish can't defeat us.
From desert forest mountain shore

through whip and gasp, rape and ash,
the lotus a bright bird soars
to interrupt the choking, to revive

the tree of life, leaf-light dreams
in children's eyes, pain their milk-teeth
grind dispersed. Wings and clouds.

We sing, though we cannot mend.
We dance, to honor death.
We witness, aligned,

to break the raging silence,
to weave this moment's breath
more fiercely, more kind.

For more samples click on VerseWrights.com and Perugia Press.

Spanning appearances at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival (which has included such protean luminaries as recently-passed poet/playwright Amiri Baraka) and Goddard College’s The Power of Words, among other venues, Janet received most recently the 2013 UMass Center for Women and Community Leadership and Advocacy in the Arts Award. She also served as poet laureate of Northampton from 2003­-2005.

Click here for an interview where she reminisces with fellow UMass alumnus Sandy Mandel on the 35th anniversary of the university’s women’s studies program, their initial interest in feminist theory and how it fostered their devotion to social and individual transformation through art.

Learn more about Janet’s ongoing supportive work in Easthampton at the Valley Women’s Martial Arts: Institute for Healing and Violence Prevention Strategies, a hub of nurturance and empowerment which she has directed since 1982.

Hosted by Frank Chambers and PoemAlley's Nick Miele, 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 7:00 p.m.

  

For more information, contact:

Barnes & Noble

100 Greyrock Place Suite H009

Stamford, CT 06901

203-323-1248

Casting Out Satan From The Mills—And The Hypo

A resident of England since 1971, where she maintains a homeopathic practice and serves as guardian of a local labyrinth and Sacred Circle, Connecticut native Kaaren Whitney returns to Stamford Monday night, October 14. as featured poet at Barnes & Noble’s Open Mic.

Besides contributing work to Painting to Poem (2006), A Book of Graces (2009) and numerous anthologies, Kaaren has read at the Halesworth Fringe Festival and open mic events around the world. A commended winner of the Fakenham Poetry Competition in 2008, Karen maintains an active online presence in the UK, including a blog for Poetry Aloud and frequent contributions to the webzine Ink, Sweat and Tears. Kaaren is also a member of the Suffolk Poetry Society.

While much of her writing is known for its focus on nature (see past postings here and here),the full continuum of her work and activities as poet, healer/health freedom activist (see her Facebook link in support of vilified vaccine researcher Andrew Wakefield) and metaphoric observer show that no matter how much we might let ourselves be lulled by the abundant wares and ways of mass industrial production, the transition from mere existence to true thriving depends on embracing the link between our experience as individual human beings and the living environment in which humanity evolved.

In its multi-layered meditation of a man atop a ladder restoring the thatch roof of a simple dwelling and the Gaia-centric purpose to which he would put it, Kaaren’s 2011 poem “Balance” builds on the anthropologically-themed “And They Made Tools” (see below), a 2009 ekphrastic piece derived from a John Tuckett cyanotype (see above, left), toward a firm advocacy for a more compassionate proportion in future between what we can do for--as opposed to to--one another and the planet:

And They Made Tools

simple at first, a stick, a sharpened bone,
extensions of coarse fingers, rough ragged
from grubbing soil to get at starch tubers,
roots for the blood clan's sustenance, once mashed,
stone pounding fibre into flat pulp,
sweeter, easier to eat.

Walking the land, they learned by feel its skin,
discovered food from the earth-speak terrain.
They found river pebbles, half cracked, thonged them
stick fashion, granting more accurate aim.
Flaked flints, 'slicers', scraped clean small mammal hides,
destined to become medicine bags, clan
clothing for these nomadic gatherers
who captured prey in nettle woven nets,
traps sprung from tree limbs, from stick covered holes.

Survival their goal, uniformity
a surety, but new ways of doing,
living, becoming tool makers took hold.
They walked the land upright.
They lived in community.
They made tools.
And they survived.

Kaaren Whitney, 2009

Though the rebel do-it-yourself movement typified by the advent of 3D printing technology looks to recharge consumerism with a more personalized form of mass production, it is the current convention of hit marathon-length “slow TV” programming in Norway that makes for a better example of Kaaren’s themes in action. 

NRK broadcasting’s counter-intuitive utilization of video—the medium that’s done more to foment a culture of distraction and creative impatience than anything else in the last 70 years—is reacquainting stressed contemporary viewers with the frantic-less pace and dedication associated with traditionally absorbing pursuits, like knitting, fishing, fire stoking and even rail travel, all presented in real-time detail, much like the field-to-kitchen table experience evoked by Kaaren’s “Berries This Year”. 

Keep up with Kaaren and her work on Facebook here. 

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

________

Additional Information:

 

The Case for Working with Your Hands, Or, Why Office Work Is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good
Matthew B. Crawford
Penguin Viking, 2011

Made by Hand: Looking for Meaning in a Throwaway World

Mark Frauenfelder

Portfolio, 2012

In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed

Carl Honore
HarperOne, 2005

The Global Heart Awakens: Humanity's Rite of Passage from the Love of Power to the Power of Love
Anodea Judith
Shift Books, 2013

The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community
David C. Korten
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006

Toolmaker Koan (novel)
John C McLoughlin
Baen, 1987

The Craftsman
Richard Sennett
Yale University Press, 2009

Waging War on the Autistic Child: The Arizona 5 and the Legacy of Baron von Munchausen
Andrew J. Wakefield
Skyhorse, 2012

TheAndrew Wakefield Story: How Big Pharma and the UK Government Destroyed a Man to Save a Flawed Vaccine Program

David L. Lewis PhD

Skyhorse Publishing, 2014 (forthcoming)

Sharing The Odyssey Of Love, Fear And Laughter

Fresh from teaching a June course on speaking at the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center, following an appearance the same month at the famous Cornelia Street Café in Manhattan, poet, radio host/voice artist, blogger and videographer Bill Buschel returns this evening to Barnes and Noble’s Open Mic after a two-year absence as featured reader.

Bill is unmistakable for the humanity and atmospheric depth he brings to bear in his writing, as well as in the weight and timing of his spoken delivery. As the former chair of the PoemAlley Advisory Committee, he has been instrumental in varying capacities over the years organizing numerous PA events, from last month’s al fresco Café Night to the popular April 2010 Green Fuse event (recorded here by Bill), both held at the Unitarian Universalist Society in Stamford.

It is his series of commentaries and interviews broadcast on Graffiti, the arts program he hosts on Hellenic Public Radio (Cosmos FM 91.5), however, that constitutes the main platform for his interest in Greek history, culture and the ancient world. Graffiti guests have included novelist Jeff Siger, author of the Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis mystery series, and Professor William A.P. Childs, co-curator of the Princeton University  archaeological exhibit “City of Gold: Tomb and Temple in Ancient Cyprus” from 2012.

Edited with a supportive, if looser, focus, Bill’s blogs, Just My Eyes: The World As I See It and Things We Need (To Make it Thru the Day), offer more eclectic and multi-media observations, from pieces on fine cooking and baseball to audio of classic folk performers, like the late Stan Rogers, and video clips of stand-out performances from cable TV.

Speaking of video, Life in a Day is one of numerous engagingly provocative pieces shot and edited by Bill in his ongoing assay of the creative and human scene in the Connecticut/New York area:

Hosted by Frank Chambers and PoemAlley's Nick Miele, 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 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

Like A Tree That’s Planted By The Water

Open Mic at Barnes & Noble welcomes award-winning poet Neil Silberblatt this Monday evening as guest reader. First drawn to the form as a student of Frank McCourt (Pulitzer Prize-winner, Angela’s Ashes), who taught English at Stuyvesant High School in New York at the time, Neil began writing his own work while attending Cornell University.

Now a New Milford resident, Neil travels around Connecticut coordinating Voices of Poetry, a multi-venue poetry and music program that has been hosted by the Minor Memorial Library in Roxbury, Gunn Memorial Library in Washington, Wooster School in Danbury and the New Britain Museum of American Art.

A contributor to VerseWisconsin, the Naugatuck River Review and other literary publications, it was from Hennen’s Observer that Neil received a nomination for the Pushcart Award, as well as the Grand Prize in its Open Community Poetry Contest for “Madison Avenue” (click here to read its efficient and unflinching commentary on how financialized trade breeds inequality and consumer narcissism). You can get a live feel for his timely social insight from this April reading held at the Hartford Public Library last April:

So Far, So Good, Neil’s 2012 collection (Lulu), will be followed later this year by Present Tense.

In addition to a March appearance at Curley’s, Neil has been the featured reader at Naugatuck Valley Community College’s Confluencia literary reading series in Waterbury and at the Wednesday Night Poetry Series in Bethel.

The choice between standing passive and standing firm in the piece below demonstrates historically how repeatedly both witnesses and perpetrators often enable one another in a cold dance of public atrocity.

Stand Your Ground

Stand your ground 
like a tree that’s planted by the water, 
near the banks 
of the North Canadian River 
this clear day in May, 
as you jostle with others 
for a good spot 
to take pictures 
of Laura and 
her 15 year old boy Lawrence* 
hanging from the bridge 
like strange fruit.Stand your ground 

by the large sycamore tree 
near City Hall in Waco 
on another day in May, 
as 17 year old Jesse,**
his body muscled
from hauling bales of hay
now naked and beaten,
baptized in coal oil,
hoisted like a flag
by his neck, and
lowered into the fire,
as the flames lick his skin
and his wordless screams fill thesmoke-filled
spring sky.
Stand your ground
near the noisy fairgrounds
by the silent railyard
as young Henry***
is placed upon a scaffold,
ten feet high,
and his body is caressed
by red hot iron brands
as kerosene is poured upon him,
and set alight,
as little ones eat fried dough
and wave banners.

Stand your ground
along an asphalt road
this dark night in June,
as James,+ his feet bound -
like a latter-day Saint Sebastian -
is driven across the back roads
of Jasper
greeting every rock
every stone
until his body
gives out.

Stand your ground
for this child,
          his skin,
          the color of
          the soil of those river banks
          the bark of that sycamore
          the lumber of that kerosene-soaked scaffold
          the dirt of that Jasper road
has not been the first
who has been laid low
for no reason.
Stand your ground 
though it quakes 
though it opens beneath you 
though it threatens to swallow you whole.

Stand your ground, 
like a tree that’s planted by the water; 
you shall not, 
no, you shall not be moved.

* - Laura Nelson was raped; she and her 15-year old son Lawrence were then hanged from a bridge over the North Canadian River on May 25, 1911. Hundreds of sightseers gathered on the bridge the following morning, and photographs of the hanging bodies were sold as postcards.

** - Jesse Washington was a 17-year old farmhand who was tortured and lynched on May 15, 1916 after he was found guilty in a one-hour long trial for the rape and murder of a wealthy 53-year-old white woman. Although Jesse signed a confession, he was by all accounts illiterate.

*** - 17-year old Henry Smith was tortured and murdered at a public, heavily attended lynching on February 1, 1893 at the Paris Fairgrounds in Paris, Texas. Six days later, Henry's stepson, William Butler, was also lynched due to suspicion that he had known, and not divulged, the whereabouts of Henry Smith after he had fled.

+ - James Byrd, Jr. was murdered by three white men in Jasper, Texas on June 7, 1998, when he was dragged behind a pick-up truck with a heavy logging chain wrapped around his ankles. Byrd was pulled along for about three miles as the truck swerved from side to side. Byrd - who reportedly remained conscious throughout most of the ordeal - was killed when his body hit the edge of a culvert, severing his right arm and head.

Hosted by Frank Chambers and PoemAlley's Nick Miele, 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 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

___

Of related interest:

Low-budget exploitation movie maestro Roger Corman is justifiably proud of The Intruder (AKA Shame), his 1962 adaptation of Charles Beaumont's intense novel dissecting the symbiotic dynamic animating power, bigotry and mass violence in a story of unreliable first appearances and unexpected sympathies in a Southern town adjusting to school desegregation:

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