Dear Friends and Poetry Lovers,
If you can get to Lowell this Friday afternoon, we'd love to see you at the reading. The MA Poetry Festival website http://masspoetry.org is full of info--just click on the Friday events and you'll see our cafe reading listed. You can sign up there.
Dharma Buns Café Reading
26-A Market Street, Lowell
Friday, October 16th at 4:00 PM
POETRY OF RESILIENCE
featuring
Lisa Beatman
Susan Eisenberg
Holly Guran
Alice Kociemba
Elizabeth Quinlan
Molly Lynn Watt
at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival
http://masspoetry.org/schedule
All events are free, reservations advised through the website
sponsored by Jamaica Pond Poets and Calliope Reading Series
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Molly Lynn Watt Reads Poetry of Resilience at Massachusetts Poetry Festival Friday, October 16 at 4 PM at Dharma Buns Cafe, Lowell
Poetry as a companion to recovery and a source for resilience in Hard Times will be celebrated at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival in Lowell October 15,16, 17 and 18. On Friday, October 16th from 4:00 to 5 PM, Molly Lynn Watt and 5 other poets from Cambridge, Boston and West Falmouth, will read poems offering hope and demonstrating personal, cultural and environmental recovery at the Dharma Buns Café, 26A Market Street in downtown Lowell.
Molly Lynn Watt, the curator of the popular Fireside Reading Series in Cambridge, uses the healing power of song in her poem RiverSing, "lined along the river banks / in vollies of quadraphonic harmonies / uniting two cities . . . a bridge of song." Lisa Beatman resonates in Hot Flash, “Sacrifice yourself / your white-hot pure self / will emerge / from the ashes / winged”. Susan Eisenberg follows her sister after she has been shot, “after 30 hours trolling the universe, / her mind finds its own way home // when it snags on — Where’s my purse? / — last memory, and rubs / to smooth the jagged edge from where it broke. / Her bag is not in her hand..! And, the very object // that catapulted this horror becomes / the hook to lash / for mooring.” Holly Guran, imagines the life of a new “mill girl” in the 19th century: “spare hand to one/ who knows the weaving — / strong warp to the soft weft / interlacing into fabric, the colors / will show, but oh, my ears ring — I pray to hear / this throbbing as music”. Alice Kociemba reads “Death of Teaticket Hardware”, a reminder of the vulnerability of small businesses in this corporate age. Elizabeth Quinlan summons a stone-burying ritual, which gave hope: “as if we believed the soil / in those backyards / of our childhood / would grow treasures”.
At the Massachusetts Poetry Festival you will hear teenagers, graduate students, slam poets, famous and emerging poets lend their voices in celebration of contemporary poetry. Some sessions feature theater or music as well as poetry. All events at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival are free, advanced reservations are advised. For a full schedule, visit www.masspoetry.org/schedule
The Lowell National Park location is easy to find. Market Street Public Parking is convenient. Public transportation from North Station runs frequently to Lowell’s Gallagher Terminal. A short ride on the Downtown Shuttle (route 18) takes you to Market Street. (End)
Molly Lynn Watt, the curator of the popular Fireside Reading Series in Cambridge, uses the healing power of song in her poem RiverSing, "lined along the river banks / in vollies of quadraphonic harmonies / uniting two cities . . . a bridge of song." Lisa Beatman resonates in Hot Flash, “Sacrifice yourself / your white-hot pure self / will emerge / from the ashes / winged”. Susan Eisenberg follows her sister after she has been shot, “after 30 hours trolling the universe, / her mind finds its own way home // when it snags on — Where’s my purse? / — last memory, and rubs / to smooth the jagged edge from where it broke. / Her bag is not in her hand..! And, the very object // that catapulted this horror becomes / the hook to lash / for mooring.” Holly Guran, imagines the life of a new “mill girl” in the 19th century: “spare hand to one/ who knows the weaving — / strong warp to the soft weft / interlacing into fabric, the colors / will show, but oh, my ears ring — I pray to hear / this throbbing as music”. Alice Kociemba reads “Death of Teaticket Hardware”, a reminder of the vulnerability of small businesses in this corporate age. Elizabeth Quinlan summons a stone-burying ritual, which gave hope: “as if we believed the soil / in those backyards / of our childhood / would grow treasures”.
At the Massachusetts Poetry Festival you will hear teenagers, graduate students, slam poets, famous and emerging poets lend their voices in celebration of contemporary poetry. Some sessions feature theater or music as well as poetry. All events at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival are free, advanced reservations are advised. For a full schedule, visit www.masspoetry.org/schedule
The Lowell National Park location is easy to find. Market Street Public Parking is convenient. Public transportation from North Station runs frequently to Lowell’s Gallagher Terminal. A short ride on the Downtown Shuttle (route 18) takes you to Market Street. (End)
Jim Kates & Marilène Phipps-Kettlewell feature Tuesday October 20, 2009 • 7:30 pm
Cambridge Cohousing Presents
The Fireside Reading Series
Molly Lynn Watt, Curator
JIM KATES is a poet, literary translator and the president and co-director of Zephyr Press, a non-profit press that focuses on contemporary works in translation from Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia. He translated The Score of the Game by Tatiana Shcherbina, Say Thank You by Mikhail Aizenberg and When a Poet Sees a Chestnut Tree by Jean-Pierre Rosnay. He is the translation editor of Contemporary Russian Poetry, and the editor of In the Grip of Strange Thoughts: Russian Poetry in a New Era. He co-translated three books of Latin American poetry, and has a chapbook of his own poems, Mappemonde (Oyster River Press). He is president of the American Literary Translators Association. See www.zephyrpress.org.
MARILÈNE PHIPPS-KETTLEWELL is a painter, a poet and a short story writer who was born and grew up in Haiti. She has held fellowships at the Guggenheim Foundation, the Bunting Institute, the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research and the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University, and received a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts. In 1993, she won the Grolier prize for poetry. Her poetry collection Crossroads and Unholy Water (Southern Illinois University Press, 2000) won the 1999 Crab Orchard Poetry Prize (also, finalist for the Walt Whitman prize from the Academy of American Poets). Her poetry was anthologized in New Caribbean Poetry (Carcanet Press Ltd, England), in Sisters of Caliban: Contemporary Women Poets of the Caribbean (Azul Editions, 1996) and The Beacon Best of 1999 (Beacon Press), and has appeared in magazines such as Callaloo, Ploughshares and River Styx. Phipps-Kettlewell’s short story collection, The House of Fossil, was a 2008 finalist for the Flannery O’Connor prize from the University of Georgia Press and for the 2007 Iowa Short Fiction Award from the University of Iowa; her short fiction was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2003, as well as listed in The Best American Short Stories 2001. See www.marilenephipps.com.
The reading begins with a short open mike. Come at 7 PM to help set up, sign up for open mike and nosh and schmooze. Following the reading you are invited to a wine and cheese reception. (A donation of $3 is requested to help with the cost.)
The Fireside Reading Committee is Molly Lynn Watt, curator, Richard Curran, webmagician, plus Jenise Aminoff, Vinnie D’Orio, Jim Foritano, Lolita Paiewonsky, Ruby Poltorak, Elizabeth Quinlan, Julie Rochlin, Barbara Thomas and Dan Lynn Watt. Thanks to many others for help on logistics, and the writers who come month after month. The reading is held at Cambridge Co-Housing, 175 Richdale Ave. in Cambridge, 3 blocks from the Red Line stop at Porter Square. A request to the City of Cambridge allows out-of-town visitors to park on Richdale Avenue from 6:30-10:30 PM. Contact Molly Lynn Watt, 617-354-8242, mollywatt@comcast.net or Jenise Aminoff, 617-576-2004, jenise@alum.mit.edu, or www.cambridgecohousing.org/Fireside/index.html
The Fireside Reading Series
Molly Lynn Watt, Curator
JIM KATES is a poet, literary translator and the president and co-director of Zephyr Press, a non-profit press that focuses on contemporary works in translation from Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia. He translated The Score of the Game by Tatiana Shcherbina, Say Thank You by Mikhail Aizenberg and When a Poet Sees a Chestnut Tree by Jean-Pierre Rosnay. He is the translation editor of Contemporary Russian Poetry, and the editor of In the Grip of Strange Thoughts: Russian Poetry in a New Era. He co-translated three books of Latin American poetry, and has a chapbook of his own poems, Mappemonde (Oyster River Press). He is president of the American Literary Translators Association. See www.zephyrpress.org.
MARILÈNE PHIPPS-KETTLEWELL is a painter, a poet and a short story writer who was born and grew up in Haiti. She has held fellowships at the Guggenheim Foundation, the Bunting Institute, the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research and the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University, and received a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts. In 1993, she won the Grolier prize for poetry. Her poetry collection Crossroads and Unholy Water (Southern Illinois University Press, 2000) won the 1999 Crab Orchard Poetry Prize (also, finalist for the Walt Whitman prize from the Academy of American Poets). Her poetry was anthologized in New Caribbean Poetry (Carcanet Press Ltd, England), in Sisters of Caliban: Contemporary Women Poets of the Caribbean (Azul Editions, 1996) and The Beacon Best of 1999 (Beacon Press), and has appeared in magazines such as Callaloo, Ploughshares and River Styx. Phipps-Kettlewell’s short story collection, The House of Fossil, was a 2008 finalist for the Flannery O’Connor prize from the University of Georgia Press and for the 2007 Iowa Short Fiction Award from the University of Iowa; her short fiction was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2003, as well as listed in The Best American Short Stories 2001. See www.marilenephipps.com.
The reading begins with a short open mike. Come at 7 PM to help set up, sign up for open mike and nosh and schmooze. Following the reading you are invited to a wine and cheese reception. (A donation of $3 is requested to help with the cost.)
The Fireside Reading Committee is Molly Lynn Watt, curator, Richard Curran, webmagician, plus Jenise Aminoff, Vinnie D’Orio, Jim Foritano, Lolita Paiewonsky, Ruby Poltorak, Elizabeth Quinlan, Julie Rochlin, Barbara Thomas and Dan Lynn Watt. Thanks to many others for help on logistics, and the writers who come month after month. The reading is held at Cambridge Co-Housing, 175 Richdale Ave. in Cambridge, 3 blocks from the Red Line stop at Porter Square. A request to the City of Cambridge allows out-of-town visitors to park on Richdale Avenue from 6:30-10:30 PM. Contact Molly Lynn Watt, 617-354-8242, mollywatt@comcast.net or Jenise Aminoff, 617-576-2004, jenise@alum.mit.edu, or www.cambridgecohousing.org/Fireside/index.html
Saturday, October 10, 2009
The Fireside Reading Series 2009-2010 Schedule
CAMBRIDGE COHOUSING PRESENTS
THE FIRESIDE READING SERIES
Fall 2009 – Spring 2010
Tuesday
September 29
7:30 PM
Catherine Wang Hsu and Li Mo
Tuesday
October 20
7:30 PM
Jim Kates and Marilène Phipps-Kettlewell
Tuesday
December 1
7:30 PM
Chloe Garcia Roberts and Richard Hoffman
Tuesday
January 12
7:30 PM
Henry Braun and Lainie Senechal
Tuesday
February 2
7:30 PM
Dorian Brooks, Robert K. Johnson and
Gayle Roby
Tuesday
March 2
7:30 PM
Jean Mason and Norman Waksler
Tuesday
April 13
7:30 PM
Christine Casson and Dan Tobin
Tuesday
May 4
7:30 PM
Sam Cornish, Boston Poet Laureate and
Jean-Dany Joachim, Cambridge Poet Populist
Refreshments are served before and after each reading, starting at 7 PM
For further information contact Molly Lynn Watt, Curator, 617-354-8242, mollywattt@comcast.net or go tohttp://www.cambridgecohousing.org/fireside/index.html.
THE FIRESIDE READING SERIES
Fall 2009 – Spring 2010
Tuesday
September 29
7:30 PM
Catherine Wang Hsu and Li Mo
Tuesday
October 20
7:30 PM
Jim Kates and Marilène Phipps-Kettlewell
Tuesday
December 1
7:30 PM
Chloe Garcia Roberts and Richard Hoffman
Tuesday
January 12
7:30 PM
Henry Braun and Lainie Senechal
Tuesday
February 2
7:30 PM
Dorian Brooks, Robert K. Johnson and
Gayle Roby
Tuesday
March 2
7:30 PM
Jean Mason and Norman Waksler
Tuesday
April 13
7:30 PM
Christine Casson and Dan Tobin
Tuesday
May 4
7:30 PM
Sam Cornish, Boston Poet Laureate and
Jean-Dany Joachim, Cambridge Poet Populist
Refreshments are served before and after each reading, starting at 7 PM
For further information contact Molly Lynn Watt, Curator, 617-354-8242, mollywattt@comcast.net or go tohttp://www.cambridgecohousing.org/fireside/index.html.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Spread the word! Mass Poetry Festival 15 days away! Oct 15, 16, 17, 18
Dear Poet and Poetry Supporter,
We are just 15 days from the state-wide opening events of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Many of our writing workshops on Saturday are sold out; if you're interested, get your tickets now and tell your friends to do the same. The Poetry Fest Sessions in Cambridge on Sunday evening has almost half of its 100 seats already reserved. The Saturday evening reading with Louise Gluck and Robert Pinsky followed by Ann Waldman and Afaa Michael Weaver with 500 seats already has 267 seats reserved. We can make sure there are more seats available for a large event but only if we know in advance. So please sign up and get your friends to do the same.
Festival Schedule
Thurs (15th)
Fri (16th)
Sat (17th)
Sun (18th)
View all events
In last week's email we talked about all of the events state-wide on Thursday night. Today we're going to talk about our exciting program on Friday in Lowell. It starts with workshops for more 200 high school students from all over the state. At 1:30 a select group of high school poets will read their work and compete for the prize of reading the next day at some of our larger readings. This reading of some of the best young poets in the state is open to the public; get your tickets today:
http://highschoolpoets.eventbrite.com/
The same afternoon, college poets are taking over Lowell City Hall. As guests of the city, college poets will be read their work at 3:00, with undergraduates from UMass Lowell, UMass Boston, Tufts, Salem State, Fitchburg State, Holy Cross and WPI participating. This is open to the public. Get your tickets to the intercollegiate reading online now: http://intercollegiate.eventbrite.com/
Following the reading, there will be two writing workshops, one for undergraduate college poets and one for poets in Master of Fine Arts in Writing programs around the state:
College: Developing a writing community
Jill McDonough (Moderator), Fred Marchant, Jennifer Fleisher, Cassandra Cleghorn
Life after the MFA
Stephen Cramer (Moderator), Joan Houlihan, Jeffrey Levine, Joyce Peseroff
These workshops are for undergraduate and MFA students only. At 6:00, the MFA poets will read for the public - also at City Hall, 375 Merrimack Street, Lowell - and everyone is welcome to attend. Get your tickets today: http://mfa.eventbrite.com/
Friday Evening
The evening features a major Festival presentation in collaboration with the Urban Village Arts Series at 7:30 at Lowell High School Auditorium, 50 French Street. Headlining the event will be Michael Casey, Caleb Neelon, Capoeira Rosa Rubra/Mestre Calango, and poet Jessica Smith. Get your tickets today: http://uvas.eventbrite.com/
Lowell Poetry Network member Dave Robinson created the Urban Village Arts Series (UVAS) in downtown Lowell after witnessing poet Quincy Troupe's Artists on the Cutting Edge program at the Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, in California. Troupe em-ceed each of his events (4 Thursdays in April for 11 years) and always presented a fiction writer, a musician, and a poet to end the evening. When Robinson moved back to his hometown of Lowell he joined the Lowell Poetry Network. In its first few seasons, UVAS has partnered with UMass Lowell, the Lowell Heritage Partnership, the Cultural Organization of Lowell to Brew'd Awakening Coffehaus, Bootstrap Productions, Lowell National Historical Park and the Lowell Cultural Council.
For this year's Massachusetts Poetry Festival UVAS has called together poet Jessica Smith, graffiti artist/muralist Caleb Neelon, Mestre Calango of Capoeira Rosa Rubra and poet Michael Casey (Yale Younger Poet award winner) to deliver an eclectic and powerful set of performances. We are excited to announce that Christopher Lydon will be our esteemed em-cee!
What You Can Do
Register to attend
Spread the Word [print this poster]
Donate
UVAS is a free event! UVAS is brought to you by the Lowell Poetry Network, Bootstrap Productions, Lowell Cultural Council, the Cultural Organization of Lowell, UMass Lowell Office of Community and Cultural Affairs, Mary Bacigalupo Fund, Lowell Heritage Partnership, Lowell: the Flowering City, the ghost of Renovation Journal and private donations. Special thanks to Brew'd Awakening Coffeehouse for catering this year's shows. Get your tickets today:
http://uvas.eventbrite.com/
Poets with New Books - All Afternoon Saturday
Finally, we would like to draw your attention to the unusual marathon sequential reading that will start at 11:45 a.m. on Saturday in Lowell. 28 Massachusetts poets each of whom has published a new full length book of poetry will be reading from their new books, one after the other at Barnes & Noble Downtown UMass Lowell Bookstore, 151 Merrimack St. For a full line up of all the participating poets and their times to read - and to reserve a seat - please click here to get a ticket:
http://sequential.eventbrite.com/
While they are reading, there will be a table at the Small Press Fair where we will be selling their books. So check out the amazing list of poets, pick your times to listen to them, and come by the Small Press Fair first to purchase their new books. Read more about the Small Press Fair here.
And as always, please spread the word about the Festival to your friends. And click here to make a donation - we now have less than $2,000 left to raise to fully fund the Festival!
Thank you for everything you do for poetry.
The Massachusetts Poetry Festival Organizing Committee
Michael Ansara
Charles Coe
Suzz Cromwell
Derek Fenner
Ryan Gallagher
Chloe Garcia-Roberts
Jacquelyn Malone
Paul Marion
Nicco Mele
LZ Nunn
Dave Robinson
Walter Wright
We are just 15 days from the state-wide opening events of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Many of our writing workshops on Saturday are sold out; if you're interested, get your tickets now and tell your friends to do the same. The Poetry Fest Sessions in Cambridge on Sunday evening has almost half of its 100 seats already reserved. The Saturday evening reading with Louise Gluck and Robert Pinsky followed by Ann Waldman and Afaa Michael Weaver with 500 seats already has 267 seats reserved. We can make sure there are more seats available for a large event but only if we know in advance. So please sign up and get your friends to do the same.
Festival Schedule
Thurs (15th)
Fri (16th)
Sat (17th)
Sun (18th)
View all events
In last week's email we talked about all of the events state-wide on Thursday night. Today we're going to talk about our exciting program on Friday in Lowell. It starts with workshops for more 200 high school students from all over the state. At 1:30 a select group of high school poets will read their work and compete for the prize of reading the next day at some of our larger readings. This reading of some of the best young poets in the state is open to the public; get your tickets today:
http://highschoolpoets.eventbrite.com/
The same afternoon, college poets are taking over Lowell City Hall. As guests of the city, college poets will be read their work at 3:00, with undergraduates from UMass Lowell, UMass Boston, Tufts, Salem State, Fitchburg State, Holy Cross and WPI participating. This is open to the public. Get your tickets to the intercollegiate reading online now: http://intercollegiate.eventbrite.com/
Following the reading, there will be two writing workshops, one for undergraduate college poets and one for poets in Master of Fine Arts in Writing programs around the state:
College: Developing a writing community
Jill McDonough (Moderator), Fred Marchant, Jennifer Fleisher, Cassandra Cleghorn
Life after the MFA
Stephen Cramer (Moderator), Joan Houlihan, Jeffrey Levine, Joyce Peseroff
These workshops are for undergraduate and MFA students only. At 6:00, the MFA poets will read for the public - also at City Hall, 375 Merrimack Street, Lowell - and everyone is welcome to attend. Get your tickets today: http://mfa.eventbrite.com/
Friday Evening
The evening features a major Festival presentation in collaboration with the Urban Village Arts Series at 7:30 at Lowell High School Auditorium, 50 French Street. Headlining the event will be Michael Casey, Caleb Neelon, Capoeira Rosa Rubra/Mestre Calango, and poet Jessica Smith. Get your tickets today: http://uvas.eventbrite.com/
Lowell Poetry Network member Dave Robinson created the Urban Village Arts Series (UVAS) in downtown Lowell after witnessing poet Quincy Troupe's Artists on the Cutting Edge program at the Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, in California. Troupe em-ceed each of his events (4 Thursdays in April for 11 years) and always presented a fiction writer, a musician, and a poet to end the evening. When Robinson moved back to his hometown of Lowell he joined the Lowell Poetry Network. In its first few seasons, UVAS has partnered with UMass Lowell, the Lowell Heritage Partnership, the Cultural Organization of Lowell to Brew'd Awakening Coffehaus, Bootstrap Productions, Lowell National Historical Park and the Lowell Cultural Council.
For this year's Massachusetts Poetry Festival UVAS has called together poet Jessica Smith, graffiti artist/muralist Caleb Neelon, Mestre Calango of Capoeira Rosa Rubra and poet Michael Casey (Yale Younger Poet award winner) to deliver an eclectic and powerful set of performances. We are excited to announce that Christopher Lydon will be our esteemed em-cee!
What You Can Do
Register to attend
Spread the Word [print this poster]
Donate
UVAS is a free event! UVAS is brought to you by the Lowell Poetry Network, Bootstrap Productions, Lowell Cultural Council, the Cultural Organization of Lowell, UMass Lowell Office of Community and Cultural Affairs, Mary Bacigalupo Fund, Lowell Heritage Partnership, Lowell: the Flowering City, the ghost of Renovation Journal and private donations. Special thanks to Brew'd Awakening Coffeehouse for catering this year's shows. Get your tickets today:
http://uvas.eventbrite.com/
Poets with New Books - All Afternoon Saturday
Finally, we would like to draw your attention to the unusual marathon sequential reading that will start at 11:45 a.m. on Saturday in Lowell. 28 Massachusetts poets each of whom has published a new full length book of poetry will be reading from their new books, one after the other at Barnes & Noble Downtown UMass Lowell Bookstore, 151 Merrimack St. For a full line up of all the participating poets and their times to read - and to reserve a seat - please click here to get a ticket:
http://sequential.eventbrite.com/
While they are reading, there will be a table at the Small Press Fair where we will be selling their books. So check out the amazing list of poets, pick your times to listen to them, and come by the Small Press Fair first to purchase their new books. Read more about the Small Press Fair here.
And as always, please spread the word about the Festival to your friends. And click here to make a donation - we now have less than $2,000 left to raise to fully fund the Festival!
Thank you for everything you do for poetry.
The Massachusetts Poetry Festival Organizing Committee
Michael Ansara
Charles Coe
Suzz Cromwell
Derek Fenner
Ryan Gallagher
Chloe Garcia-Roberts
Jacquelyn Malone
Paul Marion
Nicco Mele
LZ Nunn
Dave Robinson
Walter Wright
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Catherine Wang Hsu and Li Mo Feature Tuesday September 29, 2009 • 7:30 pm
CAMBRIDGE COHOUSING PRESENTS
THE FIRESIDE READING SERIES
MOLLY LYNN WATT, CURATOR
CATHERINE WANG HSU has been a professional businesswoman, an entrepreneur, and an educator. She has been a daughter, a wife, and a mother. She is Chinese and American and has traveled the world both physically and spiritually. Her recent collection of poetry, Shadows and Light was published by lulu.com. Her poems have appeared in Lyric Somerville (The Somerville News) and the Goose River Anthology. She has been a featured reader for Outloud at the Beebee Estate, sponsored by the Melrose Cultural Council, and the Osher Life Long Learning Institute at UMass Boston. Her work has been presented on Digital Storytelling for Malden Community Access TV and won an award from Mystic Valley Elder Services.
LI MO, (also known as LI MIN MO), was born in Shanghai, escaped from China with her family in 1952 and eventually made her way to the U.S., coming of age in New York City during the 1960s. She holds an M.A. from Goddard and an M.F.A. from Emerson. For over 30 years she has lived in Cambridge where she raised three children and developed an outstanding reputation as a professional storyteller, award-winning educator and artist. Her work has been supported by many awards and grants. Since 1982 she's been on the roster of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She is a long-time active member of Streetfeet Women, a performers and writers collective, and taught Storytelling at Lesley University for 17 years. Her storytelling has taken her across United States, as well as to Singapore, Shanghai and Beijing. Her just-published memoir, Spirit Bridges, tells an intimate story of a young Chinese American woman facing political persecution, sexual assault, racism, poverty, disabilities and the immigrant experience. It is also a tribute to her mother, one of China's first female journalists in the 1940s. Mo’s storytelling and poetry leads the reader through her life, as she gains self-knowledge, joy and a profound commitment to optimism even in her darkest moments.
The reading begins with a short open mike. Come at 7 PM to help set up, sign up for open mike and nosh and schmooze. Following the reading you are invited to a wine and cheese reception. (A donation of $3 is requested to help with the cost.)
The Fireside Reading Committee is Molly Lynn Watt, curator, Richard Curran, webmagician, plus Jenise Aminoff, Vinnie D’Orio, Jim Foritano, Lolita Paiewonsky, Ruby Poltorak, Elizabeth Quinlan, Julie Rochlin, Barbara Thomas and Dan Lynn Watt. Thanks to many others for help on logistics, and the writers who come month after month. The reading is held at Cambridge Co-Housing, 175 Richdale Ave. in Cambridge, 3 blocks from the Red Line stop at Porter Square. A request to the City of Cambridge allows out-of-town visitors to park on Richdale Avenue from 6:30-10:30 PM. Contact Molly Lynn Watt, 617-354-8242, mollywatt@comcast.net or Jenise Aminoff, 617-576-2004, jenise@alum.mit.edu, or www.cambridgecohousing.org/Fireside/index.html
THE FIRESIDE READING SERIES
MOLLY LYNN WATT, CURATOR
CATHERINE WANG HSU has been a professional businesswoman, an entrepreneur, and an educator. She has been a daughter, a wife, and a mother. She is Chinese and American and has traveled the world both physically and spiritually. Her recent collection of poetry, Shadows and Light was published by lulu.com. Her poems have appeared in Lyric Somerville (The Somerville News) and the Goose River Anthology. She has been a featured reader for Outloud at the Beebee Estate, sponsored by the Melrose Cultural Council, and the Osher Life Long Learning Institute at UMass Boston. Her work has been presented on Digital Storytelling for Malden Community Access TV and won an award from Mystic Valley Elder Services.
LI MO, (also known as LI MIN MO), was born in Shanghai, escaped from China with her family in 1952 and eventually made her way to the U.S., coming of age in New York City during the 1960s. She holds an M.A. from Goddard and an M.F.A. from Emerson. For over 30 years she has lived in Cambridge where she raised three children and developed an outstanding reputation as a professional storyteller, award-winning educator and artist. Her work has been supported by many awards and grants. Since 1982 she's been on the roster of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She is a long-time active member of Streetfeet Women, a performers and writers collective, and taught Storytelling at Lesley University for 17 years. Her storytelling has taken her across United States, as well as to Singapore, Shanghai and Beijing. Her just-published memoir, Spirit Bridges, tells an intimate story of a young Chinese American woman facing political persecution, sexual assault, racism, poverty, disabilities and the immigrant experience. It is also a tribute to her mother, one of China's first female journalists in the 1940s. Mo’s storytelling and poetry leads the reader through her life, as she gains self-knowledge, joy and a profound commitment to optimism even in her darkest moments.
The reading begins with a short open mike. Come at 7 PM to help set up, sign up for open mike and nosh and schmooze. Following the reading you are invited to a wine and cheese reception. (A donation of $3 is requested to help with the cost.)
The Fireside Reading Committee is Molly Lynn Watt, curator, Richard Curran, webmagician, plus Jenise Aminoff, Vinnie D’Orio, Jim Foritano, Lolita Paiewonsky, Ruby Poltorak, Elizabeth Quinlan, Julie Rochlin, Barbara Thomas and Dan Lynn Watt. Thanks to many others for help on logistics, and the writers who come month after month. The reading is held at Cambridge Co-Housing, 175 Richdale Ave. in Cambridge, 3 blocks from the Red Line stop at Porter Square. A request to the City of Cambridge allows out-of-town visitors to park on Richdale Avenue from 6:30-10:30 PM. Contact Molly Lynn Watt, 617-354-8242, mollywatt@comcast.net or Jenise Aminoff, 617-576-2004, jenise@alum.mit.edu, or www.cambridgecohousing.org/Fireside/index.html
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Molly Lynn Watt reads at first presentation of The Poet Populist Reading Series on Sept. 14 at 7 pm at the Cambridge Arts Council
A reading Series at the Cambridge Arts Council every two months featuring poets, and writers of Cambridge, and on occasion special guests. The first presentation is scheduled for Monday September 14, 2009, 7:00 PM. Each presentation will be filmed with the support of CCTV to be aired at the station on future dates. Presented by Jean-Dany Joachim
Molly Lynn Watt, an educator and a poet, curates Fireside Monthly Reading Series, now in its 10th year, serves as poetry editor of HILR Review and Bagels with the Bards Anthologies 1, 2, 3 & 4. She and Daniel Lynn Watt created and perform George & Ruth: Songs and Letters of the Spanish Civil War, published on CD, with script to be published later this year by Cervena Barva Press. In 2007 Ibbetson Street Press published Shadow People. She is currently writing a series of poems set in the Civil Rights Movement, is published widely, reads at many venues and was a finalist for the inaugural Poet Populist position in Cambridge.
Philip Burnham grew up in New England, served as Vice Consul in Marseille, France, under JFK, then spend the balance of his professional life teaching Medieval History in the Boston area. His poems have appeared in a number of literary journals, including The Aurorean an Lyric, and one was recently read on the Writer’s Almanac. I have published four books of poetry, the most recent, A Careful Scattering (Cervena Barva Press, 2007).
Marcia Ross has lived in Scotland, England, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia, and now resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has worked as a radio and print journalist, an antiques dealer, a waitress, typist, editor, and farm stand cashier. She supports a distinguished scientist at MIT and teaches English Literature part time at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her poems and essays have appeared in Vanguard, Halifax Magazine, The Fourth Estate Newspaper, Canadian Antiques & Arts Review, and The Dalhousie Review. Ms Ross recently completed a novel, Leda and the Lake, and is working on a collection of poems.
John Clifford is a Vietnam veteran and native of Somerville. While he was in Vietnam’s DMZ, he wrote several poems and left with a Purple Heart. After living in Cambridge for a while, he bought the Green Street Grill, which he owned and managed for 20 years. The creator and director of the Central Square World Fair, he has always been an advocate for the arts and the community.
MARILÈNE PHIPPS-KETTLEWELL is a painter, a poet and a short story writer who was born and grew up in Haiti. Her website can be viewed at www.marilenephipps.com. She has held fellowships at the Guggenheim Foundation, and at the Bunting Institute, the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research and the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University, and has been a recipient of a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts. In 1993, she won the Grolier prize for poetry. Her poetry collection Crossroads and Unholy Water (Southern Illinois University Press, 2000) won the 1999 Crab Orchard Poetry Prize (also a finalist for the Walt Whitman prize from the Academy of American Poets). Her poetry was published in England by Carcanet Press Ltd, England in the anthology of seven Caribbean poets titled, “New Caribbean Poetry”.
Molly Lynn Watt, an educator and a poet, curates Fireside Monthly Reading Series, now in its 10th year, serves as poetry editor of HILR Review and Bagels with the Bards Anthologies 1, 2, 3 & 4. She and Daniel Lynn Watt created and perform George & Ruth: Songs and Letters of the Spanish Civil War, published on CD, with script to be published later this year by Cervena Barva Press. In 2007 Ibbetson Street Press published Shadow People. She is currently writing a series of poems set in the Civil Rights Movement, is published widely, reads at many venues and was a finalist for the inaugural Poet Populist position in Cambridge.
Philip Burnham grew up in New England, served as Vice Consul in Marseille, France, under JFK, then spend the balance of his professional life teaching Medieval History in the Boston area. His poems have appeared in a number of literary journals, including The Aurorean an Lyric, and one was recently read on the Writer’s Almanac. I have published four books of poetry, the most recent, A Careful Scattering (Cervena Barva Press, 2007).
Marcia Ross has lived in Scotland, England, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia, and now resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has worked as a radio and print journalist, an antiques dealer, a waitress, typist, editor, and farm stand cashier. She supports a distinguished scientist at MIT and teaches English Literature part time at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her poems and essays have appeared in Vanguard, Halifax Magazine, The Fourth Estate Newspaper, Canadian Antiques & Arts Review, and The Dalhousie Review. Ms Ross recently completed a novel, Leda and the Lake, and is working on a collection of poems.
John Clifford is a Vietnam veteran and native of Somerville. While he was in Vietnam’s DMZ, he wrote several poems and left with a Purple Heart. After living in Cambridge for a while, he bought the Green Street Grill, which he owned and managed for 20 years. The creator and director of the Central Square World Fair, he has always been an advocate for the arts and the community.
MARILÈNE PHIPPS-KETTLEWELL is a painter, a poet and a short story writer who was born and grew up in Haiti. Her website can be viewed at www.marilenephipps.com. She has held fellowships at the Guggenheim Foundation, and at the Bunting Institute, the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research and the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University, and has been a recipient of a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts. In 1993, she won the Grolier prize for poetry. Her poetry collection Crossroads and Unholy Water (Southern Illinois University Press, 2000) won the 1999 Crab Orchard Poetry Prize (also a finalist for the Walt Whitman prize from the Academy of American Poets). Her poetry was published in England by Carcanet Press Ltd, England in the anthology of seven Caribbean poets titled, “New Caribbean Poetry”.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Molly Lynn Watt, Elizabeth Quilan and Edie Aronowitz Mueller feature at Newton Public Library Poetry Series Kickoff, September 8, 2009 at 7 pm
The 2009-2010 poetry series will open on Tuesday, September 8 at 7:00 pm and will feature poets Molly Lynn Watt, Elizabeth Quinlan and Edie Aronowitz Mueller. Their readings will be followed by an open mic with a limit of one poem per person. Come early to sign up for the open mic; limited slots are available, time permitting. For more information visit http://www.newtonfreelibrarypoetryseries.blogspot.com/. The series is facilitated by Doug Holder of Ibbetson Street Press.
Molly Lynn Watt is a progressive educator for peace and justice, as well as the curator for the monthly Fireside Poetry Reading Series. Her collection of poetry, Shadow People, was published in 2007. A visual artist specializing in the book arts, Elizabeth Quinlan's recent work, Stories of the Grandmother, a sculpture/book, is a collection of collages, found objects, photographs and stories. Edie Aronowitz Mueller's poems have won numerous awards. Her first book, The Fat Girl and Other Poems, was published in 2008.
Molly Lynn Watt is a progressive educator for peace and justice, as well as the curator for the monthly Fireside Poetry Reading Series. Her collection of poetry, Shadow People, was published in 2007. A visual artist specializing in the book arts, Elizabeth Quinlan's recent work, Stories of the Grandmother, a sculpture/book, is a collection of collages, found objects, photographs and stories. Edie Aronowitz Mueller's poems have won numerous awards. Her first book, The Fat Girl and Other Poems, was published in 2008.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Where Have I Been?
My wonderful new macbook has had an intermittent problem with accessing the internet, hospitalized for replacement parts, it now seems to work... I have missed posting the spring Fireside Readings, and readings I have been involved in... sometimes Facebook is just easier to use. But now all is up and running... I will try to stay current with my upcoming events from here on out.
Sept 8th, Tuesday, I read at the Newton Library at 7
Sept 14th, Monday, I read at the Cambridge CAC Gallery at 7
Join me there for some new poems on civil rights, perhaps my new poem about attending a dineh wedding of a friend in her grandmother's hogan will be ready to try out. I'd love to see you!
Sept 8th, Tuesday, I read at the Newton Library at 7
Sept 14th, Monday, I read at the Cambridge CAC Gallery at 7
Join me there for some new poems on civil rights, perhaps my new poem about attending a dineh wedding of a friend in her grandmother's hogan will be ready to try out. I'd love to see you!
Lydia Awarded Gates Millenium!
My granddaughter, Lydia, is the First CRLS Senior Awarded Gates Millenium Scholarship- I am soooo proud!
This spring, Lydia Curliss became the first CRLS senior to earn a prestigious Gates Millennium Scholarship and is one of just two high school seniors in all of Massachusetts this year to receive this honor.
The Gates Millennium Scholars Program (GMS), established in 1999, was initially funded by a $1 billion grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The goal of GMS is to promote academic excellence and to provide an opportunity for outstanding minority students with significant financial need to reach their highest potential.
Tomorrow she leaves for Oberlin!
This spring, Lydia Curliss became the first CRLS senior to earn a prestigious Gates Millennium Scholarship and is one of just two high school seniors in all of Massachusetts this year to receive this honor.
The Gates Millennium Scholars Program (GMS), established in 1999, was initially funded by a $1 billion grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The goal of GMS is to promote academic excellence and to provide an opportunity for outstanding minority students with significant financial need to reach their highest potential.
Tomorrow she leaves for Oberlin!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Ellen Steinbaum & David Surette Read at Fireside March 24 @ 7:30
Cambridge Cohousing Presents The Fireside Reading Series
Molly Lynn Watt, Curator
Ellen Steinbaum & David Surette read Tues, March 24, 2009
ELLEN STEINBAUM, a poet and journalist, has been a popular featured reader both nationally and throughout the Boston area. She writes a literary column for The Boston Globe and is also the author of a one-person play, CenterPiece, which she has performed. In her first book, Afterwords, she looked at loss, with poems about the illness and death of her husband. Her new book, Container Gardening speaks of what is perishable and what endures and what makes us who we are. The poet Lloyd Schwartz says, " In Container Gardening the losses we suffer—private, public, political, natural—are universal. But she knows, with wry certainty, that “what is broken can / (never) / be repaired / the pieces can / (not) / be put back.” Definitely one or the other. ...The contained garden of her poems becomes a conscious strategy to deal with all those—all our—losses.
DAVID SURETTE’s new book of poetry is Easy to Keep, Hard to Keep In. Surette’s poems have recently appeared in the anthologies French Connections: A Gathering of Franco-American Poets and Cadence of Hooves: A Celebration of Horses. He is a contributing editor at Salamander and taught poetry at this year’s Cape Cod Writers’ Conference. He co-hosts Poetribe, a poetry series in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts.
The reading begins with a short open mike. Come at 7 PM to help set up, sign up for open mike and nosh and schmooze. Following the reading you are invited to a wine and cheese reception. (A donation of $3 is requested to help with the cost.)
DIRECTIONS! The Fireside Reading Committee is Molly Lynn Watt, curator, Richard Curran, Jenise Aminoff and Dan Lynn Watt, webmagicians, Julie Rochlin, Lolita Paiewonsky, Debbie Pfeiffer and many others on logistics, and the writers who come month after month. Thank you all for contributing! The reading is held in the living room in front of the fireplace at Cambridge Co-Housing at 175 Richdale Ave, Cambridge, MA 02140, 3 blocks from the Red Line stop at Porter Square. A request to the City of Cambridge allows out-of-town visitors to park on Richdale Avenue from 6:30-10:30 PM. Contact Molly Lynn Watt, 617-354-8242, mollywatt@comcast.net or Jenise Aminoff, 617-576-2004, jenise@alum.mit.edu, or www.cambridgecohousing.org/Fireside/index.html
Molly Lynn Watt, Curator
Ellen Steinbaum & David Surette read Tues, March 24, 2009
ELLEN STEINBAUM, a poet and journalist, has been a popular featured reader both nationally and throughout the Boston area. She writes a literary column for The Boston Globe and is also the author of a one-person play, CenterPiece, which she has performed. In her first book, Afterwords, she looked at loss, with poems about the illness and death of her husband. Her new book, Container Gardening speaks of what is perishable and what endures and what makes us who we are. The poet Lloyd Schwartz says, " In Container Gardening the losses we suffer—private, public, political, natural—are universal. But she knows, with wry certainty, that “what is broken can / (never) / be repaired / the pieces can / (not) / be put back.” Definitely one or the other. ...The contained garden of her poems becomes a conscious strategy to deal with all those—all our—losses.
DAVID SURETTE’s new book of poetry is Easy to Keep, Hard to Keep In. Surette’s poems have recently appeared in the anthologies French Connections: A Gathering of Franco-American Poets and Cadence of Hooves: A Celebration of Horses. He is a contributing editor at Salamander and taught poetry at this year’s Cape Cod Writers’ Conference. He co-hosts Poetribe, a poetry series in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts.
The reading begins with a short open mike. Come at 7 PM to help set up, sign up for open mike and nosh and schmooze. Following the reading you are invited to a wine and cheese reception. (A donation of $3 is requested to help with the cost.)
DIRECTIONS! The Fireside Reading Committee is Molly Lynn Watt, curator, Richard Curran, Jenise Aminoff and Dan Lynn Watt, webmagicians, Julie Rochlin, Lolita Paiewonsky, Debbie Pfeiffer and many others on logistics, and the writers who come month after month. Thank you all for contributing! The reading is held in the living room in front of the fireplace at Cambridge Co-Housing at 175 Richdale Ave, Cambridge, MA 02140, 3 blocks from the Red Line stop at Porter Square. A request to the City of Cambridge allows out-of-town visitors to park on Richdale Avenue from 6:30-10:30 PM. Contact Molly Lynn Watt, 617-354-8242, mollywatt@comcast.net or Jenise Aminoff, 617-576-2004, jenise@alum.mit.edu, or www.cambridgecohousing.org/Fireside/index.html
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
I'll be reading on Feb. 19th from Shadow People!
Hope you can join at Gallery 55 in Natick at 7:30 pm at 55 South Main Street, for more information, phone another Molly, Molly Saccardo at 508-740-0260. Open mic follows plus refreshments!
FIRESIDE READING: Is That Your Child? Florence Ladd and Marion Kilson read from their memoir about rearing biracial children
Tuesday, February 17, 2009 • 7:30 pm
MARION KILSON is co-author with Florence Ladd of Is That Your Child: Mothers Talk About Rearing Biracial Children (Lexington Books, 2009). She received her Ph.D. in social anthropology from Harvard University in 1967 and retired as dean of the graduate school at Salem State College in 2001. She currently is a Museum Scholar at the Museum of African American History in Boston. Her previous publications include Claiming Place: Biracial Young Adults of the Post-Civil Rights Era (2001), four other books, and many articles on African and African American society and culture. She and her husband live in Lexington, Massachusetts; their three children and six grandchildren live nearby in Boston and Brookline.
FLORENCE LADD, a psychologist, is also a poet and fiction writer. Her novel, Sarah's Psalm (Scribner), received the 1997 best fiction award from the American Library Association's Black Caucus. Her poems have been published in The Women’s Review of Books, The Progressive, The Rockhurst Review and Sweet Auburn. With Marion Kilson, she is the co-author of Is That Your Child? Mothers Talk about Rearing Biracial Children. She is married with six stepchildren and a son, the poet Michael Ladd, who lives in Paris. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and in Flavigny-sur-Ozerain in France.
MARION KILSON is co-author with Florence Ladd of Is That Your Child: Mothers Talk About Rearing Biracial Children (Lexington Books, 2009). She received her Ph.D. in social anthropology from Harvard University in 1967 and retired as dean of the graduate school at Salem State College in 2001. She currently is a Museum Scholar at the Museum of African American History in Boston. Her previous publications include Claiming Place: Biracial Young Adults of the Post-Civil Rights Era (2001), four other books, and many articles on African and African American society and culture. She and her husband live in Lexington, Massachusetts; their three children and six grandchildren live nearby in Boston and Brookline.
FLORENCE LADD, a psychologist, is also a poet and fiction writer. Her novel, Sarah's Psalm (Scribner), received the 1997 best fiction award from the American Library Association's Black Caucus. Her poems have been published in The Women’s Review of Books, The Progressive, The Rockhurst Review and Sweet Auburn. With Marion Kilson, she is the co-author of Is That Your Child? Mothers Talk about Rearing Biracial Children. She is married with six stepchildren and a son, the poet Michael Ladd, who lives in Paris. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and in Flavigny-sur-Ozerain in France.
Friday, January 23, 2009
PRAISE SONG FOR THE DAY: Obama's poet evokes 'our highest yearnings'
Immediately following the swearing in and speech of Barach Obama, now 44th President of the United States of America, we watched Elizabeth Alexander step up to the podium. She is the fourth poet invited to give an occasional poem at any inauguration. She follows Robert Frost, Maya Angelou and Miller Williams. She is a Yale University Professor, a former Radciffe Fellow, an African American scholar and poet. As a toddler, her parents carried her to the Mall for the March on Washington in 1963. I had pondered for days, what might a poet say? I did not envy her as stood with the whole world attending. She wore a bright red coat, signaling by her choice of color, some of what I was feeling: passion, blood, excitement, danger, fire, ambition and yes, imperial. She paused, raised her face, and in a deliberate, clear voice said her poem’s first line, “Praise song for the day.”
Praise song is a musical genre, developed during the sixties and seventies, and used in some contemporary services to bring everybody in, to revitalize old ways of worship. Praise songs often use simple, repetitive lyrics accompanied on guitar. (You may order 2-CD sets of hits on Amazon or download them to your ipod.)
Perfect choice, I thought, no longer worried, I settled in to listen, to take the journey with her through her praise song.
“Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues.” With this apparently simple everyday start, using everyday speech and everyday rhythm, she gathers all of us into her poem, like a storyteller would. I followed each image,“a woman and her son wait for the bus”, the person “patching a tire”, as she lists for us the work of repairing, the honor in repairing what is torn and broken, ripped or cracked. I, like the farmer, consider “the changing sky”, am ready to take my pencil out, and go with her to “the other side.” I, too, know, “There is something better down the road.” I will “walk into that which we cannot see.”
Alexander straightens, tells it plain and strong, “many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who have brought us here…” and now tears roll down my cheeks as I am remembering the cost of freedom: the Civil Rights Movement, the Civil War, the American Revolution, my grandmother and her trunk rocking across the sea from Ireland, my ancestors banished from a jail in Scotland to Virginia for practicing the Protestant religion, campaigning for this election in New Hampshire towns… Until I am called back by her voice, determined, asking, “What if the mightiest word is love…” “In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.” I am ready, I am already “walking forward into that light.” I am already writing a new sentence.
Alexander’s poem intends to evoke in each of us our longest journeys and our highest yearnings, a call to a safe new day. She invites us to the honorable work of transforming our collective future from our blood-soaked past, into a more loving place. She does this in 14 three-lined stanzas and a one-line coda, “praise song for walking forward in that light.” She is a poet descendent of Walt Whitman, she is a songwriter descendent to the Shaker strains, “It’s a Gift to be Simple.”
Writing an occasional poem is a tall order, an honor most poets would be unwilling to risk. Before the Inauguration former Poet Laureate, Billy Collins said he did not envy Alexander as, “such poems are nearly impossible to bring off.” I think Alexander brought it off, despite a rumble among bloggers, She’s inviting us to follow her example and begin the work of writing our nation’s future. Let’s risk it, let’s accept.
Appeared in Cambridge Chronicle as Guest Commentary on January 29, 2009
Praise song is a musical genre, developed during the sixties and seventies, and used in some contemporary services to bring everybody in, to revitalize old ways of worship. Praise songs often use simple, repetitive lyrics accompanied on guitar. (You may order 2-CD sets of hits on Amazon or download them to your ipod.)
Perfect choice, I thought, no longer worried, I settled in to listen, to take the journey with her through her praise song.
“Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues.” With this apparently simple everyday start, using everyday speech and everyday rhythm, she gathers all of us into her poem, like a storyteller would. I followed each image,“a woman and her son wait for the bus”, the person “patching a tire”, as she lists for us the work of repairing, the honor in repairing what is torn and broken, ripped or cracked. I, like the farmer, consider “the changing sky”, am ready to take my pencil out, and go with her to “the other side.” I, too, know, “There is something better down the road.” I will “walk into that which we cannot see.”
Alexander straightens, tells it plain and strong, “many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who have brought us here…” and now tears roll down my cheeks as I am remembering the cost of freedom: the Civil Rights Movement, the Civil War, the American Revolution, my grandmother and her trunk rocking across the sea from Ireland, my ancestors banished from a jail in Scotland to Virginia for practicing the Protestant religion, campaigning for this election in New Hampshire towns… Until I am called back by her voice, determined, asking, “What if the mightiest word is love…” “In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.” I am ready, I am already “walking forward into that light.” I am already writing a new sentence.
Alexander’s poem intends to evoke in each of us our longest journeys and our highest yearnings, a call to a safe new day. She invites us to the honorable work of transforming our collective future from our blood-soaked past, into a more loving place. She does this in 14 three-lined stanzas and a one-line coda, “praise song for walking forward in that light.” She is a poet descendent of Walt Whitman, she is a songwriter descendent to the Shaker strains, “It’s a Gift to be Simple.”
Writing an occasional poem is a tall order, an honor most poets would be unwilling to risk. Before the Inauguration former Poet Laureate, Billy Collins said he did not envy Alexander as, “such poems are nearly impossible to bring off.” I think Alexander brought it off, despite a rumble among bloggers, She’s inviting us to follow her example and begin the work of writing our nation’s future. Let’s risk it, let’s accept.
Appeared in Cambridge Chronicle as Guest Commentary on January 29, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
