Len Solo and Barbara Thomas at Fireside Nov. 18th!

CAMBRIDGE COHOUSING PRESENTS
THE FIRESIDE READING SERIES
MOLLY LYNN WATT, CURATOR

Tuesday, November 18, 2008 • 7:30 pm
Len Solo and Barbara Thomas
LEN SOLO’s primary work over the years has been in education. From 1974 to 2001 he was the principal of the Graham & Parks Alternative Public School in Cambridge and was the interim principal of Cambridge’s high school, CRLS, for over a year. Currently, he’s an educational consultant, working to support school principals and teacher leaders. Some of his educational writings have been collected into a book, Alternative, Innovative and Traditional Schools: Some Personal Views. Len’s latest book of poetry is The Magic of Light, published in September 2008. His first poetry book, Landscape of the Misty Eye, was published in 2002. Co-written with Steve Weitzman, the book reflects the cycle of the seasons starting and ending in the spring. His second book Rooted in Place, came out in 2004. In addition to writing poems, Len is working on a collection of short stories and on a book about the award-winning and nationally recognized Graham & Parks Alternative Public School.
BARBARA THOMAS, a former English and Reading teacher for thirty-five years, now devotes her time to poetry and writing. She has recently published a chapbook, Seduced by Sighs of Trees, Cloudkeeper Press 2008, and has published poems in Lalitamba, Writing Nature, The Wilderness House Literary Review, and The Istanbul Literary Review. She has read her poems at the Blacksmith House, Borders Bookstore, Porter Square Bookstore, and the Cambridge Public Library and she teaches nature writing for the Appalachian Mountain Club. Barbara lives in Cambridge with two gorgeous orange cats, Kalliope and Sofia.

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, 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

Poets read at NoCa Art Opening!

Thursday
November 13
6:00-7:30 P.M.
Poetry reading begins
at 6:30 P.M. featuring
Philip E. Burnham
Irene Koronas
Barbara Thomas
Molly Lynn Watt
NoCa Arts
is a group of
professional visual
and performing artists
who live or work in
North Cambridge
and have
a strong commitment
to the neighborhood
and community.
O'Neill Branch Library
70 Rindge Avenue
Cambridge,
Massachusetts

Credit: Bobby Brown: Green Beard Mixed Media Mask

Shadow People:Poems by Molly Lynn Watt Reviewed by Hugh Fox

Watt is a kind of a flesh-and-blood monument in the boston area, totally involved with the poetic life there, but she reads like some kind of young world-traveller soaked in world literature, concentrating especially on the ephemeralness of human existence. As in this Memoriam poem titled simply Margie (1916-1999): It is always spring where she sits in her chair/under Monet's blue sky and fields of tulips/Her fragile body bends over nail clippers.../shaking/both hands shaking... (p.25)

Unexpected poems here about the Yup'ik People in Alaska, the Mendenhall Glacier and the Tlinqit First People (again in Alaska), Central Park in NYC during the winter, streetlife in Boston-Cambridge, everything always with a sense of transience, everything evaporating, vanishing away, even when she writes about the year she was born, 1938: That bloody year when I was born.../Nazis carried out pogroms against the jewish born.../Storm trropers smashed synagogues and shops and homes/ Time named Hitler Man of the Year... (1938, p. 11) 

At the same time she's lamenting the shortness of life, swirling in memories of lost time, she preaches deliciously Debussyan delicate sermons on grasping the Here and Now:... Wear a crown of daisies/Build a fire on sand.../Listen to the peepers/ Wait for fireflies in the meadow. (Abandon Your Shoes, p. 51)

A living classic.

Fireside Readings Series Schedule 2008-2009

Molly Lynn Watt, Curator

Tuesday, September 23, 7:30
Bagel Bards

Tuesday, October 28, 7:30
Chris Brandt and John Hildebidle

Tuesday, November 18, 7:30
Len Solo and Barbara Thomas

Tuesday, January 20, 7:30
Suzanne Berger and Ifeany Menkiti

Tuesday, February 17, 7:30
Marion Kilson and Florence Ladd

Tuesday, March 24, 7:30
Ellen Steinbaum and David Surette

Tuesday, April 21, 7:30
Dudley Laufman and Barbara Morrison

Tuesday, May 19, 7:30
Abbott Ikeler and Mignon Ariel King

Now in our tenth season, the Fireside Reading Series holds readings on one Tuesday each month at 7:30.

The readings begin 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.)

Writers are welcome to bring a short work in progress to read at our open mike and any published works they may have to sell after the readings. Please bring handouts for upcoming events.

The Fireside Reading Committee is Molly Lynn Watt, curator, Jenise Aminoff and Dan Lynn Watt, webmagicians, Julie Rochlin, Lolita Paiwonsky and many others on logistics, and the writers who come month after month. Thank you all for contributing!

The readings are held at Cambridge Cohousing, 175 Richdale Ave, Cambridge MA 02140. It is 3 blocks from the Red Line stop at Porter Square. A request for “parking consideration” from the City of Cambridge allows out-of-town visitors to park in resident only spaces 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 for more information or check out the website at www.cambridgecohousing.org/fireside/index.html.

Where You Will Find Me!

January 13, 2009 at 7 pm to hear Three of Us: Poetry and Memoir:
Denise Bergman, H. Susan Freireich, Molly Lynn Watt, Central Square Library, Cambridge

November 18, 2008 Len Solo and Barbara Thomas Feature at Fireside, 175 Richdale Ave, Cambridge, Molly Lynn Watt, curator.

November 13, 2008 6:30 pm NoCa Poetry Reading at O’Neill Branch Library as part of art reception opening: Philip E. Burmham, Irene Koronas, Barbara Thomas, Molly Lynn Watt.

October 18, 2008 Chris Brandt and John Hildebidle feature at Fireside Reading, 175 Richdlae Ave., Cambridge, Molly Lynn Watt, curator

October 6, 2008 7:00 pm Pub Reading at James’ Gate Pub by Doug Holder, Elizabeth Quinlan, Christy Page, Molly Lynn Watt.

September 23, 2008 7:30 pm 2 dozen Bagel Bards will start off the tenth season of the Fireside Series celebrating the BagelBard Anthology #3, introduction by Regie O. Gibson, edited by Molly Lynn Watt.

August 4, 2008 10 AM: On the Wings of Song: Music in the Civil Rights Movement, stories of We Shall Overcome, Which Side Are You On? and other songs moving the Civil Rights Movement Along: Graham & Barbara Dean & Molly & Dan Lynn Watt
&
7:30 PM: Personal Stories of the Civil Rights Movement, Molly was active in the Civil Rights Movement Directing the North/South Smokey Mountain Workcamp at Highlander Center and Dan supporting voter registration in Fayette County, Tennessee. Dan & Molly Lynn Watt @ World Fellowship Center, Conway, New Hampshire

August 3, 2008 10 AM: The Civil Rights Movement:1955-1968 8/3, a multimedia portrayal from Montgomery Bus Boycott of '55-through Birmingham & Selma to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. Dan & Molly
&
4 PM: Songs of the Movement: Dan & Molly Lynn Watt
@ World Fellowship Center, Conway, New Hampshire

May 27, 2008 Fireside Readings featuring the Jamaica Plain Carpenter Poets in a Pub-Style Reading featuring poems about woodworking, beer and burgers. As always, a short open mic. 175 Richdale Ave., Cambridge. Molly Lynn Watt, curator

April 29, 2008 Fireside Readings, Molly Lynn Watt curator, Julie Rochlin and Tom Daley reading poetry at 7:30 PM, starts with short open mic. 175 Richdale Ave., Cambridge

April 26, 2008 Molly Lynn Watt, Irene Koronas, Philip Burnham, Jr read at 12 noon at Porter Books as the first event for NoCa's Open Studios weekend.

April 25, 2008, George & Ruth: Songs & Letters of the Spanish Civil War, Molly and Dan Lynn Watt with Tony Saletan & Sylvia Miskoe at 9:30-11 PM at NEFFA in Mansfield, MA (Admission free with festival ticket)

April 25, 2008 Molly with Dan Lynn Watt & Alice Flanagan singing Woody Guthrie's songs "Why, Oh Why" and "Mail Myself to You" with the Folksong Society of Greater Boston's Bound for Glory Performance at 8-9:30 at NEFFA in Mansfield, MA (Admission free with festival ticket)

April 18, 2008, George & Ruth: Songs & Letters of the Spanish Civil War, Molly and Dan Lynn Watt with Tony Saletan & Sylvia Miskoe @ 8 o'clock at First Parish in Watertown, 35 Church Street, Watertown, MA.

April 12, 2008 Molly Lynn Watt, one of 8 poets reading their respective poems from the 2008 Poets Guide to New Hampshire at the Toadstool Bookstore in Peterborough, NH.

April 10, 2008 Molly Lynn Watt and Irene Koronas read at 6:30-7:30 at the O'Neil Library in North Cambridge at the opening reception of the exhibit of the North Cambridge Art Association (NoCa).

Quinlan, Watt, Holder & Page read at James's Gate Pub Oct.6th

Elizabeth Quinlan: author of ‘Promise Supermarket

(Ibbetson Street press 2008)

Molly Lynn Watt: author of ‘Shadow People’

(Ibbetson Street Press 2007)

Doug Holder: author of

‘The Man In The Booth in the Midtown Tunnel’

(Cervena Barva Press 2008)

Christy Page: Jamaica Plain Carpenter Poet

(poems published in ‘Break Time’ anthology 2007)

WHERE: James's Gate Restaurant & Pub 
5-11 McBride Street, Jamaica Plain, MA
WHEN: Oct. 6th, 2008, Monday Night, 6:30
The pub will be open, people can order drinks or food.

Reading at 7PM in the restaurant

Directions to James’s Gate www.jamessgate.com

Elizabeth Quinlan has been a member of The William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences for the past eleven years. She received an Honors in Creative Writing from U. Mass /Boston. She was a finalist for the Richards Snyder Memorial Poetry Prize. She is a visual artist, specializing in the Book Arts and has taught art for over thirty years. 

Molly Lynn Watt curates the monthly Fireside Reading Series, writes for the Occasional Moose, chairs the monthly Poetry Roundtable at HILR, and she co-created and performs in Ruth’s Letters in performances of George and Ruth, Songs and Letters of the Spanish Civil War, she developed with her husband,

Daniel Lynn Watt. Her poems, stories, memoir pieces and essays appear in books, journals and magazines. She is the editor of Bagels and the Bards Anthologies.

Doug Holder is the founder of Ibbetson Street Press of Somerville, Mass; the co-founder of the Somerville News Writer’s Festival, the curator of the Newton Free Library Poetry Series, book Review editor of the Wilderness House Literary Review, the Arts Editor for The Somerville News, and the Boston editor for Poesy.

Holder’s other collections of poetry are: No One dies at the Au Bon Pain (sunny outside) and Of All the Meals I Had Before, (Cervena Barva Press).

Christy Page is a member of the Jamaica Plain Carpenter Poets,

as well as a Co-owner of the James’s Gate Restaurant & Pub

(home to the Carpenter Poets). He has designed and built Irish Pubs in the Boston area. He was born and raised in Dublin, where his family were performers: dancers and actors. His poems are included in Break Time the JP Carpenter Poet’s Anthology, focusing on the diversity of the James’s Gate regulars,as well as the art of carpentry.

Fireside hosts Chris Brandt & John Hildebidle

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 7:30pm

CHRIS BRANDT is a writer and activist. Also a translator, carpenter, furniture designer, and theatre worker. He teaches poetry at Fordham University. He is proud to have been found guilty on May 29, 2008, of exercising free speech (sic) at the U.S. Supreme Court, and sentenced to ten days (suspended) and a year's probation. His poems and essays have been published in magazines, journals, and anthologies, including Off the Cuffs: Poetry by and About the Police (Soft Skull, edited by Jackie Sheeler); Lateral (Barcelona); El signo del gorrion (Valladolid); La Jornada (Mexico); Phatitude, Appearances; The Unbearables; National Poetry Magazine of the Lower East Side; Liqueur 44 (Paris) and Crimes of the Beats. His translations of Cuban fiction have been published in The New Yorker and many other places. Translations of contemporary Cuban poetry will be included in a Univ. of CA Berkeley anthology to be published in 2009. Web links: www.poetz.com/2001/brandt.htm,  www.witnesstorture.org/5.30.brandt

JOHN HILDEBIDLE survived a peripatetic childhood, a Harvard education, and eight years as a teacher in a public junior high. He has finally surfaced on the faculty of MIT (teaching English -- a true adventure), happily lives a (literal) stone's throw from Cambridge Cohousing and co-founded the Fireside Reading Series with Jenise Aminoff in the spring of 2000. His newest book is Signs, Translations due any instant from Salmon Publishing in County Clare, Ireland. His publications include a study of Henry David Thoreau and another of 20th century Irish fiction, Five Irish Writers: The Errand of Keeping Alive plus several books of poetry and Stubbornness: A Field Guide a work of fiction. web.mit.edu/lit/www/dutchiamb/

The Fireside Reading is supported by sweat equity and financial contributions of attendees. (We spend an average $3 per attendee.) Come at 7 to help set up, sign up for open mike, nosh & schmooze. We invite you to stay for the reception following the reading. The Fireside Committee: Molly Lynn Watt, curator, Jenise Aminoff & Dan Lynn Watt, webmagicians, Julie Rochlin, Lolita Paiwonsky and many volunteers on logistics.

 The reading is held at Cambridge Co-Housing at 175 Richdale Ave, Cambridge, MA 02140, 3 blocks from the Red Line stop at Porter Square. A parking consideration request to the City of Cambridge allows out-of-towners attending to park on Richdale Avenue between 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