Category: my glamorous life

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Poetry Readings and Events in Boston, November and December 2013

I get periodic emails from a gentleman at MIT about poetry readings and events in the greater Boston area. It’s a good reminder of why I chose to move here 13 years ago, and why I stay. The list can be rather overwhelming, so I’ve highlighted two readings in November featuring poets I know and highly recommend:

  • Grey Held and other poets from the Workshop for Publishing Poets next Monday, November 4 at Newtonville Books;
  • Charles Coe and Alexis Ivy at the Newton Free Library on Tuesday, November 12

The Brookline Public Library reading series also has consistently high-quality readers both as headliners and in the open mic. The organizers can be a bit snooty as a result, but if you gird your loins appropriately it’s worth attending. You may even see me there.

If you are interested in signing up for the email list, please comment with your email address and I will send you information on how to subscribe.

And on an unrelated note, Happy Halloween, Blessed Samhain, and Feliz Dias de los Muertos.

Boston Poetry Listings follow:

Friday, November 1, 8 pm
Christopher Boucher, Carrie Causie, and Randy Wittwer
Dire Literary Series
Out of the Blue Art Gallery
106 Prospect St.
Cambridge

Monday, November 4, 6 pm
Philip Levine
Bill Bordy Theater
216 Tremont St.
Boston

Monday, November 4, 7 pm
Grey Held, Diana Cole, and Ellie Mamber
Newtonville Books
10 Langley Road
Newton
[This is the regular reading series for PoemWorks: The Workshop for Publishing Poets]

Monday, November 4, 7 pm
Scott Ruescher, Betty Buchsbaum, and Peter Filkins
and other winners
NEPC Prize Winners
Harvard-Yenching Library, Common Room 136
2 Divinity Ave.
Cambridge (off Kirkland, near Memorial Hall)

Monday, November 4, 8 pm
Mark Halliday and Anna Ross
Blacksmith House Poetry Series
56 Brattle Street
Cambridge
$3

Tuesday, November 5, 6:30 pm
David Ferry
The Louisa Solano Poetry Series
Cambridge Public Library
449 Broadway, Cambridge

Tuesday, November 5, 7 pm
David Rivard, Edith Pearlman, Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough, and J. D. Daniels
AGNI 78 launch
Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
949 Commonwealth Ave
Boston (Green Line B, Pleasant St.)

Tuesday, November 5, 5:30 pm
Martha Collins
Grolier Poetry Fall Reading Series
Grolier Poetry Book Shop
6 Plympton St.
Cambridge

Wednesday, November 6, 8 pm
Julie Joosten, Erin Morrill, Laura Mullen
Small Animal Project
Outpost 186
186 1/2 Hampshire St
Cambridge

Tuesday, November 5, 6 pm [Note: moved from Thurs, 11/7]
Transversal Kickoff Reading
Washington Curcurto, Tamara Kamenszain and Malu Urriola
in the company of their translators Forrest Gander, Laura Healy and Anna Deeny
David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies Auditorium
1730 Cambridge Street
Cambridge

Tuesday, November 5, 5:30 pm
Martha Collins
Grolier Poetry Book Shop
6 Plympton Street
Cambridge

Wednesday, November 6, 5 pm – 6: 30 pm
Rae Armantrout
Morris Gray Lecture
The Thompson Room
Barker Center
Quincy Street
Cambridge

Wednesday, November 6, 6 pm  (please note updated location)
Transversal Seminar: On Spanish Poetry and Translation
Brandel France de Bravo and Roger Santivañez
David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies Auditorium
Woodberry Poetry Room, Lamont Library
Harvard University
Cambridge

Thursday, November 7, 5 pm – 6:30 pm
Seamus Heaney Memorial
Harvard Memorial Church
One Harvard Yard
Cambridge

Thursday, November 7, 6 – 7:30 pm
Laura Mullen
New England Conservatory
Pierce Hall
around the corner from 290 Huntington Ave.
Boston

Friday, November 8, 7:30 pm
Elizabeth (Louie) Galloway, Elena Harap and Alice Kociemba
Chapter and Verse Literary Reading Series
Loring-Greenough House
12 South Street
Jamaica Plain Center
$5

Friday, November 8, 6 pm
Tamiko Beyer, Kate Greenstreet and Deborah Poe
Publicly Complex Series
Ada Books
717 Westminster St.
Providence

Saturday, November 9, 12 pm
Gloria Mindock and Catherine Sasanov
Poetry: The Art of Words
Plymouth Center for the Arts
North Street
Plymouth, MA

Saturday, November 9, 2 pm
Donald Wellman
Toadstool Books
12 Depot Square
Peterborough NH

Saturday, November 9, 6 pm
Frank Bidart, Moe Pope, Betsy Gomez, Elizabeth Doran, Eve Strillacci, Alex Charalambides, Eloisa Amezcua
Featured Musical Artist: Julia LiGregni with the Jordan Carter Trio
Mr. Hip Presents: Reading Series UFORGE Gallery
767 Centre Street
Jamaica Plain
$8

Saturday, November 9, 7 pm
Mathias Svalina, Stefania Heim, and Phil Cordelli
A 2×2 Reading of Poetry
Lorem Ipsum Books
1299 Cambridge Street
Cambridge

Sunday, November 10, 2 pm
Moira Linehan and Michael McCarthy
Bestsellers Café
24 High Street
Medford, MA

Sunday, November 10, 3 pm
Jillian Weise
Weekend Poetry Series of the Friends
Concord Free Public Library
129 Main Street
Concord, MA

Monday, November 11, 6 pm
Tom Pickard
Katzenberg Center, 3rd Floor,
871 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston University

Tuesday, November 12, 7 pm
George Elliot Clarke and Don Share
Grolier Poetry Fall Reading Series
Grolier Poetry Book Shop
6 Plympton St.
Cambridge

Tuesday, November 12, 7pm
Charles Coe, Alexis Ivy, and Dennis Daly
Newton Free Library Reading Series
330 Homer St
Newton, MA
Open mic follows featured readers

Wednesday, November 13, 7:30 pm
Rhina Espaillat, Barbara Lydecker Crane, David Davis
Poetry And The Experience Of Nature
Joppa Flats Audubon Center
1 Plum Island Turnpike
Newburyport, MA

Thursday, November 14, 6 pm
Christopher Ricks on T.S. Eliot
Edison Newman Room
Houghton Library
Harvard University

Thursday, November 14, 7 pm
Sophie Cabot Black and Greg Delanty
Suffolk University Poetry Center
73 Tremont Street (entrance around corner on Tremont Place)
Suffolk Poetry Center Mildred F. Sawyer Library

Saturday, November 16, 10:30 am
Henry Street Poets, Chuck Williams and Joanne Lurgio
Wake Up & Smell the Poetry at HCAM Studios
77 Main St.
Hopkinton MA

Saturday, November 16, 3:30 pm
Carol Ann Davis and David R. Surette
Fuller Café
Brockton Poetry Series at the Fuller Craft Museum
455 Oak Street
Brockton

Sunday, November 17, 2-4 pm
Lee Sharkey and Melissa Tuckey
Brookline Poetry Series
Brookline Public Library
Main Branch in Hunneman Hall
Brookline
Open mike sign-up: 1:45 pm

Sunday, November 17, 3 – 5 pm
Shelby Allen, Susan Nisenbaum-Becker, Gary Whited
Calliope – Poetry Readings at the West Falmouth Library
(575 West Falmouth Hwy.  Rt. 28A)
Cape Cod
$5

Sunday, November 17, 3 pm
Lucy Ives and William D. Waltz
Jubilat / Jones Reading Series
Woodbury Room,
Jones Library
43 Amity Street
Amherst, MA

Monday, November 18, 6 pm
Omniglot Seminar: Pessoa and Other Poets in Portuguese
with Translator Richard Zenith
Woodberry Poetry Room
Lamont Library, Room 330
Harvard University

Monday, November 18, 8 pm
Sarah Arvio and Katie Peterson
Blacksmith House Poetry Series
56 Brattle Street
Cambridge
$3

Tuesday, November 19, 2:30 pm
Rachel Levitsky
McCormack Family Theater
70 Brown St.
Providence
Free and open to the public

Wednesday, November 20, 7 pm
Len Krisak and Mike Juster
Powow River Poets Reading Series
Jabberwocky Books (in the Tannery Mall)
50 Water St.
Newburyport
Free & open to the public

Thursday, November  21, 7 pm
Danielle Legros Georges and George Kalogeris
Rozzie Reads Poetry
The Community Room of Roslindale House
120 Poplar Street
Roslindale

Monday, November 25, 8 pm
Tanya Larkin and Jamaal May
Blacksmith House Poetry Series
56 Brattle Street
Cambridge
$3

Monday, December 2, 7 pm
Jane Bachner, Susan McDonough, and Lee Dunne
Newtonville Books
10 Langley Road
Newton

Tuesday, December 3, 6:30 pm
Frank Bidart
The Louisa Solano Poetry Series
Cambridge Public Library
449 Broadway, Cambridge

Wednesday, December 4, 6 pm
Louise Glück & Katie Peterson
Edison Newman Room
Houghton Library
Harvard University

Wednesday, December 4, 7 pm
Denise Bergman
Porter Square Books
25 White Street
Cambridge

Sunday, December 8, 12 pm
Dennis Daly and Lawrence Kessenich
POETRY:The Art of Words
Plymouth Center for the Arts
North Street
Plymouth, MA

Monday, December 9, 8 pm
Albert Goldbarth and Sharon Bryan
Blacksmith House Poetry Series
56 Brattle Street
Cambridge
$3

Sunday, December 15, 2 – 4 pm
Afaa Michael Weaver and Larissa Pienkowski
Brookline Poetry Series
Brookline Public Library
Main Branch in Hunneman Hall
Brookline
Open mike sign-up: 1:45 pm

Monday, December 16, 8 pm
Tamiko Beyer, Jenny Browne, and Kate Greenstreet
Small Animal Project
Outpost 186
186 1/2 Hampshire St
Cambridge

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Friday Five Plus Three (Gratitude Edition)

Gratitude doesn’t always come easy. Sometimes it’s a discipline, a practice. Sometimes I go through the motions without feeling inspired about it. But I do the motions anyway. Today’s gratitude list:

  1. daily reprieve from a chronic and deadly disease
  2. access to health care providers who assist when the other chronic and deadly disease rears its ugly head –I mean symptoms
  3. sunshine — albeit October sunshine, harsh and in short supply, still sunshine
  4. more clothes than I know what to do with
  5. fuzzy kitties who love me whether I go out or stay in
  6. a job that trusts me to do the right thing without breathing over my shoulder
  7. friends and family who call, text, and email
  8. a man who puts the kettle on for me every morning
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The Burden of Bearing Fruit

Two years ago I read a piece in the Sun Magazine by a woman named Brenda Miller called The Burden of Bearing Fruit. It was the sort of article one finds there a great deal: a personal essay, contemplative, sometimes rambling, with a flash of beauty  — a surprise tie-up, an effortless making-sense of daily objects and events. The making-sense of art, which tells the true but tells it slant.

These essays often shame me in their seeming effortlessness in the same way that Martha Stewart shames wives and mothers all across America, or the way Oksana Baiul shames 12-year-old figure skaters. In my saner moments I remember that the authors of these essays (often English professors or professional writers) probably went through multiple drafts, worked and worked on each word and sentence, considered the form and flow of the piece, perhaps the thesis and the theme. In my less sane moments I wonder why my own work doesn’t appear in The Sun’s pages. Never mind that I’m focusing on honing my craft in poetry right now, not personal essays. Or that I have a full-time job writing meeting minutes and functional specifications. Why am I not better at it by now? Where is my Harvest-themed centerpiece? Where is my triple lutz?

But let me, for the sake of this moment, put aside those inner critics. Let me even put aside the notion that I might beat that little hater. And let me return to that phrase which has stayed with me for two years and more: the burden of bearing fruit. Miller describes her own complicated relationship to the cherry tree that graces her property. You’ll have to read the essay to catalog its full meaning, but what stays with me is the notion that as the tree ages it is released from the burden of bearing fruit. Approaching 40, years into an artistic recovery I can barely discuss without weeping, I’m well aware of this burden. The terrible secret of farming and gardening is that bringing in the harvest is just as difficult as the plowing, the sowing, the planting, and the tending. Once the fruit arrives it must be picked, it must be eaten, it must be shared, it must be preserved and set away for the winter.  Some of it always rots.

My tree has blossomed and begun to bear fruit. This evening I read at the Newton Free Library and the day after a brand new workshop begins meeting in my home.  It’s not the first time I’ve read to an audience, not the first time I’ve led a workshop, but the burden of bearing fruit remains. Perhaps this time the harvest will be more sustainable.

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I’m Reading at the Newton Free Library Next Tuesday, October 8

I just discovered that I am scheduled to read at the Newton Free Library on Tuesday, October 8 at 7pm. I’m so glad that Barbara at PoemWorks reminded me that Doug Holder had asked me to read for the series way back at the end of last December.

My reading is the day after the monthly PoemWorks reading at Newtonville Books. The following evening (Wednesday, October 9) I begin facilitating a writing group that will meet every other Wednesday through the beginning of December. So it’s going to be an all-writing kind of week for me.

Next month (Tuesday, November 12), two poets I know personally and greatly admire — Alexis Ivy and Charles Coe — will also be reading at the Newton Free Library. From the descriptions of the two folks scheduled to read with me on Tuesday — Wendy Ranan and Lawrence Kessenich — I will be in quite illustrious company myself. An open mic follows the reading.

If you are in town I would love to see you there. I know some of the Dverse Poets are Bostonians and would love to meet you in person. Directions by car and public transit are on the Newton Library website. Either way, wish me luck. It’s been some months since I’ve read in front of an audience.

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Old Clients Are Like Gold

I’ve got only one or two clients left from my bad old days of self employment. It’s such a joy to work with people I’ve chosen. I’m helping Liz Anker put up her new WordPress site. It’s still in progress, but I think it’s pretty cool. Today we worked on this page.

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I’ve Been Published in The dVerse Anthology: Voices of Contemporary World Poetry

My longest poem, “Letters from Provincetown,” has gone through a number of iterations since I first penned it in 1998. And now it’s been included in the newly released dVerse Anthology: Voices of Contemporary World Poetry.

Edited by Frank Watson (aka Follow the Blue Flute), the volume contains work from poets who frequent the dVerse Poets Pub, an online community that I find has a nice balance between friendly members and quality work. I’ve made a number of helpful connections at their weekly Open Link Night and also enjoy their other regular series, including Form for All and Pretzels and Bullfights.

A friend recently chastised me for downplaying my accomplishments. So if you’d like to support my work and also read an interesting variety of voices from around the world, I suggest giving it a look. The book is available in print and ebook at Amazon and debuted in the top 20 poetry anthologies on the site.

Buy the book here: http://www.amazon.com/The-dVerse-Anthology-Voices-Contemporary/dp/1939832012

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In Memoriam: Trayvon Martin

I’ve been largely silent regarding the issue of Trayvon Martin’s death and Zimmerman’s acquittal. As a white woman living in Boston, I don’t see the ongoing effects of racism in the same way that I did when I was living on the north side of Poughkeepsie, or growing up in a housing project in Stamford. But racism still affects me and those I love. I’d like to take a moment to honor the friends and loved ones whom I know deal with racism on a daily basis — and the friends and loved ones I never met or never got to know well because of the racist and segregated society in which I live.

From a New York Times editorial published July 14, 2013:

While Mr. Zimmerman’s conviction might have provided an emotional catharsis, we would still be a country plagued by racism, which persists in ever more insidious forms despite the Supreme Court’s sanguine assessment that “things have changed dramatically,” as it said in last month’s ruling striking down the heart of the Voting Rights Act.

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Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker: Okelle’s Career Path

A gentleman I’ve never met but would like to some day asked on Facebook, “What was your strangest job?”

It wasn’t my strangest job, but my most memorable and also my first real-paycheck job: ushering for the Palace Theater in Stamford, Connecticut. The pay was crap — some people actually just volunteered in exchange for watching the shows — but its rewards have stayed with me through the decades. I saw Ella Fitzgerald (twice), Chuck Berry, Herbie Hancock, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, George Carlin, and countless plays, operas, ballets, and symphonies. And I didn’t appreciate it a bit. Well — maybe a little bit. God knows I do now.

Continue reading “Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker: Okelle’s Career Path”

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Henrietta

I remember very little from the years between 1973 and 1980. There’s a simple reason for this, but one that omits a large part of the story. In the years between my birth and our unintentional immigration to the East Coast, I was busy learning how to eat, how to walk, how to use the bathroom, how to dress myself, and how to talk. I was learning about the world that surrounded me, and about my place in it. I was learning what kind of a person I was, and what kind of people had brought me into this world.

In the first decade of the 20th century — a decade variously referred to as the ’00s, the naughts, the oughts, the aughties, and the naughties — the big buzzword in psychological circles was resilience. Resilience was the word used over and over again in the days following the Boston Marathon Bombing of 2013. It’s a word that contains within it a kind of boundless optimism often lacking in the discussion of trauma, PTSD, and recovery from same.

Continue reading “Henrietta”

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Father’s Day

My father’s legacy: chronic illness, sorrow, trauma, SSDI survivor’s benefits that helped pay for college, nonconformist leanings, love for the music of the 60s and 70s, pretty good rhythm for a white girl, and a deep and abiding understanding of the importance of creative expression.

I can’t say I’m always grateful, but I am aware of the way he shaped me — intentionally or not. Wherever you are now Dad, I hope you’ve found the peace and happiness that so eluded you in life.