Updated 2014 reading schedule for The Shutting Door

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 Events
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January 21, 2014 Cambridge, Massachusetts

 Poetry in Porter Square, 7 PM

Porter Square Books
Porter Square Shopping Center
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Featuring with Rusty Barnes, Sarah Sweeney and Anne Champion




  


January 26, 2014 New York, New York

 George Wallace's Great Weather for Media, 4 PM

The Parkside Lounge
371 E. Houston Street, 
New York, NY

Featuring with Barbara Ann Branca







March 6, 2014 Bedford, Massachusetts

 Student Reading at Noon,  Lecture, 1-2:30 PM

Middlesex Community College, Bedford Campus
591 Springs Road
Bedford, Ma

Event sponsored by the college and faculty. Thanks Joe Nardoni.




March 8, 2014 Westborough, Massachusetts

An afternoon of words and music, 1-  3 PM

Tatnuck Booksellers
18 Lyman Street
Westborough, Ma

Featuring Krista Baroni and our special guests 
Michael Fisher, Lea C. Deschenes, and Eric Treehouse



April 12, 2014 Boston, Massachusetts

Boston National Poetry Marathon Festival, 3 PM

Boston Public Library
Copley Square
Boston, Massachusetts

Featuring with over 100 poets, which starts 9 AM and ends on Thursday Night 4/10 and ends Sunday 4/13

Hosted by Harris Gardner



April 13, 2014 Plymouth, Massachusetts

 The Art of Words/Mike Amado Memorial Series, 12 PM

Plymouth Center for the Arts
11 North Street, 

Plymouth, Massachusetts

Featuring with Chad Parenteau
Hosted by Jack Skully 


April 27, 2014 Wellesley, Massachusetts

Poetry Reading, 6 PM

Whole Food Markets Cooking/Teaching Space
442 Washington Street, 
Wellesley, Massachusetts

Featuring with Ivy Page and Lori Desrosiers


Hosted by Christopher Reilly





April 30, 2014 Sudbury, Massachusetts

A Symphony From Thin Air: Five Artists Discuss the Creative Process 7 PM

Goodnow Library 
21 Concord Road, Sudbury, Massachusetts

Panel Discussion with story spinner Brendyn Schneider, poet , composer and organist Jeffrey Brody, choreographer and dancer Anna Myers, and multimedia storyteller Catharine Weber

Hosted by Erica Ferencik 






May 2, 2014 Salem, Massachusetts

MassPoetry

Hawthorne Hotel, Sophia Room

"Stone Soup Presents: Oddball Magazine Panel,", 3:30 PM
with Chad Parenteau, James Van Looy and Jason Wright










May 20, 2014 Boston Neighborhood Network

Willies Web Show, 7 PM

Boston Cable
https://www.bnntv.org/, 
View on live TV or stream from the site
 Hosted by Willie Pleasants






June 4, 2014 Lynn, Massachusetts


Speak Up Spoken Word 7 PM

Walnut Street Cafe
157 Walnut Street, 
Lynn, Massachusetts

 
 Hosted by Tony Toledo



June 7, 2014 Cambridge, Ma

Cambridge Arts River Festival, 5 PM


The Poetry Tent will be located on Sidney Street between Franklin and Auburn Streets
Event runs 12-6 PM, hosted by Lo  Galluccio with all day features


June 8, 2014 Gloucester, Massachusetts

Second Sunday Reading Series, 2 PM

Eastern Point Lit House
261 Main Street, 
Gloucester, Ma
 

Featuring with TBA
Hosted by Jenn Monroe, Eastern Point Lit House Press

June 21, 2014 Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

Mr. Hip Presents, 6:30 PM

UFORGE Gallery
767 Centre  St., Jamaica Plain
 

An evening of poetry and jazz
Hosted by Donald Vincent

July 15, 2014 Somerville, Ma

First and Last Poetry Series

Center for the Arts at the Armory
191 Highland Ave
Somerville, Ma

Hosted by Harris Gardner and Gloria Mindock
Featuring with  Laura Bernard and Teisha Twomey





 

 July 26, 2014 New York, New York

New York Poetry Festival, Time TBA

Governor's Island, Colonel's Row

Poets from Dire Literary Series: Charles Coe, Eric Nelson, Suzanne Frischkorn, Teisha Dawn Twomey

University of Delaware acknowledges The Shutting Door written by one of their famous alumni and I acknowledge the location of much of my college years, The Deer Park

     Well, not really, but stuck in the middle of The Blue Hen Messenger, their quarterly or bi-annually (?) published alumni magazine is a mention of The Shutting Door in the section, Between the Covers, New Books by faculty and alumni. Here's the proof:

Blue Hen Messenger, Spring 2014

The Deer Park 1986

The fact of the matter is that I didn't major in writing at the University of Delaware, but rather Sociology. Mostly I studied The Deer Park Tavern and I studied every inch of it. Many of the connections from The Shutting Door and my daily drinking career were birthed there. The Deer Park was established in 1851 and as the story goes, Edgar Allan Poe slept there and definitely drank there once. Here's some of the rest of their history.

While I studied there, the DP was a comfortable, very crowded tavern with two bars. In the front bar, known as "the townie bar" lived the regulars and locals--mostly non-students. You had to earn your way to sit at that bar, which given my known status as a daily Deer Park drinker and local musician, I was allowed to. Also of note was Mug Night on Monday (buy a mug for ten dollars and refill it for a dollar for life, unless, of course, you broke or lost it) and one dollar Nacho Night that occurred on some other night of the week, which I don't remember

The main bar, a non air-conditioned larger room, housed tables and a music stage. It was where the shoulder to shoulder crowd stood to see shows. As a 17 year old with a fake ID, getting served  wasn't the problem. The real problem was making eye-contact or  brushing lightly against any of   Pagan's Motorcycle Club in passing. Eventually I would play music in that room with The Zippers, Maytags  later The Wake.

Maytags at The Deer Park, VD, Gager, Matt Parker, Eddie Hopkins (hidden)

The Wake outside on the Delaware/Maryland border, Keith Duffy, Dave Shaffer, Tim Gager, Rob Bird, Scott Winram

Zippers, Tommy Conwell, Timothy Gager, VD King

Delaware had a strange music scene. Note the opening of this video about the Deer Park. As a band, this was the type of music we "competed" with for jobs and popularity.

This  television show (below) was aired ten years after I lived in Delaware but the music is remarkably the same--blah. Also bands such as the one in the video below, filmed at The Deer Park were typical of most nights at The Deer Park:

No wonder I drank the way I did. The drunker I got, the better it all sounded. Anyway, enough of this tangent drunk-a-log....thank you Blue Hen Messenger for the mention of my book The Shutting Door, which ironically, (maybe not so), are poems, many based on my drinking and recovery. 

Go YoUDee

New interview by xxx, which got shelved and why - MY OPINION: The support of women should be a given, not a controversy.

Alright to get up to speed. Read the following in order

Quaint Magazine

Kat Dixon's take on above blog

Inside the Defense of Gregory Sherl

In Defense of Himself

More

August 2014 from Sarah Certa



How it caused an interview being PULLED from publication. OR support isn't being involved in controversy.

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So, I received permission to publish the below interview on my own and one thing I want to say about the publisher and interviewer:  They didn't want a controversy (Which is a huge long shot as I only talked about writing) or perhaps a lawsuit?? (Even longer shot--think winning the lottery ) Further proof is the joke I use at the end of the interview, I was asked to change because "some might find it offensive". Although I share a difference of opinion with the interviewer and implications on all of this, I will continue to be friends with that individual, as people in general do not agree with everything one another thinks at all times. The interview is a  good one, featuring great questions and is one which I am damn proud of. It is about writing and process. It makes no reference to anything in any of the above blogs.

MY OPINION:  Supporting women and the support of women should be a given! I stand behind any involvement in this case which I've had.

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Timothy Gager Interviewed by "Name Redacted".

Name Redacted:  What is it about doors that makes for such a compelling image/metaphor in art and literature? 

Timothy Gager: The characteristic about doors, which I was utilizing was that they can open or close. They can keep things out or close and lock, never to be opened again, unless unlocked. As far as the ability to be used as metaphor, doors can be made from different materials, be painted different colors, can become unhinged. Doors can protect or be blown wide open. They can be the entry way to a mansion or an escape route from a trailer. Doors or "a door" can be the perfect prompt to delve into a poem or a story. 

ND:  Right.  And as you say doors can become “unhinged”.  In your poem On the Phone, In the Middle of the Night there is a violent unhinging taking place:

“My hands ball the sheets, ringing their necks until / death do us part? Once, your father choked your brother, / lifted him until he nodded off the wall, / years collapsing out of him – he never came back. /” 

This reads as intensely personal, but for all we know it could be a scene your mind lifted from a movie and transformed into a poem.  Do you consider yourself a poet of the confessional school?

TG: Yes, I am and if it's not my confessions it might be someone else's.  Often, I hear or experience something and I write it. Sometimes after it's done I need to ask permission regarding the borrowed pieces of the shambles. These lines from this poem in particular, reflecting and reading them back now are kind of unfair that I used them, even though I asked the involved party and they said it was ok. I question that a lot now, more than ever before. I question what gives me the right...what gives me the fucking right.

ND:  If you have gotten permission (which most writers don't even bother to obtain!) but if it is granted to you, or anyone, then it's my belief that the words need to be put out there.  They have touched you in a deep place.  This is such a strong poem.  It would be a pity not to have written it.  Since you write about what you know, see, experience and hear in this lifetime,  as long as it's written from a sincere heart, you have every fucking right to write it. 

Which poem in this collection was the most difficult for you, and why? 

TG: There is still harm being done to others by putting it out there, so I try to weigh the honesty/harm ratio carefully.

As far as difficult poems for me, some of them are more difficult to read because they are so personal, I feel naked in front of people. "What Do Men Want for Kim A" is difficult to read because it is misunderstood. People do not know Kim A. is Kim Addonizio and the poem is a satirical answer to her "What Do Women Want". Without the frame of reference I can come off as a creep.

The poem, "The Last Time in the Woods” is extremely tough for me to wrap myself around because it deals with a suicide attempt. Life is incredibly hard for people.

ND:  Life is often incredibly hard.  Does poetry give you a respite?

TG: Poetry gives me quiet time in my head. Quiet time in my head gives me respite.

ND:  What does writing fiction do for you?  I get riled up writing fiction, I get very wired and usually go out afterward, and eat something or take a walk or whatever.  You?

TG: Fiction...a beginning, a middle, and an end. Poetry can have 1-3 of those. To me fiction is the twisting and twirling of the truth; the truth is in there as what you want the frame of reference to be, but fiction is a blank canvas that you can throw paint on and I mean hurl it.

ND:  Tell us a joke.

TG: Jesus Christ is dying on the cross, his disciples are gathered around, crying. Peter looks up and notices that Jesus seems to be calling him, "Peter, come hither!" Immediately Peter rushes over to the cross, only to be hit severely over the head by the Roman guard. He gets on his feet again and wants to return to the other disciples when he hears Jesus calling again, "Peter, come hither!" So, again Peter tries to climb the cross to get to his Lord, when the Roman soldier draws his sword and chops Peter's arm off. Peter is getting a little pissed and wants to go back to his buddies, but again Jesus summons. The Roman guard can't believe that Peter is trying yet AGAIN to climb to the cross, and chops off another arm. Peter is now covered in blood and demented from the blow to the head and wants to call it a day. Jesus croaks hoarsely, "Peter, please, come to me!" By now, the Roman guard is tired of chopping limbs, so he lets Peter be. The faithful disciple struggles to climb the cross (without arms mind you) and after a long while he finally arrives at his Lord's side. Hurting, suffering, bleeding, Peter looks into his Master's eyes and asks, "Yes, my Lord. What is it?" Jesus smiles lovingly and looks off into the distance, then a weak smile plays across his face, "Look Peter, I can see your house from here!"

NR:  And, I suspect that house had a door.