Thursday, May 26, 2011

What Do Men Want? They want to be sarcastic, tongue in cheek and be able to channel Kim Addonizio



Kim Addonizio's poem, What Do Women Want is one of my favorites. I love hearing her recite it on Poets.org .  (You can also hear Kim read it on youtube while looking at her closet.)

My response to her great poem with one of my own will automatically lend itself to comparison,  but just as my 1,000 batting average in softball after two games shouldn't be compared to any Red Sox team batting leader, What Do Men Want should not be compared to What Do Women Want.

Read, What Do Men Want on Poor Mojo's Almanac today! (Home of the Giant Squid).








Monday, May 23, 2011

Endicott Review, Vol. 28 includes an oldie "When I'm Drunk I Think About Phoenix"

From the academic world of Endicott College comes The Endicott Review, Vol. 28, Spring 2011,  which includes my above mentioned poem. Usually I put up a journal's cover up on the blog but my scanner is shot and there doesn't appear to be a photo of it up on-line yet either.


Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene reviewed it HERE  and mentioned the opening few lines of my poem. Thanks!

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Limited Take on Massachusetts Poetry Festival, 2011--(occasionally I post as if this is a real blog)

My son was my travel buddy for the Massachusetts Poetry Festival in Salem, Ma., and the first thing we did was sign-in at their headquarters, drink the free coffee and eat the free pizza provided by The Upper Crust. A boy's got to eat, right? Then we went to the Sequential Poetry Reading by those who had books published in 2010. I didn't exactly lie about it but I was asked to read and my 2009 book held out nicely. We heard the amazing  Amy M. Clark  read and convinced (begged)  Leslie Williams to stay for my reading.


MPF is a great poetry event so I wanted to dress accordingly but I'm also superstitious (note the play-off beard) and I had to feed my OCD so that the Bruins would win. It was completely under my control and since compromise is everything--here's the look, poetry wins while the Bruins, did THIS.

One of the highlights of the reading was meeting and exchanging books with Kate Hanson Foster who told me I looked taller than I did on Facebook. (note, I'm only two inches tall to the right).  I told her that she didn't look at all like the Hanson brothers because below is how they look. I must say that her book Mid Drift is recommended reading.
 Arthur Boyas was another great poet to hear, as was Gwendolyn Jenson and Allen West, published by Bert Stern's Off the Grid Press who publishes poets a certain age or over. I'm glad I'm young, but when I get to be that age, I'm sending Bert a manuscript. 


Following that, we walked to the Main Stage and saw some incredible acts. First we saw Phil and Sarah Kay(e) who gave a fantastic performance of poetry in tandem. They finished each others lines, recited some others perfectly in sync and  harmony and were relevant, talented, young, beautiful and entertaining.  I noted that they were the Donnie and Marie of poetry. Check out their picture on the above link vs. the one on the left.



Next up was the always entertaining Steve Almond.  You must have heard of him, but if you have not you have a lot of reading to do. Let's go to the video tape (which was not made in Salem).



My son and I then saw the Boston Typewriter Orchestra which were a lot of fun. This clip WAS from Salem.




Later in the day I was asked to be one of the readers on the trolleys. This  was set up by Shari Caplan who specializes in improbable places to read poetry such as laundromats and, well, trolleys.  Besides reading poetry to the riders, the trolleys had speaker placement on the outside of the cars. This allowed me to say things to random folks who were on the street, such as, "HEY BABY, BE BACK TO PICK YOU UP LATER", "THIS IS MR. MICROPHONE", 'MOVE YOUR VEHICLE" and "HEY, I WANT A LICK," to this guy:



It gave me ample time to chat and joke with the crowd and read some poems. Here's the only one my cinematographer son took.



 No visit to Salem is complete without a burger and a coke from Major Magleashes,  my favorite burger place in Massachusetts. Their burgers are so juicy that they soak the buns. I'd show you a picture but I don't like to take photos of food because I'm not one of those, "I always want to remember that hamburger" type of guys. (For you haters and blog lawyers, the Upper Crust pizza picture was pulled off the internet) Comparatively, I also don't enjoy other people's pictures of food because I can't eat or order what they just took, unless I'm there with them at the time of the infraction. In that case I'd say, "Why are you taking a picture of food?'. I did photograph my son, sporting a day-glo festival t-shirt, who has the same love of The Major as I do. Poetry and hamburgers must be in the genes! It was the perfect ending to a wonderful day.




 









Friday, May 13, 2011

Red Fez reprints two of my flash!


The very cool Red Fez has selected two of my flash Bipolar (originally in MiCrow) and Channeling (originally in Big Toe Review).  The boy from Bipolar has been reincarnated for the third time as Ethan in my novel in progress, An Angry Therapist's Thursday Appointments.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Where I'll be reading at the 2011 Massachusetts Poetry Festival, Salem, Ma.

The festival runs May 12-May 14. The full list of events are found HERE.





Being a tiny little fish in the huge, giant, glorious poetry pond, I'm doing a few readings, one of them a sequential reading and one of them on an event trolley!

Sequential reading is in the séance room at Omen, 184 Essex Street.

1200-12:04

Eve
Rifkah
12:07-12:14

Leslie
Williams
12:16-12:20

Joyce
Wilson
12:21-12:28

Ruth
Baden
12:28-12:35

Mary
Bonina
12:35-12:42

Arthur
Boyars
12:42-12:49

Bob
Brooks
12:51-12:55

Kate
Hanson-Foster
12:56-1:03

Amy M.
Clark
1:03-1:10

Mary
Cote-Diaz
1:10-1:17

Richard
Fein
1:17-1:24

Kate Hanson
Foster
1:24-1:31

Timothy
Gager
1:31-1:38

John
Holgerson
1:38-1:45

Gwendolyn
Jensen
1:45-1:52

Sandra
Kohler
1:52-1:59

Andy
Levine
1:59-2:06

Christopher
Locke
2:06-2:13

Marie-Elizabeth
Mali
2:13-2:20

Gordon
Massman
2:20-2:27

kate
mccann
2:27-2:34

Jessica
Moran
2:34-2:41

Tam
Neville
2:41-2:48

Marsha
Pomerantz
2:48-2:55

Mark
Schorr
2:56- 3:00

Janet
Aalfs
3:02-3:09

Thtatelo
Seqhobane
3:09-3:16

Zvi     A.
Sesling
3:23-3:30

Profound
Thought
3:30-3:37

Allen
West
3:37-3:44

Margaret
Young
3:44-3:51

Gloria
Mindock









Trolley line-up--ENJOY THE RIDE (I hope I don't get motion sick)!



10:30:00 AM    Betsy Retallack
10:45:00 AM    Ivory White
11:00:00 AM    Betsy Retallack
11:15:00 AM    Ivory White
11:30:00 AM    Betsy Retallack
11:45:00 AM    Ivory White
12:00:00 PM    Margaret Young
12:15:00 PM    Amy Tighe
12:30:00 PM    Margaret Young
12:45:00 PM    Amy Tighe
01:00:00 PM    Kolleen Carney
01:15:00 PM    Tara Skurtu
01:30:00 PM    Kolleen Carney
01:45:00 PM    Tara Skurtu
02:00:00 PM    Kolleen Carney
02:15:00 PM    Noemi Martin
02:30:00 PM    Eric Roberts
02:45:00 PM    Noemi Martin
03:00:00 PM    Eric Roberts
03:15:00 PM    Noemi Martin
03:30:00 PM    Susie Davidson
03:45:00 PM    Timothy Gager
04:00:00 PM    Susie Davidson
04:15:00 PM    Timothy Gager
04:30:00 PM    Dave Walker
04:45:00 PM    Timothy Gager
05:00:00 PM    Dave Walker
05:15:00 PM    Libby Rowe
05:30:00 PM    Miriam Oneal
05:45:00 PM    Libby Rowe
06:00:00 PM    Miriam Oneal



Purple = Trolley 1

White = Trolley 2

Green = leaves from Salem Depot




Sunday, May 8, 2011

Bagels with the Bards Anthology 6 is out with a schmear of one of my poems

The Bagel Bards is a group of poets started by Doug Holder and Harris Gardner, that meet once a week in Somerville, Ma. Every year they publish an anthology of poetry. I'm proud to know these folks and equally proud that my poem, "An Ocean Inn" was included in Bagels with the Bards 6

.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

I didn't write a poem a day for April

I'd succeeded the last two Aprils by writing 30 new poems, but each time by my estimation, I got five good poems and twenty-five shitty ones out of it. This year, I decided to write 500 words a day on my novel, An Angry Therpist's Thursday Appointments.  Any poets out there write 16,000 words this month? Now all I hope is that 80% of those words aren't shitty.

4/1 504 words

4/2 533 words, April total, 1037

4/3 1060 words, April total, 2097

4/4 554 words, April total, 2651

4/5 558 words, April total, 3209

4/6 729 words, April total, 3938

4/7 955 words, April total, 4893

4/8 0 words

4/9, 656 words, April total, 5549

4/10, 683 words, April total, 6232---target 5000

4/11, 445 words April total, 6677

4/12, 703 words April total, 7,380

4/13, 669 words April total, 8,049

4/14, 526 words April total, 8,575

4/15 367 words , April total, 8,942 ---target 7,500

4/16 660 words , April total, 9,702

‎4/16 589 words , April total, 10,291

4/17 0 words

4/18 443 words , April total, 10,734

4/19 512 words,  April total, 11,245

4/20 688 words 11,933---target 10,000

‎4/21, 570 words 12,503

4/22, 778 words 13,281

4/23, 339 words 13,620

4/24 518 words 14,138

4/25 602 words 14,740---target 12,500

4/26 538 words 15,278

4/27 567 word, 15,845

4/28 0 words,

4/29 303 words, 16,108

4/30 604 words, 16,712 ---target 15,000


So now that it's May, I'm still rolling with it.

5/1  574 words