Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Reading and interview, Poetry In The Bar: A poet virtually walks into a Michigan bar



     A monthly series sponsored by Easton Rapids Poetry Club, in Easton Rapids called Poetry In The Bar and run by Helen and Gavin Broom. Up until recently it was held in an actual bar--over there, to your right.

     This month I was asked to be their feature, which was great, and I didn't have to travel. I was interviewed for about 20 minutes, and then read a set of poetry. It all came out pretty cool, and I spoke about poetry, writing trends, dark humor, talking dogs, going soft, and needing a re-do. (volume wise).

To listen you can go
HERE

or on Spotify
HERE

or on Apple Podcasts
HERE

The poetry of my set starts at 25:30

From the book Spreading Like Wild Flowers, from Big Table Publishing, 2019
1. Concerto
2. This Poem Is Like a Bruise
3. In The Dark Corner Of A Theater
4. The Heart Is A Broken Little Thing
5. College Dining Hall
6. A Certain Warrior
7. Fear, God Bless My Soul
8. Faith
9. At a Cookout for Poets
10. How To Unring a Bell
11. Centralia, Pennsylvania

A new poem
12. Social Distancing of a Town, Population 10

From the book, Chief Jay Strongbow is Real, from Big Table Publishing, 2017
13. Making American History
14. The Filth and the Fury
15. Sobriety
16. When We Talk About Love

From the book, The Shutting Door, from Ibbetson Street Press, 2013
17. reply to someone who said, "you owe me a poem, boy."
18. The Shutting Door
19. Manomet Point
20. The Poems in My House

Some more new poems
20. Ballet of Surrender
21. Seclusion
22, Nine Lives
23. Rosebud Winter
24. Life's Canvas

closing with a true story
25. There's a Fly in My Soup

     The broadcasts ends with poems from Kelsey Hudson, Dennis Hendrickson, Fay Turner Johnson, and new poetry by Helen Broom

Thursday, April 30, 2020

Interview up on MassPoetry regarding the Virtual Fridays Dire Literary Series, to benefit Independent Bookstores

UPDATE 5/4: I'm no longer accepting queries for being a feature.  Apologies in advance.

Today there is an interview up about Virtual Fridays Dire Literary Series So, I made a bunch of links with the history of the non-virtual event, and also the original announcement / ground rules of the new on-line venue



artwork by Peter Urkowitz, as he often does at readings



In 2018, I ended the Dire Literary Series, after 18 years of running it as a monthly series.

1. Here's a link about the number of Dire Series readings and their location - if you want add 6 virtual Dires to this total for = 217 runnings!
2. Here's a link about the last line-up
3. Here's a link to an interview about ending it all (just the series...drama!)
4. Here's a link to the New Virtual Fridays (I know, another fucking link!)


     So, if I was happily retired from this event, as I've stated, why do it. Well, because of "these challenging times," "these times of Corona," "these strange, weird, odd, (insert adjective of choice) times," and "in the time of a pandemic," people need something to do!

     So MassPoetry is running a series of interviews about on-line readings, and poet Frances Donovan asked to interview me.
  It's a great interview by Frances---a few things that might be different from the time the interview was conducted and now:


1. Maybe I'll keep this going past social distancing?
2. Affiliation of bookstores. What I like to say now is that no bookstores are sponsoring us, we are sponsoring them! My features pick their favorite stores and we mention the shit out of them. For example Marianne Leone loves IAM Books in Boston, and Newtonville Books if you were interested in buying Ma Speaks Up
4. I was tossing around a virtual hat for the features, but this isn't currently happening. I hate asking people for money, but I love when people buy books.
5. If you are just there to listen, the camera being off is fine.
6. To feature at the live retired venue, all you needed was a published book. Currently I am querying all the features, as I'm shooting for some really big names. So far I've booked Marianne Leone, Anna David, Kathy Fish, Nick Flynn, and Kim Addonizio.

Five New Poems in Muddy River Poetry Review

Zvi Sesling-Poet and Editor















    The Spring Issue 2020 is out, of the long standing, Muddy River Poetry Review, Zvi Sesling, Editor. Grateful to have five poems selected, and to be featured in this new issue. Thank you Zvi for your kind writing on the MRPR homepage. Below are the five new poems:




The other wonderful featured poets are:



Thursday, April 23, 2020

Poetry in the Bar Podcast, has two poems of mine.

To jump to podcast, scroll down, and the program guide, time wise, is listed below.


LIVE from Eaton Rapids, Michigan, the Poetry in the Bar Series, the third Sunday of every month, is recorded to be heard on their podcast.

Is now

NOT LIVE from all over the world, the Poetry in the Bar Series (now people's homes), the third week of the month, released on their podcast.  I am grateful to have two poems, Nine Lives, and Kleptoparasitic, )which you can read about HERE) 0n April 22nd's episode. You can listen to the podcast LINK HERE

     The series is hosted by Helen Bloom, produced by Gavin Broom, and here is the line-up on the podcast


0:53 Jeremy Hunt interview
10:15 Jeremy Hunt, Lansing Michigan, poems
37:00 Courtney Danes
38:55 Peter A
41:50 Cheryl Caesar
44:55 Cruz Villarreal, Lansing, MI
49:15 David McDonald
56:50 Timothy Gager
59:00 Found poem, Gavin Broom



Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Kleptoparasitic published in Boston Literary Magazine, and the story behind the story (poem).

 I am happy to announce my poem, Kleptoparasitc was published in Boston Literary Magazine

To hear the poem, look further down this post.

So, let's review the story behind this poem.

Kleptoparasitism

 
Definition
noun
A form of parasitism wherein an animal takes food or objects collected, caught, prepared, or stored by another animal


        On February 4rd, 2020. I finished a draft of a poem called Kleptoparasitic, which I was using spiders (teridiidae) as a metaphor for the parasitic relationships within death and the afterlife, both physical and spiritual. That night I went to the TD Bank Garden to watch the Bruins play among 17,000 or so others. As of that Monday there were only 11 known  cases of COVID19 under investigation in the United States. Our President thought this indicated nothing to worry about, and did nothing 
11 known cases
I attended a hockey game
          How times have changed. We all know what is happening, today, on April 15, which is no longer "Tax Day." The last two lines of the poem (below) which appears in The Boston Literary Magazine (use this link), seems to  predict the future, as presently people are dying alone in hospitals or in quarantine. 

unlike the Theridiidae, we beg
to hold the dying.
         
          Here is me reading the poem on March 22, (pre-self-inflicted-isloation shave) where  on this day 27,051 new cases were reported in the United States
Today, April 15, this is the look, and today there are a total of 609,000 confirmed cases in the United States. I am at home, and staying there. 

Tuesday, April 7, 2020

National Poetry Month, my publisher did some promotion!

 



  I know it's more like National Isolation Month, but for National Poetry month, my long-time publisher, Big Table Publishing, produced this twenty-second video for my book Spreading Like Wild Flowers along with a Q/A and sample. They did this also for many of their other published poets. I am very grateful to Robin Stratton of Big Table for all the work she puts out for her authors




     The question and answer I was assigned can be found below,

What was the hardest thing about writing Spreading Like Wild Flowers, or took guts to expose something about yourself?

I always worry about reactions, whether it’s the craft part (am I good enough?), or if I’ve exposed others, opened up one of their personal triggers—I worry about that kind of. Writing it, and even putting it on a page is kind of chicken, at least that’s how I feel ---hiding behind the pages, or the wanting to be heard without investment, or to be comforted. For me, that’s not guts. Within my work, and if I find myself doing that, I’m self-serving. By the way, as a writer you must have characteristics of being self-serving, but to avoid that philosophical debate, all I can say is I become emotionally drained right after I read such material in front of a crowd, while presenting that difficult subject matter. I don’t have that same visceral feeling when I’m sitting at my writing space…not even close.



Also from Spreading Like Wild Flowers, they released one of the poems.  


Shame

As sunlight squawked once more,
a rooster conned the night

again, waking to repulsion
of head from pillow.

Your eyes open like linen curtains,
with ‘how-long’ dust on the ruffle.

This morning’s hair
looks like a million

which-a-way blades of grass,
needing to be mowed today;

green, growing, enriched, withdrawal.
It is my lushness, of recollection.

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Feeling Cooped Up With No Where to Go? Special Dire Series is going on Zoom, EVERY FRIDAY with a great feature and open mic

UPDATE 4/23-Features will read 10-15 at either 7 PM or 8 PM, their preference. To see these events go to Virtual Fridays Dire Literary Series Group on Facebook or message me for information. 


FALL LINEUP:

SEPTEMBER---11 Carly Israel   18 Daphne Kalotay   25 Ryan Ridge

OCTOBER---2 Marge Piercy    9 Kerry Beth Neville   16 Yuyutsu Sharma   23 Christopher Joseph   

30  Elizabeth McKim

NOVEMBER--- 6  Diana Spechler   13 Jonathan Escoffery   20 Dewitt Henry   

27  Brian Sonia-Wallace

DECEMBER---4 Rebecca Fishow   11 Marguerite Bouvard   18 Pamela Painter 

25, OFF on Christmas Day

JANUARY---1, OFF

PREVIOUS FEATURES:

APRIL  24 Marianne Leone

MAY---- 1 Anna David, .8 Kathy Fish, 15 Nick Flynn, 22 Kim Addonizio, 29 Koren Zailckas

JUNE --- 5 Larry O. Dean, 12 Michael Keith, 19 Andre Dubus III, 26 Chad Parenteau

JULY---10 Enzo Silon Surin 17 Amy Dresner 24 Cate Marvin   31 Kim Chinquee 

AUGUST--- 7 Jessica Keener   14 James Brown  21 Amy King    28 Doug Holder 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE 4/2- Gate crash Prevention

Because of pranks, perversion, and racism which will not be tolerated, here are some guidelines I will be using

1) People will be Automatically muted when entering, only host can unmute you, at any time
2) Eliminate Chat
3) eliminate screen share
4) lock Dire at 715 so even if you get booted out by mistake, you may not be able to re-enter--sorry.
5) block camera ability for any interlopers that are frustrated by all of the above.
6) not post the event on Twitter

UPDATE-3/22-    EVERY FRIDAY 645 DIRE MEETING WILL OPEN


This is how it will work. Download the  ZOOM APP FREE VERSION  . At 6:45, I will post reminders on my facebook wall, and on twitter (@TimothyGager) . How it will work is at the bottom of this post, under the Brady Bunch looking picture.  I plan on running this every Friday until we can all go to live events again.




      This is how the Dire Literary Series at the old Out of the Blue Gallery, 106 Prospect Street, in Cambridge looked like. Seems  like the gallery that night was completely full, as two people are up on the side of the stage in what I used to call "The Penalty Box."


     This is what the Dire Literary Series, tomorrow at 7 PM will look like. With all of us, hopefully, homeward bound and isolating to beat the spread of the corona virus, I am bringing the Series back. It will be a way for people to hear poetry, read their work, and sort of feel like a community. There will be no features. Everyone will be muted, and I'll call on people to unmute as the night goes on. Everyone will read one poem, or 3 minutes---but perhaps longer if there is only a few participants. YOU MUST HAVE YOUR CAMERA ON TO READ....I want  this is as close to a replacement to a live reading as I can get.