Poetry News November 23, 2009
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Here is your Poetry News for the week of November 23, 2009. Spoken word events are something to be thankful for this week in the Pioneer Valley and Beyond. Scroll all the way down for more poetry in CT, Boston and other areas. Check out all our links to the right for poetry events everywhere!
THIS WEEK check out (scroll down for details):
Fri. Nov 20 - Slam and more great poetry events in Worcester all week - see belowFri. Nov. 20 - Live Lit, UMass writers, Amherst Books
Sat. Nov. 21 - Brockton Poetry Series and other great CT events all week - see below
Holyoke/Springfield Area Poetry
Friday Nights at 8pm
Boriquen Y QuisQueya
626 St. James Ave.
Springfield MA
Starving for Art Presents open mic Tuesdays
@ Blue Fusion Bar and Grille 487 St. James Ave Springfield, MA doors open at 6pm for social hour. Showtime is 7-9pm All poets, musicians, singers, and visual artists are welcome. This event is free. For more info visit http://www.brendaschild.com/
Word in the Valley and Beyond
30 Poems in 30 Days Celebration!
On Wednesday, December 2nd at 7:00 there will be a reading and celebration of the 30 Poems in 30 Days project at the Forbes Library in Northampton, MA. Sign up is at 6:30. The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served and participating poets are invited to bring copies of their books and chapbooks to sell at the event. See you there!
Green St. Poetry Series
Green Street Café Northampton, Massachusetts
The Green St. Poetry Series showcases the voices of emerging and noted poets from the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts and beyond. Please join us this Thursday November 19th at 7:30 p.m. to hear the poetry of R.L. Russis and Julian Crowell.
Future Readings Include:
December 3rd — Howard Faerstein & Laura Rodley
December 10th — Jessica Fjeld & Francesca Chabrier
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 7 p.m. (Free)
Saundra Dubow Azmitia
Wednesday December 9, 2009, 7:00 PM
Forbes Library Community Room
Saundra Dubow Azmitia, author of Do it Differently, Do it Differently! will speak about her memoir on Wednesday, December 9, 7:00 p.m. at Forbes Library, 20 West St. Northampton, MA
Coming of age in the forties and fifties under the thumb of a "titan" of a mother whose ambitions for wealth and security for her daughter focused on steering her into marriage with a "good catch," Saundra
wavered between her own instincts and society's values. Resisting her mother's traditional standards of a woman's "proper place" and limited horizons, Saundra struggled to honor her mother and still carve out a meaningful life for herself through the arts and theater.
SUSAN HOWARD CASE MEMORIAL POETRY CORNER
The Forbes Library in Northampton, MA has created a new collection of the works of local poets named the Susan Howard Case Poetry Corner. This collection has been named in memory of a local poet who contributed to the library's rich poetry community through her volunteer service. The non-circulating collection consists of poetry books and chapbooks by Pioneer Valley poets, and locally published literary journals. "The idea for this collection developed in response to the abundance of many gifted poets in our area," said D.M. Gordon, Forbes Library Writer-in-Residence who created the idea for this new collection.
The collection will be housed in the Arts & Music magazine lounge on the library's second floor. The items in the collection are to be read in the library and comfortable seating is available nearby. The library hopes to grow the collection through donations. Anyone interested in donating to the collection should contact Lisa Downing, Assistant Director, at 413-587-1017 or ldowning@forbeslibrary.org.
Anthology of Poems about Northampton
Call for Submissions! Deadline is March 1, 2010 Go to: http://www.nohoanthology.blogspot.com
FLORENCE POETS SOCIETY .
Next business/sharing meeting Thursday December 10, 6:30pm
ALL POETS OF ALL TYPES AND AGES are welcome, bring one of your original works to share,
(12 to 15 copies will usually be enough for all to share) The meeting is held at Lilly Library community room and begins at 6:30 PM. Poetry presentation and discussion begins at 7PM
WRITING GROUP
Rich Puchalsky and friends meet every 3rd Thursday at Lilly Library community Room at 6:30 PM. See Rich for details, this group is currently open to join.
LASTLY PLEASE CONSIDER JOINING AS A MEMBER OF FLORENCE POETS SOCIETY. THE FEE IS $15.00 FOR THE YEAR FROM SEPTEMBER TO AUGUST. Your membership supports our Fall festival,
SILKWORM our annual journal, (these first two items also are supported in part by the Northampton Arts Council via a grant) our website http://www.florencepoetssociety.org/,, our po box, the annual contest, the JAN SLAM, our spring art gallery reading. and our summer reading at William Cullen Bryant homestead.
For more information: Email us at FPOETS@localnet.com or check out our web page at http://www.florencepoetssociety.org/
Florence Poets Society Readings:
Listen to "Twilite's Poetry Pub" now Weekly! Enjoy the "Pub" with Carl and Tom every Wednesday from 9-10 am on Valley Free Radio, WXOJ 103.3 fm, Northampton and now with improved streaming at http://www.valleyfreeradio.org/ !!!
Poetry to the people! WXOJ-FM LP 103.3 and streaming at http://www.valleyfreeradio.org/. Bringing to you a variety of interesting poetry and music!
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All events are free and open to the public except as noted For more information, Call Tom at (413) 584-5914
or email at: tommytwilite@gmail.com or: FPOETS@localnet.com or visit: http://www.florencepoetssociety.org/
POETRY A LA CARTE
on WMUA-Amherst 91.1 FM 5pm to 5:30 pm on Tuesdays this Summer, streamed live at http://www.wmua.org/.
The program, hosted by Daisy Mathias, includes reading aloud from past and contemporary poets, and occasionally features live interview and poetry-reading with a local poet.
Poetry at the Leverett Library
6:30 p.m. on the 3rd Tuesday of each month, Poetry reading at the Leverett Library. 75 Montague Rd. Leverett, MA
Greenfield/Shelburne Falls and North
December 6, 2010 at The Hope and Olive, 44 Hope Street Greenfield, MA
On December 6th there will be a gathering to celebrate the writing community in Western MA. Come for brunch and stay for the readings and connecting with new and old friends, who share your passion for writing and reading. Or arrive at 3 with readings starting at 3:10. The format will be 3 minute slots. A chance to hear some of the great writers in our area and to talk, inspire, laugh, and celebrate. We will end at 5 which then you may want to stay for dinner and just hang. If interested in reading contact Paul at paul@humanerrorpublishing.com. Hope to see you there.
Prose and Poems
A reading of new work by Sally Bellerose and Gail Thomas at The Rendezvous “bar with food”
Monday, Dec. 7, 2009 at 7pm, 78 3rd Street, Turner’s Falls, MA, 413-863-2866 www.rendezvoustfma.com
Bart’s Bards
Second Thursdays Open Microphone for Writers Bart’s Café of Greenfield 286 Main St. Greenfield, MA
7:00-9:00 P.M. (Sign up to Read at 6:45)
2009 Featured Readers:
December 10: Tim Mayo
Tim Mayo holds an ALB, cum laude, from Harvard University and an MFA from The Bennington Writing Seminars. His poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Arbutus, Avatar Review, Babel Fruit, Big Toe Review, The Chrysalis Reader, Del Sol Review, 5 AM, Inertia Magazine, Mannequin Envy, Poet Lore, The Rose & Thorn Literary E-zine, Verse Daily and The Writer’s Almanac. Among the awards his poetry has garnered are two International Merit Awards from Atlanta Review; he was also a finalist in the 2007 Winning-Writers.com War Poetry Contest and twice nominated for the 2008 Best of the Net Anthology, once by Babel Fruit and once by The Rose and Thorn Literary E-zine . In 2000 he was a semi-finalist in the “Discovery"/The Nation Poetry Contest and has been awarded two fellowships to the Vermont Studio Center’s annual Vermont Artist’s Week. His chapbook The Loneliness of Dogs (Pudding House Publications 2008) was a finalist in the WCDR 2008 Chapbook Challenge in Ontario, Canada, and his most recent publication The Kingdom of Possibilities (Mayapple Press) was a semi finalist for the 2009 Brittingham and Pollock Awards, a finalist for the 2007 Main Street Rag Award and lastly, a finalist for 2009 May Swenson Award. He is a former member of the Brattleboro Literary Festival author committee and lives in Brattleboro, Vermont.
2010 Featured Readers:
January 14: Janet Aalfs
February 11: Julie Payne Britton
March 11: Maureen Moore
April 8: Kerry O’Keefe
May 14: Wyn Cooper
June 10: Lori Desrosiers
July 8: Janet MacFadyen
August 12: Marie Gauthier
Sept. 10: Lesle Lewis
October 14: Susie Patlove
November 11: Laura Rodley
For More Information, Please Contact:
Larry Fader (413) 475-3321
(Open Microphone Readings are 5 Minutes or Less)
Free to All
Greenfield Spoken Word
Always the third Tuesday of the month 9 Mill St, Greenfield, MA - Doors open at 7:00 - Open Mic starts at 7:30 Open Mic will be 10 - five-minute slots -Donation - Sliding Scale $1 - $5 Book signing and selling of local writers works will be available. Come up to read! Bring your chapbooks to sell. Hope to see you there!
ARMS LIBRARY READING
Third Friday Prose and Poetry Readings. 7 p.m. at The Arms Library, Corner of Main and Bridge Streets,
Shelburne Falls, Mass. 413-625-0306.
Held in the upstairs Reading Room, readers should arrive a couple of minutes early to sign up for a reading slot, and then have five minutes to share their work. The building is accessible by entering at lower level and taking the elevator upstairs.
Monday, November 30th, the Deja Brew (57 Lockes Village Rd, Wendell) will open their doors at 7:00 for the third reading of our 4th season of All Small Caps and you will have a chance to catch up w/ us and everyone else. As usual, the Brew Special Poetry night menu will be available, bring a friend and your appetite!, and we will begin the Open Mic around 7:30 or so, followed by a break, and the featured readers will begin at 8:30.
Speaking of featured readers, we have excellent poets for your ears:
Claire Donato
Joseph Massey
Claire Donato lives and writes in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn. She is the author of a chapbook, Someone Else’s Body (Cannibal Books 2009). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications such as Black Warrior Review, Boston Review, Action Yes, Lit, and Typo. Claire graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008 and is currently
completing an MFA in Literary Arts at Brown University, where she also teaches poetry writing and was the 2008-2009 Peter Kaplan Memorial Fellow. The recipient of a 2009-2010 Brown University Graduate International Colloquia grant, Claire currently curates (with John Cayley and Adam Veal) an international arts colloquium in Providence called Incuhabitations: concepts and languages in poetic practice.
Joseph Massey was born in 1978 in Chester, Pennsylvania, and has spent the last seven years in Humboldt County, California, where all of the poems in Areas of Fog (Shearsman Books, 2009), his first full-lengthcollection, were written, as well as the chapbooks Minima St. (Range, 2003), Eureka Slough (Effing Press, 2005), Bramble (Hot Whiskey Press, 2005), Property Line (Fewer & Further Press, 2006), November Graph (Longhouse, 2007), Within Hours (The Fault Line Press, 2008), Out of Light (Kitchen Press, 2008), The Lack Of (Nasturtium Press, forthcoming) and Exit North (Book Thug, forthcoming). His work has also appeared in The Nation, American Poet: The Journal of the Academy of American Poets, Asterisk, and The Northwest Review, among other journals and magazines.
Collected Poets Series
Thursday, Dec. 3, 2009 at 7:00 pm, poets Mary Koncel and Kate Greenstreet will read from their work. Please note time change.
Suggested donation $2-$5. Mocha Maya's Coffee House, 47 Bridge Street, Shelburne Falls, MA 01370, 413-625-6292. Wheelchair accessible. See www.collectedpoets.com for more information.
Mary A. Koncel has published two books of prose poems: You Can Tell the Horse Anything (Tupelo Press) and Closer to Day (Quale Press).
Kate Greenstreet is the author of The Last 4 Things, (Ahsahta Press), case sensitive (Ahsahta Press) and three chapbooks.
The Collected Poets Series highlights the work of established and emerging poets. Each event showcases the remarkable local poets of Western Massachusetts and the finest regional, national, and international talent. The series is usually held every first Thursday of the month at 7pm (new time)
Mocha Maya’s Coffee House,
47 Bridge Street,
Shelburne Falls, MA 01370,
413-625-6292.
Wheelchair accessible. Free.
The Collected Poets Series will now be held the first Thursday of the month at 7:00PM. instead of starting at 7:30PM. The first reading at this time will be on Dec. 3, 2009 when Mary Koncel and Kate Greenstreet will read from their work at Mocha Maya's at 7:00PM. The Collected Poets Series is also excited to announce the dates and readers for our 2010 series beginning in January. We have many amazing poets from here in the valley and from as far away as England.
2010 Series
January 7 - Nancy Pearson and Afaa Michael Weaver
February 4 - Meg Kearney, Christopher Merrill, and Rhett Iseman Trull
March 4 - Joan Houlihan and Deborah Bernhardt
National Poetry Month
April 1 - Lawrence Raab and Regie O'Hare Gibson
April 15 - Adrian Blevins and James Haug
May 6 - Margaret Lloyd and Sarah Browning
May 16 - Special Appearance by Maxine Kumin at the Buckland- Shelburne Community Center. Sunday, May 16, at 3:30 pm.
June 3 - Mihaela Moscaliuc and Nickole Brown
July 1 - Kristin Bock and Lee Sharkey
No CPS Readings in August or September
October 7 - Josephine Dickinson and Sharon Dolin
November 4 - Barbara Ras and Jennifer Sweeney
December 2 - Aracelis Girmay and Ross Gay
The Collected Poets Series highlights the work of established and emerging poets. Each event showcases the remarkable local poets of Western Massachusetts and the finest regional, national, and international talent.
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Writing Groups
for beginning and experienced writers Come write in an encouraging supportive environment, experience the
deepening and growth of your own writing, and contribute to the deepening and growth of others' writing. No experience necessary--only the willingness to put pen to paper.
Groups meet weekly in Greenfield, are ongoing, and open to all genres. We follow the Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) method, http://www.amherstwriters.com/. $125 per 5-week session, 6 - 8 people per group. To join or for more info call or email Ann McNelly: 413 772 2375, amcnelly@rcn.com
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News from Mo and Booksmyth Press
The web site can be accessed with this address: http://www.thebooksmyth.com/ Web site: http://www.thebooksmyth.com/ submission guidelines now available
The Equinox is available at http://www.thebooksmyth..com/
Word in the Berkshires
Power of Words, Open Mic
Third Tuesdays
This is an open opportunity to share poetry, readings, music and other spoken word.
Free and open to the public at Berkshire South Regional Community Center , Crissey Rd.,Great Barrington, MA Every third Tuesday of the month. Please call Garfield at 528 4127 for more information.
In Words, Out Words in Housatonic
In Housatonic, MA there is an open mic for poets and performers of all styles and ages.
1st Tuesday of each month at the Deb Koffman Gallery 137 Front Street, Housatonic, MA 01236. “In Words, Out Words.” is hosted by John Meeks and there is usually a $7 suggested donation for heat and electricity. There are snacks there provided by whoever wants to bring them. The sign up technically is at 6:30 however the way it works is a lottery system. If you go to check it out once, then you can put your name on the contact email list. The following month you get an email reminding you of the upcoming event. If it’s your first time performing at In Words, Out Words, you are guaranteed a spot on the roster as long as you reply to the reminder email. If you’ve performed there before then you are put into the lottery system and randomly names are selected. Sometimes there are still slots open at the door.
The open mic begins at 7 and the featured performer goes on for about 20 minutes. It usually lasts until between 9 and 9:30.
Zeitgeist Gallery Pittsfield
Monday Poetry Nights 6 to10pm 648 North Street in Pittsfield call Alan Nidle, the Director at (857) 991-8448 for detail
Lee Writers Group
(every 2nd Tuesday of the month) at the Lee Library Conference Room.
Develop and hone writing skills through constructively critiquing others as well as receiving helpful hints and suggestions. This forum will host a variety of short stories, poetic compilations, insightful and original essays, and other varieties of writing similarly tangible in length. The purpose of this group is to embody character and narrator through obsessive directive fervor with written and spoken words. The group will meet every second Tuesday sharing original works via recitation and distribution and should be prepared to accept constructive feedback and be able to, in return, deliver such feedback in a respectable and deliberate manner.
Contact Leewritersgroup@gmail.com or call 413 243-8116 for further information.
Word in Ware/Palmer
Carpe Stylum! (Latin for Seize the pen!)
meets every Wednesday 6-8pm, usually at the Ware Library but some meetings are held elsewhere. This group includes poets, short story writers and novelists. All are welcome. Call LuWanda Cheney (413) 277-9676 for a schedule.
Word in Worcester: