This
fall brings a harvest of acceptances. Thanks
to Codhill Press
editors Larry
Carr
and Jan
Schmidt for selecting “Andromeda at Midlife” for their anthology
of women poets from the Hudson Valley.
My gratitude also goes to Joel
Allegretti of Poets Wear Prada,
which will publish “Velocity” in a collection of poems on TV. “Velocity” reflects on a recently discovered
film of the Kennedy motorcade. In
response, Allegretti writes:
The poem deals with a threshold moment. Viewers at home a few
seconds later saw something that would permanently change the optimistic United
States. Their TV set suddenly became something they never imagined it would be.
More thanks to First Literary Review-East Editor Cindy
Hochman for taking "Forensics" which will
appear in November, "The Grief Counselors" in January, and
"Bumblebee" In March. Alhambra Publishing will also print "Saffron" in its 2013 Poetry Calendar, and the Young
Readers’ version will feature "Aurora" and "Amphibious.” Whew!
Toulouse Lautrec and Fin-de-Siècle
Paris
Thanks to Larissa Bailiff, art historian and MoMA lecturer, for giving this lunchtime talk.
Toulouse Lautrec, despite his brief
lifespan (1864-1901), produced more than 300 drawings and paintings. He was good friends with Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) when the latter was in Paris for two years. I’d never seen his pastel portrait of Van
Gogh. His posters of Montmartre dance hall stars, such as Jane
Avril (1868-1943) and Louise
Weber
(1866-1929)—aka “La Goulue,” took design cues from shadow theatre presentations
popular at the time. Who knew? Fascinating!
Red Glass Books One-Year
Celebration
Join poet Janet
Kaplan to
celebrate the first year of her dynamic new press, Red
Glass Books, on October 24, 6-8 p.m. at the
Cornelia Street Café. Red Glass poets Patricia Spears Jones, Margaret Diehl, Edwin Torres, Brian Clements, and
EJ Antonio
will read. I loved Edwin Torres’s One Night: Poems for the Sleepy and
can’t wait to read more titles such as [The
ship] by Jean Valentine. Congratulations to Janet
and all the fine Red Glass poets! Drink
up, indeed!
“Neutral Hero” at the Kitchen
Tony Lo Bianco in “The
Little Flower”
Tony Lo Bianco
reprises his one-man show, "The
Little Flower," October 23 - November 2 at the Dicapo Theater on East 76th Street between Third and Lex. The
performance explores the life of the colorful if bombastic Fiorello H. La
Guardia, Former Mayor of New York City. Lo
Bianco says, “Fiorello will give you insight,
laughter and understanding of what a public servant should be doing for you.” Go to SmartTix now
for tickets: October 24 and November 2 are already sold out.
Field Dance Fund awardee Rachel Cohen and RacocoRx present "I Would"--A Story of Self, Determination, and Self-Determination told through dance and woodworking with music by Lynn Wright. Cohen joins Laurie Berg and Bessie McDonough-Thayer for EstroGenius 2012 presented by Women in Motion at TBG, 312 West 36th Street, 3rd Floor, on November 14 at 8 p.m. and November 17 at 6 p.m. Click here to purchase tickets.
‘Round the Net
Thanks
to the following people for great updates and/or links:
· Poet/essayist
Cindy Beer-Fouhy for
her Life Stories Writing Workshop at Westchester Community College, September 24 – October 29, Mondays 1:30 – 3 p.m.; call
914 606 6793 or e-mail mainstream@sunywcc.edu · Lakota Kids founder Maggie Dunne (above) for the Lakota Kids Fall Drive, a fantastic and much needed charity.
· Novelist
Petra Lewis, for her RocketHub
campaign to support her book manuscript, The Sons and
Daughters of Ham.
· Cousin
Katherine McCollom for her grand-daughter Leslie McColom’s vimeo on her book, Preschool Gems
(Perigee Trade, 2012)
· Cellist
Jay
Shulman for his Artspire
campaign to reissue a CD of a historic 1947 Stuyvesant String
Quartet performance.
· Poet
Linda
Simone for this recently discovered new photo of Emily Dickinson (seated left) and
tribute to Dominic Hibberd,
biographer of WWI poet Wilfred Owen.
· Farewell
to poet
and translator Louis Simpson, whom I met more than 10
years ago at the West Chester University Poetry Conference.
· Step
aside, Harold
Bloom! The Times says Stephen
Burt
is the Harvard critic launching poets these days; and Steve
Roggenbuck is the online face of poetry.
· Imagine
the head of your nation calling to apologize if your literary work meant job
loss—read “Please
hold for Mr. Putin”
· In
its Poetry
Pairings blog, the
Times and Poetry
Foundation join forces to pair a news item with a poem each week.
Single File – For Brenda
If you have read annograms
over the years, you’ve heard of Brenda
Connor-Bey, first poet
laureate of Greenburgh (NY), and inspiration for and beloved teacher of writing
workshops there. We lost Brenda in August,
although she was writing and attending conferences right to the end. Elegant and beautiful, Brenda emanated a natural aureate light--an American royal if ever I met one.
I was privileged to help her edit her long
poem, “In the Mists of Remembering,” a raw and mesmerizing incantation to her
African-American ancestors, which could use a publisher—e-mail me if you
can offer one. A commemoration will take
place at the Westchester Arts Council on Saturday, October
13, at 2 p.m. Her dear friend Mervyn
Taylor, the Caribbean-American poet, summed up our
loss in this perfect poem read at her family’s memorial service.
Single File for Brenda
Last
night the stars came out
as
never before, in clusters, one in particular flaunting
its brilliance, its size. And we
interpreted this as a sign, as
powerless people tend to do, of
heaven’s willingness to let us
have a few more minutes, to say
what we have to say, to locate
by heart. And this is how we
come to her door, single file,
no
one anxious to go in front
of
the other, as in all her beautyshe slips out a window, shinnies
down the drainpipe, gone. Who,
for
all our calling, won’t come back,
will
have us look up, on nightslike this, gazing at stars, believing
we know which one she is.
