The Mad Poets Blog

By the late notice of this post, you might not think I’m as excited as I am about tonight’s reading at Milkboy. But I am indeed psyched. We’ve got three great readers & a genre-bending good time. We’ve got three poets: Tree Reisener is an old friend on the Mad Poet scene who will be reading her dynamic short fiction tonight! Dave Worrell will be reading his jazz-infused poems with musical accompaniment. And Connie Beresin will be representin’ old school-style with a straight up poetry reading. This looks to be one of the most eclectic readings thus far in our mixed-genre series. And I can’t wait.  Oh, and let’s not forget the awesomeness that has been our open mic contest! Seriously folks — this thing has been a total rollercoaster, and I’m diggin’ the ride.

Here’s some more about our readers:

Dave Worrell’s poems have appeared in Mad Poets Review, U.S. 1 Worksheets, Wild River Review and Fox Chase Review.  He has performed his jazz-accompanied poems at Chris’ Jazz Cafe in Philadelphia and Cornelia Street Cafe in New York City.

Connie Beresin, poet

Connie Beresin has been an artist, journaling devotee, secretary, case worker, community organizer/planner, social services administrator, fund raiser, public policy advocate, wife, mother, grandmother and caregiver. Retiring in 2006 after 30 years in non-profit social services, she is focusing on poetry and watercolor. Her poems have appeared in MARGIE, Mad Poets Review, Moonstone Art Center’s Poetry Ink, Voices de la Luna, CC&D and Kotopress Loss Journal. In 2009 one of her poems was selected for a reading at the D & R Greenway Land Trust’s poetry and art event celebrating waterways in New Jersey. Connie particularly enjoys encouraging poetry reading and writing among her 13 grandchildren, produced by her daughter and three sons and their spouses. She lives with her husband, Carl, at The Quadrangle in Haverford, PA.

Tree Reisener, poet and short fiction writer

Tree Riesener has published poetry and short fiction in numerous literary magazines.  Her work has been translated into Russian and Turkish.  Achievements include three first prizes for the Short-Short Story and the Literary Short Story at the Philadelphia Writers Conference, Finalist for Black Lawrence Press’s Hudson Prize, Finalist in PANK magazine’s Fiction Chapbook Contest, Best of Wigleaf 2009 , Semi-Finalist in the Pablo Neruda Competition, three short stories staged in the Writing Aloud productions of InterAct Theatre, Philadelphia, a Hawthornden International Writing Fellowship, two Pushcart nominations, and the William Van Wert Fiction Award. She is the author of three poetry collections, Inscapes, Angel Poison and Liminalog. EK, a full-length collection of ekphrastic poetry, is forthcoming in 2012 from Cervena Barva Press.  Her website is http://www.treeriesener.com and she blogs at http://www.treeriesener.blogspot.com.

It’s Memorial Day, so that means its officially summer, right? That may mean that the flow of poetry slows in some parts, but not these. This week, we’ve got two great events.

• Tuesday June 1st, 7 p.m.: Open mic poetry at Steel City Coffeehouse in Phoenixville. Hosted by Stu O’Connor and Mary Kathryn Morgeneier. Bring your poems, your instruments, and your enthusiasm. This event is free & open to the public.
• Thursday June 3rd, 6-8 p.m.: Light of Unity Association and Mad Poets Performance Series hits the University of Pennsylvania Bookstore in University City. This month’s line up features Jeffrey Ethan Lee, Dan Maguire, Quincy Scott Jones, Mel Brake, Tree Riesener, George McDermott, Bonnie MacAllister, and a musical/spoken performance by: Ian Wolf. Admission is $7 or $5 for students, seniors & MPS members. Proceeds benefit Philabundance.

Hope to see ya there!

Thursday’s reading at Milkboy was another great one. Poets Katherine Bode-Lang and Cliff Lynn along with essayist Krista Eastman brought diverse and complementary styles that highlighted the surprising connections that arise from individuality.

Even more surprising was the dynamic open mic — which included a whopping 19 readers with talent a-plenty!!! And for the 3rd month in a row, the game has changed, and we have new leader in the open mic contest. The real shocker is that May’s winner — and now contest leader — actually made his Milkboy debut just this month. What’s still more mind blowing, he’s a high school student! That’s right, with just one poem, newcomer Elliot Levy, of Harrison High School, over took both Steve Delia & Howard Lieberman, to regulars who have been mounting votes for the past three months! But I wouldn’t count either of them out so quickly, since they’re still holding firm in 2nd & 3rd. It’s also important to note that there are alot of other regulars who keep on accumulating. Sure, it’s a cliche, but it’s still anybody’s game.

*Open Mic Contest Rankings*
as of May 13, 2010

1.  Elliot Levy (total votes: 9)
2.  Stephen Delia (7)
3.  Howard Lieberman (6)
3.  Betti Kahn (6)
4.  Linda Fischer (5)
4.  Jess Bouchard (5)
5.  Karen Stern (4)

The way this thing is going, I can’t wait to see what happens next month!!!

Join us Thursday night for another great mixed-genre reading at Milkboy Acoustic Cafe in Bryn Mawr, where we’ll feature poets Katherine Bode-Lang and Cliff Lynn along with essayist Krista Eastman. Bring your own poems to participate in the open mic that will followed the featured readings, and you could get a shot for a featured reading slot of your own later this year. The festivities begin at 7pm.

Here’s a bit about our readers….

Poet Katherine Bode-Lang

Katherine Bode-Lang’s chapbook, Spring Melt, was chosen by G.C. Waldrep as the second place winner in the 2008 Keystone Chapbook Contest and was published last May by Seven Kitchens Press.  Her poems have appeared in Subtropics, The Mid-American Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Rattle, and Hayden’s Ferry Review, among others.  She was an Editor’s Choice for The Mid-American Review’s James Wright Poetry Award in 2007 and 2008, and she received Academy of American Poets Prizes three times from Penn State and Hope College.  Katherine holds an MFA from Penn State University and lives in Bellefonte, PA, with her husband, Andrew.

Krista Eastman was born and raised in the hills of Wisconsin. A couple of seconds ago, she completed her MFA in Women’s Studies and Creative Writing at Penn State. Her literary essays about travel, place, and gender are collected in a new manuscript entitled Some Other Sun, and her writing appears or has appeared in New Letters, Witness, The Massachusetts Review and others.

Poet Cliff Lynn

Like most other poets, Cliff Lynn auditioned for, and was rejected by, the Gong Show at an early age.  Cliff was the 2006 editor-in-chief of the Anne Arundel Community College Literary Journal Amaranth.  With multimedia poet Rocky Jones, he has hosted monthly poetry readings since 2005, bringing great poets (established and up-and-coming) to Annapolis, MD, while providing the local poetry community a safe and nurturing environment to share their work. Cliff is establishing a poetry series in Birdie’s, a new Westminster, MD coffee shop.  An award-winning poet, he has over 35 poems and short stories published in small-press journals such as Free Lunch, Fledgling Rag and Grub Street, and is the inaugural featured author on the Baltimore-based journal “Scribble”’s website. Cliff was a judge for the National Endowment for the Arts’ 2010 Poetry Out Loud Maryland Regional semi-finals, and for Delaware County, PA High Schools 2010 Poetry Competition.  Half of the inaugural featured poets for M.S. Sanders’ !Speak Your Piece! reading series in Baltimore (a series which is the literary equivalent of an orgasm), he has read poetry throughout Maryland, as well as in Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Texas, Washington, California and Vegas.  Cliff has taken poetry into colleges, high schools, middle schools and elementary schools, and is the Tuscarora High School’s Poet-in-Residence in Frederick, MD, a post he has held since 2007.  They won’t let him live there, however.

Last month, we celebrated National Poetry Month at Milkboy Acoustic Cafe with great readings by John Yamrus and Minna Duchovnay, and a small but satisfying open mic. Those who participated may have been wondering who won, hitting refresh on the blog and wondering if I lied when I said I’d post the results. Well…

I apologize for the delay. As a poet and Aries in a family of Aries, April is a busy month — between trying to write lots of poems and celebrate lots of birthdays!! But as they say, better late…

After two months of open mic competition, here’s how things stand:

1. Stephen Delia leads the pack with 6 total votes.
2. Howard Lieberman runs a close second with 5 votes.
3. And newcomer Karen Stern holds the third place spot with 4 total votes.

With so many more readings, that featured reading slot in November is still anyone’s to nab! So come out this Thursday, 7pm, to Milkboy Acoustic Cafe for a great mixed-genre reading — featuring poets Katherine Bode-Lang and Cliff Lynn and creative nonfiction writer Krista Eastman — and bring your own work to take a shot in the contest.

Thursday night, the Mad Poets Series at Milkboy Acoustic Cafe returns to the days of yore, with a 100% poetry reading in celebration of National Poetry Month. We’re excited to feature to wonderful poets: Minna Duchovnay & John Yamrus.

We’re also psyched for the second month of our ongoing open mic contest. After last month’s reading, the leaders are Howard Lieberman, Betti Kahn, and Ben Heins. But there are still alot of open mics before November, so come on out, bring your poems & grab some votes!

Here’s a little bit about our featured poets:

Minna Canton Duchovnay

Minna Canton Duchovnay has had her poetry published in Premier Magazine, The Mad Poets Review, The Elixir, and The Swarthmorean.  She previously appeared as a featured reader for the Mad Poets Society in 2008, and in the same year she won third prize in the Mad Poets Contest for her poem, “House Plants” (read it below).  She has Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in Latin from Bryn Mawr College, and she enjoys translating Renaissance Latin poetry as well as writing her own.  She wishes she could have a dog who would listen to her recite poetry at home.

“House Plants”
~Minna Duchovnay

The house had wide windows
facing south, perfect exposure
for raising Birds of Paradise
and Queen of the Night.

Friends arrived when the Queen’s shoots

were ready to flower,
sat among the cacti,
discussing the sexuality of plants.
They sipped Grand Cru Chablis
while waiting for the ballooning of the phallic blooms.
At last the Queen’s perfume filled the room.

The celebration was enlivened
with tastings of single malt Scotch
the day eighteen Birds opened.
Oban, Bowmore, Glenmorangie,
a little Laphroaig and Macallan.
Kerri and Dean’s 14-year-old Sean
was practicing diving
while everyone admired the blossoms.

How long had there been silence?
No one knew
but the thudding of the diving board
was no longer heard.
Kerri and Dean stumbled to the pool
to search for Sean.
They found a neighbor’s daughter massaging him
as he lay shivering on the grass.

John Yamrus

Since 1970, John Yamrus has been a fixture on the small press scene.  Since that time he has published 19 books, including 2 novels and 17 volumes of poetry, and he has had more than 1,200 poems published in magazines around the world.  Selections of his work have been translated into several different languages including Spanish, Swedish, Italian, French, Japanese and most recently Romanian. When he joins us Thursday night at Milkboy Acoustic Cafe in Bryn Mawr, Yamrus will be reading poems from his latest book, Doing Cartwheels on Doomsday Afternoon.

“in dog obedience class…”
~John Yamrus

for once,
my little Abby
did everything right.

for once,
she didn’t
bite, jump or pull.

this time
she paid attention

and sat and stayed
and came
and listened…

just like
all the other dogs.

i can’t tell you how much
i hated that.

Okay… so it’s Tuesday… I was hungover from all my Easter treats.

Tuesday, Monday… it’s all the same on the internet, really. So, lets get Shameless!!!! What are you doing this week? Reading, hosting, playing, performing, publishing??? Let us know.

We’ve got some good stuff happening. Here it is:

*Week of April 5*

• Tues., Apr. 6, 7p.m.: Open mic at Steel City Coffeehouse. Open to poets, songwriters & musicians!
• Thurs., Apr. 8, 7p.m.: John Yamrus & Minna Duchovnay at Milkboy Acoustic Cafe. Featured readers followed by an open mic – come through your hat into our open mic contest & try for the chance to win a featured spot at Milkboy this November!
• Sat., Apr. 10, 2p.m.: Open poetry workshop with Tamara Oakman at the Blue Grotto in West Philly. Bring your poems for critique and conversation.
• Sat., Apr. 10, 7p.m.: Otherwise – Poetry at Chuchill’s featuring a reading by the Mad Poets Hosts! The tables turn and those fearless leaders who show up month after month to host readings and workshops will get the chance to share their own poems. Come on out and show them some love!

Last night’s 2010 kick-off at Milkboy was a total blast! We packed the house at Milkboy Acoustic Cafe — including a whopping 19 readers in the open mic!!!

We opened our new genre-bending event with a flash fiction reading by Randall Brown and poetry reading by Ed Krizek. Randall’s stories were personal and quirky, bolstered by the modest confidence of his delivery. Ed battled repeated mic troubles to bring us moving poems that were both emotional and funny, and often an adept balance of both.

I was inspired and delighted by both readers; but as usual I was completely dazzled by the tremendous talent in the open mic. As With 19 readers, the influences ranged from Homer to hip-hop and subjects ran the gamut from babies to Abe Lincoln.

In addition to getting a chance to share 2 poems last night, all of our open mic participants were vying for an opportunity to be a featured reader at Milkboy this November. Here’s how it works: at the end of each reading, we’ll collect votes from everyone in the audience. Whoever has the most cumulative votes after October’s reading will get a feature slot in November, alongside Joe Roarty.

After last night’s open mic at Milkboy, we collected votes from 26 audience members. Here are the top vote grabbers thus far:

Howard Lieberman: 4
Betti Kahn: 3
Ben Heins: 3
Joseph Dorazio: 2
Zsu: 2
Jess Bouchard: 2
Todd Stevens: 2

As you can see, it’s very close. And since we just got started it’s still anybody’s reading. The key to this contest is going to be showing up every month with your very best poems and your very best performance. I look forward to seeing what next month brings!

Tonight we kick-off a new, old event for the Mad Poets. The Mad Poet Bryn Mawr series at Milkboy Acoustic Cafe (a series which has been alive and kicking on Lancaster Ave for at least 6 years) starts a new year as the Milkboy Mixed-Genre Series. Every month (or mostly every month), our featured readers will include poets and prose writers. For me, this is very exciting. My best friend is a fiction writer, and although I’ve always found my voice comes easiest in poems, I find the craft of writing prose always impresses and inspires me. I can’t wait to see the dynamic things that happen when put these readings together every month. The readings start at 7pm at the Milkboy Acoustic Cafe on Lancaster Ave (same building as the Bryn Mawr Film Institute). The readings are free & open to public.

In addition to the new genre, we’re also kicking off a new open mic contest that will land the winner a featured reading slot as part of the Milkboy series in Novemember! Come on out, bring your ears, bring your poems, bring it on!! I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so excited for the kick off of this series.

This month, we’ve got Ed Krizek reading poetry and Randall Brown bringing the fiction.

Here’s a little about them:

Ed Krizek, poet

Ed Krizek was born in New York City and now runs a sales and marketing business in Swarthmore, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia.  He holds a BA and MS from University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA and MPH from Columbia University.  He is active in the Unitarian Universalist Church of Delaware County, has published over forty-five articles, poems and short stories in various publications, and won prizes in several poetry and short story competitions including the Emotions Magazine 1999 poetry competition, Mad Poets Society contests from 2006, 2001 and 1999 and Pennsylvania Poetry Society Contest 2007. Ed is also president of Greater Philadelphia Poets for Young Voices an offshoot of Mad Poets Society dedicated to finding and promoting high school aged poets.

Randall Brown, flash fiction

Randall Brown teaches at and directs Rosemont College’s MFA in Creative Writing program. He is the author of the award-winning flash fiction collection Mad To Live, and his essay appears in The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction: Tips from Editors, Teachers, and Writers in the Field. Also, from 2004-2009, he happily toiled on the staff of the flash fiction journal SmokeLong Quarterly in a number of roles, including Lead Editor. Since discovering the flash form in 2004, he has published flash, edited it, talked about it, written about it, read tens of thousands unpublished pieces of it, taught it, workshopped it, lectured on it, and fallen madly in love with it. He’s a member of a daily flash fiction workshop, and his blog FlashFiction.Net has a singular mission: “to prepare writers, readers, editors, and fans for the imminent rise to power of that machine of compression, that hugest of things in the tiniest of spaces—micro, sudden, flash, fiction.” He also enjoys fly fishing, the outdoors version of this world of (very) tiny things.

It’s Monday again… what’s going on?

Drop a comment letting us know where you’re reading, where we can read your work, where you’re hosting an event, performing, or where we can buy your book.

As for us, we’ve got a lot going on this week.

*Week of Mar 8*

• Wed, Mar 10, 6:30pm: Amy Laub leads the Mad Poets Critique Circle at the Coffee Club in Media, Pa. Bring 15 copies of one of your own poems for roundtable critique & discussion. Free & open to the public.
• Thurs, Mar 11, 7pm: Ed Krizek (poetry) & Randall Brown (fiction) are the featured readers at the Milkboy Acoustic Cafe mixed genre series. The reading is free, open to public & followed by an open mic. Also, since this is the first reading of the year (sadly, snow killed our Feb reading), this is your first chance to participate in the Open Mic contest & vie for a featured reading in November. Hosted by Autumn Konopka.
• Sat, Mar 13, 2pm: The Business of Words, poetry reading and writing workshop moderated by Tamara Oakman, at the Blue Grotto at Community Education Center in West Philadelphia. Free and open to the public. Bring 10 copies of your own poem.
• Sat, Mar 13, 7pm: Ruth Rouff & Al Taconelli read for the Otherwise-Poetry at Churchill series in Pottstown, Pa. The reading is free, open to public & followed by an open mic. Hosted by Glenn McLaughlin.
• Sat, Mar 13, 7pm: A Little Spring Madness in the Mansion Parlor at the Media Borough Hall. Featured poets include Joseph Dorazio, Amy E. Laub, Linda Fischer & Chris Schaeffer, and Nick Filone is the featured musician. Hosted by Brian Sammond.