The Mad Poets Blog

From Eileen D’Angelo

A LOTTA NEWS ABOUT UPCOMING MAD EVENTS, BEGINNING WITH:

        THIS THURSDAY, February 21 - 7:00 pm - Mad Poets Presents FOUR FEMININE VOICES:  Kelly Fineman, Minna Duchovnay, Prabhu Prabhu, and Kathryn Morgeneier at the Delaware County Institute of Science, 11 Veterans Square, Media, PA 19083); Hosted by Eileen D’Angelo.  What a way to kick off the new year at the Institute- four talented women poets!   Open mike follows. Let us hear your poems !   Light refreshments served. (Next month, at this venue: March 20th, 7 pm: Don’t miss RACHEL BUNTING + SUSAN DEBORAH KING!  More later.)

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28th at 7:00 p.m. -

MAD POETS OPEN STAGE AT TAYLOR’S AT THE OLDE MILL (200 W. Marshall St., Norristown, PA 19401; 610-272-2011)   -   Featuring YOU and a ton of other talented poets and musicians!  Hosted by Joseph Dorazio.  Each month, Mad Poets will present a special musical guest, to kick off the open mike.  This restaurant is a four story historic grist mill (circa 1880) This exciting new series will be held on 4th Thursdays through 2008, and offers an entertaining open forum for musicians poets, singer-songwriters– and anyone who enjoys listening to poetry and music is welcome.  Come early and have dinner (or you can also come, on time, at 7 pm, and order dinner during the event.)  The owners offered to make this event a mini-Mad Poets FUNDRAISER, by donating 10% of all dinners ordered that evening to Mad Poets.) See: http://www.taylorsoldemill.com/, you’ll find us on the events page, you can check out the menu, and you’ll get to see this stunning building. Note:  all future events at this venue will be on the 4th floor, and it is NOT handicapped accessible.  This first event will take place on the first floor.  And there is VALET PARKING– no need to drive around trying to find a spot.  

TUESDAY, MARCH 4TH AT 7 PM  - JOIN US FOR A

STEEL CITY COFFEEHOUSE MAD POET *OPEN MIKE* NIGHT*!   This series has moved from Sundays and are held FIRST TUESDAY NIGHTS at 7 pm, hosted by Eileen D’Angelo.  Located at 203 Bridge St. in Phoenixville, PA  19460; Store # 610-933-4043.  The first  one in February was a BALL, three musicians and a ton of poets- a screaming good time-  GREAT words and cool music, and a fun get together.  We were there ’til almost 10 pm on Feb. 5th, but these events will normally run from 7 - 9 pm. You might want to come early & sign up, or email me in advance, at madpoets@comcast.net  (or at work to reserve your spot:  eileendangelo@comcast.net, if you are emailing me on the day of the reading, March 4th), so I can put you on the list- it was a long list last time, and some people couldn’t stay ’til the end - so there was some shifting to accommodate the masses!)

Wednesday, March 5th at 7 pm. 

HARVEST BOOK CRITIQUE CIRCLES !  Don’t miss the next MaD CiRcLe on  March 5th at 7 pm.  Moderated by Amy Laub.  Bring 10 copies of a poem in progress for roundtable feedback, suggestions, discussion and critique.   The “usual suspects” who attend this critique circle / workshop are amazingly talented, serious, hardworking poets (say that 10 times real fast!)  Like Missy Grotz says:  these are the kind of people who believe:  YOU WRITE OR YOU DIE !!  All joking aside, I had the opportunity to pop in there last month and it is a great workshop!  Where else can you go to listen to people debate commas and line breaks ?!  It’s more fun than you can stand on a Wednesday night.  Harvest Book is directly across from Trader Joe’s on State St. in Media  (9 E. State St., 19063)

SATURDAY, MARCH 8th at 7 pm

OTHERWISE - POETRY AT CHURCHILL - Mad Poets continue in 2008 at this venue, hosted by Glenn McLaughlin, at Churchill ArtisanBaker & Chocolatier, 137 E. high St., Pottstown, PA 19464; 484-941-5100 - Come out SATURDAY, MARCH 8th at 7 pm,  to hear poetry by FRANK WOLFE, JOSEPH DORAZIO and DOUG ARNOLD! An open mike follows.  Bring your poems ! 

Tuesday, March 11th, at 7 pm

GRYPHON CAFE- Mad Poets also continue at this venue, with Richard Moyer at the helm, and the kickoff reading is Tuesday, March 11th, at 7 pm.  Richard hosts these cozy readings upstairs at the Gryphon Cafe, located at 105 W. Lancaster Ave., (2nd Fl) in Wayne, PA 19087); Cafe # is 610-688-1988. If you’ve never been there, it’s right on Rt. 30, next to the Anthony Wayne Theatre in the heart of Wayne.  The upstairs at the Gryphon is set up like a living room, and Richard offers a series of intimate gatherings of poets in an informal, comfortable atmosphere, poets who share original work, as well as their favorite poets’ and poems, as well.  A perfect setting for those who are just beginning to share their work, as well as those who are long time mad poets!

THURS., MARCH 6th - 7 pm

A-MUSE POETRY SERIES continues in Bucks County through 2008 at the Doylestown Library, 150 S. Pine St., in Doyletown (18901; 215-348-9081), coordinated and hosted by Bill Wunder and Joanne Leva.  Plan to be there on Thursday, March 6th, 7 pm, for a group reading and discussion of two poems:  one by Stanley Kunitz, and one by Galway Kinnell.   

THURS., MARCH 13 - MILK BOY ACOUSTIC CAFE located at 824 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, 19010 (in the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, which is in the old Bryn Mawr Theatre on Rt. 30);   This series is now held on 2nd THURSDAYS at 7 pm through 2008, hosted by Autumn Konopka.  Join us at Milk Boy on MARCH 13th - for LEONARD GONTAREK + ROBERT BENSE, plus an open mike will follow.  (This is another venue that packs ‘em in, best to get there early to sign up for the open mike.)

SATURDAY, MARCH 29th at 2:00 pm-

Fox Chase Reading Series at The THREE SISTERS CAFE  hosted by G. Emil Reutter, will present poets LOUIS McKEE and EILEEN D’ANGELO at Three Sisters Cafe, 7950 Oxford ave., (Corner of Loney & Barnes) in Philly, 19111. Phone: 215-725-6848.  An open mike follows. 

    (Yeah- I know it’s borderline tacky for me to read in my own mad poets’ line-up, but how could I refuse the chance to read with renowned Philadelphia Poet Louis McKee–  and who can say “no” to George Reutter ?!?)

ALSO !!  LOTS OF POETRY MONTH / APRIL EVENTS AND NEWS TO COME …

    **INCLUDING  THE YOUNG POETS AWARDS EVENT, Sunday, April 13, 2008, 1:00 PM, at the REDWOOD COMMUNITY PLAYHOUSE, 6th St. in Upland.  36 Student winners of the Young Poets Competition, sponsored by Mad Poets and the Delco Library System, will read their winning poems.  This is one of most inspiring events we run each year ! Don’t miss these talented students. If you need directions, I got ‘em.  Special thanks to our dedicated 2008 Judges, listed in order of the grade level they judged, 1st through 12th grade:  Janet Burgents *  Emiliano Martin * Richard Bank * Linda Fischer * Autumn Konopka * Courtney Bambrick * Joseph Dorazio * Diane Sahms-Guarnieri * Ed Krizek * Arlene Bernstein * Margaret A. Robinson * Ray Greenblatt.

ANOTHER UPCOMING APRIL EVENT !!

FRIDAY, APRIL 11th at 7 pm - LEONARD GONTAREK coordinated and is hosting THE LAST WORD BOOKSHOP SERIES again this coming year, and the first reading of 2008 will feature a line-up of the talented poets in his workshop.  Don’t miss:  “Dressing the Muse”, featuring * Autumn McClintock * Leslie Valdez * Lisa Grunberger * Joyce Meyers * Anisa Rahim * Janet Spangler * Alison Hicks ( Rafi Lev * Catherine Bancroft * Steven Kleinman * Hanock Guy * Minna Duchovnay * Sekai Afua Zankel * Christy Schneider.  

AND YET ANOTHER UPCOMING APRIL EVENT !!

ON  APRIL 16TH, 7 PM  - A KICKOFF READING FOR A NEW MAD POETS SERIES AT  THE THOMAS F. DONATUCCI, SR. BRANCH LIBRARY, (formerly the Passyunk Library), 1935 Shunk St., South Phila., 19145. Library # is 215-685-1755; hosted by Diane Sahms-Guarnieri, featuring JC TODD AND DANIEL ABDAL-HAYY MOORE on APRIL 16TH, 7 PM !!  Plus an open mike ! Mark your calendars now !!

MORE MAD POETS BALL NEWS!  THE PARTY IS SATURDAY, APRIL 26TH, 7 - 11 PM.  There’s still time to let us know that you want to come out and play with us and celebrate TWENTY YEARS OF BEING MAD !  The event will now be held at CAROLINE’S RESTAURANT, (not Heritage Ballrooms) at 925 Providence Road in Secane, (Del. Co), PA 19018.   $35.00 per person.  (It’s a small price to pay to hang out with your buddies and party for the night - and toast Mad Poets’ two decades of keeping poetry alive !   

    It’s a BUFFET DINNER - Including:  Hand carved Roast Beef, Chicken Scallopine, Tortellino Alfredo, Vegetable Stir Fry, Red Bliss Potatoes, Tossed House Salad, Fruit Salad, Ice Cream and cake.  Hot rolls, beverages, coffee and hot tea are included. (There is a cash bar).   We’re working on booking a D.J. to spin some tunes for us that night!   Directions and info about the restaurant are on the website at http://www.carolinesrestaurant.com    

    ZING ME A NOTE IF YOU WANT TO COME !  I’VE BOOKED THE ROOM,  AND THERE’S STILL SPACE FOR MORE - SO FAR-  40 OF YOU HAVE TOLD ME YOU WILL BE THERE!  And it’s going to be a blast.  (Send checks payable to Mad Poets Society, to P.O. Box 1248, Media, PA 19063-8248.

IF YOU HAVE NEWS YOU WANT INCLUDED IN  THE UPCOMING MAD POETS NEWSLETTER (YES! I am working on getting one out- now that we’ve got so many events lined up for 2008 !) ZING IT TO ME NOW, with “NEWSLETTER NEWS!” IN THE SUBJECT LINE.  Book releases, upcoming readings, etc.  Please include all info (if it’s a book release: how much? Mailing address? How is check payable?;  If it’s a poetry reading, please include the venue address). ALSO !! If you run a reading series or are coordinating special events - and you want to spread the word — Get me that info now, too.  If you don’t have your line-up for the entire year, just give me what you have, name of event or series, the dates/days of week, and location.  Lots of stuff going on out there - and I want to include all of it.)

IF YOU WANT TO JOIN MAD POETS SOCIETY — NOW IS THE TIME to pay your dues to society !!  Kindly send $20 payable to Mad Poets Society, P.O. Box 1248, Media, PA 19063-8248; Stay tuned to the website for our ARTS ANGELS donation information … but for now, if you are interested in being a bonafide MAD POETS, zing us your dues !!      Help keep our many events, readings, programs,workshops, bonfires, critique circles —  and the literary magazine up and running!    IN RESPONSE TO THE MANY INQUIRIES:  YES !!  Mad Poets Society is running the annual Poetry Competition.  Deadline is June 20, 2008.     The website is in the process of being updated (God Bless Autumn Konopka), and with all these changes and events - we’re working our poor web queen to the bone ! Stay tuned for changes.      OTHER NOTABLE DATES: 

On January 26th The Fox Chase Reading Series kicked off the 2008 seasson for the Mad Poets Society at 3 Sisters Corner Café in Fox Chase, Philadelphia. Steve Delia and Kristine Grow shared their poetry in the intimate setting that is 3 Sisters Corner Café. An Open Reading followed by Mel Brake, Mike Cohen and Mike Morell. Special thanks to the staff at 3 Sisters and to Pat.

 Frank Sherlock and the Philadelphia Poetry scene are synonymous. His work has been published widely in the small and electronic press. He is the author of Wounds in an Imaginary Nature Show, (Night Flag Press), Spring Diet of Flowers at Night, (Mooncalf Press), ISO, (furniture press) and 13, (ixnay press). Past collaborations include work with CAConrad, Jennifer Coleman and sound artist Alex Welsh. Publication of his most recent collaborative poem with Brett Evans, entitled Ready-to-Eat Individual is forthcoming in the near future. Frank has hosted a number of poetry series in the city, the latest The Night Flag Series and is a regular contributor to The Philly Sound Blog. You can visit with Frank at  http://franksherlock.blogspot.com/ 

What Others Say About Frank Sherlock:  

“I’ve been lucky enough to see Frank’s work evolve for more than a decade now, and we’ve been even luckier to publish a fair chunk of it here at ixnay press as well. His writing is equal parts body, brain, & spirit - the poems negotiate both the darkest avenues & brighest skies of our fair city, always with the keenest eye, the sharpest wit, the sexiest strut. & by the way, the man can break a line like no one else in the business.” -  Chris McCreary- co-editor, ixnay press 

 “Frank Sherlock’s poetry uses a poetic composting system, where thoughts and noticings which might evaporate or be discarded from the mind are collected and made into an area of material where perceptions and insights can grow. Like Buck Downs, he uses a kind of poetic witness protection program to relocate micro-social speech rhythms, self-reflective process descriptions and figures of speech” - Drew Gardner’s Blog 

The Interview:

Q. You recently survived a battle with meningitis and other health issues as a result of the meningitis. How are you feeling now and what effect did winning this battle have on your outlook on life?  

Well, having the opportunity to have an outlook on life has done wonders for my outlook on life. I think about it less as a battle than a surf outing. Just without the water, the temptations, the sun, or the speedo. But I did have an assless gown in the hospital, which was less comfortable and even less flattering, if you can believe that. Surfing in a hospital bed in late January takes some imagination- or in this case, sick delusions & hallucinogenic painkillers.  I remember being in the hospital bed and imagining watching myself surf on television- like the end of Basquiat, one of my favorite films. But I tried with mixed results to imagine the soundtrack differently because I thought it would change the outcome. As you might remember, things didn’t end well for Jean-Michel. But I don’t want to diminish the seriousness of the situation, because it was serious and there were a lot of friends who were very serious about helping me live. And they did. They helped me live. Battle… This is something to think about. Because I wanted/wished that I was battle-ready, but I was really just surviving- riding this out and hopefully getting through this. And I want to come back to the soundtrack of it all, because it was soundtracked. For days in the ICU, I would awaken in the middle of the night alone, and Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers to Cross” just played over and over in my head. And I love that song, but I didn’t want it in my head. Not for this. It’s a pretty sad song, after all. I wanted something more defiant, a kind of F U anthem. I tried to get The Pogues’ “If I Should Fall from Grace with God” to stick, but it just wouldn’t. So I surrendered to the sadness and just tried to make it through. I won’t be the same when I hear that song again. I hear a snippet whenever I lay down to sleep alone.

  Q. Over the years you have become entwined in the poetry fabric of the city. Your work is enjoyed by academics and blue collar types. To what do you attribute this appeal?  

Academy, meet the street. Street, meet the academy. Talk to each other already. I would like to talk more about blue collars, but they’ve gotten so hard to find here. In the boom of Sixth Boroughness, the homeless population has doubled in the last four years. But I appreciate the notion of appealing to blue collar types because I like to talk to ghosts. My favorite poems are written w/ Slovenian philosophers and Irish bartenders. I am attracted to the genius they’re willing to share. The poems I put my name on are collaborations of encounter. I’m a thief without record, and so I continue to steal. But when they work, the poems are acts of exchange. I have never really written a poem all by myself.
America has enough specialists. Narrowing in becomes a kind of cultural compulsion that I’ve never been so much interested in. If the poems do appeal across academic/everyday folk divides, I’d like to think it’s because they write poems with me, and can hear/see traces of themselves in the speech, in the voiceprints. Maybe that’s the appeal. But a lot of people seem to like my shoes too, so you never really know. 

 Q. It’s two in the morning and you are at the door at Dirty Franks Bar and a poet enters the bar that you recognize and admire; who would that be?

You’d better be pretty special to walk into the bar at two in the morning. That’s my time to go home. So I want to say no one. Nobody’s that special. Okay, that’s a lie. My people are my people, so they’re always welcome on some level, just maybe a little less so at that hour. But there’s at least one person who can show up any time. It will never happen of course, but should she walk through that doorway into the bar & out of the bizarro world, Alice Notley is welcome anywhere I am anytime she feels like. Her combination of integrity & of course her poems are an ongoing source of inspiration for me. And she’s the only poet who ever made me cry during a reading. I look to Alice as a model of the possible. Too many artists get a bit of popularity doing a particular thing, writing in a particular way. They spend the last thirty years of their lives writing more or less the same poem with diminishing drive & effectiveness.
Alice dismantled & rebuilt. She dismantles over & over again coming back to us w/ these beautiful new machines made from the parts surrounding us. These parts are not shiny & new. They’re older than all of us. But they’re functioning in new ways.   A few years ago, I met up w/Alice in Paris at a Vietnamese place for coffee. I remember honing my imaginary poetics, philosophy & mythology speak before we met in preparation for our conversation. Now, she’s family because her biological sons are poetry brothers to me. But family can be the most intimidating, right? We mostly just talked about sex & the police, but that’s not important, let me come back. She has been very generous to my companeros who are writing the most important poetry in the world right now. She’s smart enough to not be too smart for the generations that come after her. This is probably why she can dismantle & rebuild while so many older poets are left watching their own work age. The dedication of her new book reads, “for my sons and their friends.” Come on in, Alice!

Q. Please tell us about “Spring Diet of Flowers at Night” published by Mooncalf Press.  

The poem is dedicated to lovers in wartime. It was commissioned as part of Poetry, Politics & Proximity: the Third Annual Kerry Sherin Wright Prize for an event at UPenn’s Kelly Writers House. It’s a kind of micro-environmental read on political engagement, or a kind of politic of everyday life. Living in the empire is a daily negotiation, creating willful capacities to engage in acts that both oppress and resist oppression all day long. It is a mad age, and trying to live a dignified life within this time is a maddening pursuit. And a necessary one. Not out of the goodness of our hearts, or even some imperialist patronage, but for our very survival as people we’d like to meet if we could meet ourselves on the street. That’s what Spring Diet of Flowers at Night is about for me today. It was about something else when it was written. And it’ll be about something else when you read it again I hope.  

 Q. Who were major influences on you as a developing poet and why?

 There are many of course, but I’d like to talk about my old friend Caesar. He is a high school drop-out & a genius. Our friendship was one founded on argument. Over the years we’d have protracted arguments for hours at a time over the restoration of the Peacock Throne, pornography or the end of the Roman Empire. We argued through science and art, music and history. It was through argument that I came to poetry. He was always, always reading back then. I read a good bit, but I had to really study to make new arguments, and to keep up with him. He is a true autodidact who develops a reputation for his erudition, then rejects any notion of official respect and moves in a totally different direction. When you have someone close to you who isn’t afraid to change their life, it gives you a courage you didn’t know you had until you see it in front of you. He lives the Coltrane adage, “You can learn anything from anyone at any time.” Nothing is dismissed if there is knowledge to be found. He embraces the lesson &/or the joke, whether it comes from a prostitute or a Marine Sergeant or a homeless Lakota man he met on the Broad Street Line. I wasn’t intimidated by the arts because he taught me to apply art through the ages to our everyday lives. His integration of literature in everyday life is without pretense and with great enthusiasm. He spoke of the Iliad’s relevance to the punk rock vs. corner-boy wars around South Street. He noted the Dickensian conditions of Sixth Street below Washington, in the area that was South Philly. He’d see Rasputin at the Woolworth’s counter, and an Ezra Pound look-alike lurking by the peepshows with a large manuscript under his arm. He continues to be an influence because the people I encounter in the city we share are influences as well.

Q. Are you working on any new projects and are there any new works ready for release you would like to share with us?   

Daybook of Perversities & Main Events was recently released on Cy Gist Press. It is called a privilege to grow skeletons that grow to become something. Gunfire resumes. Over Here is a chapbook just out by Katalanche Press. Our true stories have always been different than their true stories. The oven’s been exploded. The bread is still expected. This is for you. Let’s eat.  Anyday now, a collaborative piece I wrote w/ Brett Evans in New Orleans in 2006 called Ready-to-Eat Individual will be released on Lavender Ink Books. It’s a NOLA journal & State-of-the-City poem for the Year 1 A.K. (After Katrina). And this spring, Factory School will be releasing The City Real & Imagined:
Philadelphia Poems. It’s a collaborative wander piece with CAConrad that jumps off at LOVE Park & explores the not-yet histories & archaic futures of Philly that haven’t yet been sold to the New York Times.  

Thanks so much, George. Cheers!

The Mad Poets Society Fox Chase Reading Series kicks off the New Year on January 26 at The 3 Sisters Corner Café at 2pm with featured poets Steve Delia and Kristine Grow. 3 Sisters is located at 7950 Oxford Ave. (corner of Loney and Barnes St. ) in the Fox Chase section of Philadelphia. Come and enjoy two wonderful poetic voices and the great menu at 3 Sisters! Seating is limited so get there early.

Coming Soon:

March 29, 2008- Louis Mckee and Eileen D’Angelo

June 28, 2008 - Vincent Quatroche and Alla Vilnyanskaya

July 26, 2008- Glenn McLaughlin and Arlene Bernstein

September 27, 2008- Autumn Konopka and MacGregor Rucker

The final reading of 2007 at the Last Word Bookshop in University City was a blast. Leonard Gontarek, the host, presented a diverse group of poets consisting of Robyn Alter-Bielana, Ish Klein & Amy Ouzooian. Philadelphia poets Amy Small McKinney and Louis McKee were also in attendance with the standing room crowd. It was a good evening of poetry in University City.

 Nathalie F. Anderson’s first book, Following Fred Astaire, won the 1998 Washington Prize from The Word Works. Her poems have been singled out for prizes and special recognition from the Joseph Campbell Society, The Cumberland Poetry Review, Inkwell Magazine, The Madison Review, New Millennium Writings, Nimrod, North American Review, and Southern Anthology, and have also appeared in APR’s Philly Edition, Cimarron Review, Cross Connect, Denver Quarterly, DoubleTake, The Louisville Review, Natural Bridge, The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, The Recorder, Southern Poetry Review, Spazio Humano, and in the Ulster Museum’s collection of visual art and poetry, A Conversation Piece. A 1993 Pew Fellow, Anderson currently serves as Poet in Residence at the Rosenbach Museum and Library, and she teaches at Swarthmore College, where she is a Professor in the Department of English Literature and directs the Program in Creative Writing.

What others say about Nathalie Anderson: 

          “Nathalie Anderson’s poetry brings to my mind what John Logan’s called “a ballet of the ear.” She appreciates rich, textured language, and has a consciousness of sound as well as movement, elements more rare that you might think in contemporary poets. Her investigations of phobias, in particular, are smart, witty, and—haunting’  –Louis McKee

“Philadelphia poets owe Nathalie Anderson endless thanks for her tireless dedication to all that we do here in our city. No one has ever stepped forward with such indivisible scope in such a divisible environment as the poetry of Philadelphia. Her support and sincerity are the lessons for all poets to shift and widen the world view as much and as often as possible. Nothing but the best of thanks to Nathalie Anderson.” – CAConrad

The Interview:

Q. You have written that “anxiety — especially sexual anxiety — is my most frequent subject”. Is there a cause and effect? 

I’m not certain what you mean by “cause and effect” here, but I do believe that anxiety inexorably turns a person self-conscious, and a self-conscious person inevitably becomes a more obsessed observer, so *maybe* the more anxious we are, the more likely we are to be able to perceive the structures supporting our anxieties, analyze them, display them.  When I wrote this statement, almost 15 years ago, I was especially conscious of the double bind society imposes on women, punishing either pliancy or self-reliance, beauty or plainness, intelligence or air-headedness: as John Berger writes so chillingly, “a woman must continually watch herself.”  I still try to write through my own anxieties, but my poems these days – in the wake of my father’s death from Alzheimer’s — probably focus more on anxious aging than on anxious sexuality or sexual politics. 

Q. In the poem “The Miser” the male subject requests you not write about him, yet you do in images that could make the heart race a bit. Do you often refer to life events in your poetry? 

 I guess my poems nearly always arise from something I’ve experienced or observed, but – nearly always – I twist and intensify the inciting incident or perception until someone who’d been with me at the time might well not recognize it anymore.  I like the force, the immediacy, that comes with the pronoun “I” – though, maybe ironically, that intensity sometimes leads me to write in the second or third person to soften the insistence of apparent confession.  If “she” did it, after all, we’re all detached observers; and if “you” did it, then we’re all equally culpable!  But I like what happens when an “I” enters a poem: I think the reader pays attention in a more engaged way. 

 Q. Your book “Following Fred Astaire” has been described as fine writing, wry humor, and relevant. Released in 1999 by Word Works; could you tell us how the book was developed? 

Well, one answer would be that I wrote a bunch of poems, arranged them and re-arranged them and added to them obsessively over several years, realized finally that the conglomeration had become unwieldy, broke it in two, rearranged the poems again, and finally got lucky with a publisher!    But a better answer is that the poems in this book do focus on anxiety – especially the sequence about peculiar phobias, the dream poems that punctuate the four sections, and the many poems where longing and apprehensiveness intertwine (like “Red Sea,” maybe about junior high school crushes; or “Gossip,” maybe about friends so intimate they’re perceived as – might as well be – adulterers).  I think the book finally came together for me when I decided it was going to be about anxious desire, and so dropped from the manuscript most of the poems, however effective, that stood to the side of that topic.  I like arranging poems in different arrays, to see what happens when they rub against new neighbors, and this book must have gone through at least 30 permutations before The Word Works chose it for their Washington Prize.

 Q. My favorite lines from the poem, “The Troll” is “Dunk her or drown her, she pops right back up with her havoc and hoodoo. She’s the mange in your manger, iceberg in your bath.”  What was the inspiration for this poem? 

Thanks!  I’ll mention for people who may not know that this poem appears in the Endicott Studio’s on-line Journal of Mythic Arts, one of several poems of mine that they’ve kindly picked up during the last couple of years: here’s the URL: http://www.endicott-studio.com/cofhs/chTroll.html  I got the idea for the poem during a bout of extreme end-of-semester grouchiness when I appalled myself by responding with fury when a couple of people asked very small favors of me – I guess my own minor version of road rage.  I felt like a troll, and started playing with the idea of a creature that would relish that rage rather than feeling shamed by it.  There’s a lot of word-play in the poem, which I hope both softens its nastiness and also makes it more disturbing, moving from the familiar “thorn in the flesh” and “skeleton at the feast” towards more peculiar associations, like the mange and the iceberg. 

Q. Ashland Poetry Press released “Crawlers” in 2006. Could you describe the book for us?   

Here’s a version of what I’ve been saying to introduce the book at readings:  Crawlers found its shape in the last years of my father’s life, and, as he lost himself to Alzheimer’s – as he forgot how to speak, how to eat, how to walk, how to stand – it made me think about what a struggle it is to learn how to do those things in the first place.  So Crawlers poses poems about a child’s coming into consciousness with the complications surrounding the father’s loss of consciousness, drawing connections between a child’s ways of coping with bereavement – my mother died when I was three – and the father’s disappearance as he ages.   In this book, too, I’m interested in the subtleties of domestic atrocity, the daily stinging cruelties hidden behind the wall of family.  All our fairy tales – with their disregarded younger brothers, their murderous stepmothers, their Cinderellas – map this terrain, and the book plays with those archetypes – but it also skitters with arthropods: bugs, insects, crawlers. We share the earth with insects.  They own our yards, our houses.  Rather like our families, we can’t evade them.  

Michele Belluomini’s work has appeared in journals such as American Writing, “NOW! (then)”: The Eternal Now Poetry Anthology, APR: Philly Edition ’99, The Mad Poet’s Review, Sinister Wisdom, the Helen Review , and The Mulberry Poets&Writers Daybook; as well as in the collection – The Dreambook: An Anthology of Writings by Italian American Women. Michele reads her poetry at a number of venues throughout the Philadelphia area. She has been a recipient of a Leeway Foundation “Window of Opportunity” award for travel to Mexico to collect Huichol Indian mythology and folklore. She is a Literature librarian at the Free Library of Philadelphia where she helps coordinate the “Monday Poets” poetry series. In 2000, she won the Giovanni’s Room Bookstore International Poetry Competition Award. Her previous book, Translations from the Dark, was published by Blue Deer Editions in 1993. 

Q. You have studied with the Huichol People of Northern Mexico for a number of decades. What impact has the experience had on your writing and your view of life? 

This question is a difficult one to answer because my studies with the Huichol Indians of Mexico have had such an enormous impact on my life, but my studies with them “make no sense” to most people.  For example, I’m not an ethnographer, but I have been learning about their perception of the world, their complex mythology and art work, and something of their yearly ritual cycle.  I am also a storyteller:  I know many of those stories, and I love talking to people about the Huichols.  On one level they have helped me “get out of my head” and learn to rely on my intuition much more than I ever thought possible.  I think what affects me most is their joyousness and their balance.  I have also begun putting together poems based on my experiences with the Huichols and am attempting to write more of them – I would like to honor them and so I’m taking my time on this particular project.

Q. Plan B press published your last book, “Crazy Mary and Others” in 2004, in fact the collection won their chapbook contest for 2004. Many of the poems are about Crazy Mary an eccentric lady traveling around Philadelphia. Where did the inspiration come for this collection? 

The Crazy Mary poems stem from actual encounters I have had with various people on the streets of the city, and some people I’ve known, situations I’ve observed.  I also wanted to write these in an empathetic way.  I also had the idea at some point that I wanted to place more of my poems in
Philadelphia – sort of a “Walker in the City” in poetry rather than in prose.  And looking over poems that I had been writing for awhile, I realized that I had something I could call the “Crazy Marys” that  expressed some things that were difficult to express in other ways.

Q. The Philadelphia Main Library sponsors the “Monday Poets” series that you have coordinated for a number of years. What are the challenges one faces when coordinating a poetry series? 

I co-coordinated the series with Michele Gendron for around 10 years.  She was the Head of the Literature Dept. until her retirement last year.  Initially the Monday Poets was a poetry writing workshop which she asked me to run.  That lasted about 4 years with an end-of-the-year reading by workshop participants.  We branched off from there because there was no on-going poetry reading series at the library.  One of the challenges was initially convincing the administration that such a program was needed at the library and that we could bring in a fair-sized audience.  Over the years we have been able to attract between 45-50 people to each reading which seems to speak well for the level of artistry we present as well as the level of interest in poetry that can be found in the city.  Another one of the challenges has been in putting together a line-up of fairly well-known local poets with newer poets in such a way that a wide variety of voices and poets of divergent styles can be heard. 

Q. In addition to writing poetry and your full time job, you have read at many venues in the
Philadelphia area. Do you have any favorite venues and how would you describe the interaction with the audience?  

Two of my favorite places to read are Robin’s Books and Voice & Visions Bookstore, both independently owned.  Robin’s of course is an institution in the city and V&V is a fairly new enterprise located in the Bourse Building.  Audiences are funny creatures – the interaction at both of these places is sort of loose and welcoming, but also critically aware.  I should also mention the Big Blue Marble bookstore in the Germantown/Mt. Airy area where I have also read – a very poetry-friendly place which also has a reading series.

 Q. The Fairmount Arts Crawl recently sponsored street performances throughout the Fairmount area of Philadelphia to include poets. You were one of the poets to perform in this atmosphere. Could you describe the experience and how it differs or not from reading in an indoor venue?  

I have participated in 2 Fairmount Arts Crawls and reading outdoors for passersby who, for the most part, are not a “poetry audience” is an interesting challenge, so each time I chose poems that might be considered more “accessible.”   People just happened by and if we were lucky, became interested in the sounds of what they were hearing.  They weren’t really concentrating on the big meaning of the poem (if there ever is one), but maybe were caught by the “story” of the poem.  Both times have been really good experiences and I hope the organizers for the Arts Crawl continue with the Poetry/Spoken Word Corner next year.

Q. The Leeway Foundation sponsored your last visit to Mexico. How valuable are foundations such as Leeway and the Pew Fellowship to artists and poets?  

There is no doubt in my mind that Foundations are very valuable to artists.  Of course, if one is serious about the work, you go on writing or painting, etc. with or without the benefit of grants.  But they can give an artist the space and time to really concentrate on an extended project – something like that is invaluable.  In some instances I think it can help an artist conceive of a project that they might never attempt otherwise because the resources to bring it into being just are not available otherwise.

Q. Are you working on or releasing any new works?  

I have been attempting to take “myself” out of the poetry more and more without having it become intellectualized and stiff.  I recently completed a poem in 2 voices about Maria Reiche, the German mathematician who spent 50 years on the Pampa of Peru surveying what we call the Nazca Lines – enormous petroglyphs etched into the desert there.  I am thinking to do other poems based on people who intrigue me in the way that Maria Reiche does – exploring that obsession that takes one over and compels one’s entire life.  I have also continued writing “dream poems” – something I have been doing for years –  and as I mentioned earlier, I have been putting together poems based on my experiences with the Huichol Indians of Mexico. 

Marion Deutsche Cohen is the author of seventeen books and chapbooks, some poetry, some prose. She is also a mathematician, and her latest, just-released, book is “Crossing the Equal Sign” (Plain View Press, TX), consisting of poetry about the experience of math. Her other books have been about pregnancy loss, chronic illness and caregiving, solipsism, temper tantrums, and (completing the cycle) math. Her “loose poems” (not in books) are often about the polarity between communication and solitude, and how this plays out in more concrete situations. Her math Ph.D. is from Wesleyan (Conn.) and she has taught math at area colleges, most recently the University of PA and University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. She has four grown children and two gran’s. (Also, three or five cats, depending how you count them…) Among her non-writing non-math interests are classical piano, singing, Scrabble, and thrift-shopping.

(Continued)

I received word via Bob Small of Poets and Prophets that Angie will be closing the Voices and Visions Bookstore in early June.  Philadelphia will be losing a fine independent book store and the arts community a beautiful venue.  Bob said it best in his email : “…Anyway, try and get there and buy some books before they close and thank Angie for fighting the good fight.”

I have had the pleasure to read some of my work at Voices and Visions. To say the least this closing is a major loss to the literary community in Philadelphia. We like to write about corporate control of publishing and the arts yet we continue to see these fine stores close due to a lack of support. Dust off your wallets and stop by V&V at 4th and Market in the Bourse Building, buy a few books and thank Angie.

   Poet Louis McKee is a Philadelphia based poet whose works have been admired nationally and internationally. McKee has been on the Philadelphia and National poetry scene since the 1970’s. McKee is the author of Schuylkill County (Wampeter, 1982), The True Speed of Things (Slash & Burn, 1984) and eleven other collections. More recently, he has published River Architecture: Poems from Here & There 1973-1993 (Cynic, 1999), Loose Change (Marsh River Editions, 2001), Near Occasions of Sin, (Cynic Press-2006) and a volume in the Pudding House Greatest Hits series. McKee was a longtime editor of the Painted Bride Quarterly. During his tenure, he edited three special issues, celebrating the work of Etheridge Knight and John Logan, as well as a retrospective, 20th-anniversary volume of the PBQ. He currently operates Banshee Press and edited the magazine One Trick Pony until its demise in 2007. Louis Mckee was kind enough to grant an e-interview. I have included some blurbs on Lou from others and greatly appreciated that Lou took the time to share his thoughts with us.  

What others say about Louis McKee: 

“It is the essence of McKee’s work to be rich in artifice and craftsmanship and informed poetic strategies while at the same time consistently brave in its presentation of two confrontations: a person’s with himself and that person’s with the world outside himself. To read McKee is to witness drama and struggle; if the art is hard-won, the human victories are, too.” Philip Dacey- Schuylkill Valley Journal (#24, spring, 2007) 

 “McKee’s poems have a “surprising honesty…. In this era of superconfessional hubris, we are told that no topic is off-limits, but, if this is so, why are so many of these poems startling? Picasso said, “art is not truth,” and I know that to be true, but it is important to the force of these poems that I can believe that the poet is giving us his stories straight up.” Warrren Woessner, in the American Book Review (Jan/Feb 2007, Vol 28, No. 2) 

“I really admire, and like, deeply, Louis McKee’s poems. They have two qualities I love – clarity and candour. And they often tell stories even as they evoke mysteries of being. And they engage a great deal with people. Brendan Kennelly 

 Louis Mckee has mentored and inspired poets for many years. His work stands alone as uniquely Mckee. The hallmarks as noted above, clarity, candour, surprising honesty are the mainstays of his works. The Mad Poets Society is honored to have Louis McKee travel amongst us, a jewel in the City of Brotherly Love.  

THE INTERVIEW

 Q. Your works have inspired many poets over the years; what inspires Louis McKee to write poetry?  Geez, George, this is a tough question to start off with.  I’m not sure how much I’ve inspired others, but it is nice to think it true.  Anyone who knows me, anyone who has met me, must have noticed that I am serious about poetry.  I have been writing for nearly forty years.  And since getting involved with starting an undergrad literary magazine while in college, I have been involved in editing and or publishing almost non-stop since.  I hope some of this has been infectious.   As for my own inspiration?  Women?  And an undeniable ego.  Doesn’t every guy say that he wrote his first poems to impress a girl?  I’m not sure I did that, but I did notice early that girls were occasionally impressed.  As for the ego thing: what arrogance it takes to believe that something you have thought, and written down, would be of the least interest to others.  This is the reason many take the Emily Dickinson route and hide their seventeen hundred poems in a box under the bed.  It also says something about those who scribble words on a napkin during an open reading and then stand up minutes later to read them.  I guess I am somewhere in-between.