July 31, 2012 (Grand Finale)

Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series

July 31, 2012

Nour Abdelghani

Born in Alexandria, Egypt, Nour Abdelghani moved to Pittsburgh in 2005. She is a 2010 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh where she co-edited the Three Rivers Review literary magazine and met a group of amazing writers. Her fiction has appeared in issue 05 of Weave Magazine and the second volume of The New Fraktur. She was the recipient on the 2009 Myron Taube award in fiction and the 1^st prize, Prosody/Writer’s Café creative non-fiction award. Her non-fiction was featured on WYEP’s Prosody in 2009.

Nour Abdelghani’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Madalon Amenta acted in productions of the Provincetown Playhouse and Circle in the Square in New York City, and Poets’ Theater in Cambridge, MA.   As a nurse she published over 80 clinical and academic papers, manuals, newsletters, research reports and books, one of which won an American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award.  She is a member of Madwomen in the Attic and the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange, and her poetry has appeared in Salon.com, Pittsburgh City Paper, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Signatures, Natural Language and Stories about Time.  Her chapbook, Kandinsky and the Stars, (Finishing Line Press, 2010) was a finalist in both the Negative Capability Press International and the Blue Light Press Chapbook Competitions.

Madalon Amenta’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Marilyn Bates, author of It Could Drive You Crazy, was a "Poet in Person" with the International Poetry Forum. She was an invited reader at the Noontime Reading Series at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC and at the James Wright Poetry Festival. Her work has appeared in The MacGuffin, The Paterson Literary Review, One Trick Pony, Poet Lore, and The Potomac Review.  Her work is anthologized in Pass-Fail: 32 Stories about Teaching; My Aunties' Book: 35 Writers Talk About Their Other Mother; Voices in Italian Americana; Along These Rivers and What Rough Beast: Poems at the End of the Century. Her one-act play, Life Without Nipples, was produced by the Pittsburgh New Works Theater Festival in 2007.  Her dramatic monologues were recited by Etta Cox in Womanscene, a fund-raising event for the Lupus Foundation.

Marilyn Bates’ Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Jerome Crooks began writing poetry in 1993 in Buffalo New York.  After finishing high school in Chesapeake VA in 1996, he moved to Pittsburgh, his father's home city, where he completed a BA in creative writing focusing on poetry at the University of Pittsburgh.  He is the co-author, with Jason Baldinger of The Whiskey Rebellion (Six Gallery Press, 2011), has edited a book for Encyclopedia Destructica, and runs a literary press, Speed and Briscoe, based in Pittsburgh.

Jerome Crooks’ Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Victoria Dym is a graduate of Ringling Brother’s Barnum and Bailey Clown College and has earned a BA in Philosophy, from the University of Pittsburgh as well as her MFA in Creative Writing-Poetry at Carlow University. Victoria has appeared in movies, on stage, television, radio and has had a stand-up comedy career. Her poetry has been published in various anthologies, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, City Paper, and Pearl Magazine. She is certified as a Laughter Yoga Leader, an active Madwoman, and a frequent improviser at Steel City Improv. Victoria has taught poetry at the winter and summer Young Writer’s Institutes, has guest-lectured at Seton Hill University and Mellon Middle School, and founded Writers in the Woods in 2011.

Victoria Dym’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Gene Hirsch

As a youngster, Gene Hirsch studied “New” music with Stefan Wolpe. He received an MD degree with an academic career in Cardiology, Geriatrics, and Humanities in Medicine.  He has written poetry since medical school with poems appearing in medical journals, anthologies, Crossing Limits, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and others.  In 1992, Gene initiated a writing program at the John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC, in which he teaches and has produced five anthologies featuring students and an active poetry community.  He has been resident poet at the folk school, Consortium Ethics Program (Univ. Pitt.), and Forbes Hospice.  He attends the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange. 

Gene Hirsch’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Don Wentworth writes poetry in the short form and has had work published in bear creek haiku, Rolling Stone, Modern Haiku, bottle rockets, The New Yinzer, Cotyledon, Encylopedia  Destructica, and the anthologies Prairie Smoke and To Life.  His first full-length volume, Past All Traps, was published by Six Gallery Press in 2011.

Don Wentworth’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Sarah Williams-Devereux is a transformative language artist, and teaches poetry for the Madwomen in the Attic workshops. Her work has been published in Sampsonia Way Magazine, Pittsburgh City Paper, The New Yinzer’s Pittsburgh Love Stories anthology, and Voices from the Attic. She has read her work locally at various venues, including Prosody, the Choice Cuts Reading Series, The New Yinzer Reading Series, She Said, and The Hungry Sphinx Reading Series. She is the co-author of the research monograph Our Stories, Our Selves: A3P: The African American Arts Project: A Study of African American Young Adult Arts Participation (PITT ARTS, University of Pittsburgh, 2006).

Sarah Williams-Devereux’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Jimmy Cvetic has been writing and performing poetry all his life. A retired county police officer, he is the director of the Pittsburgh Police Athletic League, and founder and director of the Summer Poetry Series at Hemingway's Cafe in Oakland.  His poems have appeared in the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette and other publications. He appears (briefly) in the movie, Warrior, filmed in Pittsburgh, and recently gave a featured reading of his poetry at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA with his friend, the actor Nick Nolte.  In 2010, Jimmy's book of poetry, The Secret Society of Dog, was published by Awesome Books/Lascaux Editions.

Jimmy Cvetic’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Open Mic

Open Mic - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

July 24, 2012 (Hoover, Jampole. Alberts, Schneider)

Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series

July 24, 2012

Elizabeth Hoover is a poet, critic, and journalist. She has contributed poetry reviews and author interviews to such publications as The Paris Review, The Los Angeles Times, and The Dallas Morning News.  Her poetry has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Hayden's Ferry Review, Natural Bridge, and The Massachusetts Review, among others. In 2012, she received second place in the Split This Rock Poetry of Provocation and Witness Contest.  Other honors include a residency at the Virginia Colony of the Creative Arts, and nominations for Sundress Publications Best of the Net award, and a Pushcart. She received a combined MFA/MA from Indiana University and is currently working on biographies of Walter Dean Myers and Robert Hayden.

Elizabeth Hoover’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Marc Jampole wrote Music from Words, published by Bellday Books.  His poetry has appeared in Evansville Review, Mississippi Review, Cortland Review, Vallum, Slant, Ellipsis and other journals.  Through the years, four of his poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. More than 1,200 freelance articles he has written on a various topics have been published in magazines and newspapers.  Marc also writes the OpEdge blog, which appears on the websites of two national publications.  

Marc Jampole’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Renée Alberts poetry and visual art have appeared in print, dance performances, live radio shows and at least one tattoo.  As They Fall, a collection of short poems from her Detail a Day Project, was published by Lilliput Broadsides in 2012.  She is author of the collection, No Water, and editor of Natural Language: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Sunday Poetry and Reading Anthology, a collection of writers featured in the series she founded.  She guest hosts WESA 90.5 FM's Prosody and moderates the Pittsburgh Literary Calendar.

Renée Alberts Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Mike Schneider has written widely in Pittsburgh publications, including award-winning articles in Pittsburgh Magazine. He organized the February 2003 reading in Market Square where 27 Pittsburgh-area poets expressed their opposition to impending war in Iraq. He received a 2003-04 Creative Artists Stipend in Arts Commentary from the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts. His poems appear in several anthologies and many journals, including 5 AM, Hunger Mountain, Notre Dame Review, Cimarron Review, Atlanta Review, Shenandoah, Poet Lore and Poetry.  His chapbook, Rooster, came out in 2004.

Mike Schneider’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Open Mic

Open Mic - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

July 17, 2012 (Gibb, Simms, Bauer)

Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series

July 17, 2012

Robert Gibb was born and still lives in Homestead, Pennsylvania. He is the author of nine books of poetry including Sheet Music (2012) and What the Heart Can Bear (2009) published by Autumn House Press. Among his awards are the National Poetry Series, two Poetry Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Pushcart Prize, seven Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grants, The Wildwood Poetry Prize, and the Devil’s Millhopper Chapbook Prize. Robert Gibb won the 1997 National Poetry Series Competition for The Origins of Evening.  It, along with his next two books, The Burning World and World over Water, comprise what Gibb calls The Homestead Trilogy, a nearly 100-poem cycle focusing on the fading industrial history and culture of America's Steel City.  As Tar River Poetry Review has noted, " Robert Gibb's poetry will give readers an idea of what Wordsworth might have been had he lived in the late twentieth century."

Robert Gibb’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Michael Simms is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Autumn House Press, a non-profit press based in Pittsburgh. He is the author of five collections of poetry: Black Stone, The Happiness of Animals, The Fire-Eater, Migration, and Notes on Continuing Light, as well as the co-author of The Longman Dictionary and Handbook of Poetry. He has taught at The University of Iowa, Southern Methodist University, The Community College of Allegheny County, Carnegie Mellon University, Chatham University, and Duquesne University. He lives with his wife Eva and their two children in the historic Mount Washington neighborhood overlooking downtown Pittsburgh and the Monongahela River.

Mike Simms’ Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Joan E. Bauer is the author of The Almost Sound of Drowning (Main Street Rag). Her poetry has appeared in the journals, 5 AM, New Renaissance, Quarterly West, and the anthologies Come Together: Imagine Peace (Bottom Dog Press), Along These Rivers: Poetry and Photography from Pittsburgh (Quadrant), Blue Arc West: An Anthology of California Poets (Tebot Bach), among others. In 2007, she won the Earl Birney Poetry Prize from Prism International, and her poetry has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. With Jimmy Cvetic, she curates the Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series.

Joan Bauer’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Open Mic

Open Mic - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

July 10, 2012 (Carson, Robinson, Peterson)

Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series

July 10, 2012

Jay Carson teaches creative writing, literature, and rhetoric at Robert Morris University, where he is also a faculty advisor to the student literary, journal, Rune.  Jay has published more than 60 poems in local and national journals, magazines, and collections. Jay's chapbook, Irish Coffee, was published by Coal Hill Review  in summer 2012.

Jay Carson’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Judith Robinson is an editor, teacher, fiction writer and poet.  A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, she has been published in numerous magazines, newspapers and anthologies. She was editor of Living Inland, author of The Beautiful Wife and Other Stories; poetry editor of Signatures.  She currently teaches poetry in the ALL Program at Carnegie Mellon University.  She is editor of Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami (Bayeux Arts) and co-editor with Michael Wurster of Along These Rivers: Poetry and Photography from Pittsburgh (Quadrant).  Her chapbook, Dinner Date, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2009.  Her new chapbook of poems about the Holocaust, The Blue Heart, will be published soon by Finishing Line Press, and her new book of poetry, Orange Fire, will be published in the fall by Main Street Rag.

Judy Robinson’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Walt Peterson is the author of three chapbooks of poetry. His last, In the Waiting Room of the Speedy Muffler King, won the Acorn-Rukeyser Award. In addition, he has a memoir, articles on cars and photographs published and does writing workshops, currently, with Franciscan nuns and incarcerated men at SCI Pine Grove in Indiana, PA.  In 2010, he facilitated the creation of the multi-media project and book, Fission and Form, bringing together the work of painters, sculptors and poets.

Walt Peterson’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Jimmy Cvetic reads Green Sprinkler Bottle

Jimmy Cvetic - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Open Mic

Open Mic - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

July 3, 2012 (Khoury, Karasek, St. John, Hatcher, Esaias)

Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series

July 3, 2012

Jill Khoury's poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Sentence, la fovea, and Harpur Palate. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice by Breath and Shadow: A Journal of Disability Culture and Literature. Her most recent publications include a contribution to Open Thread, a regional review that features writers from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, and a chapbook, Borrowed Bodies (Pudding House).

Jill Khoury’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Joseph Karasek performed as an actor and violinist with The Theater Within, an improvisational theater group in New York City.  A former violist with the National Orchestral Association, he created school orchestras on the elementary and secondary levels., and taught music composition and music theory at Long Island University.  Living in Pittsburgh, Pa since, 1991, he has taught philosophy at the Academy for Lifelong Learning at Carnegie Mellon University.  Several years ago, he led a study group on James Joyce's Ulysses there.  His poetry has been published in Only the Sea Keeps:  Poetry of the Tsunami (Bayeux Arts), and Blue Arc West: An Anthology of California Poets.  His two books of poetry, Beyond Waking and Love and the Ten Thousand Things, were published by Tebot Bach in 2009.

Joe Karasek’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Richard St. John's book of poems, The Pure Inconstancy of Grace, was published in 2005 by Truman State University Press, as first runner up for the 2004 T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. His long poem, Shrine, was released as a chapbook from Finishing Line Press in 2011.  His work has also appeared in Sewanee Review, Poet Lore, and Carolina Quarterly as well as many other periodicals and anthologies.  St. John received degrees in English from Princeton University and the University of Virginia. In 2002, he completed a mid-career Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife Kate.  Both thoughtful and nearsighted, he has walked or run into numerous objects, including trees, doors, mailboxes and utility poles.

Rick St. John’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Roberta Hatcher teaches French at Duquesne University, and her research has involved French-language literatures from the world beyond France, in particular post-independence literatures of sub-Saharan Africa. She is also interested in African cinema, postcolonial studies, and the emerging field of French Atlantic studies. She has read in a number of poetry venues in Pittsburgh, and recently participated in a session of "Border Crossing Poetry" at the Northeast Modern Language Association Conference held in Montreal. She was a 2009 finalist for the Patricia Dobler Poetry Award, and is currently working on a manuscript titled Boundary Waters.

Roberta Hatcher’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Timons Esaias lives in Pittsburgh, in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, with his wife who is a physician. He writes satire, speculative fiction, poetry, and the occasional essay. His work has appeared in over a dozen different countries, and fifteen languages. He has been a finalist for the British Science Fiction Award (1998) and the Rhysling Award (5 nominations, Third Place 1997), and he won the Asimov's Readers' Award for Poetry (2005). He is a member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange; Demeritus of the  Worldwrights; a certified Rogue in Lair #1 of the Rascals, Rogues & Rapscallions. He is Adjunct Faculty at Seton Hill University, primarily in the Masters Program for Writing Popular Fiction.

Tim Esaias’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Open Mic

Open Mic - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)