July 26, 2011 (Grand Finale)

Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series

July 26, 2011

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)

David Adès has recently moved to Pittsburgh from Adelaide, Australia.  He has been a member of Friendly Street Poets since 1979. His poems have appeared widely in Australia in publications including over 20 of the Friendly Street Poetry Readers and numerous literary magazines such as Island, Tirra Lirra, Wet Ink, Famous Reporter, Five Bells, Social Alternatives, Verandah and Studio, with some poems also appearing in translation in Vatra (Rumania).  He has appeared on the Australian radio poetry program Poetica, and is one of 9 poets featured on a CD titled “Adelaide 9.”  His collection, Mapping the World, was commended for the Fellowship of Australian Writers Anne Elder Award 2008. 

David Adès’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 son of Jerry and Mary Anne Crooks, brother to Theresa Leonard, brother-in-law to John Leonard, and proud uncle of Aeden.  He also co-authored, with Jason Baldinger, 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)

Edna Machesney is a past president of the Pittsburgh Poetry Society, and is a frequent reader at their events.  Her poetry is short and lyrical.  One of her haiku won an international haiku competition in Japan.

Edna Machesney’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Deena November graduated SUNY Binghamton in 2005 with a BA in Creative Writing, Poetry and received her MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry from Carlow University in April 2009. In 2005 she co-edited the anthology, I Just Hope It's Lethal, for Houghton Mifflin. Her poems have also appeared in Pittsburgh City Paper, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and Warbler. Deena lives in Pittsburgh’s North Side with her husband and dog.

Deena November’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Fred Peterson grew up on Arkansas rice farms in the 1940s and 1950s and uses rural farmboy experiences to relive those days.  A resident of Pittsburgh for twenty-five years, he is a member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Society and has been working on a chapbook for longer than he cares to remember. 

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

Lucille T. Seibert has lived in New York and Massachusetts. For the past 35 years, she has made her home in Pittsburgh, PA.  She studied with Pat Dobler as part of the Madwomen in the Attic program, and currently is a member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange. The Unattended Kitchen Sink is her first book of poems, written over the past 54 years.

Lucille Seibert’s Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Ron Smits is Emeritus Professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.  His book of poems, Push, was published by the University of Scranton Press in 2009.  

Ron Smits’ Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Christine Telfer is a founding editor of Invisible River Publishing, and for some years was editor and publisher of The Exchange.  A returned Peace Corps volunteer from Bulgaria, she now teaches English as a Second Language in Pittsburgh.  Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Artcrimes 20, Main Street Rag, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Whiskey Journal and other journals and periodicals. 

Christine Telfer’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)

Bob Ziller is an artist, poet, translator, and singer.  His translation of Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo's Translated from the Night,  the first English rendering of a complete text by the "pure African surrealist” of Madagascar--was praised by Dr. Henry Louis Gates:  "These translations read beautifully."  Ziller's artwork has been widely displayed in streets, galleries and museums around the US. As a singer and lyricist, he has recorded with the bands, Bingo Quixote and Media Circus Extravaganza!- with the MCE! Song, "Waterboarding," garnering attention as a GaraeBand.com Track of the Day. 

Bob Ziller’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.  His first full-length book of poetry, Secret Society of Dog, was published in 2010. 

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