May 27, 2014 (Battiste, Katz, Mcilroy, Shapiro)

Hemingway's Poetry Series

May 27, 2014

Michele Battiste's first full-length collection, Ink for an Odd Cartography, a finalist for the St. Lawrence Book Award, was published by Black Lawrence Press in 2009. Her second collection Uprising will be released in 2014, also from Black Lawrence. She was a finalist for the 2013 National Poetry Series and is the author of four chapbooks, the most recent of which is Lineage (Binge Press, 2012). Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Anti-, The Awl, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and Mid-American Review, among others. Michele has taught poetry writing for Wichita State University (WSU), the Prison Arts Program in Hutchinson, KS, Gotham Writers' Workshops, and the national writing program Teen Ink.  She lives in Colorado where she raises funds for organizations undoing corporate evil.

Michele Battiste's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Battiste & Mcilroy Read 'My Love' - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Leslie Anne Mcilroy won the 2001 Word Press Poetry Prize for her full-length collection Rare Space and the 1997 Slipstream Poetry Chapbook Prize for her chapbook Gravel. She also took first place in the 1997 Chicago Literary Awards Competition judged by Gerald Stern. Her second full-length book, Liquid Like This, was published by Word Press in 2008. Leslie’s poetry appears in numerous publications including Dogwood, The Mississippi Review, New Ohio Review, Nimrod International Journal of Prose & Poetry, Pearl and forthcoming in Barely South Review. Leslie works as a copywriter in Pittsburgh, PA, where she lives with her daughter Silas.

Leslie Anne Mcilroy's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Lauren Shapiro holds degrees from Brown University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the author of the poetry collection Easy Math (Sarabande Books, 2013) and a chapbook of poetry, Yo-Yo Logic (DIAGRAM/New Michigan Press, 2012), and she served as co-editor of The New Census: An Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry(Rescue Press, 2013). She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Carnegie Mellon University. 

Lauren Shapiro's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Joy Katz is the author, most recently, of All You Do is Perceive, a Stalecher Selection at Four Way Books and a National Poetry Series finalist. Her other collections are The Garden Room (Tupelo) and Fabulae (Southern Illinois). Her honors include an NEA fellowship, a Stegner fellowship, and a Pushcart residency at Jentel. She teaches in the graduate writing programs at Carlow University and Chatham University and lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and young son. 

Joy Katz' Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Jimmy Cvetic reads I Hate Fat Crayons

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Open Mic

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May 20, 2014 (Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop)

Hemingway's Poetry Series

May 20, 2014

Ann Curran is author of the book of poems, Me First (Lummox Press, 2013) and the chapbook, Placement Test. She is former long-time editor of Carnegie Mellon Magazine and staff writer for the Pittsburgh Catholic and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She holds degrees from Duquesne University. She taught at Duquesne and the Community College of Allegheny County. Her poetry has appeared in Rosebud Magazine, U.S. 1 Worksheets, Main Street Rag, Off the Coast, Blueline, ThirdWednesday, Notre Dame Magazine, Ireland of the Welcomes, Commonweal Magazine and others, as well as the anthologies: Along These Rivers: Poetry and Photography from Pittsburgh, Motif 2 Come What May and Motif 3 All the Livelong Day, Thatchwork, and Surrounded: Living With Islands.  

Ann Curran's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Nancy Esther James has had her poems published in various journals and literary magazines including Christianity and Literature, Time of Singing, and Poet Lore, as well as in publications such as Friends Journal and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Her poem, “To a Friend,” originally published inChristianity and Literature, was reprinted in the 2003 Poet’s Market.  Her collection of poems, No Time to Hurry, was published by Dawn Valley Press (Westminster College) in 1979. She has taught poetry workshops at the St. Davids Christian Writers Conference and The Writing Academy Seminar and has judged poetry contests for St. Davids and for the Pittsburgh Poetry Society. Her chapbook, Resilient Spirit: Poems for Lorraine, was published in March 2013 by Finishing Line Press.

Nancy Esther James' 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.  He also 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 (Tebot Bach). His books of poetry, Beyond Waking and Love and the Ten Thousand Things, were published by Tebot Bach in 2009.

Joseph Karasek's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Christine Doriean Michaels came to Pittsburgh from England in 1971 and joined the Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop in February 1984. A retired psychologist, she was a member and word-weaver for Tea Time Ladies, a poetry performance group, in the 1990s. More recent publications can be found in Fission of Form and Labyrinth Pathways 2009, and a review inOUT. Earlier works can be found in Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami; Along These Rivers: Photography and Poetry from Pittsburgh; Voices from the Attic;The Exchange; No Choice but to Trust; Pittsburgh and Tri-State Area Poets;Taproots, Songs for the Living and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

Christine Doriean Michaels' Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Rosaly DeMaios Roffman, facilitator of the Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop, taught creative writing, myth and literature and started a Myth/Folklore Studies Center at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She co-edited the prize-winning anthology Life on the Line and is author of Going to Bed Whole, Tottering Palaces and The Approximate Message. She has read her poems in Ireland, Greece, Mexico, Israel, Spain and the Czech Republic and was a featured writer on the BBC's "Writer from Abroad" series. Her work has been published in Centennial Review, Riverrun, MacGuffin, Main Street Rag and the Pittsburgh Quarterly and she is the recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Award in the Arts at IUP. Over the years, she has been involved in 25 collaborations, often with artists and dancers. Her book of poetry, I Want to Thank My Eyes, was published by Tebot Bach in April 2012.

Rosaly DeMaios Roffman's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Arlene Weiner has been a cardiology technician, a college instructor, an editor, and a research associate/member of a group developing educational software. A native of New York City, Arlene has lived in Pittsburgh for most of her adult life.  Arlene has had poems published in Pleiades, Poet Lore, The Louisville Review, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, anthologized in Along These Rivers, and read by Garrison Keillor on his Writer’s Almanac.  Poet Joy Katz wrote of Arlene’s collection of poems, Escape Velocity (Ragged Sky, 2006), “I want to keep my favorite of these beautifully alert, surprising poems with me as I grow old.”

Arlene Weiner's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Jimmy Cvetic Reads Fuck Meter

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Open Mic

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May 15, 2014 (Gainey, Waite and Beatty)

Versify

May 15, 2014

Note: This event was curated by Bob Walicki and is not part of the Hemingway's Poetry Series. It is noteworthy for the presence Stacey Waite, a revered member of the Pittsburgh poetry scene, who now lives in Nebraska. It also features our first successful recording of Celeste Gainey. Jan Beatty has been recorded many times before but it is always a treat to hear her again.

Celeste Gainey’s full-length collection, the gaffer, chosen by Dorianne Laux as runner-up for the 2012 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize, has been selected by Eloise Klein Healy for publication in early 2015 by Arktoi Books, her imprint at Red Hen Press. Gainey’s chapbook, In the land of speculation & seismography, runner-up for the 2010 Robin Becker Prize, was published by Seven Kitchens Press in their 2011 Summer Kitchen Series; it is due to be re-issued in their Re-Bound Series in 2013. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Columbia Poetry Review, BLOOM, 5AM, Adanna, Wild Apples, and Madroad: The Breadline Press West Coast Anthology. A gaffer in the film industry and an architectural lighting designer, she holds a BFA in film and television from New York University and an MFA in creative writing/poetry from Carlow University. A native Californian, she now resides in Pittsburgh.

Celeste Gainey's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Stacey Waite is originally from New York and received an MFA in poetry in 2003. For several years, she has been teaching courses in Composition, Women's Studies, Literature and Creative Writing as a PHD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh.  After receiving her MFA, Stacey published two collections of poems:  Choke (winner of the 2004 Frank O'Hara Prize in Poetry) and Love Poem to Androgyny (winner of the 2006 Main Street Rag Competition).  Her poems have been published most recently in The Cream City Review, The Marlboro Review, Gulf Stream and Black Warrior Review.  A new collection of poems, The Lake has No Saint, was published by Tupelo Press in 2010.  Stacey has also been teaching for the Carlow University sponsored community, Madwomen in the Attic.  She now teaches at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Stacey Waite's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Jan Beatty’s new book, The Switching/Yard was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2013.  Other books include Red Sugar (2008, U of Pgh Press) Boneshaker (2002, U. of Pgh. Press) and Mad River, winner of the 1994 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. Ravenous, her limited edition chapbook, won the 1995 State Street Prize. Beatty’s poetry has appeared in Quarterly West, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, and Court Green, and in anthologies published by Oxford University Press, University of Illinois Press, and University of Iowa Press. Awards include the $15,000 Creative Achievement Award in Literature from the Heinz Foundation, the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, and two fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. For the past thirteen years, she has hosted and produced Prosody, a public radio show on NPR-affiliate WYEP-FM featuring the work of national writers. Beatty directs the creative writing program at Carlow University, where she runs the Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops and teaches in the MFA program.

  

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May 13, 2014 (Pittsburgh Poetry Society)

Hemingway's Poetry Series

May 13, 2014

Randy Minnich is a retired chemist, now focusing on writing, environmental issues, t’ai chi, and grandchildren.  A member of the Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop and Pittsburgh Poetry Society, he has published two books,Wildness in a Small Place and Pavlov’s Cats.  His work has also appeared in Main Street Rag, Pearl, Pudding, Snowy Egret, Blueline, US 1 Worksheets, and other publications.

Randy Minnich's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Marilyn Marsh Noll, earned her MFA in Creative Writing at American University in Washington, D.C. in 1994. Her poems have appeared in the Comstock Review, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Folio, Voices From the Attic, The Potter’s Wheel and the Poetry Society of Virginia 80^th Anniversary Anthology of Poems.  Her chapbook, Thirteen Ways of Looking at Bones, won the Pennsylvania Poetry Society Chapbook Award in 2007. Her children’s book, Jonathan and the Flying Broomstick, was published in August 2010. A resident of O’Hara Township, she belongs to the Madwomen in the Attic Writing Workshop (Carlow University) and the Pittsburgh Poetry Society.

Marilyn Marsh Noll's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Liane Ellison Norman's recent book of poems, Breathing the West: Great Basin Poems, was published by Bottom Dog Press in 2012, and her chapbook, Driving Near the Old Federal Arsenal, by Finishing Line Press in 2012 as well. Her poetry has appeared in North American Review, Kestrel, The Fourth River, 5 AM, Grasslimb, Rune, Hot Metal Press and the Voices From the Attic and Come Together: Imagine Peace anthologies. She won the Wisteria Prize for poetry in 2006 from Paper Journey Press and has published two earlier books of poetry,The Duration of Grief and Keep, a book about nonviolent protest against nuclear bomb parts makers, Mere Citizens: United, Civil and Disobedient, a biography, Hammer of Justice: Molly Rush and the Plowshares Eight, a novel, Stitches in Air: A Novel About Mozart's Mother, and many articles, essays and reviews.

Liane Ellison Norman's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Fred Peterson grew up on rice farms throughout Southeast Arkansas in the 1940's and 1950's, the son of a sharecropper and the seventh of eight children.  His poetry takes one on a journey with a family rich in love.  A teacher early in his career, his life-path took him from Arkansas to St. Louis and to Pittsburgh where he has lived for the last 25 years.  He is a member and past president of the Pittsburgh Poetry Society.  His book of poetry, Writing by Flashlight, was published by Awesome Books in 2012. 

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

Shirley Stevens is a member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Society, the Squirrel Hill Poetry, and St. David’s workshops.  She serves as a mentor for the Writing Academy and a poetry workshop leader for Passavant Retirement Village and The First Word.   Her poems most recently appeared in The Potter’s Wheel, Honing the Poem, and A Time of Singing, as well as Poet Lore, Along These Rivers,  Fission of Form, The CommonWealth: Pennsylvania Poets on Pennsylvania Subjects, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Squirrel Hill Magazine.  She is the author of Pronouncing What We Want to Keep.

Shirley Stevens' Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Christine Aikens Wolfe writes poetry and fiction. Christine has published poems in Sonnetto Poesia, a bi-lingual quarterly out of Ottawa since fall 2006. Her poetry, fiction, and articles have appeared in the publications of the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project, including Parachute, the WPWP Bulletin, Riverspeak, and Threads, and in the Pittsburgh Poetry Society's bi-annual magazine, The Potter's Wheel.  Her poetry has also been published in Woman Becoming and Poetry Magazine, and the multi-media book, Fission and Form. 

Christine Aikens Wolfe's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Open Mic

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Jimmy Cvetic reads Becoming a Man

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

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May 6, 2014 (Madwomen in the Attic)

Hemingway's Poetry Series

May 6, 2014

Lisa Alexander holds an MFA in Poetry from Drew University and is a member of the Madwomen in the Attic workshop. Her work has appeared in various journals including 5 AM, BLOOM and The Burnside Review. She's a sound engineer for Prosody, NPR-affiliate WESA's weekly show featuring the work of national writers.

Lisa Alexander's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Kayla Berkey spends her time in Pittsburgh writing, bicycling, and working to improve people’s access to healthcare with Consumer Health Coalition. She is a member of the Madwomen in the Attic poetry workshops, and she holds an M.A. in English from Duquesne University. Her poetry has appeared in :Lexicon, the student-led journal of arts and literature at Duquesne University.

Kayla Berkey's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Jennifer Jackson Berry lives in Pittsburgh, PA and works as a claims adjuster for a mass transit bus line. She has taught high school English, as well creative writing and composition at the post-secondary level. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Harpur Palate, Stone Highway Review, 5AM, Main Street Rag, Jet Fuel Review, Amethyst Arsenic, and Mead, among others. She is the author of the chapbooks When I Was a Girl (Sundress Publications, 2013) and Nothing But Candy (Liquid Paper Press, 2003). She holds degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and Indiana University’s MFA program.

Jennifer Jackson Berry's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Doralee Brooks is a Cave Canem fellow and a teacher-consultant with the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project. Doralee is a reading specialist with a Master’s degree in education from the University of Pittsburgh. She has taught in the public and Catholic elementary schools in Pittsburgh and now chairs the Developmental Studies Program at CCAC Allegheny Campus. She is a past president of the Pennsylvania Association of Junior and Two-Year Colleges.  Her poems have appeared in the Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Voices from the Attic, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Chapter and Verse, Dos Passos Review, and Callaloo.  Doralee is an MFA candidate in poetry in the low-residency creative writing program at Carlow University. Her poem, “Researching the Alma-Mater,” is forthcoming in 10:  A Carlow Anthology, which celebrates the ten-year anniversary of the Carlow MFA program.

Doralee Brooks' Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Barbara Dahlberg has been a fine artist and craftsman her whole life. For nine years, she taught art to socially and emotionally disturbed children, and art in the Pittsburgh Public Schools for eleven.  In 2001, she was a Fellow with the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project, and has been a poet ever since. She has been a Madwoman for the past five years, and her work has been published in Riverspeak, Threads, and Voices from the Attic.

Barbara Dahlberg's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Teresa Narey's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Misfit Magazine, No Tokens, Wicked Alice, and Pittsburgh City Paper, among others. In April, she will present her poetry at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association national conference. She has an MFA in creative writing from Chatham University.

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Bonita Lee Penn earned her BA in Creative Writing at Carlow University where she was the recipient of several writing awards including the Ellie Wymard Award in Creative Nonfiction. She is currently part of the Low-Residency MFA program at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. Her works have been published in Blackberry: a magazine andLinden Avenue Journal online, as well as Voices from the Attic, Three Rivers Run Deep-Pittsburgh Poets, The Critical Point, Crossing Limits Anthology of African American and American Jews Poetry. Bonita is a member of the Madwomen in the Attic and facilitator of the Umbra/Pittsburgh Writers Workshop. She also a contributor and managing editor of the Soul Pitt Quarterly Magazine.

Bonita Lee Penn's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Sarah Williams-Devereux is a poet, transformative language artist, and educator. She lives in Pittsburgh and has read her work locally at various venues, including Prosody, the Choice Cuts Reading Series, The New Yinzer Reading Series, Incredibly Thin, She Said, The Sprout Fund's Hothouse, and the Hungry Sphinx Reading Series. Her work has been published in multiple volumes of Voices from the Attic (Carlow University), Pittsburgh City Paper, Pittsburgh Love Stories (The New Yinzer), and the online journal SubtleTea. 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). She received her BFA in Painting from Seton Hill College.

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Laurin B. Wolf has an MFA from Kent State University and BA from the University of Pittsburgh in poetry writing.  Her poems have appeared in Scholars & Rogues, PMS, Pittsburgh’s City Paper, Two Review, and Madwomen in the Attic an Anthology.  Her book reviews have appeared in Whiskey Island. She is a guest host on the WESA’s weekly radio show Prosody featuring interviews with poets, she and co-hosts the monthly reading series Mad Fridays. She teaches writing at Duquesne University and Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, PA.

Laurin B. Wolf's Reading - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Jimmy Cvetic reads Me and Mark Twain

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

Open Mic

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