Friday, September 16, 2016

Distant Replay

Two years ago Jimmy Cvetic recorded a poem titled A Conversation With God. This poem received raucous approval at the time but the copy he read from has gone missing. If it turns up he will make a fresh recording. Until then, the original will suffice. 

Here it is, as recorded at Hemingway's on June 24, 2014.

A Conversation With God

Friday, September 9, 2016

Poems From Jimmy


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Jimmy Cvetic has hosted the Hemingway's Poetry Series for decades. Lately he has been recording his poetry for archival purposes. The first poem presented here was "tossed off" (as he would say) on the day it was recorded. Not a word was revised after it hit the page. It exemplifies the fertility of his imagination and the abundance of his gift.

The second poem appeared in Secret Society of Dog. It recounts one of his experiences as a police officer. He is reading it here for the first time.

In the photograph, Jimmy stands beside a memento of his recent reading in Los Angeles. Fans there presented it to him as a gesture of their appreciation and esteem.


My Girlfriend Likes Explosive Surprises
My Girlfriend Likes Explosive Surprises - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Leon and the Laugh Box
Leon and the Laugh Box - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

July 26, 2016 (Ellis, Mendez, Gegick, Wentworth, Gainey, Grochalski, Korn, Collins)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
July 26, 2016

Featured Readers
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Or
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Or
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Standing: Richard Gegick, Don Wentworth, Kristofer Collins, John Grochalski & John Korn
Seated: Angele Ellis, Celeste Gainey, Joan Bauer & Jimmy Cvetic

Angele Ellis is an editor, poet, fiction writer, and reviewer who has authored three books, and appeared in over fifty publications and ten anthologies. She is coauthor of Dealing With Differences (Corwin Press), named as a top multicultural classroom resource by The Christian Science Monitor, and author of Arab on Radar (Six Gallery Press), whose poems won her an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Spared (A Main Street Rag Editors' Choice Chapbook). Angele feels that writing and performing her work combines two of her childhood dreams--to be an archaeologist and a lounge singer. She lives in Friendship, whose Quakerly spirit soothes her hot-blooded nature.


Jason Mendez is an educator, author, interdisciplinary theater artist, and father of 3. He received his Ph.D. in Education with an emphasis in Curriculum, Culture, and Change and a Graduate Certificate in Cultural Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His interests include urban education, critical race studies, cultural studies, arts as social justice, Boricua identities, and South Bronx culture and history. As a South Bronx Puerto Rican writer focusing on lived experience, notions of home, and the power of voice, his work critically reflects a common struggle with identity construction and the process of becoming. Currently, He is working on a memoir titled, The Search for the Golden Glow, which vividly details his coming of age as a Puerto Rican kid from the South Bronx. He is also working on adapting his manuscript into a one-man performance, called Manida.





Richard Gegick is from Trafford, PA. He lives in Pittsburgh where he writes and waits tables for a living.




Don Wentworth is a Pittsburgh-based poet whose work reflects his interest in the revelatory nature of brief, haiku-like moments in everyday life. His poetry has appeared in Modern Haiku, bottle rockets, Frogpond, Pittsburgh Poetry Review and Rolling Stone, as well as a number of anthologies. He is the author of Past All Traps and Yield to the Willow, with forthcoming volumes from Six Gallery and Low Ghost Press.




Celeste Gainey is the author of the full-length poetry collection, The GAFFER (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press, 2015), and the chapbook In the land of speculation & seismography (Seven Kitchens Press, 2011), runner-up for the 2010 Robin Becker Prize. The first woman to be admitted to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) as a gaffer, she has spent many years working with light in film and architecture. www.celestegainey.com


John Grochalski is the author of The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out, Glass City, In The Year of Everything Dying, Starting with the Last Name Grochalski, and the novel, The Librarian. Grochalski lives in Brooklyn, where he constantly worries about the high cost of everything.




John Korn lives in Pittsburgh. He is the author of a book of poetry titled Television Farm which can be purchased on amazon.com. He has worked as a mental health social worker for many years now. He was nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, one for his poem "14 young women" and another for his poem "Yellow lamp shade head." He didn't win either of these prizes and he is not even sure what those prizes are.


Kristofer Collins is the Books Editor at Pittsburgh Magazine, as well as being a frequent contributor to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He is the publisher of Low Ghost Press and Coleridge Street Books. He also manages Caliban Book Shop in Oakland (and owns Desolation Row Records located inside). His latest poetry collection Local Conditions was published in 2015. He lives in Stanton Heights, a hidden gem in Pittsburgh’s east end with his wife Dr. Anna Johnson and their three cats.


Open Mic


Jimmy Cvetic Reads Two Poems


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Tuesday, July 19, 2016

July 19, 2016 (Brice, Carson, Curran, Esaias, Lee, Robinson)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
July 19, 2016

Featured Readers
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Standing: Jimmy Cvetic, Jay Carson, Judy Robinson, Tim Esaias & Joan Bauer
Seated: Charlie Brice, Ann Curran & Mary Soon Lee

Charlie Brice is the author of Flashcuts Out of Chaos (WordTech Editions, 2016) His poetry has appeared in The Atlanta Review, Avalon Literary Journal, Icon, Barbaric Yawp, The Quotable, The Paterson Literary Review, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Writing Disorder and elsewhere. He has been named an International Merit Award winner in the Atlanta Review’s Poetry 2015 International Poetry Competition.


Jay Carson earned his doctorate in English/Rhetoric from Carnegie-Mellon University. A seventh generation Pittsburgher, he taught creative writing, literature, and rhetoric at Robert Morris University for many years, where Jay was a University Professor and a faculty advisor to the student literary journal, Rune. More than 70 of his poems have appeared in local and national literary journals, magazines, and anthologies. Jay authored a chapbook, Irish Coffee, with Coal Hill Review. A full-length book of his poems, The Cinnamon of Desire, was published by Main Street Rag. Jay considers his work Appalachian, Irish, accessible, the problem-solving spiritual survival of a raging, youth - and just what you might need.


Ann Curran is author of two books of poems, Me First (Lummox Press, 2013), Knitting the Andy Warhol Bridge (Lummox Press, 2016) and the chapbook Placement Test. She is former longtime editor of Carnegie Mellon Magazine and staff writer for the Pittsburgh Catholic and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Her poetry has appeared in Rosebud Magazine, U.S. 1 Worksheets, The Main Street Rag, Off the Coast, Blueline, Third Wednesday, 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.
Timons Esaias is a poet, satirist, essayist, and writer of short fiction whose works have appeared in twenty languages. He has been a finalist for the British Science Fiction Award, and won the 2005 Asimov's Readers Award for poetry. Literary publications include 5AM, New Orleans Review, Connecticut Review, and Barbaric Yawp. His Louis Award-winning full-length collection, Why Elephants No Longer Communicate in Greek, was released by Concrete Wolf earlier this year. For more, go to www.timonsesaias.com

Mary Soon Lee was born and raised in London, but has lived in the East End of Pittsburgh for the past twenty years. She has had over a hundred poems published, including work in the Atlanta Review, American Scholar, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Uppagus. Her poem "Interregnum" won the 2014 Rhysling Award for Best Long Poem. She has a husband, two children, two cats, and an antiquated website: http://www.marysoonlee.com. Her book of epic fantasy in verse, Crowned, was published in 2015 by Dark Renaissance Books.


Judith R. Robinson is the author of three poetry collections: The Blue Heart  (Finishing Line Press), Orange Fire (Main Street Rag) and Dinner Date (Finishing Line Press). She is also the author of The Beautiful Wife and Other Stories (Aegina Press).  She is the poetry editor of Signatures (Osher, Carnegie Mellon), 2001, 2003, 2006, 2012 and The Poetry of Margaret Menamin, (Main Street Rag, three volumes) as well as Living Inland (Bennington Press).  She co-edited  Along These River: Poetry and Photography from Pittsburgh (Quadrant Publishing, 2008) and Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami  (Rupa, Inc. and Bayeux Arts, 2005), and most recently, co-editor of The Brentwood Anthology (Lummox Press, 2014). She currently teaches poetry for Osher at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. For music video featuring Judy's poem "Carousel": http://www.helenpresents.com/fns-carousel-judith-r-robinson/


Open Mic


Jimmy Cvetic Reads Identity Theft and the Vanity of Your Worth


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Tuesday, July 12, 2016

July 12, 2016 (Andrews, Bashaar, Berry, Khoury, Smith)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
July 12, 2016

Featured Readers
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Standing: Jimmy Cvetic, Jennifer Jackson Berry, Margaret Bashaar, Kelly Andrews & Joan Bauer
Seated: Erin Elizabeth Smith & Jill Khoury

Kelly Andrews' poems have appeared or are forthcoming in PANK, Prick of the Spindle, Pittsburgh Poetry Review Menacing Hedge, Lime Hawk, Rogue Agent, IDK Magazine, and Weave Magazine, among others.  Her chapbook, "Mule Skinner," is available from Dancing Girl Press (2014).  She is a poetry co-editor for the online journals Pretty Owl Poetry and Hot Metal Bridge and has a hand in creating B.E. Quarterly, a community-based Pittsburgh xine. She also curates the Pretty Owl Spotlight reading series held at Classic Lines bookstore. For more, go to her website: kellyandrewspoetry.com 


Margaret Bashaar's first book, Stationed Near the Gateway, was released by Sundress Publications in 2015. She also has three chapbooks, Barefoot and Listening (Tilt, 2009), Letters from Room 27 of the Grand Midway Hotel (Blood Pudding Press, 2011), and Rungs written with Lauren Eggert-Crowe (Grey Book Press, 2015). Her work has appeared in journals such as Caketrain, New South, Rhino, PANK, Copper Nickel, and Arsenic Lobster, among others. She edits Hyacinth Girl Press and co-runs FREE POEMS with Rachael Deacon.


Jennifer Jackson Berry’s first full length collection of poetry The Feeder is forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2016. She is also the author of the chapbooks When I Was a Girl (Sundress Publications) and Nothing But Candy (Liquid Paper Press). Her poems have appeared in journals such as Booth, The Emerson Review, Harpur Palate, Moon City Review, Stirring, and Whiskey Island, among others. Poems also appeared in various anthologies, including New Poetry from the Midwest (New American Press, 2015), We Will Be Shelter (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014), and By the Slice (Spooky Girlfriend Press, 2014). She has been featured on Prosody on WESA-FM. She holds degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and Indiana University’s MFA program. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Pittsburgh Poetry Review and an Assistant Editor for WomenArts Quarterly Journal. She lives in the Braddock Hills neighborhood of Pittsburgh.


Jill Khoury is the author of Suites for the Modern Dancer (Sundress Press, 2016). Jill is interested in the intersection of poetry, visual art, representations of gender, and disability. She is a Western Pennsylvania Writing Project fellow and has taught writing and literature in high school, university, and enrichment environments. She holds an MFA from The Ohio State University. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous journals, including Arsenic Lobster, Copper Nickel, Inter|rupture, and Portland Review. She has also been anthologized in Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence, Pudding House Press released her chapbook, Borrowed Bodies, in 2009. For more, go to www.jillkhoury.com 


Erin Elizabeth Smith, originally from Lexington, South Carolina, holds a B.A. in English from Binghamton University, an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Illinois,and a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern Mississippi. She currently teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Tennessee. She is the author of two full-length poetry collections as well as a chapbook. Smith lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where she coordinates weekend workshops for writers in the Knoxville area. In 1999, Smith founded Stirring: A Literary Collection, now one of the oldest continually-published literary journals on the internet. A year later, she founded Sundress Publications, a literary organization that publishes several online journals as well as chapbooks and full-length poetry collections in both print and electronic formats. Since 2006, Smith has edited the Best of the Net Anthology, also published by Sundress.


Open Mic


Jimmy Cvetic Reads Too Tall Tommy


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Tuesday, July 5, 2016

July 5, 2016 (Matcho, McNaugher, Jakiela, Newman)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
July 5, 2016

Exhibit A:
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 Exhibit B:
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Post-Reading Photos (You Decide)
Standing: Dave Newman, Adam Matcho, Heather McNaugher & Jimmy Cvetic
Seated: Lori Jakiela & Joan Bauer

Adam Matcho is an obituary writer and contributor to The New Yinzer. He is a former technical writer, novelty shop clerk, basketball coach and gas station attendant. His chapbook, Six Dollars an Hour: Confessions of a Gemini Writer, was published by Liquid Paper Press and his essay collection, The Novelty Essays, was published by WPA Press. When not writing death notices, Adam tries to write about life. He lives in a former craft shop with his wife, two sons and too many animals. As Dave Newman has said, "Adam Matcho has more talent than most corporations have profits, and his vision of America is tragic and brilliant and hilarious.”




Heather McNaugher is the author of System of Hideouts (Main Street Rag, 2012). She teaches poetry, nonfiction, and literature at her alma mater, Chatham University, and is poetry editor of Fourth River. Her work has appeared in 5 A.M., The Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, The Gay & Lesbian Review, Leveler, and The Cortland Review, and on the radio show, Prosody. Her chapbook, Panic & Joy, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2008. She worked as a house cleaner and barista in Seattle, as a dog walker in Brooklyn, and then got her Ph.D. in English from The State University of New York at Binghamton. While working for the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, she almost became a librarian. She's tried living elsewhere, but keeps coming back to Pittsburgh.




Lori Jakiela is the author of the memoirs Miss New York Has Everything (Hatchette, 2006); The Bridge to Take When Things Get Serious (C&R Press, 2013 and WPA Press, 2015); and Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe (Atticus Books, 2015). She is also the author of Spot the Terrorist (Turning Point, 2012), a collection of mostly narrative poems about her years as a flight attendant. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and more. She is the recipient of the 2015 City of Asylum/Pittsburgh Prize, a Golden Quill Award for column writing, and many Pushcart Prize nominations. She co-directs the summer writers festival at Chautauqua Institution and teaches in the writing programs at Pitt-Greensburg and Chatham University. She lives in Trafford with her husband, the author Dave Newman, and their children. Her author website is http://lorijakiela.net


Dave Newman is the author of five books, including The Poem Factory (White Gorilla Press, 2015), the novel Two Small Birds (Writers Tribe Books, 2014), and the collection The Slaughterhouse Poems (White Gorilla Press, 2013), named one of the best books of the year by L Magazine. He works in chronic pain research, serving elders, and lives in Trafford, PA, the last town in the Electric Valley, with his wife, the writer Lori Jakiela, and their two children.

Open Mic


Jimmy Cvetic Reads A Poem For Shine


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Tuesday, June 28, 2016

June 28, 2016 (Hatcher, Krygowski, Stupp, Wray, Wurster)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
June 21, 2016

Featured Readers
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(Nobody Snuck Out Early!)
Standing: Joan Bauer, Jimmy Cvetic, John Stupp, Roberta Hatcher & Lawrence Wray
Seated: Nancy Krygowski & Michael Wurster

Roberta Hatcher’s poetry has appeared in The Comstock Review, Main Street Rag, St. Petersburg Review, Storm Cellar, Rune, Pittsburgh’s City Paper, and the Post-Gazette, among others. She has been a finalist for the Patricia Dobler Award, was runner-up for the Arkadii Dragomoshchenko Prize for Innovative Use of Language in Poetry, and her poem French Lesson #3 was nominated for Best American Poets 2014. She holds a Ph.D. in French from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and currently tutors candidates for citizenship at the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council. Her chapbook French Lessons (Finishing Line Press) will be published this summer.

Roberta Hatcher - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Nancy Krygowski‘s book of poems, Velocity, won the 2006 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press. She’s received grants from the PA Council on the Arts and from the Pittsburgh Foundation, plus residencies at the Jentel Foundation and The Kimmel Nelson Harding Center for the Arts. She works as an adult literacy instructor.


John Stupp is the author of the 2007 chapbook The Blue Pacific and the 2015 full-length collection Advice from the Bed of a Friend both by Main Street Rag. His new book How Tuesday Began will be published by Finishing Line Press. Recent poetry has appeared or will be appearing in SHARKPACK Poetry Review, The White Whale Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, The Pittsburgh Poetry Review, SHARK REEF Literary Magazine, By&By Poetry and on the radio show Prosody. He lives in Sewickley, Pennsylvania.


Lawrence Wray’s poems have appeared in Poetry Salzburg Review, Heart, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Crab Orchard Review, and Cider Press Review, among others. His poem “At the Moment of Passing, Clocks” is included in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette anthology of art and poetry called Verse Envisioned. Lawrence studied Comparative Literature at Binghamton University, English at Duquesne University, and is a member of an annual meeting of poets which grew out of the Frost Place. Conte and Weave nominated his work for a Pushcart Prize. His collection of poems, The Night People Imagine, was a finalist for the Patricia Bibby Memorial Prize at Tebot Bach Press, and for the Brighthorse Poetry Prize, as well as the Antivenom Prize at Elixir Press.


Michael Wurster has lived in Pittsburgh since 1964 and is a founding member of Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange. For 17 years, 1993-2010, he taught at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts School. In 2009, his book, The British Detective, was published by Main Street Rag. His two previous poetry collections are The Cruelty of the Desert (Cottage Wordsmiths, 1989) and The Snake Charmer's Daughter (ELEMENOPE, 2000). He is co-editor, with Judith R. Robinson, of the anthology, Along These Rivers: Poetry & Photography from Pittsburgh (Quadrant Press, 2008), and The Brentwood Anthology (Lummox Press, 2014). In 1996, Wurster was an inaugural recipient of a Pittsburgh Magazine Harry Schwalb Excellence in the Arts Award for his contributions to poetry and the community.


Open Mic

No Open Mic this week

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016

June 21, 2016 (Bauer, Buccilli, Ferrarelli, Mennies, Ramirez, Fasano)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
June 21, 2016

Featured Readers
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(And They're Still Smiling!)
Standing: Adriana Ramirez, Joseph Fasano, Jimmy Cvetic, Daniela Buccilli & Rina Ferrarelli
Seated: Rachel Mennies & Joan Bauer

Joan E. Bauer is the author of The Almost Sound of Drowning (Main Street Rag, 2008). Recent work has appeared in Calyx, Cider Press Review, Confrontation, The Paterson Literary Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Uppagus, and US 1 Worksheets. In 2007, her poem, "Sleepers," won the Earle Birney Poetry Prize from Prism International. Joan worked for years as a teacher and counselor and now divides her time between Venice, CA, and Pittsburgh, PA where, along with Jimmy Cvetic, she co-hosts and curates the Hemingway Summer Poetry Series.

Joan E. Bauer - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Daniela Buccilli’s poetry has appeared or is upcoming in Paterson Literary Review, Free State Review, Concho River Review, Uppagus, Italian Americana: Cultural and Historical Review, Rune, Voices from the Attic, Main Street Rag, and The Fourth River. She has studied with the Madwomen for nearly ten years. Her MFA is from University of Pittsburgh (2001). Her book-length manuscript Hippie Teachers was a semi-finalist for the 2015 Perugia Press Prize.


Rina Ferrarelli's The Bread We Ate, a collection of original poetry, was published in 2012 by Guernica. She has also published two other works of original poetry, Dreamsearch (malafemmina) and Home is Foreign Country (Eadmer), and two bilingual editions of translations, I Saw the Muses (Guernica), and Winter Fragments (Chelsea). She was awarded an NEA and the Italo Calvino Prize. Two of her poems, "The Young Immigrant Writes to a Friend Back Home" and "Mayflies" were Included in WRITTEN ON WATER, Writings about the Allegheny River (Mayapple Press, 2013).


Rachel Mennies is the author of The Glad Hand of God Points Backwards (2014), the winner of the Walt McDonald First-Book Prize in Poetry at Texas Tech University Press, and the chapbook No Silence in the Fields (2012) from Blue Hour Press. She teaches in the First-Year Writing Program at Carnegie Mellon, and has worked as the reviews editor at AGNI and as an instructor of creative writing and composition at Penn State.


Adriana E. Ramírez is a 2015 PEN/Fusion Award-winning nonfiction writer, storyteller, digital maker, and performance poet based in Pittsburgh. She teaches in the English Department at the University of Pittsburgh, co-runs the Steel City Poetry Slam, and co-founded Aster(ix) Journal. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Guernica, Convolution, HEArt, Apogee, and Nerve.com, as well as on hundreds of stages across the country. Ramirez is the author of two poetry chapbooks, The Swallows (Blue Sketch Press) and Trusting in Imaginary Spaces (Tired Hearts Press); she is also the nonfiction editor of DISMANTLE (Thread Makes Blanket Press).


Joseph Fasano is the author of three collections of poems, Vincent (Cider Press Review, 2015), Inheritance (Cider Press Review, 2014), and Fugue for Other Hands (Cider Press Review, 2013), winner of the Cider Press Review Book Award. His honors include two Pushcart Prize nominations, the RATTLE Poetry Prize, and a finalist nomination for the Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize. He teaches at Manhattanville College and in the graduate and undergraduate writing programs at Columbia University. He lives in New York.


Open Mic

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

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Tuesday, June 14, 2016

June 14, 2016 (Norman, Bryner, Smith, Daniels, Cvetic)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
June 14, 2016

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.  A new book of poetry, Way Station, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.


Jeanne Bryner was born in Appalachia and grew up in Newton Falls, Ohio. She's a practicing registered nurse and graduate of Trumbull Memorial Hospital's School of Nursing and Kent State University's Honors College. Her books include Breathless, Blind Horse: Poems, Eclipse: Stories, Tenderly Lift Me: Nurses Honored, Celebrated and Remembered, The Wedding Of Miss Meredith Mouse, No Matter How Many Windows, which won the 2011 Tillie Olsen Award for Creative Writing from the Working Class Studies Association, Smoke: Poems, which won a 2012 American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award and Early Farming Woman. Her poetry has been adapted for the stage and performed in Ohio, New York, Texas, Kentucky, West Virginia, California and Edinburgh, Scotland. She teaches writing workshops in schools, universities, community centers, cancer support groups and assisted living facilities. She lives with her husband in Newton Falls, Ohio near a dairy farm.



Larry Smith is a native of Mingo Junction, Ohio, in Appalachia's Panhandle region of the Ohio River Valley. Smith has worked as a steel mill laborer, a high school teacher, a college professor, and a writer and editor. A graduate of Mingo Central High School, Muskingum College, and Kent State University, he is the author of eight books of poetry, a book of memoirs, five books of fiction, two biographies of authors Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Kenneth Patchen, and two books of translations from the Chinese. Now a professor emeritus of Bowling Green State University's Firelands College, he is the director of the Firelands Writing Center and of Bottom Dog Press. He has received an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council and a Fulbright Lectureship in American Literature to Italy. His latest book, Lake Winds: Poems, deals with life along the shores of Lake Erie where he lives with wife Ann.


Jim Daniels is the Thomas Stockman Baker University Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and has been teaching creative writing at CMU since 1981. Recent books include Apology to the Moon (2015), Birth Marks (2013) and Having a Little Talk with Capital P Poetry (2011), poetry; Eight Mile High (2014), and Trigger Man, short fiction (2011). He has written four produced screenplays, including, most recently, "The End of Blessings.” Street, a book of his poems accompanying the photographs of Charlee Brodsky, won the Tillie Olsen Prize from the Working-Class Studies Association. In addition, he has edited or co-edited four anthologies, including Letters to America: Contemporary American Poetry on Race, and American Poetry: The Next Generation. His poems have been featured on Garrison Keillor's "Writer's Almanac," in Billy Collins' Poetry 180 anthologies, and Ted Kooser's "American Life in Poetry" series. His poem "Factory Love" is displayed on the roof of a race car. He has received the Brittingham Prize for Poetry, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and two from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His poems have appeared in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies.



Jimmy Cvetic has been writing and performing poetry all his life. A retired county police officer, he is 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, City Paper and other publications. He appears in the film, Warrior, and in 2012, he read his poetry at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA with his actor-friend and poet, Nick Nolte. In 2010, Jimmy's book of poetry, The Secret Society of Dog was published by Awesome Books/Lascaux Editions, and a second volume, Dog Unleashed, was also published by Awesome Books in 2012. Jimmy, his boxing gym and trainers were recently featured in the Esquire cable TV show, “White Collar Brawlers.”


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Tuesday, June 7, 2016

June 7, 2016 (St. John, Wesley, Terman, Derricotte)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
June 7, 2016

Richard St. John is a nationally published poet whose books include Each Perfected Name (Truman State University Press, 2015), The Pure Inconstancy of Grace 
(published in 2005 by Truman State University Press, as first runner-up for the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry), and Shrine (a long poem released as a chapbook in 2011). His work has also appeared in Sewanee ReviewPoet Lore, and Chautauqua, as well as many other periodicals and anthologies.  He has read widely across the country, connecting not only with literary audiences but with listeners new to poetry. Rick's web site where you can check out future projects and events: www.richardstjohnpoet.com 


Patricia Jabbeh Wesley is a Liberian civil war survivor who immigrated to the United States with her family in 1991 during the fourteen year Liberian civil war. She is the author of four books of poetry: Where the Road Turns (Autumn House Press), The River is Rising Autumn House Press), Becoming Ebony, (Southern Illinois University Press) and Before the Palm Could Bloom: Poems of Africa (New Issues Press) and a 5th collection,When the Wanderers Come Home, (University of Nebraska Press, fall 2016). Her poem, “One Day: Love Song for Divorced Women” was selected by US Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser, as an American Life in Poetry June 13, 2011 featured poem. Patricia has won several awards and grants, including the 2011 President Barack Obama Award from the Blair County NAACP, the 2010 Liberian Award for her poetry and her mentorship of young Liberians in the Diaspora, a Penn State University AESEDA Collaborative Grant for her research on Liberian Women's Trauma stories from the Civil War, a 2002 Crab Orchard Award for her second book of poems, a World Bank Fellowship, among others. She is an Associate Professor of English and creative writing at Penn State University's Altoona campus.


Philip Terman’s books include The House of SagesBook of the Unbroken Days 
and Rabbis of the Air and most recentlyOur Portion: New and Selected Poems
(Autumn House, 2015). His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Georgia Review, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, The Gettysburg Review, Tikkun, and Blood to Remember: American Poets Respond to the Holocaust. He is the recipient of the Sow’s Ear Chapbook Award, The Kenneth Patchen Prize, and the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award for Poems on the Jewish Experience. He teaches creative writing and literature at Clarion University and co-directs the Chautauqua Writers’ Festival at the Chautauqua Institute. With his wife Christine and their daughters Mimi and Bella, he resides in a red-brick schoolhouse outside of Grove CityPennsylvania.


Toi Derricotte is the author of The Undertaker’s Daughter (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011) and four earlier collections of poetry, including Tender, winner of the 1998 Paterson Poetry Prize. Her literary memoir,The Black Notebooks (W.W. Norton), received the 1998 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her honors include, among many others, the 2012 Paterson Poetry Prize for Sustained Literary Achievement, the 2012 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, two Pushcart Prizes and the Distinguished Pioneering of the Arts Award from the United Black Artists. Derricotte is the co-founder of Cave Canem Foundation (with Cornelius Eady), Professor Emerita at the University of Pittsburgh and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Open Mic

Jimmy Cvetic Reads From Scales of Just-Us


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Tuesday, May 31, 2016

May 31, 2016 (Oaks, Blair, Smith, Walicki, Vollmer)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
May 31, 2016

Jeff Oaks is the author of four poetry chapbooks, including Mistakes with Strangers, Shift, The Moon of Books, and The Unknown Country. He's the recipient of three Pennsylvania Council of the Arts fellowships and has published poems most recently in Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Field, Ocean City Review, Mid-American Review, and Superstition Review. His essays have appeared in At Length, Creative Nonfiction, Kenyon Review Online, and the anthology, My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them.

Jeff Oaks - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

David Blair is a Pittsburgh poet who lives in the Boston area. His first book, Ascension Days, was chosen for the Del Sol Poetry Prize in 2007. This spring, my second book, Friends with Dogs, will be coming out from Sheep Meadow Press, and then a third book, Arsonville will be out in the fall from New Issues Poetry & Prose.


Ellen McGrath Smith teaches at the University of Pittsburgh and in the Carlow University Madwomen in the Attic program. Her writing has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Los Angeles Review, Quiddity, Cimarron, and other journals, and in several anthologies, including Beauty Is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability. Smith has been the recipient of an Orlando Prize, an Academy of American Poets award, a Rainmaker Award from Zone 3 magazine, and a 2007 Individual Artist grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Her second chapbook, Scatter, Feed, was published by Seven Kitchens Press in the fall of 2014, and her book, Nobody's Jackknife, was published in 2015 by West End Press.


Robert Walicki is the curator of VERSIFY, a monthly reading series in Pittsburgh, PA. His work has appeared in HEArt, Uppagus, VerseWrites and on the radio show Prosody. He won 1st runner up in the 2013 Finishing Line Open Chapbook Competition and was awarded finalist in the 2013 Concrete Wolf Chapbook Competition. He currently has two chapbooks published: A Room Full of Trees (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014) and The Almost Sound of Snow Falling (Night Ballet Press, 2015).


Judith Vollmer's most recent volume, Water Books, was published in 2012 Autumn House Press. Her previous collections have received the Brittingham, the Center for Book Arts, and the Cleveland State publication prizes. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Her essays and reviews are included in The Cambridge Companion to Baudelaire and elsewhere. For some years she taught at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg and was a founding editor of the literary journal 5 AM. Her fifth full-length collection, The Apollonia Poems, the 2016 Four Lakes Prize book of the University of Wisconsin Press, is forthcoming in February 2017. Vollmer teaches in the low-residency MFA Program in Poetry & Poetry in Translation at Drew University.


Open Mic


Jimmy Cvetic Reads Reasons Behind the Reason


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