Tuesday, June 26, 2012

June 26, 2012 (Wilson, James, Wurster)


Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series
June 26, 2012

Lori Wilson works as a computer systems analyst.  She received her M.A. in Economics from Harvard University. Her poetry has appeared in various literary journals and publications, including the new anthology, Along These Rivers, Poetry and Photography from Pittsburgh (Quadrant Publishing, 2008). A resident of Morgantown, West Virginia, she has four grown children.  Her book of poetry, House Where a Woman, was published by Autumn House Press in 2008.


Mike James, a native of South Carolina, has lived in Louisiana, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Georgia where he now makes his home in the suburbs of Atlanta. His poetry has been widely published in magazines and newspapers throughout the country. His books of poetry include Not Here, All Those Goodbyes, Pennies From An Empty Jar, Nothing But Love and Alternate Endings. Since 2005, he and his wife, Diane, have run Yellow Pepper Press, a small poetry broadside press. Mike was formerly a member of Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange, and he's traveling here as we celebrate his newest book of poetry, Past Due Notices, published in April 2012 by Main Street Rag.


Michael Wurster was born in Moline, Illinois, and has lived in Iowa, Virginia and Pennsylvania. He currently resides in Pittsburgh with his Siamese cat, Hawthorne. He is a founding member of Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange and for seventeen years taught poetry Pittsburgh Center for the Arts School. His most recent book of poetry is The British Detective published by Main Street Rag. 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). 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


Tuesday, June 19, 2012

June 19, 2012 (Roffman, Terman, Daniels)


Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series
June 19, 2012

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. In 2008 her 16th collaborative piece, "Furoshiki" (languages that speak without words at the center) had its premier in Valley Forge before an audience of arts educators.  Her book of poetry, I Want to Thank My Eyes, was published by Tebot Bach in spring 2012.


Philip Terman’s most book of poetry is In the Torah Garden, published by Autumn House Press in 2011.  His earlier books include The House of Sages, Book of the Unbroken Days and Rabbis of the Air. 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 City, Pennsylvania.


Jim Daniels has taught creative writing at Carnegie Mellon since 1981. Recent books include Having a Little Talk with Capital P Poetry and From Milltown to Malltown. His fourth collection of short stories, Trigger Man, was published in 2011. In 2007, he was awarded the Blue Lynx Poetry Prize for Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies. Street, a book of his poems accompanying the photographs of Charlee Brodsky, won the Tillie Olsen Prize from the Working-Class Studies Association in 2006. 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. Daniels received the Brittingham Prize for Poetry, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his poems have appeared in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies.


Jimmy Cvetic reads Happy Little Lambs Nursery School


Open Mic



Tuesday, June 12, 2012

June 12, 2012 (Adès, Edelman, Collins, Smith)


Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series
June 12, 2012

David Adès moved to Pittsburgh from Adelaide, Australia in April 2011.  His poems have appeared widely in Australia,in publications including over 20 of the Friendly Street Poetry Readers and numerous Australian literary magazines, such as Island, Blue Dog, Five Bells, Tirra, Wet Ink, Famous Reporter, Transnational Literature and others with some poems also appearing in translation in Vatra (Rumania).  He has appeared on the Australian radio program Poetica, and is one of 9 poets featured in a CD title 'Adelaide 9 The Poetry of the City.'  His collection, Mapping the World, was commended for the Fellowship of Australian Writers Anne Elder Award 2008.


Barbara Edelman is the author of a poetry chapbook, A Girl in Water, from Parallel Press. Her poems and prose have appeared in various journals, among them Prairie Schooner, Rattle, 5 AM, and Arts & Letters, and in several anthologies. She has received a PA Council on the Arts grant in poetry and residency fellowships from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Vermont Studio Center. She teaches writing and literature at the University of Pittsburgh.


Kristopher Collins is the Books Editor of Pittsburgh Magazine.  He runs Low Ghost Press.  He also owns Desolation Row Records and manages Caliban Bookshop in Oakland.  His most recent chapbook is "Last Call" published by Speed & Briscoe in 2010.


Ellen McGrath Smith teaches at the University of Pittsburgh and in the Carlow University Madwomen in the Attic program. Poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Now Culture, The American Poetry Review, Cerise, The Same, Kestrel, Oranges & Sardines, Diner, 5 a.m., Oxford Magazine, The Prose Poem: An International Journal, Southern Poetry Review, Descant (Canada), and others. Anthology publications include Beauty Is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability (Cinco Puntos, 2011), Letters to the World: Poems from the Wom-Po Listserv (Red Hen Press, 2008),and others. Flash fiction in Weave, Switchback, Thick Jam, and The Shadyside Review; forthcoming in Thumbnail Magazine.


Open Mic


Tuesday, June 5, 2012

June 5, 2012 (Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop)


Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series
June 5, 2012

Anthony Ciotoli has been teaching mathematics, and occasionally, other subjects to at risk teens for over twenty years. Anthony was born in Rome and grew up in the suburbs of New York City. He came to Pittsburgh to attend college and never left. His poetry has appeared in Italian Americana He is a member of the Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop and in the fall, he will begin MFA studies in creative writing at Chatham University.


Ann Curran is the author of the chapbook, Placement Test ((Main Street Rag). Her poetry has appeared in Rosebud, U.S. 1 Worksheets, Main Street Rag, Off the Coast, Blue Line, Third Wednesday, Notre Dame Magazine, Ireland of the Welcomes, and others, as well as the anthologies, Along These Rivers: Poetry and Photography from Pittsburgh (Quadrant), Motif 2 Come What May (Motes Books), and Thatchwork (Delaware Valley Poets)  She has degrees from Duquesne University.  


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 other publications such as Friends Journal and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  Her poem, “To a Friend,” originally published in Christianity 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, New Wilmington, PA) 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.


Christine Doreian Michaels came from England in 1971 and is a retired psychologist living in Regent Square. She was an invited reader at the James Wright Poetry Festival, and is published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Exchange, Taproots, Songs For The Living, Signatures 2001, 2003, 2006, and the international anthologies, No Choice But To Trust and Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami. She won first poetry prize in The Labyrinth Society's annual contest 2007 and has a poem in Along These Rivers, an anthology celebrating Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary.


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, and other publications.


Pam O'Brien began writing poetry at Allegheny College and was hooked once her strange response to The Beatles' “Strawberry Fields Forever” was published in the literary magazine. Her career has included grant writing, community organization, public relations and advertising, and teaching Spanish. She currently holds a lectureship in the English Department of the University of Pittsburgh where she serves as the Associate Director of Public and Professional Writing. She was a 2012 finalist for the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award and recipient of teaching excellence awards from the College of General Studies in 2008 and 2011. She has published three chapbooks, Kaleidoscopes, Paper Dancing and Acceptable Losses. Her full-length poetry book, The Answer to Each is the Same, will be released by Dos Madres Press in 2012.


Joanne Samraney, author of the poetry chapbook, Grounded Angels, which won the 2001 Acorn-Rukeyser Award and co-author of Breaking Bread with the Boscos, a collection of family memoirs and recipes has poems in many literary magazines and journals such as Main Street Rag, Verve, Voices in Italian Americana, Loyalhanna Review  and most recently in Hudson View, Earth Daughters and Steam Ticket.  Her poems have also appears in both Along These Rivers and the Sandburg-Livesay Anthologies.  Her latest chapbook, Remaking Driftwood was published by Finishing Line Press (2010).


Shirley Stevens is a member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Society and 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.