Tuesday, May 15, 2018

May 15, 2018 (Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
May 15, 2018

Featured Readers 
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  Standing L-R: Ann Curran, Don Krieger, Randy Minnich, Arlene Weiner & Jimmy Cvetic
Seated L-R: Joseph Karasek, Christine Doriean Michaels, Joanne Samraney, Rosaly DeMaios Roffman & Joan Bauer

A Congregation of Squirrels 
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 Standing L-R: Joseph Karasek, Ann Curran, Don Kreiger, Randy Minnich, Arlene Weiner, Joan Bauer & Shirley Stevens
Seated L-R: Ziggy Edwards, Christine Doriean Michaels, Joanne Samraney, Rosaly DeMaios Roffman & Nancy Esther James

Note: There is muddy sound for the first two readers. The problem does not persist for the entire reading.  

Arlene Weiner is the author of two poetry collections: City Bird (Ragged Sky, 2016) and Escape Velocity (Ragged Sky, 2006), of which Poet Joy Katz wrote, “I want to keep my favorite of these beautifully alert, surprising poems with me as I grow old.” A MacDowell Colony fellow in 2008, Arlene has been a Shakespeare scholar, a cardiology technician, a college instructor, an editor, and a research associate in educational applications of cognitive science. Her poetry has been published in journals including Off the CoastPleiadesPoet Lore, and U.S. 1 Worksheets, anthologized, and read by Garrison Keillor on his Writer’s Almanac. She also writes plays. Her play Findings was produced by Pittsburgh Playwrights Company in March 2017.  Arlene will be reading an excerpt from a play-in-progress at City Theatre (South Side)- Saturday June 2 at 4 p.m. 

M. Soledad Caballero is associate professor of English at Allegheny College. Her published scholarship focuses on British women's travel writing to South America. Her poetry has appeared in The Missouri Review, The Mississippi Review, The Pittsburgh Poetry Review as well as other journals. She is working on her first collection of poetry titled "Immigrant Confessions".

M. Soledad Caballero - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download  

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 chapbooks, Remaking Driftwood (2010) and Split (2017) were published by Finishing Line Press.

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. A new chapbook, Irish Ayes, was published by Main Street Rag in 2017. 

Rosaly DeMaios Roffman, a native New Yorker, taught creative writing, Classical Literature, World Mythology, and founded a Myth/Folklore Studies Center at IUP. She co-edited the prize-winning Life on the Line, and is the author of Going to Bed Whole, Tottering Palaces, The Approximate Message, and In the Fall of a Sparrow. She has read her poems in Ireland, Greece, Mexico, Israel, Spain, and Bratislava and has collaborated on 20 pieces with composers and other artists. Her work has been published in journals, magazines, and anthologies. She as received grants from the National Endowment and the Witter Bynner Foundations and was awarded the Distinguished Faculty Award in the Arts at IUP. She is the facilitator of Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop. In 2012 Tebot Bach published her latest book of poems, I Want to Thank My Eyes. 

Rosaly DeMaios Roffman - 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), and Signatures (Osher, Carnegie Mellon). His two books of poetry, Beyond Waking and Love and the Ten Thousand Things, were published by Tebot Bach in 2009.

Joseph Karasek - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download  

Pam O'Brien began writing poetry at Allegheny College. 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, was published in 2012.

Don Krieger is a biomedical researcher living in Pittsburgh, PA. His poetry has appeared online at TuckMagazine, VerseWright and Uppagus, and in print in Hanging Loose, Neurology, Poetica, and The Taj Mahal Review.

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 U.S. 1 Worksheets, Main Street Rag, Uppagus, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and other publications.

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.

Open Mic 


Jimmy Cvetic Reads The Secret 


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