Tuesday, May 8, 2018

May 8, 2018 (Pittsburgh Poetry Society)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
May 8, 2018

Featured Readers 
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 Standing L-R: Fred Peterson, Shirley Stevens, Jimmy Cvetic & Joan Bauer
Seated L-R: Christine Aikens Wolfe, Nancy Esther James, Judy Yogman & Christine Pasinski

Sarah (Sally) Davis’s chapbook, Spent, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2014. Her work has been anthologized in Lavandaria, A Mixed Load of Women, Wash, and Words, published by City Works Press, Voices from the Attic, Riverspeak, Threads, Broad River Review, Evening Street Review, and in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and is forthcoming in Blueline Magazine.
Sarah (Sally) Davis - 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 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) 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 - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download 

A career educator, Christine Pasinski taught secondary English in the West Mifflin Area School District for over 36 years. Following her career in public education, she supervised student teachers for Penn State University. A lifelong devotee of poetry, she took her high school and her university students to the International Poetry Forum, where she served on the Advisory Council for 36 years. Currently, she enjoys membership in the Pittsburgh Poetry Society. Her poems have been published in numerous literary journals, and she has read them at various venues in the city. In 2011 she published a book of her poetry, Rustlings of Regret.


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 with his life-partner where they have lived for 30 years. He is past president of Pittsburgh Poetry Society. His book of poetry, Writing by Flashlight, was published by Awesome Books in 2012.


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 Wish to Keep.


Christine Aikens Wolfe is a reading specialist with the Pittsburgh Public Schools. 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. She is the co-editor of The Poetic Classroom (Autumn House Press) and currently serves as president of the Pittsburgh Poetry Society. Her full-length book of poetry, Garland Green, is forthcoming from Dos Madres Press in 2018.


Judy Yogman is a retired ESL teacher. She enjoys trying new poetic forms, misses Anita Byerly's little workshop and recently became a member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Society. Though lazy about submitting poems, she has submitted work that has appeared in the Post-Gazette and in various anthologies, including Out of the Rough: Women's Poems of Survival and Celebration, Along These Rivers, and Written on Water: Writings about the Allegheny River. She is married, with three sons, three granddaughters and a new grandson.


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

Jimmy Cvetic Reads The Dog Sat on the Bank of the River

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Tuesday, May 1, 2018

May 1, 2018 (Madwomen in the Attic)

Hemingway's Poetry Series
May 1, 2018

Featured Readers
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Standing L-R: Tess Barry, Emily Mohn-Slate, Valerie Bacharach & Doralee Brooks
Seated L-R: Sara McNally, Bri Griffith, Jan Beatty, Daniela Buccilli & Joan Bauer 

Jan Beatty Introduces the Madwomen

Valerie Bacharach lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She conducts weekly poetry workshops for the women at Power House, a halfway house for women in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. Her poetry has appeared in several publications including Pittsburgh Poetry Review, The Tishman Review, Topology Magazine, Voices from the Attic, and VerseWrights. Her first chapbook, Fireweed, will be published by Main Street Rag in 2018

Valerie Bacharach - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Tess Barry was shortlisted for the 2015 Manchester Poetry Prize. Twice a finalist for North American Review’s James Hearst Poetry Prize and Aesthetica Magazine’s Poetry Award, she was also shortlisted for the 2014 Bridport Poetry Prize. Her poems are widely published. She teaches at Robert Morris University and Carlow University. www.tessbarrypoet.com 

Tess Barry - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)

Doralee Brooks teaches refresher courses at CCAC.  Her work has appeared in many journals including Voices from the Attic, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and the Paterson Review.  Last fall, her poem, “Trending this Fall,” was published in Nasty Women and Bad Hombres, an anthology edited by Deena November and Nina Padoff (Lascaux Editions, 2017).

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

Daniela Buccilli’s poetry appears or is forthcoming in Rogue AgentCimarron Review, Pittsburgh Poetry ReviewPaterson Literary Review, and Italian Americana. She is working on an MFA in poetry at Carlow. She teaches public high school near Pittsburgh. 

Daniela Buccilli - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download) 

Bri Griffith is an undergraduate Creative Writing student at Carlow University where she emcees the Red Dog Reading Series. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Pittsburgh Poetry Review, ITWOW International Anthology, Alien Mouth, Rogue Agent, Voices from the Attic Vol. XXII, and Vol. XXIII, and Nasty Woman & Bad Hombre: A Poetry Anthology.

Bri Griffith - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download) 

Sara McNally is a Creative Writing student at Carlow University where she studies with Jan Beatty and is the open mic emcee for The Red Dog Reading Series. McNally has been published in Pittsburgh Poetry Review and Rune. She had work in the Nasty Women & Bad Hombres anthology (Lascaux Editions, 2017). 

Sara McNally - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download) 

Emily Mohn-Slate's poems and essays can be found in Crab Orchard Review, Adroit Journal, At Length, Indiana Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. Her manuscript, The Falls, was a finalist for the 2016 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize offered by University of Pittsburgh Press, and the 2017 Blue Light Book Prize offered by Indiana University Press/Indiana Review. She teaches creative writing at Chatham University and is a proud Madwoman. 

Emily Mohn-Slate - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download) 

Joan Bauer Closes With The Mending Wall by Robert Frost 

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

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Saturday, November 11, 2017

Versify (Krygowski, Daniels, Grandinetti & Terman)

Versify
November 11, 2017

Versify is a poetry series that was launched and curated by Bob Walicki. Most events were hosted by the White Whale Bookstore (previously known as the East End Book Exchange) in the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Bob recently announced that the series has run its course. A new series (name to be announced) will be curated by Kayla Sargeson in the same space. All of us at Hemingway's congratulate Bob for a fine (frequently inspired) series of readings. The reading presented here was the second to last.

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Standing L-R: Kathy Fagan Grandinetti, Phil Terman, Jim Daniels, Bob Walicki & Nancy Krygowski

Nancy Krygowski’s first book of poems, Velocity, won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press. She is a recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship, a Pittsburgh Foundation Grant, and several residencies. Krygowski teaches poetry workshops in Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic program in addition to her work as an adult ESL instructor at Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council.

Jim Daniels is the author of numerous poetry books, including his most recent, Rowing Inland, and the forthcoming Street Calligraphy and The Middle Ages. He edited Challenges to the Dream: The Best of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Writing Awards. A native of Detroit, Daniels teaches at Carnegie Mellon.

Jim Daniels - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download

Kathy Fagan Grandinetti’s fifth collection of poems is Sycamore (Milkweed Editions, 2017). Her first collection, The Raft, won the National Poetry Series; her second, MOVING & ST. RAGE, won the Vassar Miller Poetry Prize. Recent work appears in Poetry, Numero Cinq, The New Republic, Blackbird, Crazyhorse and The Adroit Journal. Fagan directs the MFA Program at The Ohio State University and serves as Series Editor of the OSU Press/The Journal Wheeler Poetry Prize.

Kathy Fagan Grandinetti - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download

Philip Terman’s most recent book of poems is Our Portion:  New and Selected Poems. Other books include The Torah GardenRabbis of the AirBook of the Unbroken Days and The House of Sages. A selection of  his poems, My Dear Friend Kafka, has been translated into Arabic by the Syrian writer and scholar Saleh Rouzzak and published by Nimwa Press. Terman’s poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including PoetryThe Georgia ReviewThe Kenyon ReviewThe Sun Magazine, The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and 99 Poems for the 99 Percent. His poems have been set to music by the composer Brent Register and he performs his poetry with the jazz band, Catro. He teaches English at Clarion University and directs The Bridge Literary Arts Center in Franklin, PA.

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Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Tribute Reading for Jimmy Cvetic

Tribute Reading for Jimmy Cvetic
November 8, 2017

Jimmy Cvetic has been writing and performing poetry all his life. A retired county police officer and often described as 'Bukowski with a badge,' Jimmy for many years was director of the Western Pennsylvania Police Athletic League, and is founder and director of the Summer Poetry Series at Hemingway's Cafe in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh.  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.”  His most recent book of poetry, Dog is a Love from Hell, was published in 2017 by Lascaux Editions.  

As Charles Deitch wrote in City Paper: He’s a former police officer and detective. He’s a boxing trainer. He’s a poet. He’s an artist. He’s the head of the Western Pennsylvania Police Athletic League, a group that takes kids, mostly those at-risk, and gets them working out their aggressions through sports instead of on the streets. Finally, for hundreds of kids every year, he’s Santa. Cvetic, along with the other members of PAL, spends his year collecting toys, and cash to buy toys, for underprivileged kids at Christmas.

He knows everybody and everybody knows him. And he does the things he does for others, not for himself. Countless times over the years, he has asked not to be quoted or photographed, instead asking that the attention go toward the volunteers he works with, or the kids who are trying to make their lives better. 

On November 8, 2017, we congregated at Hemingway's Bar to pay tribute to Jimmy's many accomplishments and contributions. First some photographs. Then, readings by the featured poets. The entire unedited recording will also be available at the bottom of the page. 

Featured Readers
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Standing: Bob Ziller, Jimmy Cvetic, Gloria Sztukowski and S.A. Griffin
Seated: Adam Matcho, Joan Bauer, Lori Jakiela, Dave Newman and John Korn 

Featured Readers Plus Reinforcements
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Back Row Leaning Forward: Scott Silsbe and Bob Pajich
Standing: Bob Ziller, Jimmy Cvetic, Gloria Sztukowski and S.A. Griffin
Front Row Crouched: Jason Baldinger
Seated: Adam Matcho, Joan Bauer, Lori Jakiela, Dave Newman and John Korn
Contentedly Cradled In Lori Jakiela's Lap: Sylvia Catello



Jimmy Cvetic Opens the Event

Jimmy Cvetic - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download
   
Jan Beatty's fifth full-length book, Jackknife: New and Collected Poems, was published in January, 2017 by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Her last book, The Switching/Yard, was named one of ...30 New Books That Will Help You Rediscover Poetry by Library Journal. The Huffington Post named her as one of ten women writers for "required reading." Other books include Red SugarBoneshaker, and Mad River, winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, all published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Beatty is host and producer of Prosody, a public radio show on NPR affiliate WESA-FM featuring the work of national writers. Beatty worked as a waitress for fifteen years, and as a welfare caseworker, an abortion counselor, social worker and teacher in maximum-security prisons. She directs the creative writing program at Carlow University, where she runs the Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops and teaches in the MFA program.

Jan Beatty - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download

S.A. Griffin lives, loves and works in Los Angeles. Author of Dreams Gone Mad With Hope (Punk Hostage Press) he is the co-editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Firecracker Award) and editor of The Official Language of Yes by Scott Wannberg for Viggo Mortensen's Perceval Press. Father, husband, actor (Dramalogue Award, Kari Award), Carma Bum, Poetry Bomb progenitor, Vietnam era vet (USAF) and luckiest man he knows, S.A. is truly honored to be part of this tribute reading for Jimmy Cvetic.

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.

Adam Matcho was formerly employed as a gas station attendant, sandwich artist, novelty shop clerk, gold buyer, and obituary writer. Now, he tells people he is the poet laureate of Johnstown. His poems have been published in literary magazines and his books include: “The Novelty Essays” (WPA Press), “Six Dollars an Hour: Confessions of a Gemini Writer” (Liquid Paper Press) and “Love Songs From Flood City” (Low Ghost Press). 

Leslie Anne Mcilroy won the 2000 Word Press Poetry Prize for her full-length collection Rare Space. She also won the 1997 Slipstream Poetry Chapbook Prize for her chapbook Gravel, and first place in the 1997 Chicago Literary Awards judged by Gerald Stern. Leslie's poems are published in numerous journals and anthologies including American Poetry: The Next Generation, Connotation Press, Dogwood, Jubilat, The Mississippi Review, New Ohio Review, Nimrod International Journal of Prose & Poetry, Poetry Magazine, PANK and Pearl Magazine. Leslie serves as Managing & Poetry Editor of HEArt (Human Equity through Art) Online. She works as a copywriter in Pittsburgh, PA, where she lives with her daughter, Silas. Her second full-length book, Liquid Like This, was published by Word Tech in July 2008. Her third collection, SLAG was runner up for the 2014 Main Street Rag Publishing Company Book Prize and was released in December, 2014.

Leslie Anne Mcilroy - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download

Dave Newman is the author of the novels Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children (Writers Tribe Books, 2012) and Please Don’t Shoot Anyone Tonight (World Parade Books, 2010), and the poetry collection The Slaughterhouse Poems.He’s worked as a truck driver, a book store manager, an air filter salesman, a house painter, and a college teacher. More than 100 of his poems and stories have appeared in magazines throughout the world, including Gulf Stream, Word Riot, Smokelong Quarterly, Rattle, Wormwood Review, Tears in the Fence (UK), and The New Yinzer. He has been the featured writer and on the cover of both 5AM and Chiron Review. Anthologies include Beside the City of Angels (World Parade Books) and The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary Poetry (Autumn House Press). Newman has won three chapbooks prizes. In 2004, he received the Andre Dubus Novella Award. He lives in Trafford, Pennsylvania with his wife, the writer Lori Jakiela, and their two children.

Through his writing, editing and teaching, Ed Ochester has been a major force on contemporary letters for more than three decades. He edits the Pitt Poetry Series and is general editor of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize for short fiction, both published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. From 1978 to 1998 he was director of the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh, and was twice elected president of the Associated Writing Programs. He co-edited the poetry magazine 5AM, and lives in a rural county northeast of Pittsburgh. His recent books include Snow White Horses: Selected Poems 1973-1988(Autumn House Press, 2001), American Poetry Now: Pitt Poetry Series Anthology (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007),Unreconstructed: Poems Selected and New (Autumn House Press, 2007) and Sugar Run Road (Autumn House Press, 2015). Poems just published or forthcoming in: American Poetry Review, Agni, Chiron Review, Great River Review and Nerve Cowboy.

Judith Vollmer's fifth full-length collection, The Apollonia Poems, the 2016 Four Lakes Prize of the University of Wisconsin Press was released in March 2017. A recent volume, The Water Books, was published in 2012 by Autumn House Press, and 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. She was a founding editor of the literary journal 5 AM.  Vollmer teaches in the low-residency MFA Program in Poetry & Poetry in Translation at Drew University.

Lori Jakiela is the author of four memoirs, including BELIEF IS ITS OWN KIND OF TRUTH, MAYBE, which received the William Saroyan Prize for International Writing from Stanford University and was named one of 20 Nonfiction Books Not to Miss in 2015 by The Huffington Post.  Her most recent book is PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A BINGO WORKER, a collection of essays about work and the writing life, published in 2017 by Bottom Dog Press. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, LitHub, Electric Literature and more. In 2016, she received the City of Asylum Pittsburgh Prize, which sent her on a month-long residency to Brussels, Belgium. She is also the author of the poetry collection SPOT THE TERRORIST! and several limited-edition poetry chapbooks. A native of Trafford, PA, Jakiela now runs community writing workshops in her hometown and lives with her husband, the author Dave Newman, and their two children. 
   
Joan E. Bauer is the author of The Almost Sound of Drowning (Main Street Rag, 2008). With Judith Robinson and Sankar Roy, she co-edited the international anthology, Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami (Bayeux Arts and Rupa & Co, 2005).  For some years, she worked as an English teacher and educational counselor and now divides her time between Venice, CA and Pittsburgh, PA, where she co-hosts and curates the Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series with her friend Jimmy Cvetic. 
   
According to its web site, Attack Theater is "a company of artists, doers, thinkers, risk-takers, dancers, administrators, entrepreneurs, and makers. We make dance. We engage audiences. We inspire children. We interact with our surroundings. We crave adventure, a good challenge, and achieving something just out of reach. And we love the journey as much as the destination."

Here, they perform an excerpt from their upcoming production of Jimmy's work titled In Defense of Gravity.

Jimmy Cvetic Closes the Event

Jimmy Cvetic - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download

Full Length Recording of the Entire Event

Full Length Recording - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download

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