Poetry News! Don't Bury the Lede!
Shout Outs and poetry news from my poetry circles.
When I was a journalism student, I had the worst habit of burying the lede.
So, here’s the lede:
Three of my poems will appear in the inaugural MultiCreative Wisdom anthology in early 2024!
I’m still screaming about it in my head. Every time I I thought about it I got a shot of adrenaline that made me forget the world. I didn’t care about the person who reeked of weed on the L train at 7 am. I didn’t mind when I got to the supermarket that evening, and all the California rolls were gone. This news kept me smiling even while running late for work on Thursday. It was three times as nice to remember this, when I woke up this morning, realized it was Sunday with a bonus hour of sleep, turned over and went back to sleep.
I want to shout out Sari Botton for her Oldster Questionnaires and Interviews column that featured writer Maria Luisa Arroyo Cruzado. The call for submissions for the MultiCreative Wisdom was mentioned in the interview. It was the first Oldster column I read, first time making comments about an article on Substack, scrolled through Substack to discover so much content, and conversations I wanted to engage. I’m very excited about this opportunity.
Here’s some other poetry news from women poets in my circles, people I’ve worked with and will be performing with soon.
I started my weekend by attending the writer Susana H. Case’s reading at the Central NY YMCA held on Zoom to celebrate her ninth book of poetry, If This Isn’t Love.
I’m still reading the book but she read what is so far my favorite poem“Brothel.” I’m not sure I can explain this poem, except that the background story about the poem made my jaw drop. I always knew that teaching in adult education and alternative educational settings were full of stories, but this poem seals it.
I loved her poems, “The Erasure” “Fallen” “ Frank O’Hara Tells The Mothers of America To Let Their Kids Go To The Movies” “all about various stages of women hood and girlhood. The last poem features how the narrator falls in love with the actress Sophia Loren. The last line giving the best reason for film as an educational tool:
How else will girls learn what it takes?
She also read poems from a previous book, The Damage Done, “a poetry thriller” centered in the 1960s struggles of a nation steeped in American divisions of race, COINTELPRO, the Black Panther Party and the struggle for democracy. The book is so much more, but this is what I’ve got about it. If you’re in New York on November 6th and available at 6:30 PM (that’s tomorrow) you can hear Case at the 1st Floor Walk Up reading series at P & T Knitwear Books at 180 Orchard St. between Houston & Stanton, NYC. She’ll be one of four readers, including Stephanie Laterza, Giorgia Pavildou and Mervyn Taylor.
Susana H. Case and I became acquainted with each other from a page-to-the-stage poetry performance event Emotive Fruition in 2019, Let Lightening Set Us on Fire. She invited me to submit poems for a book that she and Margo Taft Stever were creating I Wanna Be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe produced by micro press Milk & Cake. My poem “The Brooklyn Way” is included in the anthology.
On November 16, 2023 at 7 PM The Journal of Expressive Writing will feature the poet Cynthia Manick. Manick is the author of Blue Hallelujahs, and recently No Sweet Without Brine. The title speaks for itself. There’s plenty of sweet and salt here. The sweet: ”I Wish the Trees Could Sway to Marvin and Aretha” “Something Like Gratitude to the Girl on the 5 Train” “Recipe for Keeping a Man” “Is This Your Sky or Mine” and the salt: “Dear Superman" Things I Can’t Say in This Book” “We Make Sin a Good Hymn” “Endangered Species” and “Message Pulled from a Bottle at Sea.”
Cynthia is a poet connected to several poetry groups including Sweet Action Poetry. She's invited several poets from the group to read, including me. I’m excited to learn more about the The Journal of Expressive Writing, and will post more of their readings and opportunities here.
But wait there’s more, and not only poetry!
There are a number of Substack newsletters that I read that tell stories about mothering, and or being mothered. I can’t stop reading Don’t Make Me Stop this Car! I’m also intrigued by the work of Vanessa Martir of Writing Our Lives workshops and her writing about the mother wound.
Mothering and the relationships we have with our mothers are topics that I’m still exploring, and I’m so happy that so many writers are opening up about these relationships. Especially on this platform, where you don’t have to be a best-seller to share your thoughts on an array of subjects.
The Death of a Jaybird: Essays on Mothers and Daughters and the Things They Leave Behind, is finally, almost here. I heard Ms. Savage read excerpts from the book last summer at Kweli International Literary Festival about the relationship between her mother, her grandmother and herself. I arrived late for her keynote (Damn, Damn, Damn in the voice of Florida Evans). The last 15 minutes of what I heard was like entering the bakery with all the sweetness wafting in the air, running up to the counter and being told, the next batch of cupcakes won’t be ready for 15 minutes and you are already late for work. You cannot wait! The disappointment.
Ms. Savage will be in conversation with her Barnard sister, J. P. Howard at Brooklyn Artery on Saturday, November 18th at 7:30 pm. You can get your advanced copy here.
This should be an exciting conversation because J.P. Howard really knows how to host. Howard is the curator of Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon. Her workshops have been a gathering place for women who write and tell stories for nearly 10 years. She brings writers of all stages of writing and publishing together for a potluck, a writer’s workshop, and a share. Each event ends with a open mic of whatever women write, from essays, to scenes from plays to poetry.
Women who write and make space for other women who write are like guide posts for me. It’s why I was so struck by reading the Oldster Interview with Maria Luisa Arroyo Cruzado. She was a woman who sounded like other women I know. I loved the story of her love and the story of her leaving when that love was now over. I loved the way she made a commitment to her writing. I loved the way she discussed making a commitment to loving herself, her body and all the education she had to fight for. I love that the interview includes the vacation with her mother and sexual freedom of sex with no connections.
I hope participating in the anthology will help expand the circle of women who write. As the circle expands for me, I’ll be sure to share opportunities here for everyone.
Thanks for reading!