Past Poetry Readings,
2003-2004
Michael
Milligan is the co-founder of Poetry Oasis, an organization
that fosters a community of writing that furthers the historical
heritage of Worcester poetry. For more information, check out
http://spokenword.to/oasis/founders.html .
Phoenix (Literary Magazine)
The Phoenix is the official literary magazine of Assumption
College. The journal features poetry, short fiction, essays, and
artwork contributed by Assumption students. Submissions of writing and
art for The Phoenix may be sent to the Editor-in-Chief
throughout the academic year.
All Assumption students are also welcome to become part of the staff
that organizes and distributes the magazine. The staff meets for
planning
and organizational reasons, but occasionally gathers to discuss poetry,
fiction, and creative writing topics. The group also attends local
amateur
and professional poetry readings throughout Worcester and literary
readings
at Assumption. The Phoenix page appears in every bi-weekly
issue of Le Provocateur . The annual issue of The Phoenix is
published
in the spring.
Writer and visual artist
Judith Ferrara was
awarded a 2003 Worcester Cultural Commission/Massachusetts Cultural
Council fellowship for work on
her manuscript, Reciprocity: Selected Poems and Paintings. Twenty-one
of thirty-five reciprocally inspired painting/poems are currently on
exhibit at the Emmanuel d’Alzon Library at Assumption College. She
received the Jacob Knight Award in 2000 for emerging artist. She has
shown her art work in many group and solo exhibitions since 1999, as
well as creating the set design for The Moon Also Rises: A Tribute to
Frank O’Hara, presented at the Performing Arts School of Worcester
(2001).
Judith, who received her Ph. D. from the University of New Hampshire in
Literacy and Schooling, has published numerous books and articles in
the
fields of English/Language Arts and conflict resolution (Peer
Mediation: Finding a Way to Care-Stenhouse; Ready-to Use Writing
Workshop Activities-Prentice-Hall). In 2000, her first book of poetry,
Gestures of Trees, was published (Mellen Poetry Press). Her poems have
appeared in Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, The Comstock Review,
The Portland Review Literary Journal, The Black Fly Review, and others.
She was the featured poet in the summer 2002 issue of Sahara: A Journal
of New England Poetry.
For more information about Judith's work please go to:
http://www.assumption.edu/dept/Library/events/dalzonartscurr.html#Judy_Ferrara
Photographer
and poet John Gaumond
is a professor emeritus from Fitchburg State College. In 2001, he was
honored by Worcester State College for his "Outstanding Achievement in
the Field of Education."
His poetry has appeared in The Connecticut River
Review, Sahara, The Leaflet, The Longfellow Society Journal, Worcester
Magazine , and The Issue. He hosts a Poetry Workshop at
Borders in Shrewsbury on the third Monday of every month.
His photographs have been exhibited at Assumption
College, The Italian American Cultural Center, Massachusetts Bay
Community College in Wellesley, and Worcester Windows For Art.
Eve
Rifkah is the co-founder and artistic director
of Poetry Oasis, Inc., a not-for-profit poetry organization and
Co-editor of. Poems and/or essays have appeared in The MacGuffin,
Porcupine Press, The Worcester Review, California Quarterly, Re
Dactions, Jabberwock Review, Southern New Hampshire Literary
Journal, Literary Lunch
- a Knoxville Guild Anthology and translated into Braille. Her
chapbook Zodiac of the Misbegotten was a finalist in the
Portlandia and
the Main Street Rag chapbook contests. She has been a finalist in the
Pecos River Cabin Poetry Contest and a winner in the 2002 and
2003 Worcester County Poetry Association contest. Most recently,
Revelever Publications announced that Eve's chapbook, "At the
Leprosarium" is the winner of their 1st Annual Chapbook Competition.
She received her MFA in Writing from Vermont College and lives with her
husband poet Michael Milligan. Photograph at right is by Andrew
Wildowsky.
R.
Joyce Heon -- Lunenburg (MA) poet R. Joyce Heon
is active in the Worcester County poetry scene, and is currently
involved in the Poets in the Gallery project at the Worcester Art
Museum, writing ekphrastic poems about their permanent collection and
participating in monthly poetry readings in the galleries.
Her poems have been published in Diner, Sahara, The Issue,
Tapestries, Voices Along the River, and The Maine Scholar.
This past year her poem "Raspberries" placed third in Worcester
Magazine’
s poetry contest.
Her first chapbook, Winter Keeping Apples, centers on the four
seasons. She is compiling a book of ekphrastic poetry, aiming at
early 2004 publication. You can find her web site at
http://members.tripod.com/r_joyce_heon/index.htm
Stephen Campiglio
A full descendant from the Italian region of Abruzzo, Campiglio
received his B.A. in English from Worcester State College and M.A. in
Education from Assumption College. He was recently named a commendable
in New England Writers 2003 free verse award, and an honorable mention
in their 2002 award. He was also a semi-finalist in Two Rivers Review
2002
annual poetry contest. He is a regular contributor to the
Worcester-based
journal, Sahara , and also has work forthcoming in The
Peralta
Press, The Anthology of New England Writers, and an international
anthology
of Italian and Italian American poetry.
ENSEMBLE
Pushing down on the OPEN button of the toaster oven as the tongue-rack
pops out where the ticket stub from last night's show was placed like
an undigested host, I read the stub with nostalgic delight: it was a
good show....but the dream is all business and moves on – inside the
necropolis of a rusty mattress spring, the first grass growing through
caked, blue leaves beside a white washing machine gleaming in what
light comes through the canopy. In that light the remains of the swing
set are endowed somehow with the spirit of swingers, and their creaking
draws me into place as if I was dumped here too, an ensemble of the
appliance that need no longer apply,
of the discarded artifact that has lost its art, every last atom of us
with
this last chance to SWING, this dumping ground our final stage in the
middle
of the woods.
|
Francine D'Alessandro is a native
New Yorker who has lived in Worcester for twelve years. She says,
"After a few tentative
efforts in high school and college, I really started writing poetry in
1998. I felt truly encouraged by the energy and generosity
of the Worcester poetry community, learning along the way by reading,
listening and writing. And I’ve been fortunate to meet up with
very
talented poets in workshops around Worcester. My poetry has
appeared
in Sahara, Diner, The Longfellow Society Journal, The Issue, Windfall,
and the Poets’ Asylum anthology As We Do Most Sunday Nights. I
will
also have a poem in the upcoming issue of The Worcester Review, having
recently tied for Second Place in the WCPA 2003 Poetry
Contest.
I am currently President of the Worcester County Poetry
Association."
VELOCITY
Try to imagine us then
All awkward teenage grace
Your loping strides
My own long-limbed gambol
All forward movement
No sober progression
We careened into life
Fast and wild and hungry
Life is art is change
Eats us alive
Every seven years leave
Old cells, old selves behind
Seven times seven times
Renewed, evolved to ether
Einstein was right
At this velocity we are
Curved back on the past
All awkward grace of age
And watch earlier selves
Rushing toward this moment
|
October 17, 2003
(Nancy A. Henry was unable to be a featured reader due to illness.)
John Wild works in
the Registrar's Office here at Assumption College, where he is pursuing
an M.A. degree in education, serves as manager for the men's and
women's cross country and track & field teams, and participates in
intramural sports and musical and literary events--like this.
September 19, 2003
Leila Philip is the author of
A
Family Place, the story of Talavera, a farm that has been in her
family since 1732. Her first book, a memoir of her apprenticeship to a
master potter in Japan titled
The Road Through Miyama, won the
1990 PEN Martha Albrand Citation for nonfiction. She teaches creative
writing at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Reviews of A Family Place
"The writing is poetic, haunting, the subject riveting, the research
prodigious, the people just wonderful...I read this one over a few
sunny afternoons and have been thinking about it ever since."—Bill
Roorback, author of
The Smallest Color
"Philip grafts history, natural history and autobiography into
a stunning performance." —Maureen Howard, author of
Big as Life
"Exquisite...as detailed and colored as a Persian miniature." —
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Narrative threads are profoundly personal. Braided together with
insight, they pay homage to the ideals of home and family with a
resonance that should extend beyond her home region."—
Publisher's
Weekly
"After all the books about houses in France and Italy, it's nice to see
a truly American story about a house and the family that has owned and
loved it for nearly 200 years. Philip deftly interweaves the personal
and the historical into a memorable narrative. Although nonfiction, the
book's flow and vivid descriptions make it read like almost like a
novel. Talvera may be the most interesting American country house since
Tara." --pvbm
from Forest Hills, NY (posted on Amazon.com, Jan. 7, 2002)
[Photographs c2001 Macduff Everton]
David Thoreen teaches writing and literature at Assumption
College. His fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have
appeared or are forthcoming in The South Dakota Review, Minnesota
Monthly,
American Literary Review, The Worcester Review, Diner, The Journal
, and Slate.
Even This Is an Advertisement
I’m in the car, NPR, Terry Gross,
an interview with a poet who has a voice
makes you think you ought to drink scotch
and a laugh so deep and barrel-chested, thoughts
glance off like shrapnel. Chap writes poems unreal
as children. Afternoon’s July. I boost the air
then swell the volume, smooth my fragments in
the measured cadences of British culture.
My workday over, it’s safe to have a thought,
to trace these glowing rounds, this elegant
discussion aimed at me, or those like me
(and maybe we are the same), conceived by a team
from marketing, rendered pie-faced on charts
that foretell the day I pull into the driveway
noticing and not seeing my children running Pokémon
and Indian through the back yard as fast as legs
across the grass and out of childhood. I kill
the engine but keep the key ignitioned, keep the laughing
poet laughing, then turn the key again, until
the voice is silence and I’m in the driveway with my kids
on the other side of this rolled-up window,
their mouths opening, closing, opening,
small fish or young birds, aquarium, aviary, then
they’re shouting and pulling the door handle and I’m thinking,
I should really read some Geoffrey Hill.
--David Thoreen
from The Journal
Emmanuel d'Alzon Library, First Floor
Assumption College
500 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA 01609
508-767-7272
Page last updated: August 25, 2005