Saturday, May 19, 2012

Tonite May 19 Greek-American Writers' Association at The Cornelia Street Cafe

Tonight, May 19th, I have the pleasure of reading with Larissa Shmailo, Tom Fink, and Penelope Karageorge at The Cornelia Street Cafe.  Greek-American Writers Association hosted by Dean Kostos. 6 p.m. - 7:30 p.m..  Doors open at 5:45 p.m..

Poets Wear Prada Logo

Writers Fink, Hoffman, Karageorge, Shmailo 
in Greenwich Village 
Saturday Evening May 19th 

The Greek-American Writers’ Association presents four poets, Tom Fink, Roxanne Hoffman, Penelope Karageorge & Larissa Shmailo, Saturday evening May 19th, at The Cornelia Street Cafe in Greenwich Village. For reservations or more info: 212.989.9319. 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) - May 16, 2012 - The Greek-American Writers’ Association presents four writers, Tom Fink, Roxanne Hoffman, Penelope Karageorge & Larissa Shmailo, Saturday evening May 19th, at The Cornelia Street Cafe in Greenwich Village. Convening every third Saturday of the month, almost twenty years, for poetry, prose — music, occasionally, and song — the series, with Dean Kostos — his latest book, “Rivering,” soon to be published by Spuyten Duyvil Press — as host, is one of the longest running at the cafe.

"Like the lyre-plucking, ode-spouting Mediterraneans before them, Dean Kostos and a host of writers with Greek heritage give voice to their verses in front of a crowd." writes "TimeOut New York." Doors open at 5:45 p.m. Showtime from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The Cornelia Street Café is located at 29 Cornelia Street (off Bleecker, West of Sixth Avenue) in Greenwich Village. Cash-only $7 admission at the door includes a drink. By subway take the A, C, E, F, D trains to West 4th Street, exiting at West 3rd or the Broadway Local #1 to Sheridan Square. From New Jersey take the NJ PATH to Christopher Street. Please call 212.989.9319 for reservations or additional information.

Thomas Fink
Thomas Fink is the author of seven books of poetry, including "Peace Conference" (Marsh Hawk, 2011) and "Autopsy Turvy" (Meritage, 2010), a collaboration with his daughter, Maya Diablo Mason. His work appears in "The Best American Poetry 2007" (Scribner’s). "A Different Sense of Power" (Fairleigh Dickinson, 2001) is his most recent book of criticism, and in 2007, he co-edited "Burning Interiors: David Shapiro’s Poetry and Poetics." Fink’s paintings hang in various collections.

Penelope Karageorge
A freelance journalist, Penelope Karageorge writes frequently about film and theatre. She is the author of a crime novel, "Murder at Tomorrow" (Walker Publishing), "Stolen Moments" (Pinnacle Press) and a poetry collection, "Red Lipstick and the Wine-Dark Sea" (Pella Publishing). Her short stories have been published in journals as diverse as "Mouth Full of Bullets" and "The Charioteer." Penelope began her career as a "Newsweek" reporter, interviewing luminaries including Bette Davis and Cary Grant. She was publicity director of "People" magazine. She's currently developing her original film script, a romantic comedy set on the Greek island of Lemnos, "Drinking the Sun."

Roxanne Hoffman
Roxanne Hoffman worked on Wall Street, now answers a patient hotline for a New York home healthcare provider. Her words can be found, on and off the net, in "Amaze: The Cinquain Journal," "Clockwise Cat," "Danse Macabre," "The Fib Review," "Hospital Drive," "Lips Magazine," "Lucid Rhythms," "Mobius: The Poetry Magazine," "The New Verse News," "The Pedestal Magazine" and "Shaking Like a Mountain"; the indie flick "Love and the Vampire" starring Dave Gold and Rick Poli; and several anthologies including "The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and Their Affiliates" (Soft Skill Press), "Love After 70" (Wising Up Press), and "It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure" (Harper Perennial). She started the small literary press Poets Wear Prada with her late husband in 2006, and continues to runs it with the poet, fiction writer and translator Jack Cooper. Her elegiac poem "In Loving Memory" with illustrations by Connecticut artist Edward Odwitt was published as a chapbook in 2011.

Larissa Shmailo
 Larissa Shmailo has been published in "The Unbearables Big Book of Sex," "Barrow Street," "Fulcrum," "Rattapallax," "Drunken Boat," "Big Bridge," "Mad Hatters Review," "Naropa’s We" among other publications. Larissa translated the Russian Futurist opera "Victory over the Sun" by A. Kruchenych for the original English-language production performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, archived at the Smithsonian, the Los Angeles County Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art. Her CD, "Exorcism" won her the 2009 New Century Music Awards for spoken word with music. "The No-Net World," an earlier CD, is heard frequently on the radio and internet. She has published three books of poetry, "In Paran" (BlazeVox), "A Cure for Suicide" (Cervena Barva Press), and the e-book "Fib Sequence" (Argotist Ebooks).

Host Dean Kostos of the Greek-American Writers' Association Reading Series
Host Dean Kostos of the Greek-American Writers' Association Reading Series
Dean Kostos is Pushcart Prize nominee and a recipient of a Yaddo fellowship. He is the authors of "Last Supper of the Senses" (Spuyten Duyvil), "The Sentence That Ends with a Comma" (Painted Leaf Press), and "Celestial Rust" (Red Dust Books). He is also the editor of "Pomegranate Seeds: An Anthology of Greek-American Poetry" and co-edited the anthology "Mama’s Boy: Gay Men Write About Their Mothers." His work has also appeared in "Barrow Street," "The Dos Passos Review," "Rattapallax," "Red Rock Review," "Southwest Review," "Vanitas," and on Oprah Winfrey’s Web site Oxygen.com.




Wednesday, May 9, 2012

The Phoenix Rises at Scalinatella on Mother's Day, May 13

This coming Sunday, Mother's Day, May 13th, I will be reading in Greenwich Village at 4:00 in the afternoon at Scalinatella (formerly the Scali Caffe) on Bleecker Street for Michael Graves's Phoenix Reading Series. In honor of Mother's Day, I am sharing several pieces about motherhood and my own mother. Two other guest writers will be featured, Rose Bernal and Michael Labombarda.  I am not familar with Mr. Labombarda nor his work, and am most anxious to meet and hear him.  For a long time, I have been a fan and follower of Ms. Bernal, and so I strongly encourage you to come for this rare opportunity hear her read several of her fine works.

Phoenix Reading Series
Sundays at 4PM
@ Scalinatella
245 Bleecker Street
(west of Carmine)
New York, NY 10014
.www.scalicaffe.com
(212) 255-5353
Michael Graves

Michael Graves, author of four poetry collections, the most recent, “In Fragility” from Black Buzzard, hosts this every Sunday afternoons series at Scalinatella, 245 Bleecker Street (west of Carmine), (212) 255-5353, from 4:00 PM until 6:00 PM. An open reading follows the featured guest writers. There is an $8 food/beverage minimum plus a suggested $3 donation.


Take the 1 train to Christopher Street-Sheridan Square; alternatively the A, B, C, D, E, or F train to West 4th Street and exit at the West 3rd Street exit. 

For more information about the series, please contact Host Michael Graves by email to mikegraves50@hotmail.com

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

At the Jujo 6pm Sunday May 6th: Vanessa Hidary & Roxanne Hoffman

Come to the Jujo this Sunday. The Hebrew Mamita Vanessa Hidary and I will be performing from 6-8pm on May 6th at the JujoMukti Tea Lounge, located at 211 E. 4th St., between Aves. A & B, in Manhattan. $5 Admission buys you a pot of tea and a spot on "unplugged" open. Hosted by David Lawton. Directions: Subways F, M (2nd Avenue & Houston); 6 (Astor Place; 8th St and 4th Ave.); Bus 14A from Union Square (3rd St stop and Ave. A).


"Mixed communities. Different backgrounds. Contrasting styles. Two lovely female poets come together to represent the state of the art with good humor and sex appeal." -- David Lawton

RSVP: http://www.facebook.com/events/302519079822780/


The Hebrew Mamita Vanessa Hidary

Here's a little bit about my co-feature: VANESSA HIDARY aka The Hebrew Mamita, Native New Yorker, solo performer, writer has been featured on HBO's Def Poetry Jam and recently published her first book "The Last Kaiser Roll In The Bodega." Visit her at http://www.hebrewmamita.com.



Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Exit Strata's "30/30/30: Inspiration, Community and Tradition"

Lynne DeSilva-Johnson, whom I  had the pleasure of meeting at the Annual Chapbook Festival earlier this month, invited both my co-editor at Poets Wear Prada -- Jack Cooper -- and myself to participate in Exit Strata's "30/30/30: Inspiration, Community and Tradition" celebration of National Poetry Month. Each day a different poet shared their thoughts regarding another with a poem by their poetry muse and one inspired.

Jack's inspiration was Hala Alyan who has been recently making the rounds on New York poetry circuit, reading this April for both David Lawton at his At the Jujo Reading Series and for Puma Perl at her D-Day Reading at the Bowery Poetry Club.  Jack's praises for Hala with his and her poems can be found at: http://www.exitstrata.com/poetry-month-303030-inspiration-community-tradition-jack-cooper-on-hala-alya.  Hala has a book forthcoming from Three Rooms Press later this year.

My inspiration: Nuyorican poet Urayoán Noel, author of three poetry collections – Hi-Density Politics(BlazeVOX, 2010), Boringkén (Ediciones Callejón/La Tertulia, 2008), and Kool Logic/La lógica kool (Bilingual Press, 2005); Assistant Professor of English at SUNY; a Bronx Council on the Arts fellow in poetry, as well as a Ford Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College.  Read my essay, poetic samplings of his and mine, and watch a Youtube clip of his performance at http://www.exitstrata.com/poetry-month-303030-inspiration-community-tradition-day-28-roxanne-hoffman-on-urayoan-noel/

Many thanks to Lynne for organizing this online celebration of National Poetry Month,  with a daily post by a different poet celebrating  our "inspiration, community and tradition."

Monday, March 12, 2012

Mon 3/12: Peter Chelnik's Go-Cat-Go! Poetry Event 6:45pm Gracie's Corner Diner in Yorkville



Good News From Roxanne: A Reading Tonite in NYC & Publication Announcements!

March 12, 2009

Dear Friends,

I am reading tonight at Peter Chelnik's Go-Cat-Go! Poetry Reading & Open Mic tonight, Monday March 12th, in Yorkville. Peter is responsible for getting me to read my work in public. In 2003 I went to hear him read at The Back Fence at Dee Anne Gorman's invitation. I had never met him before. There was this big burly all-American guy at the mic wearing his trademark Pendleton plaid wool shirt, baseball cap, glasses, mustache. reading list poems and what lists he read. It sounded like jazz rants. No music. But he was making music with his words.And his words were filled with American people and American scenes. big and real just like him. He was terrific. Then after the reading broke up Bridgid Murnaham, the host and waitress, dragged Dee and me on to the stage to read from our notebooks while Peter , his brother and nephew cheered us on. So its my greatest pleasure to announce that I will be reading with Peter at his new venue tonight.

My birthday was last Friday March 9th so this also a be-late b-day party for me!

Here are the details regarding tonights reading:

Monday, March 12
6:45 pm
Peter Chelnik's GO-CAT-GO!
w. Roxanne Hoffman
Gracie’s Corner Diner
352 E 86th St
(between 1st Ave & 2nd Ave)
New York, NY 10028
Neighborhoods: Yorkville, Upper East Side
(212) 737-8505

FREE! Open Mic for Poetry
your food/beverage purchase helps support the venue


My work has been accepted for publication in two forthcoming anthologies:

Paws, Claws, Wings and Things: Poetry For and About Pets
(Local Gems Poetry Press, 2012), eds. Jillian Roath, Erica DeAngelo

The Waiting Room Reader: Stories to Keep you Company
(CavanKerry, 2013), ed. Rachel Hadas

Roxy

Monday, February 27, 2012

Wed Feb 29 The Green Pavilion Poetry Event in Brooklyn

Folks,

This Wednesday, Wednesday February 29th, Sadie Hawkin's Day, I will be reading & singing all about love in Brooklyn at the Green Pavilion Restaurant. Joining me will be poets Bernard Block and Hilary Sideris. There will also be an open mic.

Here are details followed by the Facebook event link:


DATE: Wednesday February 29, 2012
TIME: 7pm-9pm (Open Mic Signup starts at 6:45pm)

PLACE: The Green Pavilion Restuarant, 4307-18th Ave., Brooklyn, NY
ADMISSION: $5.00 food/drink minimum + $3.00 suggested donation.

DIRECTIONS: F train to 18th Ave. station. Last car coming from Manh, right staircase to street. You will be only about 1/2 block away from rest., same block you will be standing on.


The Green Pavilion Poetry Event, held the last Wednesday of every month, is hosted by Evie Ivy and Cindy Sostchen-Hochman.

RSVP:
http://www.facebook.com/events/305355309520457/

About the featured poets:

HILARY SIDERIS has published poems in many journals, and in the anthologies "Pomegranate Seeds: An Anthology of Greek-American Poetry," and "Token Entry: Poems of the New York City Subway." Her first and third chapbooks, The Orange Juice is Over and Gold & Other Fish, have been published by Finishing Line Press, and her second chapbook, Baby, was published by Pudding House Press. She lives in Brooklyn and works for The City University of New York, where she develops programs for English language learners and first-generation college students.

BERNARD BLOCK's poems have appeared in the NY Quarterly, the Minnesota Review, Colorado Review and other university presses. Published four chapbooks: Quest; Prometheus Returns; Portraits; and To Music. Born and raised in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. He attended Cornell University and completed a B.A. in English and American Literature at Brooklyn College in 1965. Hitch-hiked out to California in 1965 and helped organize the Port Chicago Vigil outside the Port Chicago Weapons Station in the Bay Area. He moved to the Haight-Ashbury and was there for the January, 1967 Be-In, the Monterey Pop Festival and the 1967 "Summer of Love". Gave poetry readings at the I and Thou Coffee Shop, City Lights Bookstore and in Golden Gate Park. He returned to New York City and earned his living as a social worker for the NYC Special Services for Children for the next 25 years. Studied with the poet Colette Inez in the mid-1970's. Read at Speakeasy, poet Emilie Glen’s apartment, Henry St. Settlement and Cornelia St. Cafe. Recently he has read at Nightingale, Cornelia St. Café, Bowery Poetry Club, Green Pavilion, Brownstone Poets, Phoenix, SOB’s, TOMI Jazz (a Japanese jazz club), Asian American Writers' Workshop, Penny’s, StringPoet and Molloy College.

ROXANNE HOFFMAN worked on Wall Street, now answers a patient hotline for a New York home healthcare provider. Her work has been published widely in literary journals like “Amaze: The Cinquain Journal,” “Clockwise Cat,” “Danse Macabre,” “The Fib Review,” “Hospital Drive,” “Lucid Rhythms,” “Mobius: The Poetry Magazine,” “The New Verse News,” “The Pedestal Magazine,” and “Shaking Like A Mountain,” as well as in several anthologies including “The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and Their Affiliates” (Soft Skull Press), “Love after 70” (Wising Up Press), and “It All Changes in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure” (Harper Perennial). Her vampire poetry can be heard during Dave Gold’s 2005 indie flick “Love and the Vampire.” She runs the small literary press Poets Wear Prada, since 2006. Her new chapbook "In Loving Memory" with illustrations to by Edward Odwitt was released December 2011.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

New from Black Buzzard Press: IN FRAGILITY by Michael Graves

'In Fragility' by Michael Graves
IN FRAGILITY
by Michael Graves
$15.95
Black Buzzard Press
ISBN 0-978-938872-47-8
Soft Cover, 86 pp.

Praise for In Fragility:

"Emotion recollected in fragility, these poems lucidly etch the power of darkness that endures, that returns. These poems are amazingly lucid, which gives them a paradoxical power."

--ROBERT VISCUSI, author of the novel Astoria (American Book Award winner) and of the poem "Ellis Island"


"This grave book deals with such volatile elements as alcohol, sexual frustration, and apostasy. The reader will watch fascinated as Mike Graves burns his fuse down to the stick of dynamite he holds in his hand, for these poems approximate a searing self¬murder note addressed to any reader strong enough to peruse it. Only a poet as skilled and knowledgeable as Graves could render raw and repressed emotion with such acute control of form and diction, such range of allusion. But reader beware: you are about to take your own life into your hands."

--GEORGE HELD


"To adapt a phrase from James Joyce, whom Graves is influenced by, In Fragility offers readers the curve of multiple emotions. While traversing sentiments of aloneness and aloofness, and both objective and introspective, these poems are at once bleak, menacing, disturbing and humorous. They bespeak a stark sobriety often in conflict with itself and, through the effective use of metaphor and the recurrent theme of alienation, achieve a narrative coherence."

--A. NICHOLAS FARGNOLI, Dean of Humanities, Molloy College, Rockville Centre, NY, and President of The James Joyce Society.

Title Poem:

IN FRAGILITY

Speak to her
In fervent prayer
And fevered need
With brimming heart,
Shaking like a poisoned cup
And soft, sick gut,
Of where you rose
From nothingness
To nascent consciousness,
Inheritor of world
And family legacy,
Consuming time
And fragile self
That can't connect
Although it grow
In pain, organically,
Enthused by hope
And every false approach
Fear and circumstance allow

About the Author:

MICHAEL GRAVES is the author of a full-length collection of poems, Adam and Cain (Black Buzzard, 2006) and two chapbooks, Illegal Border Crosser (Cervana Barva, 2008) and Outside St. Jude’s (R. E. M. Press, 1990). In Fragility from Black Buzzard Press is his second full-length collection.

In two thousand four (2004), he was the recipient of a grant of four thousand five hundred dollars ($4,500.00) from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. He is the publisher of the small magazine PHOENIX. Many years ago, he was a student of James Wright and organized a conference on James Wright at Poets House in 2004. And he became a member of P.E.N. a couple of years ago.

In addition to leading a James Joyce Ulysses’ Reading Group, he has published thirteen (13) poems in the James Joyce Quarterly and read from them and others of his poems influenced by Joyce to a gathering of the Joyce Society at the Gotham Book Mart.

Watch Michael Graves on YouTube.com at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjGZeKfSW8g, an in depth interview and a reading. (Credit: Poetry Thin Air)

Friday, November 11, 2011

Tonite 11/11/11: Book Party for Chocolate Waters' The Woman Who Wouldn't Shake Hands

come celebrate with us!

the woman who wouldn’t shake hands


 
and here's a cool trailer, w/audio


chocolate will be reading from her new collection



featuring Mark Larsen, Fran Witte and Chavisa Woods

with emcee/publisher Roxanne Hoffman

Manhattan Plaza, 400 W. 43rd St. (SW corner at 9th Ave.)
Ellington Room, 2nd Floor
Nov. 11, Friday @ 7:30 p.m.

(11/11/11)



FREE



Single copies will be on sale: $12.

Signed, numbered collectible edition plus bonus CD: $25.



If you’re unable to attend but would like a copy: A single copy is $12. + $3. postage.

Collectors’ edition is $25. postage free for U.S. orders (foreign add $5.) and includes a CD with six audio tracks plus an extra bonus track of a poem not in the book.

Paypal is the best (cwaters@nyc.rr.com) or snail mail Chocolate Waters 
@ 415 West 44 St. Apt. 7 , NY, NY 10036-4440.



POETS WEAR PRADA
C/O Roxanne Hoffman
533 Bloomfield Street - 2nd Floor
Hoboken, NJ 07030
http://pwpbooks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Poets-Wear-Prada/41483895438
http://twitter.com/pradapoet

POETS WEAR PRADA is a small press based in Hoboken, New Jersey devoted to introducing new authors through limited edition, high- quality chaplets, primarily of poetry.

New press, great authors, a publisher who is one miracle short of sainthood.-Angelo Verga, Poetry Curator of The Cornelia Street Cafe

Poets Wear Prada is a poetry publishing house with excellent poets and affordable books with beautiful covers. Have you had your poetry today?-Meredith Sue Willis, Books for Readers

Stylistically, these beautifully designed and produced chaplets bear their own distinctive signature.-Linda Lerner, Small Press Review

Proud Member of CLMP
http://flordelconcreto.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/flordelconcreto



Tuesday, November 1, 2011

A Poem "All Hallows Eve" on The New Verse News.


Trick or Treat? A new poem "All Hallows Eve" appears in the online journal The New Verse News edited by James Penha (posted 10/31/2011). I hope you enjoy another abcedarian and a little bit of silliness to celebrate Halloween, and what would quite accurately describe the view from my window of the activities on Bloomfield Street in Hoboken New Jersey earlier this evening -- we had our annual Ragmuffin parade. Please follow the link, read the little ditty and show some love:
http://newversenews.blogspot.com/2011/10/all-hallows-eve.html

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Mon 10/24 Saturn Series: Sarah Bedell & Roxanne Hoffman 7PM Nightingale Lounge NYC

A couple of weeks ago, Su Polo invited me to read at her Monday night Saturn Series Poetry Reading at Nightingale Lounge in Manhattan's East Village neighborhood.  Regretfully I've been absent from the weekly open mic for quite some time, returning  last week to support wonderful poet and friend, Mary Orovan, who was the feature.  The open mic had several bright spots including two friends of Mary's both named Harold, Richard W. who read a piece inspired by the recent Wall Street demonstrations and a Mr Austin who read a very interesting long narrative about the artist Ray Johnson, known for his "nothing" performances and his final "nothing" -- his carefully planned death by drowning.  I did catch most of Mary's reading on my little RCA Small Wonder and will be sharing some footage on YouTube and BuzzSprout shortly.

I'll be back at Saturn Series next Monday October 24th as a featured poet.  Joining me will be another poetry friend, Sarah Bedell.  I met Sarah for the first time at one of weekly sessions the late Arthur Bitterman's Riverside Poets Workshop at the Riverside Branch of the New York Public Library during the summer of 2003.  One of the steady contributors to the weekly workshop, and an editor of the group's annual chapbook workshop, she and the poet and actor Anthony Moscini now lead the weekly workshop.

Hoping to see many of you in the audience and at the open mic next Monday at 7pm at Nightingale Lounge at East 13th and 2nd Avenue on Monday, October 24th. Here's are the details of the event:



Saturn:
A NYC Poetry Periodical
~ Poetry Open Mic every Monday nite for 18 years ~
Featuring Sarah Bedell and Roxanne Hoffman
Hosted by Su Polo

Date: Monday, October 24th

Time: 7pm - 9pm. (Open mic sign up starts at 6:30pm.)

Place: Nightingale Lounge, 213 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10003 ( NW corner of East 13th & 2nd Ave) 212.473.9398 http://www.nightingalelounge.com/
Directions: By subway take 4, 5, 6, N, Q, R to Union Square/14th St. or L to 3rd Avenue or 1st Avenue. NJ PATH to 14th Street and head west.

Admission: 2 Drink/$10 Minimum + $3 Suggested Donation. 21+.


About the Featured Poets:


Sarah Bedell is a poet who has been a New Yorker since college. By day she works in a law firm, and in the evening she teaches English as a Second Language and leads The Riverside Poets Workshop with Anthony Moscini. Her poems have appeared in the annual anthology of The Riverside Poets Workshop, including Volume 13 which was published this fall.




Roxanne Hoffman worked on Wall Street, now answers a patient hotline for a New York home healthcare provider. Her work appears in several anthologies including The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and Their Affiliates (Soft Skull Press), Love After 70(Wising Up Press), and It All Changed in a Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure (Harper Perennial). She's run the small independent literary press, Poets Wear Prada, since 2006.





About the Host:

Su Polo is a multi-talented artist. A native New Yorker, her songs and stories convey unusual insights and surprises found in life's everyday events and encounters. She is a singer/songwriter with guitar and dulcimer, Jazz vocalist, photographer, painter and sculptor, set designer, computer graphic artist specializing in print production and created her website http://www.supolo.com/ . Her book, Turning Stones, a collection of poems and stories is available at St. Marks Books.

She is the founder and host of the Saturn Series poetry reading in it’s 18th year every Monday night at Nightingale Lounge. She hosts the Artists' Lounge Music Showcase & Open Mic, also at Nightingale Lounge. Su is the set designer for the last 6 years of the New Years Day Poetry Extravaganza held at the Bowery Poetry Club. You can find her on Facebook and Myspace.

Su is currently working on her second book and her one woman show.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Monday October 3 Poetic License Features Poetry, Spoken Word and Music in Central Park

Monday, October 3, 2001, New York, NY -- The public is invited to enjoy free poetry performances by some of the city's most popular poets at the Naumberg Bandshell in Central Park, this Monday, October 3rd,  from 4pm to 7:30pm, at an annual event series hosted by the infatigible poetry powerhouse Angela Peluso.  Budding and seasoned poets of all ages are encouraged to join the scheduled line up by reading their work at an ongoing open mic between the schedule performance. The event known as Poetic License is 17 years old, and celebrates freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, the pursuit of happiness, and mankinds's creative spirit in the glorious public green space at the core of Manhattan.  Poetic Licences has seen may changes, enduring new mayors and their political regimes, Wall Street and the city's real estate booms and crashes, the death of some of the most regular performers, while continuing to welcome new faces from the New York poetry scene as well as old friends. This Monday's stellar line-up include poets Roxanne Hoffman, Evie Ivy, Ron Price, Florence Kindel.


Naumberg Bandshell, Central Park, New York City, New York

Evie Ivy, a dancer and poet who currently curates two reading series, including the long running Green Pavilion Poetry Event in Brooklyn says "I always enjoy reading for Angela at Central Park, in the fresh air, among the trees. And have been happy to read or listen to an always nicely chosen group of poets! Looking forward ..."

Angela Pelusa says,"Come join us to close the seventeenth season. We're still here, no matter what!"

Directions: Central Park's Naumburg Bandshell, South of Bethesda Terrace btwn 66th & 72nd Sts., New York, NY.  By subway take the C train to 72nd Street at Central Park West,  or 1, 2, 3 to 72nd Street & Broadway.   Enter the park at 72nd St. & Central Park West.  Walk east towards the Bethesda Fountain, then head south passing the roller skaters on your right to the bandshell on you left.

Ron Price, a Pulitzer-Prize- and a National Book Award-nominated poet, works as Poet in Residence at the Juilliard School . He has taught as a Poet in the Parks, Poet in the Schools and Poet in the Prisons in Tennessee and Pennsylvania – these in addition to an endless string of useless jobs that include mailroom gopher, assembly line worker, forklift driver, leather craftsman, house organ editor, parking lot attendant and bookstore clerk. He has published in "The American Poetry Review," "The Hindu" (India), "Leviathan Quarterly" (U.K.), "The Painted Bride Quarterly," "Poetry," "Revista Forum" (Mexico,) and "Zone3." He is a past U.S.I.A. Visiting Poet to Belgium; has read and lectured throughout India for the Bureau of Cultural and Educational Affairs; and has twice given readings in Israel at the invitation of the American Center. He is the author of "Surviving Brothers," "A Crucible for the Left Hand," and "A Small Song Called Ash from the Fire."
 
Evie Ivy, is a professional dancer and published poet in the NYC poetry circuit. She has three chapbooks, her latest, "Cinquain, My Dear Cinquain, Selected Cinquains"  was recently released by Grey Book Press. Her full-lenth collection, "The First Woman Who Danced," includes poetry based on her experiences as a dancer and dance instructor. She co-hosts one of the longest running poetry readings in the city, The Green Pavilion Poetry Event in Brooklyn, as well the Poets-on-White Reading Series in Tribeca, Manhattan.

Roxanne Hoffman worked on Wall Street, now answers a patient hotline for a New York home healthcare provider. Her words can be found on and off the net in such journals as "Amaze: The Cinquain Journal," "Clockwise Cat," "Danse Macabre," "The Fib Review," "Hospital Drive," "Lips Magazine," "Lucid Rhythms," "Mobius: The Poetry Magazine," "The New Verse News," "The Pedestal Magazine" and "Shaking Like a Mountain;" the indie flick "Love and the Vampire"; and several anthologies including "The Banana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and Their Affiliates" (Soft Skill Press), "Love After 70" (Wising Up Press), and "It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure" (Harper Perennial). She runs the small press, Poets Wear Prada, since 2006 and blogs at http://roxanne-hoffman.blogspot.com/   and http://pwpbooks.blogspot.com/ .

Florence Kindel is the author of the chapbook Dissolutions (Green Zone, 2009. Kindel was born in Orange, New Jersey. She has her BA in Fine Arts from Kean University, NJ, and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, NYC, in painting and drawing. She has taught at several colleges in NJ. She has been writing since early childhood and left painting to write poetry in 1983. She lives with her husband and dog in NYC

Angela Peluso, long-time model, performance artist and writer, is the author of "Nude Poet," a very personal collection of poems and stories with vivid color and moody black & white photos interspersed.  Angela has been featured and produced shows at The Back Fence, The Yippie Cafe & Museum, Bowery Poetry Club, The Telephone Bar and the Smalls Jazz Club and has been featured on the "Poetry Thin Air" Cable Show.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

A Poem Reprinted from The Rutherford Red Wheel Barrow 4


“Relativity,” M. C. Escher, 1953,  lithograph, 27.7 × 29.2 cm

LIFE WITHOUT CLOCKS
By Roxanne Hoffman
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
—Albert Einstein




would mean no waiting
no anticipation

never EVER being late
nor early
nor on time

just existing in the moment
always PRESENT
future and past, spun on a dime.

no cause and no effect
no unfolding story to foretell or to retrospect.

if we’re born and we die INSTANTANEOUS
have we even existed at all?
or if we lead schizoid lives, two-faced like Janus,
does polygamy become protocol?

Or are we merely chaste immortals?

FOREVER wandering the door-locked halls…


Poems Published in Literary Anthology Celebrating William Carlos Williams

I am pleased to announce that 3 of my poems "Life With Clocks," "The Family Tree," "The Pursuit of Progeny" appear in the 4th edition of the The Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow. 


The Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow, No.4 - 2011 reflects a diversity of voices and styles rarely combined in one book. The fourth annual edition of the literary journal was published last month by the Red Wheelbarrow Poets.  A open call to poets connected with the William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative Reading of South Bergen County, past features including guest poets from the Tri-State region and regulars open mic readers, as well as participants of the peer-to-peer poetry workshops at the GainVille Learning Center and Café. Thirty poets are featured: John Barrale, Céline Beaulieu, Sondra Singer Beaulieu, Marian Calabro, the late George de Gregorio, Milton P. Ehrlich, Mark Fogarty, Thomas Fucaloro, Davidson Garrett, Elissa Gordon, Roxanne Hoffman, Jim Klein, Melanie Klein, Janet Kolstein, Kathy Kuenzle, Brant Lyon, Zorida Mohammed, Rick Mullin, Mike O’Brien, Jane Ormerod, George Pereny, S. Gili Post, Tony Puma, Dan Saxon, Claudia Serea, Francesca Sphynx, Madeline Tiger, John J. Trause, Dorinda Wegener and Don Zirilli.


In addition to the poetry, four essays give insight into the life and work of the Rutherford doctor/poet: "William Carlos Williams and the Baroness" by John J. Trause; "The Poetry Reading" by Madeline Tiger; "Friendship and ‘The Figure 5’" by Marian Calabro and "Medicine, Languages, a River and the American Muses in the Work of William Carlos Williams" by Céline Beaulieu. Noted poet Jim Klein, who leads the Gainville poetry workshop, shares his thoughts on creating a painting in "Don’t Talk Unless You Can Improve the Silence," and Mark Fogarty gives a preview of his novel in excerpts from "It’s So Easy to Fall in Love."


The journal was launched on Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 7PM at the Williams Center in Rutherford, New Jersey.  Copies are available online at Lulu.com (http://www.lulu.com/content/10922431) and will be available through Amazon.com by the end of the year. For more information and mailorders contact the Editors.

Friday, June 17, 2011

June 20: GENERATION BEAT at Yippie Museum Café in NYC

The Yippie Museum Cafe


GENERATION BEAT

Date: Monday, June 20, 2011

Time: 6:30 – 8:30 pm
 
Place:
THE YIPPIE MUSEUM
CAFE & GIFT SHOP
9 Bleecker Street
(near the Bowery)
New York, NY 10002
(212) 677-5918
Admission: $2

Host: Gordon Gilbert
 
Featured Readers:
(Reading Their Favorite Beat Writer
& Their Own Work)

ALAN BAXTER
*
PETER CHELNIK
*
BOB HEMAN
* 
CINDY HOCHMAN
* 
ROXY HOFFMAN
* 
EVY IVY
* 
KIM KALESTI
*
RONNIE KORPAL
*
JOSH MEANDER
*
ORION 0.62
*
EVE PACKER
*
PUMA PERL
*
BOB QUATRONE
* 
CHRISTINE TIMM
* 
JOHN J. TRAUSE
* 
RICHARD WEST

Sorry, This is Not an Open Mic.

Beverage and Snacks Availalble at the Refreshment Stand.

COME EARLY
for 4 pm screening of a Lawrence Ferlinghetti documentary by Chris Felver.


Mummy Cartoon
I'll be performing  "The Mummy Piece" by William S. Burroughs and "Mum's The Word" by me.

THE MUMMY PIECE
by William S. Burroughs


Good Afternoon. The most arbitrary, precarious and bureaucratic immortality blueprint was drafted by the ancient Egyptians.

First, you had to get yourself mummified, and that was very expensive, making immortality a monopoly of the truly rich. Then your continued immortality in the western lands was entirely dependent on  the continued existence of your mummy.

That’s why they had their mummies hid real good.

Here’s this plain GI Joe: He’s got enough baraka to survive his first physical death. He won’t get far. He’s got no mummy. He’s got no names. He’s got nothing. What happens to a bum like that? A nameless, mummiless jerk. Why, demons will swarm all over him at the 1st check point. He will be dismembered and thrown into a flaming pit, where his soul will be utterly consumed  and destroyed forever, while others with sound mummies and the right names dropped in the right places sail through to the western lands.

There are, of course, those who barely squeeze through. Their mummies are not in a good sound condition. These second class souls are relegated to third-rate transient hotels just beyond the last check point where they can smell the charnel house disposal of shit from their skimpy balconies.

Might as well face facts.  My mummy is going downhill. Cheap job to begin with. God! Maggots is crawling all over. Way that demon guard looked at me this morning. Transient hotels! And here you are in your luxury condo deep in the western lands. You got no security. Some disgruntled former employee sneaks into your tomb and throws acid on your mummy or sloshes gasoline all over and burns the heck out of it. OH, SOMEONE ‘S MESSING WITH MY MUMMY! Mummies are sitting ducks. No matter who you are, what could happen to your mummy is a pharaoh’s nightmare: the dreaded mummy-bashers and grave-robbers, scavengers, floods,  volcanoes, earthquakes. Perhaps a mummy’s best friend  is an Egyptologist: sealed in a glass case, kept at a constant temperature ... but your mummy is not even safe in a museum. Air raid sirens. It’s the blitz!

FOR RA'S SAKE! GET US INTO THE VAULTS! scream the mummies, without a throat, without a tongue.

Anybody buying in on a deal like that ought to have his mummy examined!

William S. Burroughs

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Monday June 13: Summer Gazebo Reading in Long Island

Summer Gazebo Reading

The Summer Gazebo Readings are back! Our 5th season promises to be spectacular--great authors and poets (twenty of whom will be making their Gazebo debut), generous sponsors--and delicious desserts waiting, all served up on Schoolhouse Green.

Next Monday, June 13, from 7pm to 8pm I will be reading with Tom Phelan, Lousia Calio and Steven Schimdt under the Gazebo at School House Green in Oceanside, New York.  

This summertime every Monday event is curated by Tony Iovino in June, July & August. (Except this year, our Independence Day Celebration is Tuesday, July 5!!)

Each evening 4 authors and poets share their work from our Gazebo on Schoolhouse Green in Oceanside, NY.

There is no admission fee. Free refreshments & desserts are provided.

Bring a lawn chair and a friend!



See you at the Gazebo!!


Contact:  Tony Iovino  tonyiovino@gmail.com

Upcoming Schedule  


6/13/2011
Tom Phelan Louisa Calio
Steven Schmidt Roxanne Hoffman  

6/20/2011
Richard Vetere Cindi Sansone-Braff
Lloyd Abrams Darren Sardelli  

6/27/2011
Robert Lipsyte Barb Reiher-Meyers
Gayl Teller Gail Goldstein  

7/5/2011 (TUESDAY!!!)
Independence Day Celebration  

7/11/2011
Melissa de la Cruz Christina Rau
Jack Anderson Kio  

7/18/2011
Ellen Meister Carol Hoenig
Robert Savino Peter Dugan  

7/25/2011
Vicki Iorio Harriett Slaughter
Bruce Grossberg Jackie Sheeler  

8/1/2011
Denis Gray Jane Ormerod
Vincent Maher Ed Stever  

8/8/2011
Deborah Hauser Herb Siegel
Alix Strauss Linda Opyr  

8/15/2011
Florence Gatto Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan
Jerry Zezima Doreen Spungin  

8/22/2011
Gae Polisner Barbara Southard 


8/29/2011
Beverly Kotch Annabelle Moseley
Paul Grossman Doug Swezey 







SPONSORS

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Anthony J. Santino, Councilman
Asip/Dagger Team/Century 21 American Homes
Bombino's Pizza & Restaurant
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Craig DeBaun, Fire Commissioner
Friends of Don Clavin, Receiver of Taxes
Friends of Judge Gary Knobel
Herb & Marian Brown
Home & Hearth Real Estate
Kimberly & Todd Garrity
Kiwanettes of Oceanside
Lion's Club of RVC
Long Island Pulse Magazine
Mary Jane McGrath, Attorney
Maryanne & SanderLehrer
Michael Schamroth and Family
Mindy & Roy Kaufman
Municipal Credit Union
Oceanside Federation of Teachers
Oceanville Mason Supply
South Nassau Communities Hospital
Tower's Funeral Home
Westron Lighting

BOOKSNJ 2011 Sunday June 12 at Paramus Library in NJ

 Sunday, June 12th
1pm - 5pm

Rain or Shine!

@ Paramus Public Library
116 East Century Road
Paramus, NJ 07652




Join us at BooksNJ2011: a celebration of books and the readers who love them, sponsored by BCCLS, Berkeley College, the Paramus Public Library, and the New Jersey State Library, Sunday, June 12 from 1pm-5pm.  The fair includes non-fiction authors as well as writers of  fiction, childrens books and poetry.

I will be featured at the Poetry Tent along with two authors published by my press, Joel Allegretti and John J. Trause as well as Elijah Brown, Teresa Carson, Sondra Gash, Roxanne Hoffman, Marcia Ivans, Diana Lockward and George Witte.  Please come by, say hello, introduce yourself, and listen to a poem or two from 1:00 -1:40PM MEET THE POETS, THEIR STYLES AND INSPIRATIONS.
 
Please come to the POETRY SLAM I am hosting from 3:30 PM - 4:10 PM.

I will also be participating as panelist  at 2:00 PM - 2:40 PM on E-BOOKS with Tracey Baptiste, Shirley George Frazier,  Dave White, and Charles Calde and at 2:45 PM - 3:25 PM on MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION with Diane Lockward and George Witte.

And leading the panel  WRITING POETRY IS EASY. RIGHT? BUT WILL FOLKS LISTEN? at 4:15 PM - 5:00 PM with panelists Elijah Brown, Teresa Carson, Sondra Gash and Marcia Ivans.

Local Celebrity Authors also be presenting at BOOKSNJ include Chris Grabenstein, Carol Higgins Clark, Mary Higgins Clark, Brad Parks, Mary Jane Clark, and Allison Fishman.

There will be many, many readings, discussions, booksignings and workshops, lots of opportunities to get up close and personal with published writers and of course many, many books for sale!

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Saturday June 4 Underground Howl Event: 8pm at The New York Underground Museum

“Symposia, Poetry & Party-ing”—w/Phoebe Legere & friends @ the Underground Museum on June 4thw/poetry by Taylor Mead, Dorothy Friedman & Richard West; slideshow of the LES by Shell Sheddy; 

Yours Truly will be participating in the UNDERGROUND HOWL EVENT hosted by Phoebe Legere and Dorothy Friedman August on Saturday, June 4th at 8 PM at Phoebe Legere's gallery, The New York Underground Museum, located at 221 E. 2nd Street (Between Aves. A & B) in Manhattan's Alphabet City.

I will be reading some poetry by Allen Ginsberg as well as my own.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Remembering Jack LaLanne (September 26, 1914 – January 23, 2011

“I can’t die. It would ruin my image.”
Jack LaLanne, noted American fitness, exercise and nutrition expert, motivational speaker, TV personality, and father of the modern physical fitness movement, died Sunday afternoon, January 23rd at his home in Morro Bay, Calif. He was 96.
"Enjoy Yourself!"
My mother idolized Jack so I've always had a soft spot for him.  While other moms were packing twinkies and peanut butter sandwiches in their kid's lunch boxes, my mom was packing carrot and celery sticks, a little can of V-8, along with the veggie and sprout sandwiches in mine. Atopped with little notes quoting Jack: "Make it happen!," "Have a positivie attitude!," "Enjoy yourself!."

James Penha, Editor of  The New Verse News was kind enough to post my poem for Jack, "The Battlle of the Bulge," on his blog today, Tuesday January 24th along with a video clip of Jack courtesy of YouTube.  Follow the link to read the poem.
http://newversenews.blogspot.com/2011/01/battle-of-bulge.html

Monday, January 17, 2011

Happy MLK! The New Verse News: I HAD A DREAM

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
January 16, 2011


Dear Friends & Fellow Poets;



Check out Roxy's poem "I HAD A DREAM" on The New Verse News:

http://newversenews.blogspot.com/2011/01/i-had-dream.html  



Barack Obama
as a boy
on his tricycle
 

 Have a great weekend!



Roxy & Herb



p.s. To read & remember the entire text of Dr. King's "I Hav A Dream" speech go to : http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html
 e


President Barack Obama
44th President of the United States of America



Our President
Still Riding Strong!