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Grief Touched the Sky at Night – Poems by Gloria Mindock
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By Off the Shelf Correspondent g emil reutter.
Somerville poet Gloria Mindock’s passion, raw and honest, holds Putin and his regime accountable for the atrocities committed in Ukraine since the beginning of the war. The poet gives voice to the voiceless, documents the atrocities committed by Russians who have lost all sense of morals and faith.
Images and metaphors light up the page in the poem, Bells of Kyiv:
June 26
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Hilary Sallick is the author of love is a shore (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2023), which is on the 2024 longlist for the Massachusetts Book Award, and Asking the Form (Cervena Barva Press, 2020). Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Permafrost, Potomac Review, Jet Fuel Review, Notre Dame Review, Ibbetson Street, Small Orange, and other journals. She served as vice-president of the New England Poetry Club from 2015 to 2024. A teacher with a longtime focus on adult literacy, she lives and works in Somerville. (www.hilarysallick.com)
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Interview with Somerville artist Karen Moss
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Recently I had a chance to talk with Karen Moss at her space in the Miller Street Studios in Somerville, Mass. I was introduced to her work at “Open Studios” – an event that the Somerville Arts Council puts on yearly. She told me that her work is always “about something” often touching on the social and the political issues of our time.
June 19
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Gloria Mindock is editor of Červená Barva Press, author of six poetry collections and three chapbooks. Her poems have been published and translated into eleven languages. Her recent book, Grief Touched the Sky at Night (Glass Lyre Press, 2023), won the International Impact Award, the Speak-up Talk Radio International Firebird Award, the Book Fest Award, the Independent Press Award and numerous awards from the Outstanding Creator Awards. Publications include: Ibbetson, Gargoyle, The James Dickey Review, Growth: Journal of Literature, Culture, & Art (Macedonia), Constellations, Lily Poetry Review, and KGB Lit. Gloria was the Poet Laureate in Somerville, MA in 2017 and 2018.
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Metaphors Are Not Enough – Poetry and Prose by The Somerville-based Streetfeet Women
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Reviewed by Off the Shelf Correspondent Karen Klein
My first reaction on reading this book was what an incredible group of women.
My second reaction: I wish I were one of them. I predict you will, too, when you read this amazing anthology of their poetry, prose, and plays.
The Streetfeet Women were multicultural before that became popular in the USA. In Somerville, MA’s, Winter Hill in 1980 a Black American, Mary Milner McCullough, and a White American, Elena Harap, began their literary partnership with Portraits of Sisters, a production of poems, music and dance performed by a multicultural groupof women. In 1982, they became formally known as “The Women’s Touring Company a part of Streetfeet Workshops of Mission Hill.”
June 12
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Faith Blake is an emerging poet whose work enquires into the ways language can play, move, and liberate. She has studied Biology at Tufts University, and Education at Stanford University. Faith leads youth programs in the Boston area and lives in Arlington, MA.
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Director, Playwright and Artistic Director Kate Snodgrass: A Theatre Hero
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Interview with Doug Holder
I have always admired the work of Kate Snodgrass. I have attended and reviewed many of the plays she put on when she was the artistic director of the Boston Playwright’s Theatre. As a teacher myself, I can appreciate the work she has done hatching the minds and careers of many young theatre professionals.
June 5
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Howie Good’s newest book, Frowny Face, is a collection of his prose poems and handmade collages from Redhawk Publications. He co-edits the online journal UnLost, dedicated to found poetry.
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‘Shakespeare Also Wrote Poetry’ by Michael Todd Steffen
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Article by Off the Shelf Correspondent Michael Steffen
To dot our i’s and cross our t’s, technically Shakespeare would be measured as the greatest dramatist of the English language. He has been vaulted to posterity, and in no small way, largely due to his plays, which are written in verse, but so are the plays of the great precedent cultures. Aristophanes and Sophocles wrote their plays in verse, yet it is Homer who wears the laurels as the father poet of Greece.
May 29
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Joey Phoenix (they/them) is a Non-Binary, Neurodivergent Somerville poet and performer fascinated by moss, insects, and humans who live close to those things. They are releasing their debut chapbook of poetry Unearthing this June.
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Interview with the late New England Poetry Club President: Diana Der-Hovanessian
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For the last two years Denise Provost and I have been co-presidents of the New England Poetry Club, that is based in Somerville, Mass. The summer season has started and the New England Poetry Club, founded in 1915 by Amy Lowell, Robert Frost and Conrad Aiken, will have a full program of events. I decided to republish an interview I conducted with Der-Hovanessian in 2018. Here is a link to our events page https://nepoetryclub.org/events/
May 22
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Rich Murphy’s collections Susan Constant by Cyberwit and Inside Stories by Resource Publications at Wipf and Stock were published in 2024. First Aid and Footholds were published in 2023 by Resource Publications and Cyberwit. Meme Measure, was published by Resource Publications in 2022. His poetry has won The Poetry Prize at Press Americana twice for Americana (2013) and The Left Behind (2021) and Gival Press Poetry Prize for Voyeur (2008). Space Craft by Resource Publications also came out in 2021. Books Prophet Voice Now, essays by Common Ground Research Network and Practitioner Joy, poetry by Resource Publications were published in 2020. He has published nine other collections of poetry.
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