Category: Poetry

WCW – Don Zirilli

Don Zirilli

Wednesday, April 2, 2014, 7 p.m.

Williams Center for the Arts
One Williams Plaza, Rutherford NJ

Plus the words of William Carlos Williams
and open readings from the floor

Contact: John Barrale – john.barrale@gmail.com

Don Zirilli was born an island. He graduated from Drew University with a Bachelor’s in English Literature. His poetry has been published in River Styx, Art Times, iota and other places. He is a naturalized Red Wheelbarrow Poet and the editor of Now Culture, whatever that is. Check him out at http://zirealism.com.

Bakelite Recorder

It belonged to my mother. She gave it to me
when it started playing its own tunes.
She learned music from it, but the music
wanted to be forgotten. She couldn’t have it
in the house with her, the way it knew so much,
the way everything in the air filtered through it.
I will give it to you for half price
if it likes your fingers.

THE RITES OF MUSIC AND POETRY

Come and join us in the Magic Circle at GainVille Café, Rutherford, NJ for the rites of spring!

Featured poet on Friday, March 28 will be DAVID MESSINEO. As Sensations Magazine Publisher / Poetry Editor, David is among the 40 longest-serving literary magazine publishers / poetry editors still active in America. Three-time winner in the American Literary Magazine Awards, recipient of a 2009 Jefferson Award for Public Service, he has written and published eight published poetry books.

Musical guest will be VICTORIA WARNE, a guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter who has performed extensively in the New York Metropolitan area. She has recorded with Danny Gottlieb, Spyro Gyra’s Julio Fernandez, and even shared the stage with legendary jazz great Billy Eckstine. She has recorded 2 CDs as a leader, Live At The Savoy and Fluorescence.

The Bring Your A Game open mic sponsored by the Red Wheelbarrow Poets with generous reading times will follow.

17 Ames Ave., Rutherford, 7 pm.

A $6 cover includes coffee/tea and dessert.

SPRING AND ALL POETRY AND MUSIC FEB. 28!

Jim GwynLisa BiancoThe Red Wheelbarrow Poets salute the coming of Spring and All with a hot Magic Circle show featuring the poetry of JIM GWYN and the music of LISA BIANCO, Friday, Feb. 28 at 7 PM at GainVille Café, Rutherford.

Jim Gwyn’s poetry has appeared in our anthology, Paterson Literary Review, and Lips.

Lisa Bianco, a frequent guest in the Magic Circle, is the consummate rock troubadour and has played in many cities and foreign countries since her last appearance.

This is followed by the Bring Your A Game open mic.

$6 cover includes coffee/tea and dessert.

GainVille Café is at 17 Ames Ave., Rutherford.

Alex Cigale & Larissa Shmailo – New Date

The Williams Readings present

ALEX CIGALE & LARISSA SHMAILO

NATIONAL TRANSLATION MONTH

Wednesday, February 19, 2014, 7 p.m.

Williams Center for the Arts
One Williams Plaza, Rutherford NJ

Plus the words of William Carlos Williams
and open readings from the floor

Contact: John Barrale – john.barrale@gmail.com

Alex Cigale’s translations from Russian, and his own English-language poems, have appeared in Cimarron, Colorado, Cortland, Green Mountains, New England, The Literary Reviews, Drunken Boat, Interlit Quarterly, Literary Imagination, Modern Poetry in Translation, and PEN America. He’s on the editorial boards of Asymptote, COEUR journal, The Madhatters’ Review, The St. Petersburg Review, Third Wednesday, and Verse Junkies. From 2011 until 2013, he was Assistant Professor at the American University of Central Asia.

Larissa Shmailo is the editor of the new anthology Twenty-first Century Russian Poetry and founder of The Feminist Poets in Low-Cut Blouses. Larissa translated the zaum opera Victory Over the Sun for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s landmark restaging of the work and has been a translator and writer on the Bible in Russia for the American Bible Society. Her poetry and criticism have appeared in The Common, Barrow Street, The Brooklyn Rail, Drunken Boat, Fulcrum, Madhat, Lungfull!, Jacket, and the anthologies Words for the Wedding (Penguin), Contemporary Russian Poetry (Dalkey Archive), and the Unbearables Big Book of Sex (Autonomedia). Her books of poetry are In Paran (BlazeVOX [books]), the chapbook A Cure for Suicide (Cervena Barva Press), and the e-book Fib Sequence (Argotist Ebooks); her poetry CDs are The No-Net World and Exorcism (SongCrew). Her newest poetry collection, #specialcharacters, is forthcoming from Unlikely Books.

Alex Cigale & Larissa Shmailo

The Williams Readings present

ALEX CIGALE & LARISSA SHMAILO

NATIONAL TRANSLATION MONTH

Wednesday, February 5, 2014, 7 p.m.

Williams Center for the Arts
One Williams Plaza, Rutherford NJ

Plus the words of William Carlos Williams
and open readings from the floor

Contact: John Barrale – john.barrale@gmail.com

Alex Cigale’s translations from Russian, and his own English-language poems, have appeared in Cimarron, Colorado, Cortland, Green Mountains, New England, The Literary Reviews, Drunken Boat, Interlit Quarterly, Literary Imagination, Modern Poetry in Translation, and PEN America. He’s on the editorial boards of Asymptote, COEUR journal, The Madhatters’ Review, The St. Petersburg Review, Third Wednesday, and Verse Junkies. From 2011 until 2013, he was Assistant Professor at the American University of Central Asia.

Larissa Shmailo is the editor of the new anthology Twenty-first Century Russian Poetry and founder of The Feminist Poets in Low-Cut Blouses. Larissa translated the zaum opera Victory Over the Sun for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s landmark restaging of the work and has been a translator and writer on the Bible in Russia for the American Bible Society. Her poetry and criticism have appeared in The Common, Barrow Street, The Brooklyn Rail, Drunken Boat, Fulcrum, Madhat, Lungfull!, Jacket, and the anthologies Words for the Wedding (Penguin), Contemporary Russian Poetry (Dalkey Archive), and the Unbearables Big Book of Sex (Autonomedia). Her books of poetry are In Paran (BlazeVOX [books]), the chapbook A Cure for Suicide (Cervena Barva Press), and the e-book Fib Sequence (Argotist Ebooks); her poetry CDs are The No-Net World and Exorcism (SongCrew). Her newest poetry collection, #specialcharacters, is forthcoming from Unlikely Books.

A Winter Palace of Poetry and Music

Gainville-Jan-24th-2014

Come and join the Red Wheelbarrow Poets in our Magic Circle at GainVille Café, Rutherford, NJ for a winter palace of poetry and music Friday, Jan. 24!

Rutherford poet CLAUDIA SEREA will be debuting her newest book, A DIRT ROAD HANGS FROM THE SKY and up and coming Jersey singer songwriter CHELSEA CARLSON will bring along her guitar and her big voice.

Claudia’s book, from 8th House Publishing, details the oppression of growing up in a Communist regime, based on her upbringing in Romania.

The talented and lovely Chelsea Carlson has just won a 2013 JAM Award (Jersey Acoustic Music) and was nominated for last year’s Asbury Award.

The Bring Your A Game open mic sponsored by the Red Wheelbarrow Poets with generous reading times, will follow.  Join us for a special night!

7 PM, 17 Ames Ave., Rutherford.
A $6 cover includes coffee/tea and dessert.

Finishing Line Press announces the publication of She Called Me Girlee by Zorida Mohammed

Georgetown, Kentucky, December, 2013 – Finishing Line Press proudly announces the publication of She Called Me Girlee, a chapbook by Zorida Mohammed. The book is available through the publisher’s web site; please visit www.finishinglinepress.com for additional information and ordering.

What others are saying about She called Me Girlee:

“Mohammed describes a place that is both timeless and present, in a clear-eyed way. The specificity of these poems locates them solidly in a lush Trinidad while they simultaneously and lightly take wing with Childhood imagination’s indomitability. These are poems of memory but are generous poems too, and Mohammed’s gift to us is that she allows us to see for ourselves. These poems are full of love and hope, even for a time when ‘There are no boot straps to pull up. There is no boot.’”
—Matt Rohrer, Author of Destroyer and Preserver.

“Zorida Mohammed has the rare gift of privileged access to her own thoughts, combined with the equally refined talent for sharing this access. This accessibility is so inviting and engaging that we enter her world freely as well
as let it into ourselves. With this collection of poems on the desk, an exciting journey becomes possible every morning.”
—Philip Nikolayev, Co-Editor in Chief at Fulcrum

“Zorida is not an anecdotal poet. She is a storyteller with a rich life to pull from. Read these poems and the difference will be clear to you.”
—Don Zirilli, Editor at Now Culture.

About the author: Zorida Mohammed was born in Trinidad and immigrated to the US in 1968. Her poems have been published in Fulcrum #6 and # 7, Atlanta Review, Folio, The Dirty Goat, Apalachee Review, Compass Rose, Bayou, The Distillery, Quercus Review, The Caribbean Writer and many others. Zorida Mohammed won a NJ State of the Arts Grant for her manuscript Shanty Town.

WCW – Michael T. Young

The Williams Readings present
MICHAEL T. YOUNG

Wednesday, January 8, 2014, 7 p.m.

Williams Center for the Arts
One Williams Plaza, Rutherford NJ

Plus the words of William Carlos Williams
and open readings from the floor

Michael T. Young’s fourth collection, The Beautiful Moment of Being Lost, will be published in spring of 2014 by Poets Wear Prada Press. He received a fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. His work has appeared in numerous journals including The Adirondack Review, Fogged Clarity, The Louisville Review, Off the Coast, The Potomac Review, and The Raintown Review. His work is also in the anthologies Phoenix Rising, Chance of a Ghost, In the Black/In the Red and forthcoming in Rabbit Ears: TV Poems. He lives with his wife and children in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Sage

None of my dictionaries define it as a color
and yet my wife tells me it’s the color
of our wedding—her dress, my tie.
I take her word for it, but feel no wiser.
I sometimes find it in the tiles of some mosaic
or fired into a mug now on clearance at the store
and I’m suddenly connected, rooted,
though it depends on the light, as color always does,
changing with air densities and angles,
shifting with the hours, aging
like the plant that is this color’s namesake,
its leaves like fingers pointing in every direction,
as if it knew something.

(originally published in Tribeca Poetry Review)

Broken Circles

The sounds carried across the valleys
Infinite silence followed
Echoing
Left,     right,     left,     right
Rippling the emptiness

Dark quiet disturbs the sleep

Black sky, cloudless night
Eyes closed
Heart ripped
Midnight silent rage
Hands clenched, turn over

There are so many lonely stars up just beyond reach

We need to dull the sharp angles
Gather around
Neighbors and friends
Open our hands
Silently share sorrow

We need to mend the broken circles

Fix the church roof
Dig a community well
Remove the stumbling blocks
Bake loaves of bread
Reach out

We are a village

Slowly, slowly
Roots grow down
Supporting our weight
Drink in the rain
Drink in the dew

The hours pass

Slowly, slowly
Leaves grow up
Building a canopy
Drink in the Sun
Drink in the stars

The days pass

Breath

Breath

And again

And again

——
Wayne L. Miller
(for Sandy Hook)

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