Bagel Bard Martha Boss releases "I AM AN OLD WOMAN"

(Painting by Martha Boss)

Martha Boss, well-regarded member of the Bagel Bards, and the very woman who painted the "Bagel Bard" mural, will be featured in the Oct 29, 2008 Lyrical Somerville column in The Somerville News, edited by Doug Holder. There will be a selection from her collection "I AM AN OLD WOMAN" Here is a selection from her book:

cartoons

i am an old woman
watching cartoons.

the older i get
the funnier they are.

i am an old woman
in my second childhood,
more fun & funnier
than the first one

there's Clifford
the big red dog.
there's George,
curous George, the monkey.
there are
the revolting Teletubbies.
there are the Simpsons.
oh my,
they do keep me up
on current events.

as funny as cartoons,
are the poets
known as the Bagelbards.
they win
in all categories.

original,
animated,
no two alike,
hysterical,
they can't possibly be serious

i love being
an old bard
watching them
every Saturday morning.

Bagel Bard Miriam Levine to appear on NPR'S Writer's Almanac

( Miriam Levine)


Hello, Doug:


"Ocean Drive," from my book, The Dark Opens," will be featured on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac, 8:55 AM, Wednesday, October 22. WGBH, 89.7
The program is also available on the web.


Yours for Bagel Bards,
Miriam


http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/stations/list.php


Bagel Bard Philip Burnham Jr. was also on Writer's Almanac in April, 2008.

Bagel Bards at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival Oct 10 to 12

Pictures by Mike Amado



( Mike Amado--far right/ other featured poets)




Revered Bard Timothy Gager at work



Tam Lin Neville and Bert Stern of Off the Grid Press




left (Michael Sullivan -Willaim Joiner Institute) Doug Holder-- cofounder of Bagel Bards.

Bagel Bards at the Mass. Poetry Festival, Lowell, Mass. Oct 11

( Photo by January O'Neil)

"Poet Mom"


Bagel Bards ( Left to Right) Jack Scully, Doug Holder, Mike Amado, and Gloria Mindock at the Small Press Fair at the Mass. Poetry Festival. Mindock's Cervena Barva Press and Holder's "Ibbetson Street Press" were represented at the fair.

The Bagel Bards: The Movie/ Directed by Chad Parenteau

Featured bards: Doug Holder, Harris Gardner, Mike Amado

Scene: Au Bon Pain Davis Square Somerville July, 2008

Photographic Study of Bagel Bards by Zvi Sesling

1-- Patricia Brodie / Steve Glines)


2 -- Irene Koronas


3 -- Sam Cornish--right ( Luke Salisbury Left


4-- Doug Holder ( Hat) Sam Cornish ( Back) Barbara Thomas ( Front)


5-- Deborah Priestly


6-- Barbara Bialick (right)

Review of Bagels with the Bards 3

Bagels With the Bards #3
Edited by Molly Lynn Watt
ISBN 978-0-6152-0762-9
88 pages at 15.95 paperback
Ibbetson Street Press
25 School Street
Somerville MA 02143

According to the Introduction by Regie O’Hare Gibson, a Bagel Bard is “a poet that is glazed and ring-shaped whose poetry has a tough, chewy texture usually made of leavened words and images dropped briefly into nearly boiling conversations on Saturday mornings -- often baked into a golden brown.” The Bards featured in this anthology of 55 poems by 51 poets come together as writers over breakfast every Saturday morning. Every poet -- famous, unknown, or somewhere in between -- is welcome to share breakfast with the Bagel Bards while baking up some tasty treats.

I’ve chosen not to quote from any particular poem in this review. The work here is as individual and unique as each contributing Bard. Delighted readers will find a variety of styles and forms, including ekphrasia, prose poems, villanelle, and free form poetry. Between these covers can be found little day-to-day deaths, dreams, and wounds, lost causes and dead ends presented in playful, whimsical, and experimental ways.

If you haven’t discovered the Bagel Bards yet, start with their latest anthology. Short of having breakfast with them at the Au Bon Pain, reading the results of their Saturday mornings is the next best thing.

Review by Laurel Johnson