Bagel Bard Tino Villanueva included in The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature

Bagel Bard Tino Villanueva has three poems in "The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature" (2010) Congratulations!


Also I found out recently that Bagel Bard Pamela Annas' essay on Slyvia Plath was in the Norton's Introduction to Poetry (9th edition.)

Bagel Bard Philip Burnham, Jr. wins New England Poetry Club Award

Philip Burnham, Jr., Bagel Bard and in the current issue of Ibbetson Street has won the Gretchen Warren Award, for the best published poem by a member of the New England Poetry Club. President Diana Der-Hovanessian called this the most prestigious award granted by the Club.

Bagel Bard Anthology 5 is alive!

The new Bagel Bard 5 anthology is alive! It has an introduction from Boston Poet Laureate Sam Cornish, as well as notes from the founders Harris Gardner and Doug Holder. Julia Carlson edited this edition, and Steve Glines designed and published it through the ISCS Press.



"The Bagel Bards are a friendly group of poets, writers and artists
who meet — or should I say, gather — each Saturday at the
Somerville, Mass. Au Bon Pain. A group writers and poets who like to drink coffee and talk to each other, they share a love of poetry and a warm,friendly word for those who want to join them and talk. No dues are required, and publication is not important. They’re not interested in awards, grants or pedigree. Most of them have been around since the early days of The Grolier Book Shop and the Plough and the Stars, when they met to drink and name-drop like young men and women fresh out
of writing programs will do. They don’t do that anymore. Now, they
are making room at the table, and the writing community they have
created is friendly and experienced. This is their latest anthology, which
is probably as varied and as surprising as they are as a group. I have not seen any of these particular poems, but I’ll say that, from having read
their previous volumes and anthologies, you can expect work without
pretension or slavish adherence to a current, fashionable school. These
are individuals, and each poet has his/her own voice, so have a cup of
coffee, step outside for a smoke, lean back and read slowly. The Bagels
Bards have a poem for you."


— Sam Cornish-- First Boston Poet Laureate

Bagel Bard Lawrence Kessenich wins Strokestown International Poetry Award---Ireland

Festival 2010


I got this letter from Bagel Bard Lawrence Kessenich:


Doug,

Sorry you weren't at Bagel Bards today. You missed an array of free pastries, which I bought to celebrate (drum roll, please) my winning FIRST PRIZE at the Strokestown International Poetry Festival in Ireland! Yes, out of 2,400 entries, my poem "Angelus" rose to the top, and I was awarded 4,000 euros! Certainly the biggest honor--and payday--I've ever had as a writer.

I was also given a wonderful symbolic gift: an "ashplant," as they call it, a branch from one of the ash trees that grow profusely in Roscommon County, where the festival took place. In a way, that means more to me than the money (as one Irishman put it, "Money comes and goes, but you'll always have your ashplant"), because it's literally a piece of Ireland. (Of course I took the money, too--I'm not an idiot.)

The director of the festival also asked me to help publicize the festival and prizes (2nd place: 2,000 euros; 3rd place: 1,000 euros), because they'd love to get more U.S. entries. I'll put a link to the festival site below, so poets who want to enter can keep an eye out for when they start taking 2011 submissions. It's a very well-run festival in a beautiful location in west-central Ireland, and the Irish are gracious hosts. I highly recommend it (even if I hadn't won, I'd have had a wonderful time).

http://www.strokestownpoetry.org/





The Strokestown International Poetry Festival 2010
took place 30 April ~ 2 May, Bank Holiday Weekend






The Strokestown International Poetry Prize 2010


First: LAWRENCE KESSENICH, Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Angelus





Second: Julian Stannard, Hampshire, England: Soup
Third: Pam Zinneman-Hope, Dorset, England: Cave
The other poets shortlisted were, in alphabetical order:
Gavin Bantock, Japan: White Russian; Heather Brett, Ireland: Bankrupt; Paul F. Cummins, California: The Simple Science of Wealth; Charles Evans, London: Emissary; ; Helena Nolan, Dublin: The Impossible Black Tulip of Cartography; Robert Stein, London: Beethoven in Camden Town, February 1911.



The Strokestown International Poetry Festival 2010
took place 30 April ~ 2 May, Bank Holiday Weekend

BIOS OF THE BOSTON AREA BAGEL BARDS

Li Mo,aka Li Min Mo,---- Li Mo,aka Li Min Mo,--newly published memoir, Spirit Bridges, 30 years as a storyteller, 17 years as an adjunct professor at Lesley Univ. Member of Streetfeet Women, a writing and performing group since 1982, their new anthology, The Bones We Carry. Mo is also a gardener, baker and painter. Her award-winning writing has been anthologized. Mo lives in Cambridge, MA. She holds a M.A. in Theater/Education from Goddard College, M.F.A. Creative Writing from Emerson College. Received support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Cambridge Arts Council, Channel 4's "You Gotta Have Arts." and Barbara Deming's Money for Women Poetry Award. www.liminmo.com





Patricia Brodie --- Her poems have appeared in Ibbetson Street, The ComstockReview, Lyric, California Quarterly, Pedestal, Raintown Review, Phoebe andmany other journals as well as several anthologies. She has won awards inseveral poetry contests and her chapbook, The American Wives Club, waspublished by Ibbetson Street Press in 2006.





Paul Steven Stone-- Paul Steven Stone’s writings have appeared in Cricket Magazine, Point South, Wisdom Magazine and a boatload of newspapers and magazines. His comic masterpiece, "Or So It Seems", has been called “A rollicking spiritual page-turner!” His story collection, “How to Train A Rock”, was culled from 25 years of genre- and mind-bending columns. Currently Director of Advertising for W.B. Mason, Stone lives in Cambridge with his lovely wife, Amy.







Cameron Mount-- Mount served as an officer in the US Navy from 2001 to 2007 and has an MFA from Emerson College. His poems have appeared in The Somerville News, Wilderness House Literary Review, Sketchbook, Glass, and U.M.P.H.! Prose. His chapbook, Evening Watch, was published by Ibbetson Street Press in 2009.





Henry Braun-- Braun was born in 1930. His latest book, Loyalty, New and Selected Poems, was published by Off The Grid Press. Poems have appeared in Poetry, The Nation, The Massachusetts Review, and in anthologies. A video of Henry reading is at http://www.henrybraun.net. He lives in Weld, Maine.







Timothy Gager--Gager is the author of eight books of poetry and fiction. His work has appeared in Night Train, Twelve Stories, Word Riot, Dogzplot, Six Sentences, Monkeybicycle, The Binnacle, Zygote in My Coffee, Fried Chicken and Coffee,The Smoking Poet, Further Fenway Fiction, The Blood Orange Review, Hobart,GUD, Blue Print Review, Barnstorm, Poesy and Ibbetson Street . He has had over 200 works of fiction and poetry published since 2007 and of which eight have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He lives on www.timothygager.com






Doug Holder-- Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press. He is the arts editor of The Somerville News, and the Director of the Newton Free Library Poetry Series. His poetry and prose have appeared in Rattle, Endicott Review, The Boston Globe, Main Street Rag, Word Riot, Long Island Quaretly and others. His latest poetry collection is "Poems from the Left Bank: Somerville, Mass." He currently teaches writing at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston as well as Endicott College in Beverly, Mass.







Steve Glines-- Steve Glines is the founder and Editor of the Wilderness House Literary Review. He is the author of a number of text books, a literarytravelogue and a poetry chapbook. His works have appeared in WHLReview,Ibbetson Street, and all four Bagel Bard Anthologies and many otherplaces. He is the editor-in-chief at ISCS Press, a publisher’s servicebureau.



Deborah Leipziger-- Leipziger is an author, poet and columnist. Several of her poems will be featured in Narcissus: A Literary Review to be published in June 2010. www.narcissuspublications.com. Her poems have been featured in Zinglogy and Levend Joods Geloof (Netherlands) and on the public television show, Brookline Writes. Her columns have been published in The Brookline Tab.









Molly Lynn Watt-- Watt is the author of a book of poems, Shadow People, Ibbetson Street Press, sharing journeys as a progressive educator, singer and activist. She is working on a manuscript, On the Wings of Song, set the Civil Rights Movement of 1963. She edited volumes 1-4 of Bagels with the Bards and the Kent Street Writer’s Anthology of Poems, is poetry editor for the HILR Review, and a frequent contributor to literary journals and invited featured reader. She supports voices of others as curator for the monthly Fireside Readings at Cambridge Cohousing, workshop leader for The Kent Street Writers and Poet Laureate of HILR and Chair of its Poets of the Roundtable. She received funded residencies from Soul Mountain and Lake Atitlan Writer’s Workshop. She and participates in NoCA Open Studios and the Joiner Center Writing Community.






Zvi A. Sesling-- Sesling is the author of King of the Jungle (Ibbetson St., 2010) and the forthcoming chapbook Across Stones of Bad Dreams (Cervena Barva). He won Third Place (2004) and First Prize (2007 in the Rueben Rose International Poetry Competition.
He edits the Muddy River Poetry Review.















Harris Gardner--- Gardner's work has appeared in the: The Harvard Review; Midstream; Cool Plums; Rosebud; Fulcrum; Chest (forthcoming), The Aurorean; Endicott Review; Ibbetson Street Journal;; Main Street Rag; Facets; Vallum (Canada); Pemmican; The New Renaissance, WHL Review; and about fifty other publication credits.Co-authored with Lainie Senechal a volume of poetry: Chalice of Eros; his next collection: Lest They Become (Ibbetson Street Press) 2003. New Collection: Among Us (Cervena Barva Press) November, 2007.






Mary Buchinger-- Her poems have been published in regional, national, and international journals and have garnered several awards. Her collection, Roomful of Sparrows, was a semi-finalist in the New Women’s Voices Series. She holds a Ph.D. in applied linguistics and teaches at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.














Barbara Bialick-- Bialick is a resident of Newton, Massachusetts who grew up in Detroit, Michigan. She has a B.A. from the University of Michigan and an M.S. from Boston University. She has published widely as a journalist and poet in newspapers, magazines, anthologies and on-line in McCall’s Magazine, Ibbetson Street, Pemmican, Lilith Magazine, Poetica, Istanbul Literary Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, The Boston Globe and The Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene, to name a few. Her chapbook TIME LEAVES was published by Ibbetson Street Press.








LO GALLUCCIO-- Galluccio is a writer of poetry and creative non-fiction, as well as a vocal artist. A Cambridge native, Lo spent 10 years on the Lower East Side of New York City becoming an artist. (Her original roots lie in acting.) She's produced two vocal CDs – Being Visited (1997) and Spell on You (2002) and has had two chapbooks and a novella length prose-poem published: Hot Rain, by Singing Bone Press (2004,) Sarasota VII, by Cervana Barva Press (2008,) and Terrible Baubles, by Propaganda Press (2009.) In addition, Lo is one of the featured writers in a collection of essays put out by Heide Hatry on Charta Books, called Heads and Tales (2008.) She's performed at many venues in NYC and the Boston area, including The Pierre Menard Gallery, St. Mark's Poetry Project, Tapestry of Voices, Squawk coffeehouse, Stone Soup,. Scullers, the Zeitgeist Gallery, The Outpost, the House of Blues and Mo' Pitkins among others. Her most recent collaboration in music has been several duets with avant-garde pianist Eric Zinman. Galluccio received her B.A. from Harvard College in 1985 in Social Studies. She also studied for several semesters as a vocal artist at the Berklee College of Music.. She reviews books for Ibbetson St. Press and was, for several years, the Poetry Editor of the Cambridge Alewife. Http://logalluccio.atspace.com






Manson Solomon-- Manson Solomon emerged from the womb with a mission to be a writer with a large trust fund. Said trust fund being inexplicably absent, he took the road more traveled, acquiring graduate degrees in Economics, Psychology and Philosophy from the London School of Economics, Columbia and Harvard, engaging in various academic, artistic and entrepreneurial pursuits -- in New York, London, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Nova Scotia, Wellesley, Cambridge -- while also taking the less traveled road, generating exquisite poetry and commenting astutely on the work of others from deep in the woods of Lincoln, Massachusetts.








Anne Ipsen-- Ipsen is a writer, speaker, and storyteller. Her website www.AnneIpsen.com features her two memoirs and two historical novels, most recently: Running before the Prairie Wind, 2009 by ibus press. She is available for workshops and talks, including: On Being an Independent Writer and The Miracles of the Danish Jews.









Jack Scully -- Scully was the co-founder with the late Mike Amado of two on going poetry venues in Plymouth, MA. He currently serves as the literary executor of his works. He has read Mike's poetry poetry as a feature reader at Greater Brockton Poetry and Arts, Boston National Poetry Month Festival, Main Street Cafe and Stone Soup Poetry. He also serves as the unofficial photographer of numerous poetry venues













Gloria Mindock is the author of La Porţile Raiului (Ars Longa Press, 2010, Romania) translated into the Romanian by Flavia Cosma, Nothing Divine Here, (U Šoku Štampa, 2010), and Blood Soaked Dresses (Ibbetson Street Press, 2007). She is editor of Červená Barva Press and the Istanbul Literary Review, an online journal based in Istanbul, Turkey. She has had numerous publications in the USA and abroad and her work has been translated and published in Spanish and Romanian. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, St. Botolph Award, and was awarded, many years ago, a fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council distributed by the Somerville Arts Council.





Barbara Thomas, a Reading and English teacher in Boston for 35 years, developed an award winning writing program for high school students and is now devoted to poetry
and nature writing. She participates in NOCA, Glenbrook for nature writers and artists, Joiner Center Writing Community and Bagel Bards. Her poems have appeared in Writing Nature, Lalitamba, WHLR, Istanbul Literary Review, and others. Her chapbook, "Seduced by Sighs of Trees" was published in 2007.






Pam Rosenblatt is a poet, critic, editor, and journalist. On How to Read - THE MANUAL, her first chapbook, was published through Ibbetson Street Press in 2008. Her poems and critiques can be found online or in local small press journals. She joined the Bagel Bards in March 2005.







Louisa Clerici’s poetry and stories have been published in literary anthologies and magazines including; Shore Voices, Carolina Woman, City Lights, Off the Coast, The Boston Poet, Do Not Give Me Things Unbroken, and Tidepool Poets. Louisa is host of the popular writer’s venue; DreamSpeak at The Vine in Plymouth, Ma.





Rene Schwiesow was integral in the founding and development of an online poetry forum called Poem Train (www.poemtrain.com), which she became co-owner of in 2008. The forum offers varying levels for work shopping poetry and prose. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks. Rene is also one of the co-hosts of the Mike Amado Memorial Series, Poetry: The Art of Words in Plymouth, a member of Plymouth’s Tidepool Poets, and Director of the newly formed Plymouth County Coalition for the Arts.

An artistic rendition of Bagel Bards by Bridget Galway

There's no shortage of conversation when the Bagel Bards meet.

(JOHN TLUMACKI/PHOTO)

There's no shortage of conversation when the Bagel Bards meet.

By Danielle Dreilinger, Globe Correspondent


It was 10:30 on a Saturday morning and cacophony filled the Davis Square Au Bon Pain. Thirty members of the “Bagel Bards” entirely occupied half the café, leaning in to carry on 11 separate conversations. Cofounder Doug Holder pushed his glasses on top of his head. 79-year-old, beret-topped Bert Stern of Somerville signed copies of his new book. Latecomers stole chairs.

Supposedly no one cares about poetry anymore. But here, every week, poets rule — feeding their muse with shop talk and cinnamon-chip scones.

And now the five-year-old group has a permanent symbolic home: management has allowed members to hang a plaque in their corner behind the muffin case.

The meeting place “kind of started with my obsession,” Holder admitted. He’d written several books inspired by the legendary Harvard Square Au Bon Pain. (He also liked that its name sounded a bit literary, being French.)

He and Harris Gardner of Boston, 62, started the group after a friend said poets outside the academy needed company and support. They met for a year in a now-defunct Harvard Finagle a Bagel before relocating to Au Bon Pain, alternating between Somerville and Central Square, Cambridge cafes before settling into Davis a year ago.

Holder’s friend was right: Bards said the meetup filled a need. “It’s such a great thing to come to,” said Elizabeth Quinlan, 63, who regularly travels from Roslindale.

“A lot of people are saying if you’re a poet you have to do things in isolation,” said Amy Tighe of Somerville, 51, a realtor, poet, and former storyteller. “This can really carry you.”

True, they typically talk of practical matters, not prosody -- “Chapbooks, poetry, publishers” -- said Irene Koronas of Cambridge, 66 -- and computer fixes, and her daughter’s strange rash. The rhinestones on her glasses sparkled.

Second-time attendee Reza Tokaloo of Somerville brought printouts of his new work. When he left, they were scattered across the table next to stacks of the poets’ own books plus classics like T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" and Rilke’s "Letters to a Young Poet."

He would soon learn. “Sometimes the newcomers will try that. And we’re polite,” Koronas said.

Holder seemed to have four arms as he simultaneously joked about nominating a friend for a Pulitzer (“It costs $50,” he said. “Then he can say he was nominated”), pointed out a Bard who’d been featured on NPR, sold his new collection of interviews to Gardner, and stumped for his upcoming New York reading.

Two Bards reviewed poetry festival paperwork. Another was overheard telling a photographer that sure, there were copies on hand of “… the Bagel Bards anthology but this is MY book.”

Indeed, they’re a well-published lot -- often by each other. Holder, Somerville’s de facto poet laureate, runs Ibbetson Street Press, hosts a cable-access poetry show, and writes a column for the weekly Somerville News.

After joining the group, several others Bards started their own shoestring-budget presses, including Cervena Barva by Gloria Mindock of Somerville and Steve Glines’s Littleton-based Wilderness House.

“This group has spawned a lot of activity. A lot of presses, getting read, getting acknowledged,” said Koronas, poetry editor for Holder's and Glines’s magazines. Now, she said, “This is it for the small poetry scene.”

Still, Saturdays remain notably low-pressure and no-mystique. Some higher-profile poets like Afaa Michael Weaver frequent the group but competition isn’t even a side dish.

“It’s not particularly bragging here to say you’re a poet,” said Molly Lynn Watt of Cambridge, 71, who puts together an annual Bagel Bard anthology—a publication that is open to all regulars.

It’s “a celebration when someone comes out with a book,” Quinlan said.

Showing up doesn’t guarantee publication beyond the anthology. “Some of us are really good and some of us aren’t,” Tighe said.

There seemed to be only a few people that didn't join the party: other patrons.

“We don’t have any positive response from other customers because it’s noisy, they take a lot of space,” said associate manager Sujata Pun. Café-goers gave the boisterous Bards a wide berth. Outnumbered, most took their coffee to go.

Until the Bards' plaque claimed to their corner for good, Barbara Bialick’s poem held its place. Where the prosaic might see a quick pick-me-up, Bialick took the poets’ position:

“The circus breads of life
on display around me
are tempting me to have my own fiesta…”



The Bagel Bards take up a large corner of Au Bon Pain.