End of Summer . . . Let the Harvest begin . . .

Photo: Karen Iuppa


Suddenly, it's September.   I have been up since 4 a.m.  Putting by tomato sauce and getting ready for
the day of doing, this and that.  Labor Day weekend.  The crickets  are still pulsating beneath the open window.  I can smell the campfires from Hamlin State park. Summer is smouldering . . .

Brockport's Fall semester began this past week. St. John Fisher begins next week.  It's hard to believe that I am standing at this threshold.

A lot is happening . . . has happened.

Here's an update:
https://wayofm.org/shows/episodes/07192018-2

This is a link to the WAYO FM interview taped on 7/19/2018. Rochester poet Al Abonado is the host of this radio show that promotes local poets, poetics, and celebrates recent poetry books.  Al is a smart interviewer and close reader, and brings out the best in his guests.   This is my second appearance on his show.  I have had the good fortune to have a new poetry collection This Thirst released in December 2017(Kelsay Books).  Besides the direct link, you can listen to the archive of poetry interviews on the station's web site.  He is accruing a significant historical collection.  It's impressive and worth  every minute you tune in. 


In publishing news:

Thus far, the Sicily essays (3) and poems (8) have been accepted for publication:

Here are the recent links to published poems; essays will be forthcoming in September and November 2018:

Mediterranean Poetry

https://www.odyssey.pm/?p=4142


One Sentence Poems

http://www.onesentencepoems.com/osp/?s=iuppa

 
So grateful to the editors who  have accepted this work.  I have more to write, but settling back in our daily life has made me  focus on what's happening around me.  This summer has been a waterfall of creativity. I am not sure where all of this energy is coming from, but it's a godsend. I am seeing things that I've overlooked.  Thank goodness for the 100 days of summer.

Past Week to Weekend Round Up

Photo: Peter Tonery
Many Years Ago . . .

It's officially Fall, and by golly, it's chilly this morning in our farmhouse. Life is so different without the noise of our family. I'm missing everyone, but we are a phone call away.

Had an enormously busy week, last week.  The CAST performance of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure was well done. 190 people attended the show.  So happy to see so many from St. John Fisher's Faculty, staff, students and our surround college campuses too, Nazareth, U of R, and SUNY Brockport.  Victoria, the CAST Light designer, was so impressed with the audience's reception to the play.  Our audience was in tune with the comedy, laughing in all the right moments.   It was a huge success.

Participated in the Chain Gang Reading at Writers and Books, part of the Fringe Festival on Saturday Afternoon.  We had a full house for our performance, and I must say the reading was so powerful.  I loved how the poems linked, and the individual voices.  So grateful for the anthology produced by Foothills Publishing.  The Fringe Festival continues through this week. Special thanks to Wanda Schubmehl for organizing this poetry project.  She says she is the Chain Gang Mistress.  I say Wanda is a force.  Her poetry just knocks me out.  The poems in this project are so poignant, so artful, so humanly connected. The concept, which is Wanda's invention, is  full of surprises.  The chain gang, 23 poets, words and imagination.
I recommend buying the anthology from Foothills Publishing.

Sunday, I spent a lot of time in the garden harvesting vegetables.  Picked the remaining rows of dry beans in the company of two of our cats, Charley and Cat Benatar.  Charley curled up like a snail and slept while I picked.  Cat Benatar  was in the mix, battling at beans, getting tangled in the vines.  So now I have two mesh laundry bags full !  Can't wait for my granddaughter to come over.  She likes shucking and sorting the beans.

Picked our precious tomatoes; cherries (yellow, orange, red) I slow-roasted.  The plum, heirloom,some yellow cherries became  That' sa Good Sauce.  We may have it for dinner tonight.  My sister Karen and her daughter Lucy are going to be here.  Besides this, picked and put up (Peter did this) cauliflower and broccoli, which is just drop dead gorgeous this year.  I have a bushel of pears ready for processing, or eating with goat cheese.  Apples need to be picked in the upcoming week.  So much to do now.  The weather delays really have made this stuff challenging because I have other work to do.  It's amazing how things are getting done. 


This week: I will be reading at A Different Path Gallery in Brockport NY.


Here is Christine Green's, the curator of this reading series, invitation:

Please join A Different Path Gallery in Brockport (27 Market St.) as we present writers Christine Noble and M.J. Iuppa. They will read recent works of poetry, prose, and flash fiction on September 28, 2013 from 5-7pm.  There is no charge for this event.  Light refreshments will be served.

For further information please visit our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/ADifferentPathGalleryFallWinterReadingSeries?fref=ts or call 637-5494 or 395-9833. 

Hope to see you there.