Announcement: Poets-at-Work Workshop at Writers & Books

Greetings!


I will be teaching a poetry workshop at Writers & Books this summer, June 17th-July 8th, 2014, Tuesday evenings, 6:30-8:30 p.m. 


Here's the link:

http://www.wab.org/classes-workshops/poets-at-work/

Hope to see you there!

Giving, Thanks . . .

An Offering

Trace the curve of the gibbous moon

Sip slowly a cold glass of water                                                        

Taste the first bite of autumn’s apples

Breathe deeply– the air of one breath

Enter the cathedral of forever woods

Kneel between rows of the garden’s raised beds

Smell the wet earth drifting toward sleep

Hold a hand that has been left empty

Look up to the sky and wonder

If this answers what you’re waiting for.                                            

M.J.Iuppa

** First appeared in The Wild Goose Poetry Review

Susan Deer Cloud visits Rochester's Memorial Art Gallery 

Poets Walk.  Here she is next to her poem.

photo taken by Roja Singh.

 

Susan Deer Cloud's visit was  everything I had hoped for.  Her poetry is bold and honest, a voice that captures time and place and the heart of its narrative makes a listener stop and think about the daily consequences of our living.  I have been Susan's company twice and I am at ease,but also surprised by what she may say or do, which means she  isn't rehearsed but in the moment.

Her latest collection Fox Mountain  (Foothills Publishing) is a strong sequence of poems dedicated to place.                

Big Pencil Awards

at Writers and Books 

11/16/2013

 

The evening focuses on acknowledging those people and groups responsible for enriching the Rochester community through literature.

Local Honorees:

• Gregory Gerard – A teacher of adults who has inspired the creation and appreciation of literature

• Donna Marbach – A teacher of young people who has inspired the creation and appreciation of literature

• Mary Widger – An individual who has made significant contributions to Writers & Books

• Steven Huff – An individual who has made lifelong contributions to Rochester’s literary community

• Patricia Braus on behalf of Rochester Education Foundation’s program Give Back, Give Books – An organization that has made significant contrubutions to the Rochester literary community

• David Schickler – A writer who has had an impact on Rochester Readers

The evening was delightful. Congratulations to all the winners.  Well-deserved.



Today, 11/17/2013, at Books ETC in Macedon NY,  4-5:30 p.m.David Michael Nixon and I will be reading from our poetry.  David and I planned this reading as a braid of two voices.  David also promises to sing.  He has an exceptional voice, long standing member of Golden Links.

So if you're out and about before the big windstorm arrives, please join us!

 
  

                                                                    

Suddenly, August . . .

Hamlin NY
Photo by Meghan Tonery

The skies in western NY are spectacular. Reminds me of Maxfield Parrish.

Meghan returned home this week and we have enjoyed having her home.  Her friends came to visit too. 

Our house has been full of good conversation. 

In 27 days, the fall semester will  begin.  Is it possible? My precious summer days have been swept away . . .

I have been working steady in the garden.  Last year at this time, we were harvesting tomatoes and starting to can.  This year, not so.  Everything is delayed.  I hope we have an extended summer. 

* * *

This past Sunday at Liftbridge Books, I had the great pleasure reading with Karla Linn Merrifield and Colleen Powderly at the launch of:

Karla Linn Merrifield & Friends, a new anthology from mgv2>publishing, edited by Walter Ruhlmann and also including poems by Michael G. Smith, Eve Anthony Hanninen and Chris Crittenden.  Book signing to follow (the book is 53 pages; $15).   If you can’t make the reading but would like to order a copy, go to http://www.lulu.com/shop/karla-linn-merrifield/karla-linn-merrifield-friends/paperback/product-21079562.html?showPreview=true. 

This collection's images are so evocative.  The musicality of each poet, unique and thought-provoking. Yes, much of it draws on Nature that considers consequences of human nature.  I'm so grateful to Karla for inviting me to participate in this endeavor.  It was a very gentle process. Ken Pobo wrote a beautiful introduction.  Thank you, Walter Ruhlmann for giving us this book. 
    

* * *

Mark Your Calendars!  

Mon. Aug. 5       Craig Czury reads at Pittsford Library, Fisher Room                                           7PM

Craig hitch-hikes the valleys of Pennsylvannia, ground zero in the fracking wars;

beds down where he can, taps out his Marcellus Journal. Craig’s poems

will appear in Vigil for the Marcellus Shale: 12 Poets Opposing Hydraulic Fracturing

soon to published by FootHills.

*** Not to be missed!!!!

JUST POETS MONTHLY OPEN MIC:

Thur. Aug. 8        M.J. Iuppa, featured reader followed by open mic at Barnes & Noble     7PM

                                                                M.J.’s Between Worlds was published this year by FootHills.

                                                                Le Mot Juste available.

Genesee Reading Series at Writers & Books

Tuesday, August 13, 2013
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

PRICE:
Member's Price: $ 3.00
General Public Price: $ 6.00

Hosted by: Wanda Schubmehl

Location: WAB – 740 University Ave.

** Come at 7PM to share light refreshments and socialize before the program ***

August is the month to hear Bart White and Priya Keefe, now Rochester residents by way of North Carolina and Seattle, among other locations.  We are fortunate to have them here!  You will be so intrigued by their work you won’t even care that it’s 98F outside!

Bart White grew up in Asheville, North Carolina in a family full of storytellers. On long treks through the Smokies, he learned to love the mountains in all seasons. A watercolorist in those days, he attended Washington University in St. Louis on a fine arts scholarship. He studied art and literature in Spain and France, drove a taxi, and was a public high school teacher in New York City before moving to Rochester, NY with his wife, two children and a fox hound. Bart teaches French and Spanish at the Harley School, champions poetry there and at the school’s summertime Horizons program where he teaches workshops. Active in Just Poets, he helped edit this year’s Le Mot Juste and organize the recent “Earth’s Water” reading at the Bug Jar with John Roche.  Bart is co-editor with Dwain Wilder of Vigil for the Shale, An Anthology of Poems in Response to Fracking, forth-coming from Foothills Press.  Two collections of his poems, Elegies and Love’s Labors, are in the works.

Priya Keefe‘s poetry has appeared on a Dublin lampost and in Seattle buses.  It is floating around the internet at Hoot,  CounterPunch, The Nervous Breakdown, and other sites.  Her writing has also been known to slay trees.  A recovering shy person, Priya has discovered she loves performing.  Her readings include Seattle City Council meetings, the Bumbershoot Festival, and Band of Poets.  Priya has been poetry editor and lead cross-genre editor for The Pitkin Review, and a curator for the poetry reading series of the Seattle City council.  Her book, Pangea’s Daughter, was an Emergency Press contest finalist, but is still looking for a home.

*** Not to be missed!!!!

Hope I will see you at one or more of these events!



 

Old Thoughts for New

It's remarkable how slowly the week between Christmas and New Year's goes by.  Then, on the mark of Twelve, time resumes its clipped pace and here we are at the weekend of the first week of the new year.

I'm beginning this year with a double dose of energy. The quiet introspective holiday restored me in so many ways.  I'm grateful to my family for giving me this down time-- a true gift.
In the past week, I have been writing a lot, which always makes me feel "with it," because "without it" can make me very cranky and I feel like have gremlins aching to get into some mischief. Better to be occupied with creative work than entertaining the imp of the perverse.

Thus far, I have written 5 new poems and have had 2 acceptances for the New Year, which were sent in the middle of the night on New Year's Day and received an hour later.  Poems that went halfway around the world to the middle of their day and back to the beginning of mine. Amazing, right? 

Yesterday (1/4/2013), in the high winds, I ventured out to start my first residency of the year and drop off a batch of student plays for the 2 Pages/2 Voices competition at Writers & Books.
  
Here's the call for submissions:

Writers & Books and Geva Theatre Center Seek Submissions for 2 Pages/2 Voices

Each year, in January, Writers & Books and Geva Theatre Center collaborate to present 2 Pages/2 Voices, an evening of short short plays written by area writers and read by area actors.
Each play must be no more than two pages in length and contain no more than two characters. The only other stipulation for this year's submissions is that at some point in the the play the word "border" must be included.
The dates for this year's event are:
Deadline for submissions: Tuesday, January 8, 2013 (Submissions can be hand-delivered or mailed to Writers & Books, 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607.
Performance of plays: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 at the Writers & Books Performance Space.


This competition is such fun.  I love going to the reading of the winning work.  Advice: if you go to the reading, get there early because the room fills up FAST.

 Next up at Writers & Books is the first Genesee Reading Series of the Year.  This reading
will feature two writers, Anne Panning and James Whorton who read at St. John Fisher  College in the Fall.  If you missed their readings in the Fall, you may want to make a point of
going to  this reading. Here are the details:

Genesee Reading Series
Tues., Jan. 8
$3 W&B members / $6 general public, 7:30 p.m., at W&B.
Hosted by Wanda Schubmehl

For the first Genesee Reading Series of 2013, we import two writers of fiction, essay, and memoir from SUNY Brockport, Anne Panning and James Whorton.

Anne Panning’s novel, Butter, was published in October 2012 by Switchgrass Books. Her short story collection, Super America, won the 2006 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and was selected as a New York Times Editor's Choice. She has also published a book of short stories, The Price of Eggs, as well as short fiction and nonfiction in places such as Beloit Fiction Journal, Bellingham Review, Prairie Schooner, New Letters, The Florida Review, Passages North, Black Warrior Review, The Greensboro Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Kalliope, Quarterly West, The Kenyon Review, The Laurel Review, Five Points, The Hawaii Review, Cimarron Review, West Branch and Brevity. Four of her essays have received notable citations in The Best American Essays series. She is currently at work on a memoir, Dragonfly Notes: A Memoir of Motherhood and Loss. She lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children, and teaches creative writing at SUNY Brockport.

James Whorton is a former Mississippian and former Tennessean who now is happy to live in Rochester with his wife (Kate Whorton, who runs the Genesee Pottery on Monroe Ave) and two daughters. He's published three novels--Angela Sloan, Frankland, and  Approximately Heaven. His short stories and nonfiction have appeared in Oxford American, Mississippi Review, Sewanee Review, American Book Review, and The Washington Post. He is an associate editor at blipmagazine.net, and is Associate Professor and Associate Chair of the English Department at SUNY Brockport.

Last Days of July

Photo: K.Iuppa

Valentine in July. O, how I love the days of summer.
Have been in the thick of putting by our produce for winter. Our tomatoes are coming in.  So sweet, so full of sun. How do we manage to eat a store bought tomato in Winter?

Since we have enough zucchini to feed a small country, I have pulled out a zucchini bread recipe.  One I haven't used since my mom's passing nearly 15 years ago.  I made it a lot that summer for her and my dad and my siblings who were staying at the lake house. In the past week I've made the recipe twice.  A batch makes two loaves, so it's naturally generous. One for home and one for someone you love.  I gave my second loaf to my oldest son's family along with a basketful of veggies and three jars of jam. I have been trying to be diligent and pick the zucchini and yellow squash young, but sometimes, in a matter of an eye blink, the zucchini becomes the size of a baseball bat.What to do with zucchini when it's that size, yet still tender? Zucchini Parmesan is an answer, but you need to be living in a home with central air when the summer heat has been on high for days. Not the recipe for us, living in a 19th cc farmhouse.

Two of my grandchildren and my nephew came to visit this week.  We were nonstop. We picked blueberries and raspberries at  Brown's, went swimming, swimming, swimming, canoeing; went to the movies; did the Where's Waldo scavenger hunt in Brockport, and more.  Instead of chips, the kids asked for veggie platters, which I made several times, and they gobbled everything up. Such fun!


This upcoming week, I will be teaching at Writers and Books Summer Write program.  My course is My Name In Print and I will be working with children, ages 8-12. This is a morning workshop (9-Noon) and the days will just fly by.  They always do.

On Friday, August 3rd,  I will be reading from my chapbook As the Crow Flies (Foothills Publishing) at the Crow Show Artists' Reception at The Shoe Factory Art Co-op.  The Crow Show will run from August3rd- August 29th 2012. If you out and about on First Friday, please stop by and see  this new exhibit. Copies of my chapbook will be available for purchase. The Shoe Factory Art Co-op, 250 North Goodman Street, Studio 212, Rochester, NY 14607 (585) 732-0036.

Upcoming benefit for Michael Czarnecki's family and Foothills Publishing:

The Watkins Glen Writer’s Group will present a special evening of readings and song to benefit and support Michael and Carolyn Czarnecki and their family in their rebuilding efforts.  As most of you know, the Czarnecki family lost their home and virtually all their possessions when lightning struck their house while they were on vacation. Currently living on their land in borrowed trailers, they are hoping to be under cover before winter.  We are hoping the fundraising event will help them get closer to their goal – and be an enjoyable and entertaining evening for all.

Our soiree will feature music, readings and food.  It is scheduled for Sunday afternoon, August 26, from 5 to 7:30 pm, at the Old Havana Courthouse Theatre in Montour Falls.  This space features abundant parking (around the corner) lots of seating, air conditioning and handicap accessibility.  At this time, we are inviting those who would like to participate as performers and food providers as well as audience to respond.  (Please note – the owners of the theatre stress family-friendly entertainment and gently request that profanity not be used in their turn-of-the-century theatre). Readers and musicians, please estimate the time needed for your segment of the performance (we would like to limit most segments to 10 minutes or less but exceptions are also possible) and include a 1-2 sentence bio for our emcee to introduce you.  Food providers, please tell us whether you are planning to bring a (non-alcoholic) beverage cups, paper plates, napkins, baked products, cheese and crackers, fruit….  Whatever!   Admission will be by donation with all funds going to the Czarneckis.

Please respond with your intention to contribute to Karey Solomon (threads@empacc.net) who will sort your contributions into lists for the various coordinators.  And please, decide no later than August 10 (earlier is better).  More information will be coming your way soon.  We are looking forward to a wonderful event and your presence!

At the Writers & Books Benefit Reading on July 22nd, we raised over 1700.00 for the Czarneckis.  Special thanks to Wanda Schubmehl and Joe Flaherty  for their quick response and organization of this benefit reading. I was so happy to see Michael and Carolyn and Chapin at this reading-- so glad to know that the process of rebuilding is underway. I have every confidence that they will have a home on the hill by winter.

 Every dollar is a stone in their rebuild. We can make it happen.

Another Beautiful Day . . .

"Cloud" Photo: K. Iuppa

So lovely. Our landscape that holds me in wonder. My sister Karen captures its beauty in her photographs. Makes me happy.








Upcoming February Events:

Writers & Books
740 University Avenue
Rochester, NY 14607

“How Do I Love Thee?” Romantic Love Poems Through the Ages

Tuesday, February 7, 7 p.m.

Free and open to the public. Put a little love in your hearts.

Join us for readings of beloved poetry on the theme of love by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lord Byron, Edgar Allan Poe, W. B. Yeats, Emily Bronte, Robert Browning, Pablo Neruda, Hayden Carruth, and many others. What better way to prepare for Valentine’s Day? Read by Tim Madigan, Glenn Odden, M.J. Iuppa, and Steve Huff.

SUNY Brockport's Writers Forum curated by Anne Panning and Ralph Black

Wednesday February 22, 2012 at 8 p.m in Cooper Hall, New York Room

Free and Open to Public. Books will be available for sale and signing.

Reading from Recent Releases and New Work:

Steve Fellner, an associate professor of English at Brockport, is an award-winner who has published a memoir, All Screwed Up, and two books of poetry.

&

M.J. Iuppa, Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor Program at St. John Fisher College, has published several poetry books, including her news full length collection Within Reach(Cherry Grove Collections, 2010).

Founded in 1967, The Writers Forum is one of the most celebrated reading series in the country and has played host to acclaimed and talented authors, poets, essayists, novelists, editors and cartoonists. The forum has dedicated itself to explore both the medium and the art of writing as it influences new generations.

Hope to see you there and there!