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Poet Deborah Priestly returns to the Out of the Blue Gallery
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Article by Off the Shelf Correspondent Parma Chattopadhyay
On March 24, from 6 to 9 p.m., Co-Founder of Out of the Blue Community Arts, Deborah Priestly, hosted the first of several poetry nights at the Out of the Blue Art Gallery in studio performance space B6 on the Basement Floor of the Armory at 191 Highland Ave., Somerville, MA 02143.
March 26
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Alexander Levering Kern is a poet, editor, university chaplain, Quaker educator, and interfaith community organizer. Author of What an Island Knows (Shanti Arts, 2024) and a forthcoming poetry collection from Červená Barva Press, Alex is editor of the anthology Becoming Fire: Spiritual Writing from Rising Generations. Founding editor-publisher of Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality & the Arts (www.pensive.com), Alex serves as Northeastern University’s founding Executive Director of the interfaith Center for Spirituality, Dialogue, and Service. Recently selected for a Residency at T.S. Eliot House in Gloucester, Massachusetts and as an Advisory Council member of the New England Poetry Club.
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For a Readerly Companion ‘On the Other Side of Goodbye’
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The new book by g emil reutter
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Article by Off the Shelf Correspondent Michael Todd Steffen
We’ve learned to appreciate hybrid writing for itself, for the wide palette and integration that makes today’s poetry uniquely liberal and balanced, striking and robust. But it’s good also sometimes to recognize definitions in a progression, as g emil reutter dispatches them to us in the three parts of his new book On the Other Side of Goodbye, from POEMS to FLASH to STORIES. One’s different sense of genre joins the conversation.
March 19
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Thomas DeFreitas was born in Boston. The first three words he ever spoke were ravioli, Woolworth’s, and McGovern. Thomas was educated at the Boston Latin School and at the University of Massachusetts. For the last decade and a half, he has lived in Arlington, MA, where he guzzles black coffee in the dead of night, venerates Hart Crane’s ghost, strikes up conversations with the spectre of Raymond Carver, and strives each day to do The Next Right Thing. His fourth collection of poems, Walking Between the Raindrops, was published by Kelsay Books in March 2025.
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Somerville Artist Carol Moses brings math and logic to her work
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Interview conducted by Doug Holder
Recently, I caught up with Somerville artist Carol Moses. Moses has been affiliated with the Vernon Street Studios, and Brickbottom for many years. From her website:
“Carol Moses paints in watercolor and oil, on paper and canvas. The artist also produces series of photographic portraits with interviews of the subjects. With an affinity for math and logic, and a background in cultural anthropology and linguistics, communication and connection are at the forefront of both the non-representational painting work and the portrait/interview series.”
March 12
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Robert K. Johnson, now retired, was a Professor of English at Suffolk University for many years. His poems have appeared in a variety of magazines. Two of his most recent full-length collections of poetry are FROM MIST TO SHADOW and WINTERBERRIES. Dorian Brooks’ poems were also included in WINTERBERRIES.
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‘Plastic’ by Scott Guild
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Review by Off the Shelf Correspondent Ed Meek
— Life is plastic. It’s fantastic. (Barbie Girl)
The multi-talented Scott Guild has created both a novel and an accompanying musical version of the novel. The novel focuses on live plastic figurines existing sometime in the not-too-distant future after nuclear war.
March 5
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Scott Ruescher’s new collection of poems, Above the Fold, will be out from Finishing Line Press in March 2025. In his retirement, he has been writing promotional materials for The Neighborhood Developers in Chelsea and helping to teach ESOL and citizenship classes at The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden.
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sidebody: a band of friends who experiment
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I recently hooked up with Somerville artists Cara Giaimo, Lena Warnke, Martha Schnee, Hava Horowitz, a band of friends who experiment with music, performance, and zine publishing.
They call themselves “sidebody.” They are part of the fabric of Somerville, MA, the “Paris of New England.”
February 26
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Dan Sklar, our poet writes: “The chair of Endicott College’s English Department hired me in 1987 because of this poem about my paper route. He had one too. I have been teaching creative writing at Endicott ever since. I was the youngest member of the faculty, now I am the oldest. This spring I will be done. Who says poetry doesn’t do anything?”
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Speaking for Everyone: An Anthology of “We” Poems
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Review by Off the Shelf Correspondent Dennis Daly
Use of the third person plural in poetry not only draws the writer away from the overly fashionable confessional style of versifying but adds a sense of universality and transcendence to the wordcraft. The ability to connect the emotions and thoughts of a multitude suggests either deep arrogance (in bad poetry) or collective insight and consciousness (in good poetry). There are obvious pitfalls. For instance, “we” could simply be used as a metaphor for “I.” Or the writer may project his revelations onto others without any real sapience. Eric Greinke’s masterfully edited anthology entitled Speaking For Everyone avoids the pitfalls of this genre and, in his inspired choices of good poetry, bonds together the fears and hopes and commonalities inherent in the nature of mankind.
February 19
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Carolynn Kingyens was born and raised in Northeast Philadelphia. She’s the author of two poetry books, Before the Big Bang Makes a Sound (2020) and Coupling (2021), both published by Kelsay Books. In addition to poetry, Carolynn writes essays, reviews, and short fiction. Two of her short stories were selected for Best of Fiction 2021 and 2023 by Across the Margin, a Brooklyn arts and culture webzine. Her essay There’s A Tiffany In Every Dysfunctional Family, about Somerville’s own Tiffany Sedaris, the youngest sister of David and Amy Sedaris, can be read on her Medium page along with more essays ranging from true crime to The Royal Family. This poem was first published in Red Eft Review.
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‘In the Absence of Birds’ by Ruth C. Chad
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Review by Off The Shelf correspondent Lee Varon
In this exquisite collection, poet Ruth Chad interweaves her keen attention to the details of our natural world with deep emotions of love, loss, joy, and grief.
Many of the poems in this collection (divided into three sections) focus on the poet’s mother who suffered from Alzheimer’s before she succumbed to the disease in her 90s. These poems read like journal entries with often just dates for titles.
February 12
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Dennis Daly was born in Salem Massachusetts. He graduated from Boston College with a B.S. degree and earned an M.A. degree in English Literature at Northeastern University. He has twice visited Thomas Merton’s hermitage on the grounds of the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. Daly has published eleven books of poetry and poetic translations. Please visit his blog here: dennisfdaly.blogspot.com.
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Poet Ellen Steinbaum finds beauty in simplicity
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Recently, I caught up with poet Ellen Steinbaum to interview her about her new collection, Leavings.
Steinbaum wrote me: “Leavings is my fifth collection and I’ve also written a one-person play. My work has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and is included in anthologies including Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems, American Places; The Widows’ Handbook; A Mighty Room: A Collection of Poems Written in Emily Dickinson’s Bedroom; and Cavan Kerry’sWaiting Room Reader II. An award-winning journalist and former Boston Globe columnist, I write a blog, Reading and Writing and the Occasional Recipe, which can be found at my web site, ellensteinbaum.com.”
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