Date: February 26, 2009
Time: 7:00 till 10pm

Our featured poet is Susan Edwards Richmond. The attached file
is the LPN flyer with a listing of Susan’s published collections.
For a fee of three dollars, join us for coffee and a lite food fare.
You will enjoy Susan’s poetry.
Bring a poem and bring a friend. Open mic to follow.
You can email me: JANETIZE@aol.com
See you then,
Janet Stevenson

billy perrault

978-454-7423

Lexington Community Education Celebrates National Poetry Month

An Evening with Robert Bly

Thursday, April 9, 2009 ¥ 7:00 Ð 9:00 pm
Lexington Location To Be Determined

Over the last fifty years American poetry has experienced an exceptional renaissance, and has been infused with tremendous vitality from other lands, languages, and cultures due largely to the literary contributions, versions, and translations of poet Robert Bly. Pablo Neruda, Kabir, Rumi, Federico Garc’a Lorca, Mirabai, and Hafez, are read and loved by millions of Americans today due largely to Robert BlyÕs having read and loved them all first.

As poet, author, translator, and editor, Robert Bly has long stood at the center of the American literary world, stirring and expanding the conscience, culture, and psyche of the nation. His own poems have reflected the depth of the American experience, revealing often-overlooked beauty as well as hidden shadows of grief.

From his first collection of poems, Silence in the Snowy Fields, to his recent, My Sentence Was A Thousand Years of Joy, and Turkish Pears in August, Robert Bly has boldly challenged literary, cultural, and spiritual orthodoxy. Always outspoken, his anti-war poetry, including the National Book Award winning, The Light Around The Body, and The Insanity of Empire: Poems Against the Iraq War, as well as his prose, including Iron John, and The Sibling Society, have captivated the hearts and minds of generationsÐinvoking an engaging melody to be inspired by, and artfully sounding a strong rhythm to march to.

His recent book of translations, The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door, brilliantly translates thirty poems of Hafez and breaks through barriers of language and culture, illuminating magnificent and universal landscapes of the heartÕs intelligence.

Join LCE for a wonderful evening as we journey across the borders of time, language, and location, traveling over boldly built bridges of translation, and perceiving the depth and force of rapidly moving poetic undercurrents. We welcome you in celebration of the work of five of the worldÕs major poets, Neruda, Rumi, Lorca, Hafez, and Robert Bly.

To Register: call 781-862-8043. $20 per seat through April 8th or $25 on the day of event.

About Sexton:
Sexton grew up in Lowell during the 40’s and 50’s. His poems reveal memories of waitresses, laundry workers, the rag man, landlords,pool sharks, nuns and priests —and of himself and his family.
A graduate of Lowell High (Class of ‘58), Sexton studied at Northern Essex Community College and Salem State College. From 1970-1994, he taught creative writing at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. For ten years, he served as poetry editor of Alaska Quarterly Review. Sexton’s honors include being named Poet Laurete of Alaska and chosen as one of the Distinguished Alumni of Lowell High.

Reviews

Paul Zimmer of The Georgia Review says : “His language is clear, without tricks or fancy moves, yet his directness is powerful, and the effects of human.”

Doug Holder, Founder of Ibbetson Street Press says, “Thonton Wilder would be an admirer of this collection. Sexton acts like the narrator of Wilder’s “Our Town”, bringing out the flavor, the workers, the old factories, the canals, of this down-at-the-heels, old mill city. I think readers who live in Lowell, as well as readers who never been near the banks of the Merrimack River could appreciate the poetry. Like all quality work it has that ‘universal” sensibility.”

Advance copies of “A Clock with No Hands” may be purchased by contacting Paula McCarron at 978-729-2933.

Please join us in a warm welcome for one of Lowell’s own. We hope to see you there!
Paul Marion
Paula McCarron

If there is anyway you can be there, I really hope you make yourself known. This is the time for Lowell poets and lovers of poetry to stand up and be counted. This is our chance to shine.

Whether you can be there for just an hour or two, or spend the whole time, please drop me a line and let us know. We’d love you to be there as a member of the Lowell Poetry Network to act as an ambassador, guide and host to show all these hundreds of poetic visitors our dear old city of paint and brick. Mostly, that means you show up, go to workshops, go to the small press fair, attend the panels, enjoy the performances of all the readers, and go to the VIP reception — while you do it, you shake hands, smile, offer directions, and assistance to anyone in need.

If you’re going to be there, it would be greatly helpful if you could let us know so we start to get a headcount. I’ll do my best keep you abreast of what’s going on and where the LPN will be.

Please check out http://www.masspoetryfestival.org

Tom Daley is also available for one-on-one tutorials in writing and publishing poetry and memoir. He also offers editing services in both genres. Write him at tom.daley2@verizon.net for details.
The faculty of the Online School of Poetry includes Quincy Troupe, Patricia Smith, Regie Gibson and Tom Daley.
http://onlineschoolofpoetry.org/
In addition to his post at the Online School of Poetry, Tom Daley teaches poetry writing at the Boston Center for Adult Education in Boston, Massachusetts (http://www.bcae.org/) and poetry and memoir writing at Lexington (MA) Community Education (http://lexingtoncommunityed.org/). He serves on the tutorial faculty of Walnut Hill School for the Arts and has lectured on ekphrastic writing at Brown University.
Tom’s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in numerous journals, including Harvard Review, Prairie Schooner, Barrow Street, Del Sol Review, Diagram, 32 Poems, Salamander, Perihelion, and Hacks: The Grub Street Anthology. His manuscript, Shim, was a finalist for the Emily Dickinson First Book Prize and the Brittingham and Pollak Poetry Prizes. His poetry was nominated for inclusion in the anthology, The Best New Poets 2007. He graduated with highest honors in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina, where he won the Charles and Fanny Fay Wood Academy of American Poets Prize

In the latest issue, wrapped in an exuberant, dark and almost ominous monkey-fied version of Picasso’s Guernica, Lowell is done doubly proud. with an extended feature on poet Anne Murphy and a poem by Leo Racicot, an LHS graduate and a long-time Lowell resident.

Anne’s work is classically beautiful, poignantly powerful and extremely accessible. While many of you know Anne, I hope you take the chance to read a bit more about her, as well as five of her poems.

Leo, on the other hand, is a bit of new comer to the Lowell Poetry scene. I am really excited to introduce his work to you all, and this poem of his that we published is astonishing, moving, layered and deep. Honestly, it is one of the best I’ve ever read. It is the type of work that changes one’s perspective on the world and moves on to read and reread it. I suspect that this is only the first of many of Leo’s poems that will be published by Shakespeare’s Monkeys.

http://www.shakespearesmonkeys.com to order a copy for $5+postage, or you can just email me for more info. Either way is great.

Perhaps we could have a tutorial on Tuesday night? Kind of the basics of adding information and categories and tags; and where is the best place to write comments (this space?)

etc. etc. etc.

Truly a beautiful front page.

Kate

A Multi-Sensory Experiment
Highlighting Poetry in Forms Beyond the Ordinary

ALL ARTS GALLERY

249 Market Street Lowell, MA 01852
978-441-2787

Mid-Exhibit Reception

August 24th 1-4

Gallery Hours

Sat. 11-4 & Sun. 12-4

DIRECTIONS: From Rt. 3 North or South, or I-495, take Lowell Connector to Thorndike St. Exit (5B). Go to fifth traffic light, just past the American Textile History Museum on left. Turn right into Lowell National Historical Park Visitor Lot. Free Parking. All Arts Gallery is located across from National Park Visitor Center.