Summer Sunday Service at the Unitarian Universalist Society
in Stamford on Sunday August 30 2009

PoemAlley led this service with
A Celebration of Short Poetry

The names of the participants were:

Welcome – Eva-Maria Palevich

Catherine Ednie
Ralph Nazareth
Rolf Maurer
Janet Shaw
Jim Janke
Bill Buschel
Agnes Roberts
Richard Duffy
Alex McDonald
Rona Schenkerman
Bob Sanders
Eva-Maria Palevich

Closing remarks – Ralph Nazareth

PoemAlley thanks the congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Society for extending the invitation through Robert Hawley.

Curley’s Poets / 2009
Mar (Mistryel) Walker
at Curley’s in downtown Stamford

July 21, 2009
7:30 p.m.

Mar (Mistryel) Walker is an escaped journalist turned blogger (The Puzzled Dragon blog), web-tweaker, mezzo-soprano, songwriter, poet, visual artist. She is founder and editor of the online lit magazine Bent Pin at bentpin.net, and webmistress and one of the hosts of the Wednesday Night Poetry Series in Bethel. She has one poetry chapbook: Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding (1998), and another due out in October called Tabernacle of Bees.

All are welcome. Please come with family and friends.

Catherine had a full house at Curley’s diner for her reading on June 30, 2009. The evening was very interesting and stimulating. Catherine shared with us her experience in how to explore new places in poetry, and to have the courage to leave the old territory and techniques, and experiment! She designed and made a chapbook for us containing her work, so we could follow her reading. Thank you, Catherine.

Sincerely,
Eva-Maria and friends of poetry at Curley's

At Curley’s in downtown Stamford
All are welcome. Please come with family and friends.

June 30, 2009
7:30 p.m.

Catherine Ednie has been involved in the poetry scene in Stamford since 1998 when she approached Ann Yarmal about starting a poetry group at the Unitarian Universalist Society. That group became PoemAlley, which later evolved into PoemAlley at Curley's. With grant funding from the City of Stamford, Catherine has worked on a number of poetry-related projects, including Poetry Emerging, an anthology of local poets, and Stamfordwrites.org, a website devoted to local poets and writers. A systems analyst by profession, she enjoys using her computer to do book design, and make flyers, posters, and programs for poetry related events. Her writing appears in online magazines quarrtsiluni and Fraglit, and in In Pieces: An Anthology of Fragmentary Literature (Impassio Press).

“My writing is deeply rooted in keeping a personal journal, a regular practice for 40+ years. Around the time my second son was born, I became disenchanted with traveling the same old territory in my journal. Using techniques from poetry - rhyme, rhythm, metaphor, detail, narrative - I found I could go to new places in my notebook. From reading and studying poetry, I learned ways to keep writing meaningful yet mysterious, and engaged with both emotion and language. I've explored automatic writing, prose poetry, constraint-based writing (OuLiPo), and visual poetry. I like to surprise myself when I reread what I have written.” CE

One of the segments from Mar Walker's interview with Ralph Nazareth can now be viewed from StamfordWrites below.

You can access the whole series of interviews at Bent Pin and on YouTube. Many more interviews with poets are located on the Poets and Their Poems channel on YouTube.

Will Nixon visited Curley's Diner from the Catskills this past Tuesday evening to read poems from his new book "My Late Mother as a Ruffed Grouse."

Will was raised in the Stamford area, but now lives in Woodstock, NY. His local poetry fans were glad to see him again, and hear his poems. Will's poetry is rich with references to the natural world, autobiographical tales, and the rewards of contemplation.

Visit the Foothills Publishing website to find out more about Will's book, read a sample poem, and purchase a copy.

Congratulations on your book, Will!

Will's bio:
Will Nixon grew up in the Connecticut suburbs, lived in Hoboken and Manhattan, then moved to a Catskills log cabin, and now lives in Woodstock, New York. As a journalist, he was a contributing editor to The Amicus Journal, published by the Natural Resources Defense Council, and a correspondent for the Adirondack Explorer. His chapbooks are When I Had It Made (Pudding House) and The Fish Are Laughing (Pavement Saw). His poems have appeared in such journals as The Ledge, Rattle, Slipstream, Wisconsin Review, and many others. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and listed in The Best American Essays of 2004.

Our esteemed fellow poet and well loved friend Herb Davison passed away on Sunday, February 22, 2009. We wish to extend our deepest condolences to Herb's family and friends. Herb was a very active member of the PoemAlley at Curley's community and will be deeply missed.

Remembrance Held at Curley's February 24th
Ralph Nazareth wrote "All of you who were there at Curley’s last night and felt the depth of our loss and mourning could not have failed to experience, at the same time, the genuine life that surges in our poetic community. I, for one, am most grateful for this last."

Victim of Stamford parking lot assault remembered in verse

Donations
In lieu of gifts and flowers, Herb's family has asked that friends and supporters--in keeping with Herb’s fond wish to encourage poetry at the public library--send donations to:
The Ferguson Library
One Public Library Plaza
Stamford, CT 06904
Attention: Pam Parlakian

Memorial Service Planned
A memorial for Herb will be held on March 15th at the Friend’s Meeting House on Roxbury Road (corner of Westover Rd.)

News articles about the tragic circumstances of Herb's passing
Chiropractor arrested in deadly assault on 79-year-old Stamford man
Chiropractor pleads not guilty in killing of 79-year-old Stamford man

Eleni Anastos Begetis's poem in tribute to Herb
At the end of your voyage, of your Stygian ride
Heed not the ebb tides with the death of the light -
dark rises shadows in the pond of the dead -
Of people like us, loved ones whom you left behind,
Lest you torture yourself those long days and restless nights.
But in the full moon, when the earth swims in static,
On those Tuesday nights when our club is alive,
Climb to the granite hills and look up to the sky.
In every star is the face of a poet,
In each breath of the wind is a poem.
Within our hearts there is sorrow,
Within our minds there is a word of wonder.
Even when you don't hear our electric comments to celebrate the spirits as we orbit,
The simple in life, our passion for poetry - to which you gave your life,
I know you are sure we speak of you as though you never left us,
Because your 'soul knows things,' like mine.

Hello friends and readers of Stamfordwrites.com,

PoemAlley@Curley’s would like to announce that a book from one of its faithful members, Richard Duffee, has been published by Yuganta Press.

As noted on the back cover:

“Richard’s book The Slow News of Need started in 1966, got its present design in 2001. Since then Richard Duffee has been assembling it piece by piece, as if it were a jigsaw puzzle.”

Here is a blurb from another poet from PoemAlley@Curley’s:

John Sakson: “In The Slow News of Need human voices and irrepressible intelligence(s) cry into the thin air of contemporary life, demanding to be heard, to be known.”

I hope you will show Richard your support and buy a copy, maybe one for your best friend. The cost is $12.





The book can be ordered through:

Ralph Nazareth
Phone: 203-322-5438
e-mail: ralphnazareth@mac.com

or

Richard Duffee
Phone: 203-588-0161
e-mail: Richard.duffee@gmail.com

Eva-Maria from
PoemAlley@Curley’s

Dear Curley's Poets,

We're moving our weekly gatherings at Curley's from Wednesdays to Tuesdays for the rest of 2008.

Hope to see you all next Tuesday at 7.30. If you have friends who have attended Curley's in the past but may not get this message, please inform them of the change from Wednesday to Tuesday.

Thank you!

About 18 poets, friends, and family members had the pleasure of hearing Kirsten Crowley’s lovely, unique poetry: some dating back to high school, one touching a current interest in architecture titled “building a house in 21 minutes”. Her reading was as always tops! She received enthusiastic feed back. Kirsten also spoke about her writing process.

That evening started with an open mic, so Ralph, who arrived late due to traffic, was able to enjoy Kirsten’s reading from the beginning.

Here is one of Kirsten’s poems:

...

If you ship me the year long

Find you will at last the marble shore

And know I am a typeface

And a curl carved in the sand

You are gem

It was a wonderful evening. Thank you Kirsten.

Eva-Maria and friends

From PoemAlley@Curley’s

P.S. Announcing Kirsten’s reading I mentioned that she is at NYU. Kirsten informed me that she does not attend NYU any longer.