Flaubert in Kyôbashi

(photo: Marty Esworthy).

Van Gogh cried a river and painted literal rain that Hiroshige had carved into a block of wood. Virtual plum blossoms in a snow drift; Whistler transposing Hiroshige’s bridge at Kyôbashi to an Indian Head penny.

Plum blossoms rule. On this V.G. and R. W. agreed. They, almost mechanically, stared, & shook their heads, though not a nodding manner, dazed by the ferocity and angles carved by that genteel lateral reign. --Zuky Kunstweker

perceptions of numbly inherent in breeze effects

Ray Bolger pining, fading away. Yet, outside the Bell Foundry windows-- a sunny street of brownstones and black railings, fenced-in patches of earth round leafless trees, dwarf crocuses just pushing up into one of the first sincerely spring days of whole damn era. --ZuZu Rockit

Marty Esworthy Featured Dec. 3 at Poetry Spoken Here, CityArts

Gentle Harrisburg poet Marty Esworthy will be featured Dec.3 at Poetry Spoken Here, City Arts, 118 W. Philadelphia St., in York, PA 17401.

He's a leading advocate for sound poetry and meta-verse. Esworthy, a Megaera award-winning poet, editor emeritus of Steel Point Quarterly, and renowned poetry impresario, is founder of the Almost Uptown Poetry Cartel.

He’s been published in numerous regional and national publications, including Haggard & Halloo, text_TOWER, Literary Chaos, Fledgling Rag, The Fox Chase Review , logodaedalus, Syzygy, The International Digest of World Poetry, and The Miserere Review.

Recent Esworthy tomes include hard reality, Pacobooks, 2004, and The Object Stares Back, Uh-Oh!, T&T Press, 2009.

His collection Twenty-Six Javanese Proverbs won the 2006 R.E.Foundation Award for Outstanding Poetry from Iris G. Press in 2006.

In 2006, Esworthy set in motion A Poets’ Tour of Harrisburg, a poetic stroll through the Capital City, impressed for posterity in a book and on a CD.

A recent Pushcart nominee, dubbed "Gentle Ben" for his sweet, yet sardonic, verse,  he also teaches poetry composition and literary performance. Gently, mais oui.

The Poetry Spoken Here/City Arts reading series, hosted by Keith Baughman, takes place on the first Monday of every Month, begins at 7 p.m. and runs until 9.

G. Emil Reutter featured November 1, at the Midtown Scholar

Poetry Thursdays at Midtown Scholar Bookstore

G. Emil Reutter, with host Christine O'Leary-Rockey

G. Emil Reutter is a Philadelphia, Pa. based poet and author. He has worked in the factories, steel mills and rails of the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. His work has been widely published in the small and electronic press and eight volumes of his collections have been published. He has read his poetry at venues in New England, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Arizona and Texas. In 2007 he founded The Fox Chase Review and The Fox Chase Reading Series.

In a collection of poetry titled "Carvings" Reutter says, in his introduction, “We are very much like the old oak trees found in a public park. People stop and leave their marks on the trees, carving with a knife, initials, hearts with initials, a piece of someone left behind. Like the oak, people stop and leave their mark on us, some gently, some carve us not so gently. As time passes, these carvings left on us, form who we are, how we view the world and how long we last in the world. Our time is shorter than the great oak yet the carvings we carry are more numerous, deeper, sometimes fading but always there. These poems represent some carvings in my life, some minor others lasting.”

Reutter's website: gemilreutter-author.com

 This event is hosted by the Almost Uptown Poetry Cartel. An hour-long open reading, which begins at 7pm, will precede the feature presentation.
The Midtown Scholar, one of "America's Great Independent Bookstores" is located at 1302 North Third Street, Harrisburg PA 17102.
Further enlightenment: (717) 236-1680.

Rebecca Gonzalez Featured at Midtown Scholar October 25

Rebecca Gonzalez is a Pushcart nominee and the 2008 R.E. Foundation Award winner for Outstanding Poetry. Some of her poems will be appearing in the upcoming CD anthology, Live at the Corner of Poetry and Main: Celebrating Five Years of Annapolis Poetry. She is the author of, Sonata for Rain, published by Iris G. Press. Her second and upcoming book is titled, Aerial Descending.

She has been called a “female counterpart to [Pablo] Neruda.” Gonzalez believes that writing poetry is closely related to music composition and art in which various elements combine to create a piece that is highly individual, the ultimate goal being that it can breathe beyond its realities. Sonata for Rain is a lyrical concerto, like cool jazz in an early morning sunrise. Elegant, spiritual, cerebral…there is no deficit of language to describe the beauty that she brings to the craft of poetry.

Gonzalez's versatility is tempered by her cultural and linguistic bilingualism and a unique ability to capture the right word or phrase, exercising brevity in uncanny ways to deliver the perfect line time after time. Her work has been published on-line at The Cerebral Catalyst, Haggard and Halloo and Poetryork and in print in Fledgling Rag, Hanover Sun, and the York Daily Record.

 

Next up at Midtown Scholar Poetry Thursdays:
All Events are from 7-9 pm with an Open Reading from 7-8 pm
followed by an 8-9 pm Feature, or continued Open.
November 1 -- Feature: G. Emil Reuter, with host Christine O'Leary-Rockey

Next up at Midtown Scholar Poetry Thursdays:

All Events are from 7-9 pm with an Open Reading from 7-8 pm

followed by an 8-9 pm Feature, or continued Open

 

Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania at Midtown Scholar

Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania reading, Midtown Scholar

 

at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore, Poetry Thursdays, October 11th:

7-8 PM Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania

featuring

Jerry Wemple, Marjorie Maddox, David Bauman,

Melanie Simms, and Nate Gadsen.

8-9 PM Open Reading

All-Star Poetry Line-Up September 27 at Midtown Scholar!

Christine O’Leary-Rockey, John Destalo, Julia Tilley Featured at Midtown Scholar 

Christine O’Leary-Rockey, John Destalo, Julia Tilley star September 27 at Midtown Scholar’s Poetry Thursdays.

The Midtown Scholar is located smack-dab in the center of Harrisburg’s vibrant Midtown "cultural corridor" at 1302 North Third Street.

This all-star literary event is hosted by the Almost Uptown Poetry Cartel. A brief open reading, which begins at 7pm, will precede the feature presentation.

Bios & Pix for the features:

Julia Tilley hosted the Almost Uptown Poetry Cartel’s Poetry Thursdays for several years, was poetry editor of Steel Point Quarterly, and served as part of an editing group for the Harrisburg Review. She currently edits Treasure Trove Poetry Project, a poetry vending machine journal, and is currently a writer in residence for Megan’s Closet, an online poetry journal. She was co-founder, with Maria Thiaw, of T&T Press.

Tilley was Creative Director for A Poets’ Tour of Harrisburg (Good Sport Press, 2006), a print and spoken word CD anthology of poems inspired by Harrisburg, PA. Tilley was art editor for Hard Reality, a Paco-book by Marty Esworthy. She edited the anthology, Herstory, 2003, sponsored by the Center for Women’s Creative Expression in Harrisburg.

Anticipating You (Crosstown Press) her first chapbook, debuted in February 2003. Her work has been published in Shirazad, Magera, Haggard and Hallo, the People’s Poet, City Beat, Experimental Forest, Tarnhelm, Beauty for Ashes, Harrisburg Review, The Sunday Suitor, Tucumcari, Steel Point Quarterly, and other journals.

John Destalo lives in Harrisburg but is originally from Pennsburg, PA a small town in Montgomery County. It was an industrial community with railroad tracks running right through the community, but when John was growing up the tracks weren’t used very much so he spent many hours wondering along the tracks thinking to himself, dreaming of being either Socrates or a hobo.

He first started writing his thoughts down about ten years ago using simple words to explore complex ideas, creating what he calls his expressions. He began this exploration as a conversation with himself and then eventually started sharing his conversation with others through the Almost Uptown Poetry Cartel Open Readings and has become a regular participant.

He then expanded his interests in writing to creating ways of displaying his work through postcards, bookmarks, brochures, and booklets. He has self-published a few booklets including I want to be a star, Being Human, and Afterbirth which are available through Lulu.com and recently published his first book through PostDada Press titled Raw: Exposing the Untamed Mind which is available at The Midtown Scholar Bookstore on the bottom shelf of the local authors where they place their most dangerous and disturbed minds.

Christine O’Leary-Rockey is a poet, philosopher and a professor and with a tendency to lose things and incur student loans for frivolous subjects. Greatly influenced by W.B. Yeats, e.e. cummings and mystics such as Julian of Norwich, St. Francis of Assisi and Shel Silverstein, she has failed to come to terms with any real religious identity and is open to suggestions…. She’s been published in a variety of state and local publications, including The Fledgling Rag, The Experimental Forest, Steel Pointe Quarterly, Harrisburg Magazine, and Megaera.

Christine is a charter member of Harrisburg’s infamous (almost) Uptown Poetry Cartel and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in November 2007 by Iris G. Press.

You can read her poetry in The Fox Chase Review at this link: http://www.foxchasereview.org/11June/ChristineOLeary-Rockey.html

.