New England College MFA Program in Poetry Reading Series

All readings are free and open to the public. Readings held in the Simon Center's Great Room located at 98 Bridge Street, Henniker, NH at 7:30 PM. Call 603-428-2000 to confirm.


Friday, January 4, 2008 Paula McLain, Gerald Stern, Ross Gay

Saturday, January 5, 2008 Maxine Kumin, Joan Larkin

Sunday, January 6, 2008 Kurt Brown (guest), Carol Frost, Malena Morling

Tuesday, January 8, 2008 Peter Campion, (guest), Alicia Ostriker, Anne Marie Macari

Thursday, January10, 2008 James Harms (guest) $ Jeff Friedman

Friday, January 11, 2008 Ilya Kaminisky & Michael Waters

All readings are held in the Great Room in the Simon Center at 7:30 PM, 98 Bridge Street, Henniker, NH. Readings are free and open to the public.


Reader Biographies

Kurt Brown founded the Aspen Writers' Conference, and Writers' Conferences & Centers (a national association of directors). His poems have appeared in many literary periodicals, and he is the editor of several anthologies including Blues for Bill, for the late William Matthews, from University of Akron Press and his newest (with Harold Schechter), Conversation Pieces: Poems that Talk to Other Poems from Alfred A. Knopf, Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets Series. He is the author of six chapbooks and five full-length collections of poetry, including Return of the Prodigals, More Things in Heaven and Earth, Fables from the Ark, Future Ship, and a new collection, No Other Paradise, due out in 2008 from Red Hen Press. A collection of the poems of Flemish poet Herman de Coninck entitled The Plural of Happiness, which he and his wife translated, was released in the Field Translation Series in 2006. He teaches poetry workshops and craft classes at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York and was recently the McEver Visiting Chair in Writing at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia.

Peter Campion has published a book of poems, Other People (University of Chicago Press) and a monograph on the painter Mitchell Johnson (Terrence Rogers Fine Art.) His second collection of poems, The Lions (University of Chicago Press) will be published in 2008. His poems and prose have appeared recently in Agenda, ArtNews, The Boston Globe, Modern Painters, The New Republic, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Sculpture, Slate, Tikkun and elsewhere. He has been a Wallace Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford. He teaches at Washington College in Maryland. He's the editor of the journal, Literary Imagination.


Jeff Friedman is the author of four collections of poetry: Black Threads (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2007), Taking Down the Angel (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2003), Scattering the Ashes (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1998), and The Record-Breaking Heat Wave (BkMk Press-University of Missouri-Kansas City, 1986). His poems and translations have appeared in many literary magazines, including American Poetry Review, Poetry, 5 AM, New England Review and The New Republic.

Carol Frost’s poems have appeared in four Pushcart Prize anthologies, and she was the poetry editor for Pushcart XXVIII. The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded her two fellowships, and her writing has been honored by PEN, the Elliston and the Poets’ Prize committees, Ploughshares, and Prairie Schooner. Her books include Love and Scorn, New and Selected Poems, Venus and Don Juan, Pure, I Will Say Beauty, and The Queen’s Desertion, all published by TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press. Her essays and poems appear in such journals as The Atlantic Monthly, American Poetry Review, Gettysburg Review, Shenandoah, Southern Review, Kenyon Review, New England Review, and the New York Times. She founded and directs the Catskill Poetry Workshop at Hartwick College, where she is Professor of English and writer-in-residence. She has also taught at Syracuse University, for the Warren Wilson MFA Program, Wichita State University (as Distinguished Poet, in the spring of 1998), Washington University, where she was visiting writer fall, 1998, the Vermont Studio Center, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Sewanee Writers' Conference, the Five Islands Press Workshop at the University of Wollongong in Australia, and numerous other workshops and universities. She divides her time between Cedar Key, Florida, and upstate New York.

Ross Gay’s book, Against Which, was published by CavanKerry Press in 2006. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, and Margie: The American Journal of Poetry among many others. He is a Cave Canem fellow, and a former Bread Loaf scholar. He has been nominated for the Pushcart three times, and has been recognized by the James Hearst Poetry Prize, the New Millenium Poetry Prize, and The Sow’s Ear Poetry Prize, among others. In addition to being a contributing editor at Q Avenue Chapbook Press, his collaborative paintings and artists’ books have been shown in galleries in Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Ross teaches at Montclair State University.

James Harms is the author of five books from Carnegie Mellon University Press, After West (2008), Freeways and Aqueducts (2004), Quarters (2001), The Joy Addict (1998) and Modern Ocean (1992). His poems, stories and essays have appeared in Poetry, The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The Gettysburg Review, TriQuarterly, Ploughshares, Verse, The Antioch Review, West Branch and many other journals. For his poetry he has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, three Pushcart Prizes, the PEN/Revson Fellowship and grants from the Pennsylvania and West Virginia Arts Commissions. He lives with his family in Morgantown, West Virginia, where he is the founding director of the MFA Program at West Virginia University. For the spring semester of 2008 he will be Poet-in-Residence at the Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University

Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa, former Soviet Union in 1977, and arrived to the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. Ilya is the author of Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004) which won the Whiting Writer's Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Metcalf Award, the Dorset Prize, the Ruth Lilly Fellowship given annually by Poetry magazine. Dancing In Odessa was also named Best Poetry Book of the Year 2004 by ForeWord Magazine.

In addition, Ilya writes poetry in Russian. His work in that language was chosen for "Bunker Poetico" at Venice Bienial Festival in Italy. In late 1990s, he co-founded Poets For Peace, an organization which sponsors poetry readings in the United States and abroad with a goal of supporting such relief organizations as Doctors Without Borders and Survivors International.

Ilya has served as a Writer In Residence at Phillips Exeter Academy and has taught poetry at numerous literary centers. In Fall 2006, he began teaching in the graduate writing program at San Diego State University. Ilya has also worked as a Law Clerk at the National Immigration Law Center, and more recently at Bay Area Legal Aid, helping impovershed and homeless in solving their legal difficulties. He currently lives in Berkeley, Califonia with his beautiful wife, Katie Farris.

Joan Larkin’s most recent collection is My Body: New and Selected Poems (Hanging Loose, 2007). She is the translator, with Jaime Manrique, of Sor Juana’s Love Poems; co-editor of the Living Out series at the University of Wisconsin Press, and recent poetry editor of Bloom. She co-founded Out & Out Books as part of the feminist literary explosion of the 1970’s and co-edited Amazon Poetry and Lesbian Poetry (with Ellly Bulkin) and Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time (with Carl Morse). Her anthology of coming out stories, A Woman Like That, was nominated for Publishing Triangle and Lambda awards for nonfiction in 2000. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and has served on the faculties of Brooklyn, Sarah Lawrence, and Goddard Colleges and as Distinguished Visiting Poet at Columbia College Chicago.

Anne Marie Macari’s second book, Gloryland, was published in 2005 by Alice James Books. Her first book, Ivory Cradle, won the APR/Honickman first book prize in 2000. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines such as The Iowa Review, The American Poetry Review, and TriQuarterly. In 2005 she won the James Dickey Prize for Poetry from Five Points magazine. Macari is a member of the core faculty at the New England College low residency MFA program in poetry.

Malena Morling was born in Stockholm in 1965 and grew up in southern Sweden. She is the author of two books of poetry Ocean Avenue selected by Philip Levine for the New Issues Press Poetry Prize in 1998 and Astoria published by Pittsburgh Press in 2006. She has translated poems by the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, a selection of which appeared in the collection For the Living and the Dead. Her poems have also appeared in numerous publications and anthologies including The New York Times Book Review, The New Republic, Washington Post Book World, Double Take/Points of Entry and Five Points. Currently an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, she has taught at New York University, the University of Montana, Syracuse University and the New School. In 1999 she was awarded The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award and in 2004 the Lotos Club Foundation Prize.In 2007 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Alicia Ostriker, a poet and critic, has published eleven volumes of poetry, including The Volcano Sequence and No Heaven. Her most recent prose book is Dancing at the Devil’s Party: Essays on Poetry, Politics, and the Erotic. Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, Paris Review, Ontario Review, The Nation, and many other journals and anthologies. Twice a National Book Award finalist, she has also received awards from the Poetry Society of America, the San Francisco Poetry Center, and the Paterson Poetry Center, among others. Ostriker lives in Princeton, and is Professor Emerita of English at Rutgers University.

Michael Waters’ books of poetry include Darling Vulgarity (2006); Parthenopi: New and Selected Poems (2001); Green Ash, Red Maple, Black Gum (1997)—these titles from BOA Editions—Bountiful (1992); The Burden Lifters (1989); and Anniversary of the Air (1985)—these titles from Carnegie Mellon UP. He has co-edited Contemporary American Poetry (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) and Perfect in Their Art: Poems on Boxing from Homer to Ali (Southern Illinois UP, 2003). The recipient of a Fellowship in Creative Writing from the National Endowment for the Arts and three Pushcart Prizes, he has published poems in numerous journals, including Poetry, The Yale Review, The American Poetry Review, Rolling Stone, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Georgia Review, The North American Review, and Ploughshares.

Maxine Kumin's new poetry collection, Still to Mow, will be published in September 2007 by WW Norton. Author also of Jack and Other New Poems, The Long Marriage and a memoir, Inside the Halo and Beyond: Anatomy of a.Recovery, Kumin's awards include the Pulitzer and Ruth Lilly Poetry Prizes and the Harvard Arts and Robert Frost Medals. She and her husband live on a farm in New Hampshire.

Gerald Stern is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. He has written thirteen books of poetry, including American Sonnets. This Time, New and Selected Poems won the National Book Award of Poetry in 1998. Other collections include Last Blue, Odd Mercy, and Bread Without Sugar. His most recent books are Everything is Burning and What I Can’t Bear Losing: Notes on My Life. Stern has received the Lamont Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, three NEA grants, a fellowship from the Academy of Arts and Letters and the Ruth Lilly Prize. Until his retirement in 1995, he taught at the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. He has also served on the faculty of Columbia University, New York University, Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Pittsburgh. Gerald Stern attends each residency in the New England College MFA Program in Poetry. In 2005, he won the prestigious Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets.

POET, Louise Landes Levi due to read December 8, 2007 at the Hooker-Duhnam Theater

Here are a few recent online resources for the work of Louise Landes Levi who is scheduled to read at the Hooker-Duhnam Theater on December 8 at 7:00 PM.

Hooker Duhnam Theater
139 Main Street
Brattleboro, VT

The reading is followed by a reception and book signing
Free to the public with donations accepted

The following article on The Poetics of Prayer was published in
Big Bridge

An Introduction

The vocabularies of Prayer include an entire range of human expression, dance, design, dramaturgy, art, architecture &, of course the spoken word. Preserved since antiquity, the metaphysical & aesthetic qualities in Indian Dance , Tibetan Sand Paintings, Islamic calligraphy seem as vital to us now as they were 1000 years ago.

As poet & translator my preoccupation or 'dharma' has been with the spoken & written word. Experience in esoteric schools of learning attuned me , in particular, to the vocabularies & methods of 'transmission'. The resonance of prayer in ancient tongue 'Hebrew resonated through my childhood imbuing it with a sense of the primordial.

I hope the following article will serve to illustrate what I feel to be the inner, outer & secret methods of prayer & the way esoteric & esoteric culture maintain our human link to the non-dual or contemplative state.

Introduction to Guru Punk

Toward Totality (Vers la Completude) by Henri Michaux with translations by Louise Landes Levi with an introduction in Milk Magazine

Seven Poems in Otolith

More poems online at mtdmagazine

Banana Baby posted on Big Bridge

The Highway Queen with an interview



To read my article about Louise in Italy (photo above) go to my personal blog, Poetrymind.

LOUISE LANDES LEVI has translated & written books, published chap books, broadsides & cards, / played sarangi in concert halls, in radio stations in town squares & railroad stations for some decades & perhaps for some lives.

Overland journeys to India produced several interpretive translations/ one of Rene Daumal ( the great Sanskrit autodidact & author of well known Mt. Analogue) RASA originally printed by New Directions (1982), now available through Siva Stan, the other, of the legendary poet genius Mira Bai whose devotion to Krishna freed her entirely. SWEET ON MY LIPS was published by Cool Grove Press in 1997 & reprinted in 2003 w. an introductory essay by La Monte Young.

In a strange twist of fate, much of Ms. Levi’s own work was thrown away by a concierge (or divine agent) in Paris, 1977. Henri Michaux, known for his eremitism & anonymity, nurtured our author through this crisis. A generous selection of LLL’s translation from HM, plus an essay on her meeting with him can be found on line at www.milkmag.com. Forthcoming fr. Coronamundi, a large selection of the work. Towards Totality, 2005.

Ms. Levi studied at the Univ. of Calif, played with Daniel Moore’s early fusion orchestra The Floating Lotus Magic Opera company, then traveled East, for more instruction. Please refer to www.coolgrove.com (Guru Punk & Sweet on My Lips/author interview) for details.



Her poetry books include early chap books: Poems Ambrosial Press, Bombay, 1972, The Water Mirror (Het Water Spiegel) the Amsterdam School (tranls. B. Mohr) 1983, Amiata, Felix Mansingh, Amsterdam 1984, Departure, Guus Bauer, Amsterdam, 1986 and Concerto, Accordian Series, 7, City Lights Books, San Francisco, 1988, Extinction, Left Hand Books, Barrytown 1990 & 1992, The Tower, Il Bagatto, Amsterdam, 1994, The Highway Queen, PBP, Amsterdam & Vienna, 1994, Le Lampade di Casa Sono State Acesse, MA, tranls. Rita Degli Esposti, Supernova, Venice 1996 & 2000, Guru Punk, Cool Grove Press, Brooklyn, 1999, Chorma, transl. Sibila Rigori Porto dei Santi, Loiana 2000, Avenue A & Ninth Street, Shiva Stan Kathmandu-Woodstock, 2004, Ma’ Kar A Kar/MA, Univ. of Rhode Island, Providence, 2005 & forthcoming Crazy Louise, Felix Mansingh, Amsterdam 2005.

LLL is known to be peripatetic & shy. Please contact her for any publications that are as difficult to find as she is at: levitate108@hotmail.com

Since 1992 she has directed Il Bagatto Books, printing occasional chapbooks, broadsides & postcards. The press originated in Arcidosso, Italy & travels w. her. It is co-sponsored by Ms. Sofia Bentinck.

On Sweet on my Lips

"Mirabai's spiritual vision and poetic genius shine through these pages. Verses of wounded pathos and soaring ecstasy are rendered here as vividly as if they had been spoken yesterday, yet with the incantatory power of sacred text. Levi's translations, brilliant in their lucidity, usher the reader directly into the heart of Mira's rare, impassioned devotion."
-Miranda Shaw. Author of Passionate Enlightenment.

"The West has St. Teresa d'Avila - the East has Mirabai. Whosoever understands them both understands all there is to understand."
- Claudio Rugafiori

"These poems of Mirabai have been beautifully translated from the Middle Hindi by Louise Landes Levi, and they should serve as a fine key to this tantric poet's consciousness. "
-Lawrence Ferlinghetti

"What makes these translations of Mirabai so remarkable is not so much this simpatico recognition among poets across time and space, but that for the first time these poems are rendered in the context of their original transmissions by one who is herself an initiate, tantric practitioner, and acarya of poetics. "
-Jacqueline Gens, extracted from The Mirror

On Guru Punk

Tracing a road that runs from Milarepa to Michaux, from Isabelle Eberhardt to Jack Kerouac, Ms. Levi, author of little known classics such as The Highway Queen and The Water Mirror, offers a compilation of spiritual experimentation & 'ordinary' road adventure. Here musical genre, iconoclasm & itinerancy mix as we observe the author's devotional impulse
"Louise is Sarasvati, goddess of poetry."
- John Giorno, Giorno Poetry Systems

"Louise Landes Levi's Guru Punk is sex in the city light years delivered from tv usa's yuppie mortification. the fast breath of punk and the endless flow of buddha. like passing beauty in the subway. it's there, it's gone, it's there again."
-Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth

More on Louise Landes Levi

I recently caught up with poet, LOUISE LANDES LEVI, in Italy where she lives in a tower located in the hill-top village of Bagnore, on the slopes of Mt. Amiata, Tuscany, the highest mountain in Tuscany. Here she writes, tutors students in poetics and music, performs
locally in the cafes and writes. She sells books locally & to practitioners who come to study with Choegyal Namkhai Norbu, a Tibetan Dzogchen master, from points as far away as Japan & New Zealand, and to the international body of practitioners who travel to the area.

Both Louise and I were attending a retreat taught by Choegyal Namkhai Norbu, with whom we’ve studied with for many years. Each day after the teachings, Louise would take me on a tour of the local region surrounding Mt.Amiata.



Here’s the visitor sign to Merigar where our retreat was held on the small road heading about 2 km uphill into a nature preserve on the slopes of Amiata where it appeared to be wild boar hunting season with blackberries in bloom all along the roadside. Merigar is located at the tip of this hill with views of farms and hay fields. Louise walks these roads between the complex of hill top villages in this rural part of Tuscany on ancient pathways as old as the Etruscans. Across from Merigar is a small mountain called Mt. LABRO, a mercurial mountain, where a prophet-- Catholic anarchist David Laszeretti, predicted the arrival of an 'oriental' teacher, some 100 years after his passing. Laszeretti was murdered by local police called in Italian, Carabinieri. Here, the 19th century visionary lived in an underground tomb of an Etruscan king. The entire region is a volcano with numerous sulphur springs that have been used medicinally since the time of the Romans.



Louise took me to such interesting sites such as Daniel Spoerri's extraordinary sculpture garden on his estate in Seggiano, the 12/13th century cave of St. Philippe and several local "poets" houses in the towns where they were remembered with a bronze markers-- all the while talking of poetry and dharma.

After many years of hearing about it or receiving post cards from her while living in her tower, I was finally able to visit it in person.




International poet, classical sarangi musician, scholar, and translator of Rene Daumal and Henri Michaux, Louise Landes Levi has traveled the globe for three decades. Her poetry books include, Banana Baby (Supernova, 2006), Avenue A & 9th Street (Shivastan, 2004), Chorma (Porto dei Santi, 2000) Guru Punk, (Cool Grove Press, 1999), Sweet on my Lips, Love poems of Mira Bai (Cool Grove Press, 1997), The House Lamps Have Been Lit (Supernova, 1996), Extinctions, (Left Hand Books, 1993), and Concerto, (City Lights, Accordian Series, 1988). Rene Daumal’s Rasa was published by New Directions in 1982 and most recently, Toward Totality (Vers La Completude) & Selected Works 1929-1973 of Henri Michaux (Shivastan, 2006) and Toward Totality I / Vers La Completude (Longhouse, 2006). Reviews, essays and poems have been published online in Big Bridge, Jacket, and Rain Taxi, among other publications.

Update to November 3 Poetry Reading

Robert Rivera, an acoustic and electric cellist will join Boston poet, Regie O'Hare Gibson for a collaboration on Saturday, November 3 at the Hooker-Duhnam Theater at 7:00 PM. Also reading is Putney poet, Chard deNiord.

Robert Rivera is a classically trained musician who studied at the Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College of Music, Juilliard School of Music, the Longy School of Music, the Boston Conservatory, and the Moscow Conservatory in Moscow, Russia, Robert has played extensively in the US and Europe, working in genres as diverse as classical, jazz, and improvisational music. Bands and artists Robert has worked with include: Reggie Gibson, The Jeff Robinson Trio, Jennifer Matthews, Annette Farrington, Hugh Mcgowan, Jenn Taranto, Jennifer Greer, A. J. Edwards, Jules Ellison, Amanda Palmer, and Ryan Montbleau.

Currently Robert is a Freelance cellist in The Boston, and New York City area. Also he is Producing a series at The OutPost in Cambridge. Presenting new music of local artist.

Regie O'Hare Gibson and Chard deNiord to read on November 3 at the Hooker-Duhnam Theater

Where out of town poets join regional and local poets for a reading series in downtown Brattleboro on the first Saturday of every month.

Place: Hooker-Duhnam Theater
139 Main Street
Brattleboro, VT

Time: 7:00 PM Reception to follow
Free

Confirmed Dates:

November 3, 2007
Regie O'Hare Gibson & Chard deNiord

Boston poet/performer Regie O'Hare Gibson will join Chard deNiord of Putney in a lively reading and performance. While no two poets would seem as different aesthetically as Regie and Chard, both speakers are masters of the ecstatic mode of the revelatory that navigates ordinary realities toward a purity of language and depth of feeling even in these dark times.

Kurt Vonnegut on Boston poet, Regie O'Hare Gibson, "When you perform, you are supersonic and in the stratosphere where you can see the Earth really as a ball, moist, blue-green. You sing and chant for all of us. Nobody gets left out." -- Kurt Vonnegut

Hayden Carruth, on Putney, VT poet, Chard deNiord, “Here is a poet with a truly extraordinary verbal imagination. His poems begin in the commonplace and rise—or soar, leap, swell—to the climactic surreal in a few lines. It is indeed a kind of ecstasy for every and any reader.” -- Hayden Carruth

Please join us for a world-class reading in downtown Brattleboro, VT. For further biographical details on the readers, please read below.

Reading series curated by Jacqueline Gens and Co-sponsored by New England College School of Graduate and Professional Studies

December 8 Poetry Reading at the Hooker Duhnam-Theater

LOUISE LANDES LEVI will read and perform her work at the Hooker-Duhnam Theater on Saturday, December 8, 2007 at 7:00 PM

Further information in the previous post....

Fall/Winter Reading Series at the Hooker-Duhnam Theater

Where out of town poets join regional and local poets for a reading series in downtown Brattleboro on the first Saturday of every month.

Place: Hooker-Duhnam Theater
139 Main Street
Brattleboro, VT

Time: 7:00 PM Reception to follow
Free

Confirmed Dates:

November 3, 2007
Regie O'Hare Gibson & Chard deNiord

Boston poet/performer Regie O'Hare Gibson will join Chard deNiord of Putney in a lively reading and performance. While no two poets would seem as different aesthetically as Regie and Chard, both speakers are masters of the ecstatic mode of the revelatory that navigates ordinary realities toward a purity of language and depth of feeling even in these dark times.

Poet, songwriter, author, workshop facilitator, and educator Regie Gibson has performed, taught, and lectured at schools, universities, theaters and various other venues on two continents and in seven countries. Most recently in Havana Cuba. Regie and his work appear in the New Line Cinema film love jones, based largely on events in his life. The poem entitled "Brother to the Night (A Blues for Nina)" appears on the movie soundtrack and is performed by the film's star, Larenz Tate. Regie performed "Hey Nappyhead" in the film with world-renowned percussionist and composer Kahil El Zabar, composer of the score for the musical The Lion King.

Regie has personally worked with: Gwendolyn Brooks (Poet Laureate of Illinois & Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry.), The Last Poets, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Roy Ayers, Fareed Haque, Kurt Vonnegut, David Amram (Composed music & collaborated with Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg.), Harold Levi, The Monks of the Drepong Gamong Monastery, members of the world famous AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), Mos Def (Hip Hop artist), David Murray (Saxophonist with Miles Davis.), Sterling Plumpp (Professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago. & an author), Marc Smith (creator of the international (Poetry Slam phenomenon), Patricia Smith (3 time individual National Poetry Slam champ, columnist & author.), Reg E. Gaines (Writer of 3Bring On The Noise, Bring On The Funk2 with Savion Glover.), and many other artist in musical genres including World, Celtic, Hip Hop, Jazz, Funk, Blues, Salsa, Andelusian, East Indian, House, and European Classical.

Regie has taught, lectured and facilitated workshops for: the Cambridge Poetry Festival at Harvard University, the Poetry Center of the Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Black Writers Guild, Inside Out of Detroit, MI, University of Chicago Lab School, Northwestern University, Roosevelt University, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Eastern Michigan University, National Louis University, Washtenaw State College, Youth Speaks of San Francisco, CA, University Without Walls of San Antonio, TX, as a Chernin Center for the Arts Community Writers Fellow, a writer in residence at the Effi O. Ellis Center sponsored through National Louis University, and for public schools systems throughout the States of Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, California, Rhode Island, and Philadelphia. Regie is the 1998 National Poetry Slam Individual Champion, was selected one of Chicago Tribune's Artist of the Year for Excellence (1998) for his poetry, will co-judge the Chicago Sun-Times 2001 Poetry Competition with Marc Smith (Creator of the international (Poetry Slam phenomenon.) and Mark Strand (University of Chicago professor & 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry), and is regularly featured on National Public Radio.


Regie has toured with the Chicago Mask Ensemble, performing dramatic and poetic adaptations of common myths from around the world. Co-produced the play "The Mystery of Fire Bread" with Frau Marianne Buchwald, while performing in Europe with the Sharnier Theater in the cities of Hanover, Frankfurt, Berlin, and the Literature Haus in Hamburg, Germany. Performed at the Night of Sacred Music in Chicago. His original works of poetry have been dramatized and scored by classical flautist and professor Janet Misurell Mitchell and produced and directed by Eric Rosen for the Steppenwolf Theater's Words on Fire production.

In 1999 Regie performed for the award-winning Traffic Series at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater where Regie adapted the work of Kurt Vonnegut. Mr. Vonnegut was in attendance, and raved about the eloquence with which his work was rendered. "When you perform, you are supersonic and in the stratosphere where you can see the Earth really as a ball, moist, blue-green. You sing and chant for all of us. Nobody gets left out." -- Kurt Vonnegut

In 1999 Regie founded the Church of The Funky Word, a literary and musical arts ensemble utilizing ancient, contemporary and original literary text combined with world music and rituals from various world cultures.

Regie is widely published in anthologies, magazines and journals, such as Power Lines, An Anthology of Poetry along with three Pulitzer-Prize winning poets Gwendolyn Brooks, Yosef Komunyakaa, and Lisel Mueller, his first full-length book of poetry Storms Beneath The Skin (EM Press) was released in 2001. www.em-press.com

Chard deNiord is the author of three books of poetry, Asleep in the Fire (University of Alabama Press, 1990), Sharp Golden Thorn (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003) and Night Mowing, (University of Pittsburgh Pres, 2005). His poems and essays have appeared recently in The American Scholar, The New England Review, Gettysburg Review, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Poetry, The Iowa Review, Poetry East, Agni, Green Mountains Review, The Harvard Review, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares and The Kenyon Review. He is an associate professor of English at Providence College and is the founder and former program director of the low residency MFA Program in Poetry at New England College.


December 8, 2007
Louise Landes Levi

International poet, classical sarangi musician, scholar, and translator of Rene Daumal and Henri Michaux, Louise Landes Levi has traveled the globe for three decades. Her poetry books include, Banana Baby (Supernova, 2006), Avenue A & 9th Street (Shivastan, 2004), Chorma (Porto dei Santi, 2000) Guru Punk, (Cool Grove Press, 1999), Sweet on my Lips, Love poems of Mira Bai (Cool Grove Press, 1997), The House Lamps Have Been Lit (Supernova, 1996), Extinctions, (Left Hand Books, 1993), and Concerto, (City Lights, Accordian Series, 1988). Rene Daumal’s Rasa was published by New Directions in 1982 and most recently, Toward Totality (Vers La Completude) & Selected Works 1929-1973 of Henri Michaux (Shivastan, 2006) and Toward Totality I / Vers La Completude (Longhouse, 2006). Reviews, essays and poems have been published online in Big Bridge, Jacket, and Rain Taxi, among other publications.