POETSWEDNESDAY & More

Susan Lembo Balik & Lori Sykes Roper, 2/11/15, at Barron Arts Center for PoetsWednesday

PoetsWednesday

582 Rahway Ave., Woodbridge, NJ, 732-634-0413

Presents

Susan Lembo Balik

&

Lori Sykes Roper

on

Wednesday, February 11, 2015, 8PM

Open Mic to Follow

Workshop with Lori Sykes Roper at 7PM

 

***********************************************

Free

Donations Are Greatly Appreciated

Thanks to Cynthia Knight, BAC Director, Brandon Powell, staff, and

The Woodbridge Cultural Arts Commission with the

support of Mayor John McCormac

Refreshments Supplied by Wegmans, BAC, & Deborah LaVeglia

 

PoetsWednesday Site: http://wednesdaypoet.typepad.com/

 

Directions: http://www.twp.woodbridge.nj.us/Departments/BarronArtsCenter/BarronArtsCenterDirections/tabid/754/Default.aspx

 

Contacts: Deborah LaVeglia, Poetry Director, at [email protected], Joe Weil, Poetry Director, at [email protected], Dave Roskos, Poetry Director, at [email protected]

Featuring on Wednesday, March 11, 2015:

Laura Boss

Tonight, 4/8/15, John Amen at Barron Arts Center Workshop at 7 Reading at 8 Open Mic to Follow Bring your poems!!!! Read in the open!!!

...oh, I almost forgot. I've been having some issues with this site as well. So, for now, if you've tried to post something or comment and couldn't, it's because those options have been temporarily turned off. However, I'm working on it!

In the meantime, if you'd like to comment, or post something, send it to [email protected]. I'll be getting a gmail account, soon, and will post it for your convenience. 

Send poems!!! As if I didn't have enought categories, but, I'll be adding a few more!!!

 

 

Dear Friends,

 

I'd like to apologize for the sporadic nature of my posts, lately. I've had a few health issues, a few computer issues & now I've decided to take a few classes and try something new. 

As you may already know, Joe Weil & Dave Roskos (two of my favorite poets) will be joining me as directors of PoetsWednesday. I am so happy about this. I know you will be, too.

So forgive us, if things are a bit chaotic. We're are busy getting it all together. And, you, my wonderful audience, will not be disappointed with the variety and quality of the poetry that will be part of our program.

Hope to see you at PoetsWednesday.

 

 

Susan Lembo Balik

Susan Lembo Balik’s first book of poetry, Sinatra, the Jeeperettes & me, was published in July by Garden Oak Press.  She is Associate Director of Cultural Affairs at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, NJ (home to the Poetry Center). She has a master degree in journalism from New York University, and has worked as a newspaper feature writer and columnist.  Her poems have appeared in The Paterson Literary Review, Lips, Paddlefish, Tiferet, and other literary journals.

 

Lori Roper

 Lori is a Professor of English Literature at Essex County College in Newark, NJ.   Her new play, The Sisters Grey, co-written with Gab Cody, recently received a complete page to stage development and production through the August Wilson Center for African American Culture’s “New Theatre Initiative.”  An excerpt from The Sisters Grey was also featured in Luna Stage’s first annual short play festival. Lori has served as a faculty member of Words and Music, sponsored by the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society.   During the 2010 Words and Music Festival, she launched the panel discussion about the relationship between race and literature by presenting a reading of her essay, Making War to Create Love, which placed as a finalist in the William Wisdom creative writing competition. Lori was awarded admission to the inaugural Yale Writers’ Conference and upon conclusion of the conference, was described as a “valued participant.”  She currently serves as an advisor to the conference chair and plays an integral role in the expansion of the conference’s programming.  Throughout her teaching career she has directed students, most notably, in a production of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor for which she and her students were awarded “Best Overall Performance” at the New Jersey Folger Shakespeare Festival.   Lori is a theater adjudicator and workshop instructor for the New Jersey, Somerset County Teen Arts Festival. As a ten-year teaching veteran, her experiences as an award-winning educator fuel her dedication to powerful storytelling.  In that vein, Lori Roper created Atticus Theater Workshop, a writing lab for aspiring playwrights.  Her work as a playwright, essayist and poet casts illumination upon complex subjects such as education, race, gender, religion and class.  She is a recipient of the prestigious ING Unsung Heroes Award for Innovation and Excellence in Education.  Lori is a graduate of The College of William and Mary where she received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and a Bachelor of Science in Sociology.  She obtained her MA in English Education from New York University from which she graduated Summa Cum Laude.  She is the Writer-In-Residence at the Ethical Cultural Society of Essex County, NJ.  Lori is currently developing a new play set during the Newark riots of 1967. She is pleased to make her latest New Jersey performance with the Berkeley Light Opera’s production of Love, Loss and What I Wore.

 

Rain on a Tin Roof by Susan Lembo Balik

Rain on a Tin Roof

 

by Susan Lembo Balik

 

I can still hear the sound of rain

on a tin roof, the one my dad put up

fifty years ago, even though

it’s been months since it collapsed

in the winter storm, even though

the mangled metal

has been carted away.

 

I can still hear the drumming

that lulls like white noise, hear

the pinging that pelts the canopy,

so melancholy, so relentless,

it can wrap me in grey, pull me

to my center, like a good book,

a meditation,

a prayer.

 

I can still hear the sparrows’ sweet

song, the ones that nested

in the corner eaves, see

the babies that didn’t make it

all those springs when I was young

how I’d avoid their broken

bodies splayed on the brick patio,

 

I can still see the one that survived

that February night, how he

hopped among snow drifts

and sharp tin, confused,

wondering

what had happened

to his home.

 

 

 

PoetsWednesday Presents Mary Shannon & Steve Kolter, Wed., 12/10/14, 8 PM

PoetsWednesday

582 Rahway Ave., Woodbridge, NJ, 732-634-0413

Presents

Mary Shannon & Steve Kolter

on

Wednesday, December 10, 2014,

8PM

Open Mic

&

Holiday Celebration to follow

No Workshop Tonight!

 

***********************************************

Free

Donations Are Greatly Appreciated

Thanks to Cynthia Knight, BAC Director, Brandon Powell, staff, and

The Woodbridge Cultural Arts Commission with the

support of Mayor John McCormac

Refreshments Supplied by Wegmans, BAC, & Deborah LaVeglia

 

PoetsWednesday Site: http://wednesdaypoet.typepad.com/

 

Directions: http://www.twp.woodbridge.nj.us/Departments/BarronArtsCenter/BarronArtsCenterDirections/tabid/754/Default.aspx

Contact: Deborah LaVeglia, Poetry Director, at [email protected]

Featuring on Wednesday, January 14, 2015:

Matt Borkowski

And Now for Something Completely Different...

And Now for Something Completely Different...

 

  

...Well, maybe not completely different. PoetsWednesday has always provided a varied and talented line-up for our audience, but beginning in 2015, it will be better, yet. "Why?,"  You might ask. The answer: We'll be welcoming Joe Weil & Dave Roskos (along with me) as co-directors.

 

Of Course, most of our audience already knows Joe & Dave. If you don't, here's a little info.

 

First of all, it's only fair that I begin at the beginning. So, many many kudos to the founder of PoetsWednesday, Edie Eustice.  Edie founded it back in 1978 (PoetsWednesday is the longest running series in NJ). She did all the groundwork in securing the series its very supportive and still current home at the Barron Arts Center. Along with her, Sue McBride, I believe, put the series into action.

 

Years later (1980s), along came Joe E. Weil. Edie & he hit it off (they are two of the smartest people I know) and BAM! Something great happened.

 

Anyway, lots of wonderful readers and speakers and musicians later, and I find my way to an open (1991 or 2). Edie had taken a sabbatical and Joe was having parties and asking everyone if they wanted to help out. I volunteered and just like that I was a co-host. The series featured some of the most interesting artists, & the open was one of the best ever. (Dave Roskos regulary featured & read in the open throughout the late 80s, 90s and up to present.)

 

Edie came back. Joe moved to Binghamton & got married (hi Emily) and had two gorgeous children (Claire & Gabe).

 

Edie moved to PA (and continues to create multitudes of artistic groups including one in poetry and one in film. How I wish I lived closer to her). And, I have run the series for several years solo. Needing companionship & a little HELP!, I reached out to Joe & Dave. Lucky for me, they both agreed to help out.

 

Beginning Jan 2015 Dave & Joe & I will be your co-directors. I am looking forward to it!

 

 

They each have a bio. included in this blog. Check it out by searching their name.

 

Joe will be hosting this week's reading on December 10th. Please join us!

 

Tom Plante & Donna Baier Stein, Tonight at Barron Arts

La Secheresse by Donna Baier Stein

La Secheresse

 

One woman, one tree.​​​​​​​​​​​​

Anonymous

​​​When Sengalese women
​​​tend their communal garden,
​​​they water vegetables
​​​from a hand-dug well
​​​one bucket at a time.

​​​Their animatrice, their leader, has seven children
​​​but only half a harvest.
​​​As she bends dry dun hands
​​​to cracked ground, the Harmattan wind
​​​peels topsoil and carries
​​​her continent’s cast-off skin,
​​​weightless, many kilometers south.

​​​When the women are given buckets
​​​from their leader to water soil,
​​​plant trees,
​​​feed their children,
​​​they draw a garden,
​​​full, green and fertile
​​​from parched earth.

​​​The animatrice, blowing life
​​​into her sapped disciples,
​​​reminds them their tribe has a riddle:

​​​Where does the dry season go in rainy season,
​​​and where does the rainy season go in dry?

​​​She answers, Into the acacia tree,
​​​evergreen, with pendulous leaves
​​​and silver wattle.
​​​From you, she tells them,
​​​dusting her pinched breasts,
​​​the tree comes; even to him—
​​​our tribe’s chief —the tree is a riddle.

                            by Donna Baier Stein

                            Published in Phoebe, from George Mason University