Coming in April from Tell-Tale Chapbooks

Taken from the Tell-Tale Chapbooks home page and Facebook page.

Cover art by TJ Edson

A Letter to the World by Jason Wright

Jason Wright is the editor and founder of Oddball Magazine. He has been published in the Somerville Scout, Fox Chase Review, Wilderness Review, Stone's Throw, Somerville Times, and other publications. In 2014 was selected to read "Strong as the Boston Skyline" at Boston City Hall's tribute to survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing. Oddball Magazine was featured at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival in 2014, and Wright has read at the Cambridge River Festival for 4 consecutive years. He was given a Certificate of Achievement by former Poet Populist of Cambridge Toni Bee and the English Department Award of Achievement from Bunker Hill Community College.

Wright studied under Lloyd Schwartz at UMass Boston as well as Joe Torra. He earned a Literary Publishing Certificate in 2010 from Gian Lombardo, Editor/Founder of Quale Press. He is a regular at the Stone Soup Poetry Series in Cambridge and can also be found every Tuesday in his column Jagged Thoughts.

R.I.P. Philip Levine

I only got the news the other day of Philip Levine's death.  I've been thinking about it whenever I have a quiet moment.

I have often had a hard time keeping up with all my poetry heroes, but while in school, Philip Levine was different.  I was hooked with his National Book Award winning What Work Is and absorbed as much as I could.   

A Walk With Tom Jefferson, its visceral "Dog Poem" still one of my favorites.

The Bread of Time, his collection of autobiographical essays, its style of prose I miserably tried to imitate as part of a class assignment.  His chapter on being taught by John Berryman still informs me today.

The Simple Truth, its seminal poems I read a year or two earlier in The New Yorker.  I continue to read "On the Meeting of Garcia Lorca and Hart Crane" to open Stone Soup Poetry every now and again.

Don't Ask,  a collection of interviews with Levine, including accounts of wrestling with an angel (the only believable account I've ever read), his work ethic on each poem, and the craziest answer to a question about Adrienne Rich I've ever read.  In a perfect world, more frustrated poets in colleges across America would be passing their dogeared library copy around a college study hall.

The Mercy, it's family-focused poetry part of the reading he gave in Salem last year for the Massachusetts Poetry Festival.  It was the first and only time I ever saw him live. 

I missed the opportunity to see him once at the Grolier Poetry Bookshop years ago.  It likely would have been a smaller audience than Salem's.  It could have also been a much better chance to speak one-on-one with the poet whose work was such an influence on me that I blamed his 1-2 pages of concise lines on my own verbosity (it took my thickheaded self years to understand the difference between long poems and rambling ones).

I was in attendance for his Salem reading.  I didn't want to purchase a book I already had just to talk with him.  I didn't want to risk spoiling my connection to him and his work by way of blubbering in front of him.  I had seen and heard my hero read, and that was enough.

The Massachusetts Poetry Festival: I Was There

Yes, this is a doctored image, but it's nice to be placed next to Philip Levine even in my own mind.

Thanks to everyone who attended both my reading and the Oddball Magazine forum. Special thanks needs to be given to Jason Wright, Toni Bee, Timothy Gager and James Van Looy for agreeing to be on the panel. 

April 21: Marathon Monday and Jennifer Jean

When the Boston Marathon bombing happened last year, I cancelled Stone Soup Poetry for the evening. I hope I will not have to do that again tonight. I urge you all to come to Cambridge and share your words and thoughts on the events and even today's happenings, whether it is excitement over today's winners or praise for a family member who finished. Additionally, I want you to be in the audience when Jennifer Jean reads from her new book The Fool. Consider it a capstone to today's celebrations as well as a preview to next month's National Poetry Month festival. Let's close out one year later in the best of ways, with friends and art.

See Me Read at The Massachusetts Poetry Festival

I'll be part of the Poets with New Books reading on May 3.  There are three sessions of readers for that afternoon, and I'll be reading during the third one.  The full schedule of readers is here.  I'll be reading alongside a number of friends, colleagues and voices new to me.  I hope you're there to see more than just me.  In fact, check out the Massachusetts Poetry Festival's main site for the whole weekend.  I'll be there Friday not only for my panel but for personal poetry idol Phillip Levine and many others.

More Massachusetts Poetry Festival News

I received confirmation yesterday.  I'll be part of the Poets with New Books reading series at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival.  More info to come.

Another Massachusetts Poetry Festival, Another Panel--"Stone Soup Presents: Oddball Magazine"

Stone Soup Presents Oddball Magazine
Friday, May 2, 2014, 3:30-4:30 p.m.
Hawthorne Hotel, Sophia Room
Salem Massachusetts

In 2013, the long-running Stone Soup poetry series joined forces with an eclectic poetry journal to provide voices to various uncollected voices and gather them under one supportive banner. The journal has since expanded to include regular columns and features that help to support and promote Stone Soup and other artistic efforts in the Boston area and beyond. Please join us for a reading from Oddball’s most noted and regular contributors, including former Cambridge Poet Populist Toni Bee, Stone Soup host and organizer Chad Parenteau, and Oddball Magazine founder Jason Wright.

Keep visiting the Massachusetts Poetry Festival website for more information on this event and others.

Another Mass Poetry Festival, Another Panel--"Stone Soup Presents: Oddball Magazine"

 

One of my proposed panels for this year's Massachusetts Poetry Festival was accepted! The proposal reads:

"In 2013, the long-running Stone Soup poetry series joined forces with an eclectic poetry journal to provide voices to various uncollected voices and gather them under one supportive banner. The journal has since expanded to include regular columns and features that help to support and promote Stone Soup and other artistic efforts in the Boston area and beyond. Please join us for a reading from Oddball's most noted and regular contributors, including former Cambridge Poet Populist Toni Bee, Stone Soup host and organizer Chad Parenteau, and Oddball Magazine founder Jason Wright."

Stay tuned for further announcements once the date and time has been announced.