Friday, October 7, 7pm – Eastern European Poetry
Tadeusz Dabrowski, Martin Woodside & Adam Sorkin

Tadeusz Dąbrowski is a poet, essayist, critic, and editor of the literary bimonthly “Topos”. He has been published in many journals in Poland and abroad, including, in America, Boston Review, Agni, American Poetry Review, Tin House, Crazyhorse, Poetry Daily, Guernica, and Poetry Review. Altogether, his work has been translated into 20 languages. Winner of numerous awards, among others, the Kościelski Prize (2009), the Hubert Burda Prize (2008) and, from Tadeusz Różewicz, the Prize of the Foundation for Polish Culture (2006). Tadeusz is the author of six volumes of poetry, and the first collection of his poetry in English translation, Black Square has just been released by Zephyr Press. He lives in Gdańsk.

Timothy Donnelly writes: “Restlessly inventive, sharp-witted, and intent on raising mischief, the poems in Black Square are so much fun to read, it’s almost easy to overlook how deeply serious they are—and how dark. Dąbrowski is part life of the party, part heavy-hearted metaphysician, and he plays his two sides off each other like an expert comedy team with a knack for aphorism and philosophical speculation.”

Martin Woodside is a poet, translator, and a founding member of Calypso Editions.  His chapbook of poetry, Stationary Landscapes came out in 2009 (Pudding House), and his anthology of Romanian poetry, Of Gentle Wolves, came out earlier this year (Calypso).  Martin’s poems and translations have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Guernica, The Cimarron Review, The Hazmat Review, Brooklyn Rail, Poetry International, Poesis International, and qarrtsinluni. Martin spent 2009-10 on a Fulbright in Romania, studying Romanian poetry, and he’s currently a Presidential Fellow at Rutgers-Camden, pursuing a Ph.D. in Childhood Studies.

Ilya Kaminsky Writes: “Woodside’s translations perform miracles. There is no other way to say this: the poems are alive, they breathe, they laugh and howl, they re-create our world again. This is an anthology to live with: a sample or two from such established authors such as the venerable elders Marin Sorescu and Ana Blandiana, to many new voices that are restless, ruthless, ravishing and utterly lyrical.”

Adam J. Sorkin has translated more than forty books of contemporary Romanian literature, and his work has won the Poetry Society of the United Kingdom translation prize, among other awards. Sorkin’s recent books include A Path to the Sea by Liliana Ursu, translated by Ursu, Sorkin, and Tess Gallagher (Pleasure Boat Studios), and Ioan Flora’s Medea and Her War Machines, translated with Alina Cârâc (University of New Orleans Press), both 2011.  Forthcoming from Talisman House Publishers is The Vanishing Point That Whistles, an anthology of contemporary Romanian poetry. Sorkin is Distinguished Professor of English, Penn State Brandywine. Mark Strand writes: „Liliana Ursu’s poems are like flowers at the the edge of the abyss.  They are beautifully clear and precise, but behind them one glimpes the presence of an ineradicable dark.”

Monday September 26, 7pm – Poetry

A Reading of Four Quartets for T.S. Eliot’s 123^rd Birthday

“A kind friend introduced me to this book 25 years ago. It is so full of real life, as it is. In grasping for words to describe what cannot be described by words, T.S.Eliot has written a masterpiece that will endure for as long as there are people to read books. Each reading takes you inside, yet out of time a space. If I could pick the most meaningful book I have ever encountered, this would be it… the one you take to that desert island; the one you take with you through your life. Don’t analyze this book, let it reach out to you, allow it to become an old friend, and it will enrich your life.”

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in Missouri on September 26, 1888. He lived in St. Louis during the first eighteen years of his life and attended Harvard University. In 1910, he left the United States for the Sorbonne, having earned both undergraduate and masters degrees and having contributed several poems to the Harvard Advocate.

After a year in Paris, he returned to Harvard to pursue a doctorate in philosophy, but returned to Europe and settled in England in 1914. The following year, he married Vivienne Haigh-Wood and began working in London, first as a teacher, and later for Lloyd’s Bank.

It was in London that Eliot came under the influence of his contemporary Ezra Pound, who recognized his poetic genius at once, and assisted in the publication of his work in a number of magazines, most notably “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in Poetry in 1915. His first book of poems, Prufrock and Other Observations, was published in 1917, and immediately established him as a leading poet of the avant-garde. With the publication of The Waste Land in 1922, now considered by many to be the single most influential poetic work of the twentieth century, Eliot’s reputation began to grow to nearly mythic proportions; by 1930, and for the next thirty years, he was the most dominant figure in poetry and literary criticism in the English-speaking world.

As a poet, he transmuted his affinity for the English metaphysical poets of the 17th century (most notably John Donne) and the 19th century French symbolist poets (including Baudelaire and Laforgue) into radical innovations in poetic technique and subject matter. His poems in many respects articulated the disillusionment of a younger post-World-War-I generation with the values and conventions—both literary and social—of the Victorian era. As a critic also, he had an enormous impact on contemporary literary taste, propounding views that, after his conversion to orthodox Christianity in the late thirties, were increasingly based in social and religious conservatism. His major later poems include Ash Wednesday (1930) and Four Quartets (1943); his books of literary and social criticism include The Sacred Wood (1920), The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933), After Strange Gods (1934), and Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1940). Eliot was also an important playwright, whose verse dramas include Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, and The Cocktail Party.

He became a British citizen in 1927; long associated with the publishing house of Faber & Faber, he published many younger poets, and eventually became director of the firm. After a notoriously unhappy first marriage, Eliot separated from his first wife in 1933, and was remarried, to Valerie Fletcher, in 1956. T. S. Eliot received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948, and died in London in 1965.

“Published in the fiery days of World War II, Four Quartets stands as a testament to the power of poetry amid the chaos of the time. Let the words speak for themselves: “The dove descending breaks the air/With flame of incandescent terror/Of which the tongues declare/The only discharge from sin and error/The only hope, or the despair/Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre–/To be redeemed from fire by fire./Who then devised this torment?/Love/Love is the unfamiliar Name/Behind the hands that wave/The intolerable shirt of flame/Which human power cannot remove./We only live, only suspire/Consumed by either fire or fire.”  (Amazon.com Review )

“Series of four poems by T.S. Eliot, published individually from 1936 to 1942, and in book form in 1943; the work is considered to be Eliot’s masterpiece. Each of the quartets has five “movements” and each is titled by a place name–BURNT NORTON (1936), EAST COKER (1940), THE DRY SALVAGES (1941), and LITTLE GIDDING (1942). Eliot’s insights into the cyclical nature of life are revealed through themes and images deftly woven throughout the four poems. The work addresses the connections of the personal and historical present and past, spiritual renewal, and the very nature of experience; it is considered the poet’s clearest exposition of his Christian beliefs”. (The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

“FOUR QUARTETS marks T.S. Eliot’s crowning acheivement as a poet. It is the last substantial poetry he wrote before turning to drama and consists of four poems each with a five-part structure. The work as a whole is concerned with the perception of time, linked with the importance of poetic art and the place of Christianity in deciphering the meaning of one’s lifetime.

After two quotations from Heraclitus, “Burnt Norton” opens the collection. Here Eliot muses on the idea that all possible outcomes of any event are secretly around us, unseen and unperceived. An empty pool is, in some other reality, filled with water and a blooming lotus. Eliot’s metaphysical insight here is reminiscent of quantum theory that was then beginning to become the rage in physics circles. These speculations are tricky and difficult to get one’s head around, and even more difficult to plainly put into words, but Eliot manages to succeed.

“East Coker”, named after the town in England from where Eliot’s Puritan ancestor emigrated to America, deals with the cyclical nature of time. Here the poet surveys the tendency for all earthly things to rise and ultimately fall. Christianity with its emphasis on eternal life, asserts Eliot, promises a way to change one’s end to one’s beginning and escape the fall into oblivion that dooms everything.

“The Dry Salvages”, in reference to a place on the New England shore which Eliot visited as a youth, is the weak point of the collection. A rumination with a nautical theme, the poem suffers from meandering phrasing and peculiar wording. Its Marian devotion is inconsistent with the Puritan/Anglican tradition of the rest of FOUR QUARTETS. Most would attack “The Dry Salvages” for its oft-maligned line “I sometimes wonder if this is what Krishna meant”, seen by some as overly haugty intellectualism. I think this is unfair, and in fact the section which that line begins is the one bit that redeems the poem. Eliot’s Harvard education, where he first became familiar with Eastern thought, was 30 years in the past, but the subject still preoccupied him in this poem.

“Little Gidding” superbly ends FOUR QUARTETS. It was written in the height of the Blitz, a time of fear and doubt in England, but it counters Hitler’s madness with a note of hope and spiritual triumph. Eliot calls back to an earlier conflict, England’s Civil War, and seeks any lesson it might teach his generation. “The communication of the dead,” he writes, “is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.” As the poem ends, he has acheived inner peace in a time of pandemonium, through the realisation that the pain of the present is escapable by reaching to the past – what poets have done before – and the future – what is still left to be written.

FOUR QUARTETS is a complicated and vast work. While not as full of obvious quotations as his earlier, more popular work “The Waste Land”, it does work in inspiration and material from Christian thinkers such as St. John of the Cross and Julian of Norwich, and contains many illusions to 17th century England. As a result, the work is incredibly deep and one can find something new with each reading. But FOUR QUARTETS is also an entertaining work for the casual reader. A combination of smooth and engaging sound with the great themes of all time is a remarkable combination. Eliot’s greatest work, I’d wholeheartedly recommend it.”

Friday, October 15, 6pm – $5 Cover – Storytellers

Storytellers’ Series 2: Dark Matter

Storytellers’ is back with a pre-Halloween weekend show dedicated the black sci-fi and fantasy. From well loved writers like Octavia Butler to a deep hidden gem Derrick bell, our next show promises to be out Of THIS WORLD….Featuring compelling reads from Misty Sol, Dr. Anthony Montero and others. Hosted by Warren C.L. Wine, water and light appetizers will be available

Wednesday, September 22, 7pm – Poetry

Many Mountains Moving Magazine Reading with

Jeffrey Ethan Lee has been the senior poetry editor of Many Mountains Moving Magazine since 2007. Lee’s poetry book, identity papers (Ghost Road Press, 2006) was a 2007 Colorado Book Award finalist. His first full-length poetry book, invisible sister (Many Mountains Moving Press) was praised in American Book Review, North American Review, Rain Taxi Review, etc. Lee won the 2002 Sow’s Ear Poetry Chapbook prize ($1,000) for The Sylf (2003), created identity papers for Drimala Records, published Strangers in a Homeland (chapbook with Ashland Poetry Press, 2001). He also published hundreds of poems, stories and essays in Many Mountains Moving, North American Review, American Poetry Review, Xconnect, Crab Orchard Review, Crazyhorse, Crosscurrents, Green Mountain Review, Washington Square, and Other Voices. He also won the first Tupelo Press award for literary fiction in 2001 for a novel, The Autobiography of Somebody Else. Jeffrey Ethan Lee has a Ph.D. in British Romanticism and an MFA from NYU.

Dilruba Ahmed’s debut book of poems, Dhaka Dust (Graywolf, 2011), won the 2010 Bakeless Prize for poetry.  Her writing has appeared in Blackbird, Cream City Review, New England Review, New Orleans Review, and Indivisible: Contemporary South Asian American Poetry.  Her poems are forthcoming in Asian American Literary Review, Philadelphia Stories, Cerise Press, and The Normal School. 

Julia MacDonnell’s short stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines including American Literary Review, Mangrove, Briar Cliff Review, Paper Street, and North Dakota Quarterly. Her articles, essays and book reviews have appeared in the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia and the New York Daily News, Columbia Journalism Review and National Catholic Reporter. Her first novel, A Year of Favor, was published by William Morrow & Co. Her second novel, Mimi Malloy By Herself is currently under submission. MacDonnell's writing has been recognized with two fellowships from the NJ State Council on the Arts, two from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, an excellence in journalism fellowship from the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation, and with a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. She lives in Camden County, NJ, with two of her three more or less grown children,three cats and a dog. 

Christa Setteducati lives in West Orange, New Jersey and teaches composition courses at Montclair State University and Kean University. 

Will Lane was a carpenter and builder for more than a decade before graduating from Gettysburg College with a major in classical Greek. Over the years he has worked as a community activist; a photographer; a social worker and parent educator for Head Start; and as a teacher of writing and literature. He also served a year as Assistant Provost of Gettysburg College before returning to the English Department as a Lecturer. He holds a M.A. from the Graduate Institute at St. John’s in Annapolis, Maryland, and lives with his wife Anne in rural Adams County, not all that far from where he was born. He has published three chapbooks: In the Barn of the God and Elegy for Virginia Redding from Mad River Press in Richmond, Massachusetts and Moonlight Standing in for Cordelia from Hanging Loose Press of Brooklyn, New York.

Dilruba Ahmed’s debut book of poems, Dhaka Dust (Graywolf, 2011), won the 2010 Bakeless Prize for poetry. Her writing has appeared in Blackbird, Cream City Review, New England Review, New Orleans Review, and Indivisible: Contemporary South Asian American Poetry. Her poems are forthcoming in Asian American Literary Review, Philadelphia Stories, Cerise Press, and The Normal School.

Julia MacDonnell’s short stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines including American Literary Review, Mangrove, Briar Cliff Review, Paper Street, and North Dakota Quarterly. Her articles, essays and book reviews have appeared in the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia and the New York Daily News, Columbia Journalism Review and National Catholic Reporter. Her first novel, A Year of Favor, was published by William Morrow & Co. Her second novel, Mimi Malloy By Herself is currently under submission. MacDonnell’s writing has been recognized with two fellowships from the NJ State Council on the Arts, two from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, an excellence in journalism fellowship from the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation, and with a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. She lives in Camden County, NJ, with two of her three more or less grown children,three cats and a dog.

Christa Setteducati lives in West Orange, New Jersey and teaches composition courses at Montclair State University and Kean University.

Brian Patrick Heston grew up in Philadelphia. He has an MFA in fiction from George Mason University and an MA in poetry from the University of New Hampshire. His poetry has appeared in such publications as Slipstream, Confrontation, West Branch, The Bitter Oleander, Many Mountains Moving, Painted Bride Quarterly, 5am, and is upcoming is Spoon River Poetry Review. His fiction has appeared in ourstories, Flash!Point, Many Mountains Moving, and Red Cedar Review. Presently, he teaches at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia and is an assistant editor with Many Mountains Moving Press.