MUSELETTER #41

7/23/2000

We begin this Museletter with a note from correspondent Shann Palmer on the untimely passing of Michael McNeilley:

Ah, margery, it's my understanding Michael McNeilley crossed over to the other list, sad to say. His poem “Things to do when you're dead” takes on an entirely different meaning now. I was in a list-serve thing with him a few years ago; he was always kind and encouraging to me.

He will be missed by many poets on the Net whose lives, poems & Web sites he touched. (See correspondent Leonardo Della Rocca's report from Florida, below, for another node through which this sad news has passed -- Lyn Lifshin.)

Margy Snyder & Bob Holman
Poetry Guides

POETRY IS EVERYWHERE AT ABOUT

Jone Johnson Lewis' Women's History site has a growing library of e-texts of poems by women, from Elizabeth Akers to Florence Wilkinson, indexed by author's name and by poem title.

MIAMI/FLORIDA

“Best Local Writer”
Miami Beach poet, former sculptor, former actress (she studied with Lee Strasberg) and former dancer Judith Berke was written up in a recent Miami New Times special issue called “Best of Miami.” Berke took -- well, you already know by the heading -- “Best Local Writer.” Here's an excerpt:

Shy and retiring, poet Judith Berke doesn't always come to mind in this era of feted writers receiving gargantuan prizes. Yet her work epitomizes our region, not as a visitor or as a tourist, but as a long-time resident. In “Vizcaya,” from her book White Morning, Berke brings us wisdom from another time. . .

I've known Judy Berke for 20 years and can tell you that she is probably the best poet in South Florida, if not all of Florida. Not long ago she wrote more than 300 poems based on sketches, ink drawings and paintings by Van Gogh. She'd call me and spend 3 hours talking and reading them to me. Some, many, have appeared in The Ohio Review, Field and other literary journals. Some of the Van Gogh poems are among the best pieces I've ever read by anyone. Judy, unfortunately, does not venture out much. In fact some people have never met her in person, but have talked with her on the phone for years. We affectionately call her the Emily Dickinson of Miami Beach.

Coming up at the Wild Horse Poetry Series
Miami poet Andrew Glaze will be paid $50 to read at Warehaus 57, 1904B Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, at 7:30 pm on Saturday, August 19. Free hors d'oeuvres. Glaze has published work in a plethora of journals and has a couple of books out, too. Another Hannah Kahn Poetry Foundation presentation.

A Big Bridge
Michael Rothenberg, editor of Big Bridge, a Webzine of poetry, and co-founder and co-editor of JACK Magazine, was in Miami last week. We tried to meet up for lunch, but between my going out of town and his family commitments, it didn't happen. He is a native of Miami Beach and divides his living and writing time between Pacifica, California and Miami, Florida. As editor of Overtime: Selected Poems by Philip Whalen, he hosted and participated in the 1999 Miami Book Fair International panel on “The Beats Now: Icons and Editors of The Beat Generation,” featuring Diane di Prima, Michael McClure and Ann Charters. He was recently interviewed by WLRN on his new novel Punk Rockwell, published by Florida publisher Tropical Press. Punk Rockwell is a novel that in many ways mirrors Rothenberg's life and environment, bouncing back and forth in location from the California Coast to the Florida Everglades. His new book of poems, The Paris Journals, will be published in the fall by Fish Drum, Inc. He will also be editor of the Selected Poems of Joanne Kyger, due out from Penguin in 2002.

Here's what you'll find in the current Big Bridge:

• Feature chapbook:
  Engraving of Snakes by Michael McClure
  Unpublished collection of poems written by McClure in 1984 during ten days travelling from San Francisco to Iceland to Amsterdam through the former Yugoslavia and through Germany and back to San Francisco. Illustrated by Nancy Victoria Davis.
• Art feature:
  Ira Cohen, “The Miracle of an Electronic/Multimedia/Shaman”
• Poems:
  Sam Abrams, Kimberly Lyons, David Gitin, Amy Hollowell, Lina Ramona Vitkauskas, Ward Kelley, A.R. Lamb, Pat Nolan, Frank Parker, George Mattingly, Kate Lutzner, Stephen Betts, Wanda Phipps, Janine Pommy-Vega, Todd Colby
• Fiction:
  Maggie Dubris, Norman Locke, RhondaK
• Nonfiction:
  Bill Berkson's Serenade reviewed by Steve Evans, Ed Friedman's Mao & Matisse reviewed by Murat Nemat-Nejat
• Little Mags:
  Goodie and Fish Drum

And in the new JACK Magazine, Volume1, Issue 1, “where the parameters of the Beat Generation are redefined and expanded to embrace a creative movement that goes beyond personality wedged in temporal categories and public relations concepts,” you'll find:

• Feature:
  A review of the new film Go Moan for Man, and an interview with Doug Sharples, director, by Dan Barth
• Essay:
  “Grandfather Wisdom,” a discussion of Gary Snyder's The Practice of the Wild by Mary Sands
• Poetry:
  Chad Weatherford, Tom Clark, Eddie Watkins, Lina Ramona Vitkauskas, skye, Larry Sawyer, Michael Rothenberg, Wanda Phipps, Laurence Overmire, Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, Michael McClure, Paul Marion, Coral Hull, Neal Dwyer, and Dan Barth
• Fiction:
  “Tire Story” by Michael Largo
• Eco-Watch:
  “Pronghorns” by Jack Collom
• Tea-Party:
  “Chinese Chipmunk” by Mike Topp
• The Path:
  “Mindmanifesting” by Gary Gach
• Road Trip:
  “Journey to the Poetic Tarmac” by Larry Jaffe
• Politics:
  “The Violence of Oneness” by Zoketsu Norman Fischer
• Renaissance:
  “The Beat and Beyond” by Michael Rothenberg and Mary Sands

I remember Rothenberg at last year's Miami International Bookfair. He introduced the “Beats” who comprised the panel discussion. A recent email correspondence between us revealed that we were both pretty confused as to why Diane DiPrima mentioned to the packed auditorium that she slept with Jack Kerouac the night she met him. It was parenthetically stated, but had nothing to do with the story she'd been telling. We guessed she thought it would impress us. It didn't. (At least not me & Michael).

Diane Thiel Accepts Post at UM
Miami poet Diane Thiel has recently accepted the position of Visiting Poet/Assistant Professor at the University of Miami for the academic year 2000-2001. Her first full length book of poetry, Echolocations, was awarded the 2000 Nicholas Roerich Prize for Poetry from Story Line Press and will be available in November. The Hannah Kahn Poetry Foundation is having a booksigning for Thiel in November at Warehaus 57 in Hollywood. Thiel read at the organization's Wild Horse Poetry Series in February. Her poetry appears in numerous journals and anthologies, including Poetry, The Hudson Review, Best American Poetry 1999, and Beacon Best of 2000. She has received several national poetry awards, such as the Robert Frost Award, the Robinson Jeffers Award, and the New Millennium Writings Award. She completed her B.A. and M.F.A. at Brown University in 1990. She is the author of two chapbooks from Aralia Press: Cleft in the Wall (1999) and a single-poem chapbook (forthcoming 2000). Her writing guide, Writing Your Rhythm: Using Nature, Culture, Form and Myth is forthcoming from Story Line in 2001. You can access her Web page at www.dianethiel.net.

I recently asked Thiel for a favorite poet's Web site. Her reply: Ray McNiece, a performance poet.

From Local Bards, Scientists, Quilters & General Poetry Inquisitors Don & Barbara Burns
Don and Barbara Burns from Broward County's hotbed of poetic allusion, Coral Springs, are incessant readers who forward most of what they read to me. Including this, from The Guardian: “Alone with the Greta Garbo of verse: Wislawa Szymborska tells James Hopkin why she doesn't know anything,” a delightful portrait of the Polish Nobel Prizewinner, “everyone's favorite literary grandmother.” The profile ends with this anecdote:

But surely the Nobel Prize is a recognition of her wisdom? Even here she has a story to counter such a claim. “It all happened because of a friend in the States. It's all because of his sofa. Just before getting his Nobel Prize Czeslaw Milosz [1980] sat on this sofa, then Seamus Heaney [1995] sat on it and he won the prize, and then it happened that I sat on it, and then I got the prize! It's a magic sofa!” She laughs, throws back her head, and then leans forward again, assuming a mock-serious expression. “Unfortunately, he has since had it repaired, so no chance of a Nobel for you!”

Thanks Mr and Mrs. Burns.

An Email From Lyn Lifshin

dear lenny

about the web page just got terrible, terrible, terrible news: michael mcneilley who did such a wonderful job on it just died

lyn

That was really bad news to get. I never met Michael McNeilly, but knew him through Zero City, the ezine, and also the listserv I used to belong to, which McNeilly founded. After I replied to Lifshin's email, she emailed back saying he'd suffered a heart attack. He'd just moved to New Mexico after falling in love with a new woman and was starting over.

I've corresponded with Lifhsin for more than 10 years, and plan to bring her down to South Florida sometime next year for a reading and workshop.

More Favorite Poet Sites
Miami fiction writer Tony Thomas sends news that he is the Webmaster and “engine” for poet and writer Lorna Dee Cervantes' site. “I am just nominating it because I am the Webmaster and the engine that got Lorna to contribute to the page although she has been kind of quiet about it the last year or so. I think there are private joys, because when she was more active she would contribute a poem to the site that she'd written that morning,” Thomas said in an email.

He also likes Marge Piercy's page: “it is one of my favorites, although it has to do with the fact that I am a big marge piercy fan also because she and Ira have been real mensches about things over the years.” Piercy paid a visit to South Florida in April when she gave a reading, a lecture and was guest of honor at a breakfast sponsored by the Florida Center for the Book and Florida Atlantic University.

Richard Ryal, the notorious leader of a Borders Books open mic, editor, poet, shaman, Random Acts provocateur, Drumwork specialist and former vegetarian, said “If you're asking about Web pages by individual poets, I don't know many. . . but Heather McHugh has a fun one (with a poem designed for scrolling down in fun ways to read). . . . One of the things I like about it is her willingness to use a fun, just-folks photo of herself instead of a moody, fuzzy, taken-10-years-previously kind of publicity back-cover shot.” Here's the site he loves so much: faculty.washington.edu/amanuen.

Local Poets Attain Fame in Poetrybay
Former Miami poet John Balaban, Hollywood poet and Broward Community College English Professor Barbra Nightingale, Miami master of the absurd and the recently married Howard Camner, the distinguished Mr. Peter Meinke of Tampa, Tampa area poet Duane Locke, and the newly moved to Boca Raton and friend of Robert Bly, Norman Minnick, have all been recently published or had work accepted for a future issue of Poetrybay. It's a pretty tough ezine to get into. I am one of the assistant editors, meaning editor George Wallace sends me (and about 5 other poets around the country) poems submitted to the zine. I send back “yes,” “no,” or “maybe,” and a few remarks. Poetrybay has some pretty “big” names in it -- but not as big as Bob Holman, who appears in David Lehman's and Star Black's (now older) anthology The KGB Bar. (I'm reading the book now).

Poetry On the Open Seas
Join Lip, Tongue & Ear Poetry Productions for the Stardancer Casino Cruise, 1280 5th Street, Miami Beach Marina, Saturday, August 12, 2000. Boarding time: 12:30 pm, departure time: 1 pm, return: 5:30 pm, sailing time: 4.5 hours.
That's 2.0 hours of “guaranteed Powerful In Your Face Poetry.”
That's 1.0 hours of “eating a fabulous lunch.”
That's 1.0 hours of “dancing your booty off.”
That's 4.0 hours of “casino gambling if you choose.”
That's 4.5 hours of “mixing and mingling.”
Fresh open air, opportunity to read your works, opportunity to meet others and exchange ideas and methods. Poets from Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach Counties and out of towners too! Join us: you can contact me for tickets at 305.754.4232 or Jonathan Rose or any other PoetSlamMaster/Mistresss who runs poetry jams/slams. To reply to our email administrator directly, please send an email to postmaster@gtlaw.com.

Florida Links & Organizations

• Butterfly Lightning hosts great poetry readings and fiction readings at Tobacco Road starting in September.
• The Hannah Kahn Poetry Foundation has an old un-updated Web page, but gives the basic information. I am searching for someone to build us a new and better page. I have registered hkpf.org and await someone with skill and know-how to build and upload a great site for us.
• Poets of the Palm Beaches has its regular reading on the third Sunday of the month at the Polish American Club, 4725 Lake Worth Road, Lake Worth. It also offers a poetry workshop on the third Tuesday of the month at Borders Books, 525 North Congress Avenue, Boynton Beach. “Slam Poets of the Palm Beachs” meets on the first Friday of the month also at Borders in Boynton Beach.
• O'Shea's, an Irish pub, offers an open mic every Tuesday at 8:30 pm. Located at 531½ Clematis Street, downtown West Palm Beach. Call 561.833.2981.
• Poetry Slam at the Underground Coffeeworks where anything goes takes place at 8 pm every Wednesday, 105 Narcissus Street, downtown West Palm Beach. Call Richard Green, 561.252.2330, or email grinningdg@aol.com.
• The Society of Poets, FKA, The South Florida Poetry Institute, has monthly poetry readings and workshops. The Bilingual poetry reading takes place at 7:30 pm every third Friday at Books & Books, 296 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables. Also at 3 pm on every fourth Saturday the group has an open mic at Borders Books, 2240 E. Sunrise Blvd., Fort Lauderdale. For information, email Michael Earle Carlton at poetsite@aol.com.
• The Florida State Poets Association has been around since 1974. Divided into several chapters around the state, they're a good source for local poetry information. Each year they hold three quarterly meetings and an annual convention. The next quarterly meeting will be held in Daytona Beach, July 28-29, 2000. Their Web site has a list of the meetings of all their local chapters.
• The Big Bend Poets serves Tallahassee and the surrounding areas. The BBP meets at 7:30 pm on the first and third Mondays of each month at Books-a-Million on Thomasville Road in Tallahassee. The first meeting of the month is devoted to reading and discussing poetry. The second meeting is devoted entirely to poets reading their works. Members also participate in various other activities designed to further interest in and enjoyment of poetry.
• The Emerald Coast Poets serves poets and poetry in NW Florida & meets at Grace Episcopal Church, 9101 West Hwy US 98, Panama City Beach, FL: Saturdays, July 22, August 12 & September 16 @ 10.

Email your Florida poetry news to:

--Leonardo Della Rocca

READER-SUBMITTED POETRY NEWS BRIEFS

From RD Armstrong:
Nomads of Oblivion
July 30th Scott Wannberg & Friends (S.A. Griffin, Raindog & others) celebrate the publication of his second book in the Lummox Press' Little Red Book series, entitled Nomads of Oblivion, at Dutton's Books in Brentwood (11975 San Vincente Blvd between Montana and Bundy) @ 2 pm. Books will be available for sale. I'm very proud of this book. (Excerpts and ordering info are at the Web site.)

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