KATHLEEN SHEEDER BONANNO

Poetry Reading & Interview

TUESDAY, May 18, 7 PM
Green Line Locust
HOSTED BY LEONARD GONTAREK
& LISA GRUNBERGER
This Event Is Free

Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno received the Beatrice Hawley Award for
her book of poetry, Slamming Open the Door, published by
Alice James Books in April, 2009 and was one of the top-ten-
selling books of contemporary poetry in 2009. Two poems
from her book were nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Slamming Open the Door is a collection of poems recounting the
true story of the murder of her daughter, Leidy Bonanno, in 2003.

Bonanno’s heartrending collection inspires both compassion for and awe of the human spirit. Of all the losses we may be asked to bear, the murder of one’s child must be the most terrible. These poems evoke that keenly, seeking justice but transcending judgment as they grieve loss, celebrate love, and find healing.

In 2007, Kathleen received the Purple Ribbon Award from the Lutheran Settlement Home for her advocacy on behalf of domestic violence issues. She is a contributing editor of The American Poetry Review and teaches English and creative writing in Montgomery County.

The poet Sharon Olds calls Slamming Open the Door “a gift of power, truth, rage and beauty.”   David Kirby in the New York Times Book Review says, “Readers will have to step outside of a familiar, comforting tradition of poetic grief while reading this book … to read this book is not to behold a completed work but to stand onstage with a writer who finds herself in the middle of a story in which she has been reluctantly cast.”

“When Emily Dickinson wrote the line ‘After great pain, a formal feeling comes’ I think she was referring to poems—and the occasions that make them impossible to not write—like these. Spare, unflinching, and powerful, the poems in Slamming Open the Door move me to the bone. How does one say I love this book, which I wish never had to be written? Only one way: I love this book. I wish it did not have to be written.”
—Thomas Lux

Death Barged In

In his Russian greatcoat
slamming open the door
with an unpardonable bang,
and he has been here ever since.

He changes everything,
rearranges the furniture,
his hand hovers
by the phone;
he will answer now, he says;
he will be the answer.

Tonight he sits down to dinner
at the head of the table
as we eat, mute;
later, he climbs into bed between us.

Even as I sit here,
he stands behind me
clamping two
colossal hands on my shoulders
and bends down
and whispers to my neck,
From now on,
you write about me.

Ditta Baron Hoeber

Anisa Rahim

Ditta Baron Hoeber is both a poet and an artist. Her photographs, drawings and books have been exhibited at various venues nationally over the last twenty years, most recently in the exhibition “Artist As Publisher” at the Center For Book Arts in New York. Her poetry has been published in various journals including the English journals iota and Nthposition. In Ireland it has been published in The Shop. Her manuscript, Without You was a finalist for the Four Ways Books 2006 Intro Prize.

Anisa Rahim likes to write and take photos. She has been part of Leonard Gontarek’s poetry workshops and readings since 2006. She resides simultaneously in many places including New Jersey, Philadelphia, New York, New Delhi, and her hometown in Florida.

Other Poetry News of Note:

Clear Moon, Frost by Amy Small-McKinney available from Finishing Line Press
go to: www.finishinglinepress.com

Leonard Gontarek on The Joe Milford Poetry Show (blog-talk radio),
Saturday, May 16, 3-4:30 PM, go to: http://joemilfordpoetryshow.com/

The Life of the Poet workshop at The Moonstone Arts Center,
go to: www.leafscape.org/LeonardGontarek

Painted Bride Quarterly 1st Annual Book Fair at Drexel University,
Wednesday, May 13, 10-5 PM, go to: www.drexelpublishing.org

POETRY AT GREEN LINE CAFÉ

45TH & LOCUST STREETS

TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 7 PM

About the authors:

Cindy Savett, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, teaches poetry workshops at psychiatric institutions in the Philadelphia area to both acute short-term and residential patients.  She is published in numerous print and on-line journals, including Margie, Heliotrope, LIT, The Marlboro Review, 26 Magazine, Cutbank, and Free Verse.  She is also at work on a memoir on the death of her daughter.  Additionally, Cindy has served on several school Boards and other non-profit agencies.  She spent fifteen years in the retail business, traveling extensively overseas.  Born and raised in the Philadelphia area, she currently lives in Merion, Pennsylvania with her husband and children.

Ray Garman, reading his recently published book, Crossing Waters

Ray Garman is a poet and photographer, an activist and entrepreneur. Ray has read and performed his works around the world, including Robin’s Bookstore (Philadelphia), Bowery Poetry Club (New York), Nuyorican Poets Café (New York), Neither Nor (New York), Knitting Factory (New York), Shakespeare & Company (Paris), City Lights (San Francisco), Fringe Club (Hong Kong), St. Mark’s Poetry Project (New York), La MaMa Theatre (New York), Nell’s (New York), The Café (Nairobi), Burning Man ( Black Rock City ), along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and with the forest of drums, and rainbows, gathering.

Ray is the author of Crossing Waters published by Whirlwind Press.  He is a father and a graduate of Haverford College.

What’s being said about Crossing Waters:

“When language wanted to cross the Styx, ford the Amazon, end up on the other side of the Liffey, and reconnoiter the Yangtze, it called upon the ultimate explorer. His name: Ray Garman. His game: it ain’t a game. His preoccupation: today, now, in your hands, folks, c’mon now, let me introduce you to What Happens to Poetry when it takes you for a ride that’s as far as you want to go, as near as your ear, and in the din of dumb, a smart, tart response. Let’s journey to liquid land, into effervescent streaming, torment torrent.”

- Bob Holman

“In his first book of poems, Crossing Waters, Ray Garman asks “Where would the truth live if it were absolutely honest?” Couched in a frame of seasons, he makes an effort to take us to that place where truth would live and reminds us along the way, “All children/one village/one soul” as he “struggles in this life/for peace/in another.” Even with its carnality, Waters is one man’s personal scripture as he travels the distance to the light.”

- Lamont B. Steptoe

“The poems of Crossing Waters navigate the troubled passages a man encounters when life as he wishes it to be is swept away. Here is the white water of disaster, the cross-current of resistance, but also “a certain spacious expanse” of insight and love that opens into “bigwinds and horizons.” In these sometimes jazzy blues, Ray Garman sings into the soul’s atmosphere.”

- J. C. Todd

“Ray Garman’s poetry knows by breathing. From there he knows his own life and the world around him, which is international. His childhood experience – Spring – his Summer, “Out of Breath” – his Autumn – “Gasped Breath” – his Winter – “Recollected Breath”, all are connected to our troubled globe. Although he is not yet in his Winter (of his discontent?) his poems radiate with senses of the seasons and the most subtle passages of time, and the beauty of the seasons.”

- Justin Vitiello

www.raygarman.com

Tuesday, May 19, Ditta Baron Hoeber & Anisa Rahim