Buffalo Poets

Welcome to conversation and poetry with Louise Nayer, a native New Yorker, now San Franciscan. She has published two books of poetry: Keeping Watch (with funding from the NEA) and The Houses Are Covered in Sound (Blue Light Press). Louise attended SUNY at Buffalo for graduate school where she studied with poets Robert Creeley and John Logan. She co-authored a non-fiction book with Virginia Lang, How to Bury a Goldfish: Celebrations and Ceremonies for Everyday Life (Rodale). Her book Burned: A Memoir (Atlas and Co.) was published in 2010 and won the 2011 Wisconsin Library Association Award and was a finalist for the USA Book News Award.

Welcome to conversation and poetry with Cecilia Driscoll. Cecilia’s poems include observations and reflections on nature and the events of ordinary days. She is inspired by the music of language and voices of others in the community of writers. She is often found in local poetry venues with notebook and pen in hand to record those inspirations. Her poems have appeared on the Buffalo News Poetry Page, earned awards in student publications, and have been featured in area readings.

Welcome to conversation and poetry with Martha Deed, who has been writing ever since she could hold a crayon or pencil. Academically, she started off in history, completed her B.A. in Psychology at the New School for Social Research in Greenwich Village (New York City) when the village was teaming with poets ? Ashbery, Creeley, Ginsberg, Dylan Thomas and others ? who were meeting in places where she did not dare to go and consuming liquids and other substances she wished to avoid. Next stop: Boston University where she earned her PhD and launched her career as a psychologist. She studied one building away from the famous Robert Lowell seminar that included Anne Sexton, Maxine Kumin and others. But she was unaware of them. For the next 30 years, she combined writing with her career as a psychologist, retiring early in 2000 to write full time. Since then, she has published four books (one as editor), several chapbooks and dozens of poems. Two Pushcart nominations and winner of the Ice Boom contest. She has read at many Buffalo area venues as well as in Rochester and Albany, NY and Wilkes-Barre, PA.

Welcome to conversation and poetry with Bruce McCausland. Bruce is s a Western New York artist, potter, poet, and humorist whose family historically, is very familiar to the Buffalo art community; his mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother were all noted artists in Western New York.  His experience in pottery and writing poetry dates back to around 1980 when he lived in Connecticut and was in the US Navy. Some of Bruce’s other interests include photography, singing, collecting acoustical 78’s, and restoring old wind-up cylinder machines and Victrolas. Read his full biography at buffalopoets.blogspot.com. Visit his webiste at http://www.wise-arts.com/Bruce_McCausland.html. Links to his pottery are at http://buffalopotteryfaces.blogspot.com/ and http://ussboston-ssn703.blogspot.com/.

 

Welcome to conversation and poetry with Franklin LaVoie , a Visionary Artist from Buffalo, New York. He’s a poet, a story-teller, and a puppeteer. Franklin has made many intricate puppets for use in performances, as well as complex floats for local parades, including the Elmwood Art Festival. Franklin has also been nominated for numerous Artie Awards. Also an accomplished playwright, Franklin's self-produced original works THE BEDEVILED CHEST and MEDIUM RARE have earned much critical acclaim. A true renaissance man, he is a painter and musician, as well. Visit Franklin's website at: www.franklinlavoie.com

Welcome to conversation and poetry with Theresa Wyatt,  a retired educator and former visual artist. Theresa’s first chapbook collection, Arrowheads Everywhere, comprises 32 poems and is available at Talking Leaves Bookstore. She has been a featured reader many times on the local WNY poetry scene. A Pushcart Prize nominee, a Finalist in the Bordighera 2013 Poetry Book Competition and a recent 3rd Place Winner in the 2014 Chautauqua Haiku Contest, Theresa strives to raise awareness for various subjects through her work. At the 100,000K Poets for Change annual readings, she always includes work by social activist poet, Carl Sandburg, who she counts as one of her major literary influences. Theresa has a personal interest in the writing and application of poetry as a healing, therapeutic tool. Her full bio can be found at http://buffalopoets.blogspot.com.

Welcome to conversation and poetry with Vincent Cervone, who is an English teacher in Western New York. He is the co-founder and editor of the Buffalo-based literary magazine, steel bellow. He is also the co-founder and editor of www.cinemaobserver.com, a website that offers film/TV criticism and recommendations.

Welcome to conversation and poetry with ryki zuckerman. ryki zuckerman is a poet, editor, teacher, and artist who is the author of the full-length volume, Looking for Bora Bora , and also the chapbook, body of the work. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications. ryki has been a featured reader at many venues in the Buffalo area, and is the host of the Wordflight poetry reading series. She also curates and hosts the Gray Hair Reading Series. The late Robert Creeley said of her work: "ryki zuckerman practices the lively art of upfront truth-telling with a valid poetic license."

Welcome to conversation and poetry with Joel David Lesses, a poet whose spiritual investigations both verbal and written are found in poetry and on the podcast entitled Unraveling Religion. Other passions include the intersection of poetry, spirituality, science and phenomenology shared and disparate in the human experience, and transformative power of self inquiry and introspection through contemplative and meditative practices with a belief that the fundamental transformation of individuals and our collective comes through barreling inward, relentlessly, the question, “Who am I?” or “What am I” or “What is the matter with me?” the latter being the question which after years of examination, shattered his false sense of self, the work of integration of that experience being an ongoing work in progress. Joel was also voted by 2014 Buffalo’s Artvoice, Best Poet and loves existential exploration of our human condition. HIs work in progress of prose and poetry and letters is entitled Odyssey of Autumn’s Breath: An American Collection and Life.   

Joel: "Point of clarification, Hashem is the name of G-d, not the "name to Jews" due to audio anomalies it sounds incorrectly like that statement was made, the audio recording "jumped over" very brief portions of the interview."

Welcome to a conversation and poetry with  Buffalo Poet  Jennifer Campbell. Her new book of poetry, Supposed to Love, was published in February 2013 by Saddle Road Press. Jennifer's first full-length book of poetry, titled Driving Straight Through, was published by FootHills in 2008. She also has a chapbook called The Many Colors of Sound. She is an English professor in Buffalo, NY, and a co-editor of Earth’s Daughters, the longest-running feminist literary journal in the United States.

Jennifer is co-curator of the monthly reading series at the Center for Inquiry / Just Buffalo Literary Cafe in Amherst, NY.