Planet Poet - Words in Space

Planet Poet-Words in Space – NEW PODCAST!  LISTEN to my WIOX show (originally aired March 14th, 2023) featuring two remarkable guests:  visionary humanitarian, musician and poet Elissa Montanti and writer, producer and director Michael McKinley, both here to discuss their documentary “Our Lady of Staten Island” which focuses in great part on Elissa’s work helping African children with Albinism, victims of mutilation, get needed protheses.  For more information on the documentary and to view the trailer go to:  www.ourladystatenisland.com.  Michael will also discuss his book project Meta War and his recent travels to Iraq and Syria. 

 Elissa Montanti, visionary founder and executive director of the Staten Island-based Global Medical Relief Fund (GMRF), has brought more than 500 children of 57 countries to the U.S. for treatment, including surgery, limb prosthetics and other medical necessities. Injured children come from countries or regions able to offer only minimal medical care, poorly fitted prostheses, or none at all.

 Elissa’s appearance on “60 Minutes” and her book “I’ll Stand By You” One Woman’s Mission to Heal the Children of the World” (written with Jennifer Haupt, Penguin Books, 2012) have helped spread the word about this remarkable woman and her work.  The New York Times and The Washington Post, among many print venues, have heralded her extraordinary work.  Elissa was featured in “CNN Heroes,” BBC World News, “Democracy Now” WorldVision Radio, and Voice of America.  People Magazine voted their story “the Saint of Staten Island”, as one of the five best stories of the year.  Elissa received Amnesty International ‘s Modern Day Saints Award and recognition from the Humanitarian Operating center in Kuwait for her bravery and humanitarian work in Iraq and the Shriners Humanitarian Award.  “To Walk Without Fear”, a documentary produced by Miracle Mile Films and sponsored by the UN Correspondence Association and the Prince of Jordan, premiered at the United Nations on November 16, 2006.   

 Elissa lives in Staten Island with her adopted son Ahmed who was blinded and lost his arm at 7 years old in Iraq while walking into crossfire.   Elissa’s passions also include music, poetry and painting. Her poetry has won recognition from the American Poetry Society.

 Michael McKinley’s first novel, The Penalty Killing, was shortlisted for an Arthur Ellis Award as best debut crime novel. His subsequent page-turners include, among others,  international bestseller Facetime and Willie: The Game Changing Story of the NHL's First Black Player, nominated for an NAACP Image Award as best biography and one of the top twenty books of 2021. Michael‘s writing credits include the screenplay for the 1992 feature film Impolite, starring Christopher Plummer; a number of Discovery Channel docu-drama series including Perfect Disasters, Solar Storm and I Shouldn’t Be Alive.  He wrote and produced award-winning films for CNN on the Vatican and on biblical archaeology in the Middle East, and The Jesus Strand for History TV. His most recent show is the 2021 three-part documentary series Epstein’s Shadow: Ghislaine Maxwell, which he co-created and Executive Produced for Peacock and SKY UK. Michael traveled to Iraq and Syria for projects with US Special Forces operators and Syrian Democratic Forces. Michael, educated at Oxford University, lives in New York City. He is currently directing, writing and producing, with Nancy Bell and Alice Barrett Mitchell, Our Lady of Staten Island.  

Planet Poet-Words in Space  – NEW PODCAST!  LISTEN to my WIOX show (originally aired February 14th, 2023) featuring writer Frances Collato, who will read from and talk about her moving family saga, Shadows on the Pathway (including Sephardic poetic proverbs passed down through centuries).  Planet Poet’s Poet-at-Large, writer and visual artist Pamela Manché Pearce also joins us on the program.  

 Frances Collato, teacher, reading consultant, educational coordinator, middle school principal and college dean, among her other professional accomplishments, has written a book steeped in Sephardic and Italian culture, a family saga spanning 70 years, telling the story of four immigrant families that settle on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the early 1900’s. Their lives become intertwined when American born super athlete Joey Collato meets Lena Levy in 1932.   This is Fran’s family story.

Planet Poet-Words in Space  – NEW PODCAST!  LISTEN to my WIOX show (originally aired January 17th, 2023) featuring  Eric Baylin, Poet Laureate Emeritus of Sullivan County, New York. You’ll hear Eric discussing his tenure as Poet Laureate, reading his poems and talking about his life as a sculptor and teacher.  Planet Poet’s Poet-At-Large, Pamela Manché Pearce, also joins us on the program. 

Eric Baylin, poet and sculptor, lives in Sullivan County, NY, in the village of North Branch. He served as Sullivan County Poet Laureate for 2021-22, a role sponsored by the Sullivan County Library Association. Eric taught visual art for 52 years, working with all ages from pre-school through college, and recently retired after 37 years at Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn. 

 As Poet Laureate, Eric sought to give poetry a public face in Sullivan County and to encourage the reading and writing of poetry among county residents of all ages.  To fulfill his goals, Eric gave workshops, organized and presented poetry events including the first Sullivan County Youth Poetry Festival, held at Bethel Woods in April 2022 and Sylvan Land: The Spirit of Sullivan in Word and Song, at the Tusten Theatre in Narrowsburg, among other his other numerous duties.

 In his work as a sculptor Eric uses elements from nature, tree branches and stones gathered from nearby fields and streams to create temporary site-specific installations exhibited at galleries in Sullivan County.  Eric is also a long-time meditator, a practice that fuels and sustains both his poetry and art.

Planet Poet-Words in Space  – NEW PODCAST!  LISTEN to my podcast (broadcast on WIOX radio January 3, 2023) featuring award-winning poet Alison Carb Sussman, who will discuss and read from her new poetry collection, Black Wool Cape.  Planet Poet’s Poet-At-Large, Pamela Manché Pearce, also joins us on the program.

In addition to Black Wool Cape, Alison’s new poetry collection published by Unsolicited Press, the poet, a 2015 Pushcart Prize nominee, has garnered numerous awards and publications throughout her writing career.  Her chapbook, On the Edge, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2013.  Alison won the Abroad Writers’ Conference/Finishing Line Press Authors Poetry Contest and read her winning poems as their guest in Dublin, Ireland in 2015.  Her poem “Dirty” was a finalist in Naugatuck River Review’s 11th Annual Narrative Poetry Contest in 2019.  Her poem “Anhedonia” (now “Anhedonic Woman”) was a finalist in the 49th Parallel Award for Poetry in Bellingham Review’s 2016 Literary Contests.  Her poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, Gargoyle, The New York Times, Rattle, Southword and other publications.  She lives and writes in New York City.

 “Alison Carb Sussman is a truth-teller, whether she is singing in the voice of an Israeli soldier, or in the voice of her younger self facing family cruelty.  Her lines bear righteous anger subtly -- and transport joy in the small details of a life mapped out with immaculate craft…” -- Marilyn Kallet, poet, editor and former Knoxville Poet Laureate.

Planet Poet-Words in Space  – NEW PODCAST!  LISTEN to my podcast featuring author Ellen Greene Stewart, who will read from and discuss her latest non-fiction book, ELEPHANTS – Up Close and Personal, a truly entertaining and affecting exploration of the author’s experiences as a volunteer in South Africa’s Knysna Elephant Park.  (Also a poem by Dan Chiasson!)
 
Ellen’s poignant portraits of individual elephants combined with her comprehensive and deeply considered compilation of often surprising scientific research on elephant physiology, psychology and the importance of elephants to humanity, emphasize the looming tragedy of their possible extinction.
 
In addition to ELEPHANTS – Up Close and Personal, published by Toplight – an imprint of McFarland & Co., Ellen is the author of Kaleidoscope (about the intersection of art therapy and dementia), Magnolia Street Publishing; Superheroes Unmasked (an emotional literacy curriculum for grade school children), Youthlight Publishing; and Mental Health in Rural America, Routledge Publishing, as well as numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals.  Ellen has volunteered at Knysna Elephant Park several times.  She lives and works as an art therapist in rural upstate New York.

NEW PODCAST!  LISTEN to my WIOX show (originally aired October 5th, 2022) featuring award-winning poet Lissa Kiernan, who will read from and discuss her most recent poetry collection, The Whispering Wall.  Planet Poet’s Poet-At-Large, Pamela Manché Pearce, also joins us on the show.
 
The Whispering Wall, Lissa Kiernan’s second full-length poetry collection, won the 2020 Homebound Publications Poetry Prize and was a semi-finalist for Tupelo Press Dorset Prize. Her previous books are Glass Needles & Goose Quills, winner of the Nautilus Gold for lyric prose, and Two Faint Lines in the Violet, finalist for the Julie Suk Award and IndieFab Award. She received her MFA at Stonecoast and holds an MA in Media Arts from The New School. She founded and directs The Poetry Barn, a pollinator habitat for poetry in the Catskills, and AIM Higher, a nonprofit organization dedicated to elevating women artists. She volunteers with Flying Cat Music and, with her husband, Chris Abramides, is an enthusiastic herder of a fluctuating number of felines. lissakiernan.com

“Besotted with, weighted with Beauty, The Whispering Wall constructs delicious sonic tangles and brutally candid testimonies. Kiernan’s lyric recording of multiple losses—of father, fertility, beloved natural places, sheer breathing spaces destroyed by human encroachment—provides the elegant architecture guiding each poem. Seductions and menacing of drink, of violence, shadow the speaker’s journey. Guiding all is the gorgeous dreaminess in Kiernan’s voice, pouring into us its alchemies: art itself is the elixir that distracts from, or miraculously surpasses, illusion or myth. A witchy and sardonic wit’s at work, too, in these poems, singing with Stevie Smith, and with Plath. What a great gift of solace and heart this book is.”
—Judith Vollmer, author of The Sound Boat: New and Selected Poems

“Elegiac and alive with all five senses, plus whatever sixth sense allows us to perceive the metaphysical mysteries of life and death, Lissa Kiernan’s The Whispering Wall limns the mists of grief and memory and delineates the lucidity of having a body.”
—Kathleen Rooney, author of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk and Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey
 
 “...Kiernan deftly weaves her own personal narrative into the lives of other artists (including Remedios Varo, Leonor Fini, and Leonora Carrington), historical events, computer systems, mythological figures, and even aerodynamics concepts, so that the collection subtly expands the dimensions of what the self means... “
—Christien Gholson, author of All the Beautiful Dead and winner of The Bitter Oleander Press Library Of Poetry Book Award

Yours in Radio, Sharon

Planet Poet-Words in Space  – NEW PODCAST!  LISTEN to my WIOX show (originally aired September 13th, 2022) featuring award-winning poet Cammy Thomas who discusses and reads from her most recent poetry collection, Tremors, published by Four Way Books.  Pamela Manché Pearce, Planet Poet’s endlessly interesting and erudite Poet-At-Large, also joins us on the show! 

 Cammy Thomas’ first book of poems, Cathedral of Wish, received the 2006 Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America.  A fellowship from the Ragdale Foundation helped her complete her second book, Inscriptions. Her third book, Tremors, came out in September 2021.  All are published by Four Way Books. Her poems have recently appeared in Image, Poetry Porch, Amsterdam Quarterly, Gravel, and Compose, and in the anthologies, Poems in the Aftermath (Indolent Books), and Echoes from Walden (edited by David Leff, from Wayfarer Books). Her poem, "French Toast," was featured on Poem-a-Day on August 6, 2021.

 Two of her poems are the text for Far Past War, a choral work by her sister, composer Augusta Read Thomas, which was performed by the Cathedral Choral Society at the National Cathedral in Washington DC, March 13, 2022.
 
“Thomas explores how poetry in narrative form can draw from various sources and frames. The tremors in the title have to do with facing the fears that lie beneath the surface. They are also about hoping for a steady hand, taking a deep breath, and summoning the courage to write, despite the quivering scrawl on the page.”

 —Joyce Wilson - Poetry Porch, 2022

 “The poems in Cammy Thomas’s wonderful collection, Tremors, individually and collectively form a coherent, insightful, and very moving arc from the wrong beginnings of a childhood marked by privilege and abuse, whose traumatic dependencies were/are only partly tempered by ambivalent love and belated understanding, to a complex, mature and at times visionary grasp of the intricacies and inextricabilities of beauty and loss, desire and separation, without either side of the equation diminishing the power (for good or ill) of the other. The artistry of the poems is part and parcel of the maturity of the poet. This is a book to live with and cherish.”

—Alan Shapiro

 As always, thanks for listening

 Yours in Radio, Sharon

Planet Poet-Words in Space  – NEW PODCAST!  LISTEN to my WIOX show (originally aired August 16, 2022) featuring Canadian poet Lisa Richter who reads from and discusses her poetry collection Nautilus and Bone, winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Poetry, the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Poetry, and the Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry. 

 Pamela Manché Pearce, Planet Poet’s endlessly interesting and erudite Poet-At-Large, also joins us on the show! 

 Lisa Richter is a Canadian poet, writer and educator. She is the author of two books of poetry, Closer to Where We Began (Tightrope Books, 2017), and Nautilus and Bone (Frontenac House, 2020), winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Poetry, the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Poetry, and the Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and a National Magazine Award, and appeared in numerous publications and anthologies, including The Literary Review of Canada, CV2, The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, Rogue Agent and Crab Creek Review. She lives and writes in Toronto. 

 Canadian Jewish Literary Awards:
"Nautilus and Bone (Frontenac House) by Lisa Richter is a poetic tour de force. It is a reclamation project of Jewish literary history as well as an act of radical empathy. A reimagining of the unconventional life of the celebrated Yiddish poet, Anna Margolin, this collection has all the ambition, romance, and ferocity of its subject, a moving exploration of how a wild spirit searches for beauty and love. We return to it with pleasure and admiration." 

 National Jewish Book Award for Poetry:
“In Nau­tilus and Bone, Lisa Richter races around the life and work of Yid­dish-lan­guage poet Anna Mar­golin (1887 – 1952) until her “words are wild­ing.” The poet­ry super­sedes the mere bio­graph­i­cal and show­cas­es the tri­umphs of the genre: in forms includ­ing son­net crowns, cen­tos, and homo­phon­ic trans­la­tions, Richter keeps up with Margolin’s escapades from Brisk to the Low­er East Side. Poems such as “Flew the Pea­cock Off-Gold­en” com­bine icon­ic themes of Yid­dish poet­ry with Richter’s exu­ber­ant syn­tax: “above sleep I became the peacock/my rest­less eye flew away you bow.” Lan­guage flaunts itself across his­to­ry — with epigraphs rang­ing from Lor­ca to Liz­zo, the col­lec­tion memo­ri­al­izes Margolin’s lega­cy across time. Richter’s exhil­a­rat­ing achieve­ment doesn’t mere­ly bring Mar­golin to life — it dares the read­er to live as ful­ly as Margolin.”

Planet Poet-Words in Space  – NEW PODCAST!  LISTEN to my WIOX show (originally aired June 21, 2022) featuring Cheryl Clarke, remarkable poet, activist, educator and co-organizer of the annual Hobart Festival of Women Writers in Hobart, the Book Village of the Catskills.  Planet Poet’s intrepid Poet-At-Large Pamela Manché Pearce also joins us on the show! 

 CHERYL CLARKE is a black lesbian feminist poet and the author of five books of poetry, the literary study ‘After Mecca’: Women Poets and the Black Arts Movement, and the collection, The Days of Good Looks: Prose and Poetry, 1980-2005. She co-edited with Steven G. Fullwood To Be Left with the Body, a literary publication of the AIDS Project Los Angeles for men of color having sex with men. 

 SINCE 1979, her writing has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Callaloo: A Journal of African American Arts and Letters, African-American Review, and most recently The Georgia Review and Paideuma: a publication of the National Poetry Foundation; and the iconic anthologies: This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color and  Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. For nine years, she was an editor of Conditions: A Magazine of Writing for Women with an Emphasis on Writing by Lesbians. She is a member of the editorial board of the long-running lesbian journal, Sinister Wisdom. 

 SHE is a co-organizer of the annual Hobart Festival of Women Writers in Hobart, the Book Village of the Catskills.

 “In By My Precise Haircut, Cheryl Clarke collects histories that are all, in effect, personal.  Whether the tone is wily or grieving, wise or wise-ass, the reader is drawn closer by the page and into a world that may be Black, Lesbian middle-aged, sister of a deceased Sgt. J.L. Winters, daughter of the Black Elder – but is certainly a threshold for all.” –Kimiko Hahn, author of foreign Bodies, Toxic Flora and Brain Fever

Planet Poet-Words in Space  – NEW PODCAST!  LISTEN to my May 24th, 2022 WIOX show featuring poet and performance artist Mike Jurkovic.  Mike will read and perform poetry from his latest collection of poetry mooncussers and other works.

 “From suburban streets to worldwide events, Jurkovic fights back with humor, ranging from dry to hilarious. Everything is political, and Jurkovic doesn’t care what you think. He’ll keep writing dis-turbing notes and speak his mind. His new collection, mooncussers, provides entertaining lessons for us to emerge from the matrix that keeps our minds imprisoned.” - Patricia Carragon, Curator/Editor in-chief Brownstone Poets, Brooklyn, NY, author of Angel Fire (Alien Buddha Press). 

 “A poet of intense precision, a collection of little daggers that head straight to the heart of things.”-John Pielmeier, Playwright (Agnes of God), Screenwriter, Novelist (Hook’s Tale) 

 Mike Jurkovic’s poetry collections include mooncussers (Luchador Press 2022),  AmericanMental, (Luchador Press 2020) Blue Fan Whirring, (Nirala Press, 2018); and smitten by harpies & shiny banjo catfish (Lion Autumn Press, 2016).  Anthologies include Mightier - Poets for Social Justice and Calling All Poets 20th Anniversary Anthology, (CAPS Press); Reflecting Pool: Poets & the Creative Process (Codhill Press, 2018); Like Light: 25 Years of Poetry & Prose (Bright Hill Press, 2018); WaterWrites: A Hudson River Anthology, (Codhill Press, 2009) among others. A 2016 Pushcart nominee, he is President of Calling All Poets, now in its 23rd year, in the Hudson Valley. Mike’s radio show New Jazz Excursions can be heard on WIOX 91.3FM.  He loves Emily most of all.