IBBETSON STREET MAGAZINE (Published twice a year in November and June: $12/issue, $22/2 issues.)

• Issue 55 Poetry by: Ted Kooser, Marge Piercy, Steve Ratiner, Hilary Sallick , and others …
• Issue 54 Poetry by: Ted Kooser, Mary Buchinger, Alfred Nicol, Michael Ansara, Marge Piercy, and others. …
• Issue 53 Poetry by: Michael Ansara, Richard Hoffman, Kathleen Aguero, Denise Provost, Ted Kooser, Jennifer Barber, Marge Piercy, and more …
• Issue 52 Poetry by Brendan Galvin, Miriam Levine, Ted Kooser, Marge Piercy, Danielle Legros Georges... Michael Todd Steffen on T.S. Eliot
• Issue 51 Tribute to poet Robert K. Johnson. Interview with the late Louisa Solano: Owner of the Grolier Poetry Book Shop. Poetry from Wesley McNair, Ted Kooser, Jennifer Barber, Charles Coe and more...
• Issue 50 Poetry by Dianne Robitaille, Lloyd Schwartz, Jennifer Barber, Marge Piercy, Ted Kooser, Kathleen Spivack and many others. Also: Alan Kaufman on the “Essential Doug Holder...”
• Issue 49 Marge Piercy, Jennifer Barber, Mary Buchinger Bodwell, Ted Kooser, Keith Tornheim and more...
• Issue 48 Poetry by John Skoyles. Charles Coe. lanuary o•Neil. Ted Kooser. Marge Piercy. Danielle Legros Georges. and more ... William Falcetano reviews the Powow River poets
• Issue 47 Poetry by Jennifer Barber, Karen Klein, Marge Piercy, Gloria Mindock, Ted Kooser, Brendan Galvin, and more .... From the archives: Interview with the late poet Lyn Lifshin: Small Press Legend - with Doug Holder.
• Issue 46 Poetry by Linda Conte, Ted Kooser, Hillary Sallick, Marge Piercy, Tomas O’Leary, DeWitt Henry and more... Also: An interview with the late Ifeanyi Menkiti — former owner of the iconic Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Harvard Square by Doug Holder
• Issue 45 Poetry from Ravi Yelmanchili, Ted Kooser, DeWitt Henry, Jennifer Barber, Denise Provost, Marge Piercy, Kathleen Spivack and more. Interview with Lloyd Schwartz by DougHolder
• Issue 44 Poetry by Marge Piercy, Ted Kooser, X. J.Kennedy, Michael Ansara, Mary Buchinger, and a tribute to the late Boston Poet Laureate Sam Cornish by Doug Holder
• Issue 43 Poetry by Jennifer Barber, Michael Casey, Gary Metras, Jim Kelly and more.....
• Issue 42 Poetry from John Skoyles, Denise Provost, Lee Sharkey, Richard Hoffman, and more...
• Issue 41 Poetry by Pui Ying Wong, Joyce Peseroff, Ted Kooser, Brendan Galvin and more...
• Issue 40 Poetry by Kathleen Spivack, Marge Piercy, Mary Buchinger Bodwell, Ellaraine Lockie and more...
• Issue 39 Poetry from Jennifer Barber, Ted Kooser, Kathleen Spivack, X.J. Kennedy, Danielle Legros Georges, Mary Buchinger Bodwell and more... Interview with novelist Paul Harding.
• Issue 38 Poetry by Kooser, Coe, Clerici, Cohen, Glines, Tepper, Pineau and more... Also: Review of Charlotte Gordon’s “Romantic Outlaws...”
• Issue 37 With Jared Smith, Brendan Galvin, Jennifer Barber, Kathleen Spivack, Marge Piercy, Linda Conte, and many more.
• Issue 36 With Poetry from Jean Valentine, Teisha Twomey, Marge Piercy, Kathleen Spivack, X. J. Kennedy, and others...
• Issue 35 With Ed Galing Tribute Issue. Poetry from Ted Kooser, Michael Collier, Marge Piercy and others ....
• Issue 34 With Martha Collins, John Skoyles, Jennifer Barber, Daniel Bosch, Dan Tobin, Andrea Cohen, Marge Piercy, Alfred Nicol, Fred Marchant, Kathleen Spivack, and many others.
• Issue 33 Featuring the work of Brendan Galvin, Richard Hoffman, Rhina Espalliat, Marge Piercy, Diana Der-Hovanessian, Jean Valentine and others.
• Issue 32 Interview with Diana Der-Hovanessian, Poetry by Afaa Michael Weaver, Dennis Daly, X. J. Kennedy, Tom Yuill, Ben Mazer
• Issue 31  Poetry by Charles Coe, Marge Piercy, Prema Bangera, Laura Cherry and others. Also: interview with Marge Piercy by Emily Pineau.
• Issue 30: Poetry by Ted Kooser, Freddy Frankel, Lawrence Kessenich, Rene Schwiesow and more... Also: Tribute to Hugh Fox by Doug Holder. Available at online at lulu.
• Issue 29: Celia Gilbert, Jennifer Barber, Richard Hoffman, Barbara Helfgott Hyett and "Poetry, Masks and Truth" by Mary Rice.
• Issue 28: Poetry from Marge Piercy, X.J. Kennedy, Kathleen Spivack, Daniel Tobin and more...
• Issue 27: Poetry from Miriam Levine, Margaret Young, Dan Sklar, Harris Gardner, and others... "From the Back Ward to the Blackboard"-- article by Doug Holder.
• Issue 26: Interview with Poet Fred Marchant, poetry by Zvi Sesling, Dorian Brooks, A.D. Winans and others....
• Issue 25: Poetry from Sam Cornish, Julia Carlson, Ellaraine Lockie, Elizabeth Kirschner, and others. Also, Essay: "I Gave Richard Yates a Call One Day." by Doug Holder.
• Issue 24 has poetry by Gary Metras, Lo Galluccio, Tracy Strauss and others. The featured article is "What is a failed poet?" by Doug Holder.
• Issue 23 An interview with poet Mark Doty. Poetry from Ed Sanders, Ed Galing, Robert K. Johnson, Beth Lowell, Ellen Steinbaum and others.

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Beloved Imperfections of a Shattered Heart - Jennifer Purcell takes risks in Beloved Imperfections of a Shattered Heart, as the poems explore
the paradox of sadness and joy with questions that come from a place of raw vulnerability. You
can hear the spirit of Purcell speaking, "the lone soldier in a hurricane," longing for peace. You
can see and feel the detailed descriptions of an antique bench, a wedding, the history of a nature
preserve--metaphors for life. These expressive poems use the senses to compel us to explore the
uncertainty and resilience of the human heart. --Daniel Sklar

A Plea to Remain - Arden Norian’s poetry is a rallying cry for the Self in all of its rage, honesty, compassion, and love. Their horror at the world as they have found it and their clear-eyed insistence that it doesn’t have to be this way rise off the page. At once personal and political, the poems, in their deep emotionality and delightful technical proficiency, remind us of what we owe to ourselves and our others during our brief moment on earth. — Sharon Paradiso, Professor of English, Endicott College

Distractions En Route: A Dancer’s Notebook and other stories - The gripping tales in Alonso’s “Distractions” reflect an attention to detail which ushers each through a graceful and credible telling. Relationships blossom and crumble, except in rare instances of mutual acknowledgement and respect. There are characters well worth our empathy, and surely those that rate sympathy, while others perfectly merit our undiluted loathing. What’s important is they all grab our interest, even the dour old aunt who, in one tale, poses for a memorable portrait: “Listening to her is like opening a closet full of dead people’s shoes.” Nina Rubinstein Alonso is a poet and lifelong devotee and practitioner of ballet, the art and discipline of which are implicit in these intimate excursions on the highways and byways of memory. – Tomas O’Leary

balancing act - Sydney Leclerc’s Balancing Act is about how we feel both joy and anxiety at the same time. These are plain-speaking poems of family, grief, growing up, relationships, change, and the whole darn thing. The honesty and purity of these poems touch us deeply in their vulnerability. Leclerc’s images are bittersweet childhood memories: “I grew up in the front seat of Dad’s pickup truck, /fell asleep as he plowed.” And writing about her mother: “Moon to the ocean, /always in motion.” There are also haunting and beautiful images: “It’s a nightmare and you’re a statue” and “The moon, the stars, the sea. /We are my favorite trilogy.” But more than anything, it is a book about the wonder that is love, as Leclerc says: “To love until your heart implodes.”—Dan Sklar, author of Flying Cats (actually swooping)

This Close — Karen Klein, "... is a beautiful read, the poems ranging widely in mood and tone. Her partner’s painful, fatal illness includes a grieving awareness of her own body registering “the meaning of old.” Parthenon presents an excited “First time tourist,” while Tribal Tongues is playful about Yiddish that enriches “…my tribe/those meshugena enough to make poems.” Commitment to Poetry describes her mysterious process of vision: “Poetry made a commitment to me…pulled words out of me…scant rain dew on my face…I melt into it,” an engaging, sensitive collection. — Nina Rubinstein Alonso, author, Riot Wake, editor, Constellations a Journal of Poetry and Fiction

A Foreign Home — Áine Griffin, “... an unfettered and undeterred accounting of life: life that hurts, life that hopes, life that fears, life that loves, life that scars. These poems reach into the earthy experiences of late night dances and early morning sunshine. They pulse with reality and spark with the divine. A.E. Housman once claimed that ‘poetry is not the thing said, but a way of saying it.’ Griffin’s work, here, is a mesmerizing, brilliant, and deeply affecting way of saying it.” — Luke Reynolds, Assistant Professor of Education at Endicott College and author of Fantastic Failures: People Who Changed the World by Falling Down First, Surviving Middle School: Navigating the Halls, Riding the Social Roller Coaster, and Unmasking the Real You, and many others.

Brave Monster — Rianon Prushinski, “... has the uncanny ability to present the darkest of material with beautiful lyricism. The writing in Brave Monster, both the poetry and prose, is honest and unsparing, and yet there are glimmers of hope throughout, and the collection ends on an echoing note of grace.” — Elizabeth Winthrop, Assistant Professor of English at Endicott College and author of Mercy Street.

leƒt on read— Koby Hirschaut, The title of Left on Read evokes not just an unanswered text message but also the violation of a traffic rule. Like a driver turning left on red, the poet takes us in a direction that is risky and unsanctioned, veering within the space of a single poem from pastoral dreams full of flowers and sunlight into nightmares in which posies appear to be grey bullets. Ultimately, however, Hirschaut’s achievement here lies in the way he explores the space between dreams and nightmares: the sleepless nights and early mornings full of grainy coffee that the poet sips alone, “lips pressed against nothing but porcelain.” Rejecting the comfortable clichés of love poetry and other “memories that aren’t mine,” Hirschaut plunges instead into a stark reality that he calls “undersold and ours”—in which, for example, an anonymous girl who appears “golden” turns out to be lit by the neon sign of a convenience store. Hirschaut is not afraid to indulge in this kind of “neon fantasy” (in fact, he suggests that fantasy is essential to self-discovery), but he is at his best when he shows us how the poet’s dreams are less compelling than their raw material-- the everyday experiences that make up what Yeats called famously “the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.”— Sam Alexander, Associate Professor of English at Endicott College

Seldom Purely — Linda Haviland Conte, Wordsworth called the most precious moments of his life “spots of time.” Linda Haviland Conte’s poems in Seldom Purely record a lifetime of such moments, made memorable through the telling art of these deceptively “little” poems: Each piece, as she writes in “Sorting Things Out,” with a story. – Lloyd Schwartz, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, and Somerville Poet Laureate

Pity Party — Megan Hemenway, "The interplay of darkness and light infuses this tender collection of poems. It brought to mind the novel A Pagan Place by Edna O’Brien, for both works share the rush of intimate immediacy. Hemenway’s fragmented poetic narratives feel deeper than dreams." — Susan Tepper, author of Confess and What Drives Men

Bring Me Into Flesh — Rosie Rosenzweig, “To recognize Jewish history is to acknowledge human history. Understanding Rosie Rosenzweig’s poetry is comprehending the love of parents, children, and others in what may appear complex but in the end, is an important journey no matter one’s age or religion. This volume of poetry will make you glad Rosie Rosenzweig wrote it.” Zvi A. Sesling, Brookline Massachusetts Poet Laureate

Heroin’s Harbour —  Marc D. Goldfinger.  In this gripping collection, Heroin’s Harbour, Goldfinger offers us an intimate look at the world of drug addiction, as the “body, soul, and mind [are] interlocked in heroin hypnosis.” Told in three parts, as the protagonist descends into the deeper grip of addiction, he wonders “what decision was it...that made it too late to turn back.” The euphoria of the high is followed by a cascade of loss, betrayal, jail, armed robbery, near death experiences, broken relationships, terrifying bouts of withdrawal, arrest warrants, drug dealing, and death of loved ones. 

What Moments Yield — Artist-poet Bridget Seley Galway’s poems show the painter’s eye with their details from her rich life growing up in New York City and Provincetown with artists, writers and junkies and her more recent life in Somerville, Massachusetts. Beach grass, hot sun on tarred rooftops, fire hydrants spraying water, cold concrete walls, a babe in arms, birds on telephone wires through a window, darkened corners with heroin addicts shooting up.

Through My Kakuma Eyes — Kuoya Dut has created a powerful collection of soulful poems that juxtapose images of revolution and displacement with the solace found in nature and the achievement of inner peace. Carrying with him recollections of his homeland, he embarks on an inward journey, quieting his “roving mind” and following the “whispers” of his destiny. “Sit in the heart of your presence,” he advises—a meaningful message for us all. — Dr. Rossi-Le, Vice President and Dean of Endicott College.

Curious Peach - By Denise Provost. These poems are “old-fashioned” in the best sense of that term—unabashedly romantic and joyful in their celebration of the natural world. Full of feeling but not the least bit sentimental, this collection offers a welcome contrast to the angst and pessimism that seems to inspire so much contemporary poetry. — Charles Coe – author of Memento Mori

Querencia - In Querencia, Allie Hastings takes you to the “hidden pathways” of her heart. There are dream meadows, summer gardens, Ferris wheels, cafes, woods, beaches, London in the rain, and a “rustic bookshop worn by dust and time.” Hastings’ poems and stories burn like a thousand sparklers on the 4th of July. Here you will find the beauty and heartbreak and wonder of relationships, the unexpected, and a place for the genuine. –Dan Sklar. (Author of Flying Cats)

Spare Change News Poems: An Anthology by Homeless People and those Touched by Homelessness - Spare Change News is the nation’s oldest street newspaper. Since 1992, the paper has been covering issues other media often ignore — inequality, homelessness, culture and resistance. Spare Change News Poems: An Anthology by Homeless People and those Touched by Homelessness, spans over 15 years of poetry the paper has published.

To Move a Piano - Dan Calnan - “In this collection, Calnan writes with a wisdom and authority beyond his years. Ranging in tone from witty to profound, these poems all demonstrate his intelligence and affinity with words. He is a writer to watch.” — Elizabeth Winthrop, author of Fireworks, December, and The Mercy Seat.

Late Night Train Lights - By Caroline Moll - “It’s always a wonder when young people express themselves artistically and in that expression, we discover exceptional wisdom, profound insight, and soaring imagination. That is precisely the case in this publication.” — Michael Keith, Professor at Boston College

A Waterless World - By Maisie Ross - Maisie Ross writes of ignited passion, turmoil and poems that descend into darkness, ...the nights go on and the silence becomes crowded.... Haunting and beautiful, these poems resurrect something that all of us have felt. A powerful book of poems that should be read.

A New Path - By Joseph A. Cohen - Joseph A. Cohen’s first book of poetry A Full Life was published in 2005. His poems have appeared in the Ibbetson St. Press, Constellations Anthology, Bagel Bards Anthology, Spare Change, Image Magazine, Great Neck Record and more. He is a recent Pushcart Prize nominee. An avid photographer, he taught photography in New York colleges for 40 years and most recently at BOLLI at Brandeis University. At 99, he still writes and does poetry readings. Formerly President of Sunweave Linen Corp. in New York, he now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and enjoys the vibrant intellectual atmosphere and cultural diversity of his new home. He was recently awarded the Legion of Honor medal by the President of the French Republic for his service in France during World War II. Joe turned 100 years old on July 13, 2017.

Spirit Boat - By Keith Tornheim - Too many people fear death. Keith Tornheim confronts it in all its possibilities. His poems are straightforward, tender, compassionate and with even a touch of humor. For the living there is a need to deal with the transition of those alive to being deceased. He also expertly helps the living deal with memories of those who have died. Keith Tornheim has elegantly presented the readers of this book with scenarios that offer guidance to the emotion of seeing a loved one or friend on their final journey or those who are forever gone. -- Zvi A. Sesling, author of Fire Tongue

It Would Be - By Alexandra Munteanu - "Am I me at all?" questions Alexandra Munteanu as she writes about love, loneliness, relationships, and life. In her first book of poems, we follow her thoughts, growing pains, and discoveries that we all have questioned at one time or another.

Water For The Suffering - By Michael Goodwin - “ Goodwin has surprising sensitivity and wisdom that is unusual in such a young poet.” — Charlotte Gordon ( Author of Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley)

Winter Dreams - By Philip E. Burnham, Jr. - Philip Burnham Jr. murmurs his poems to us as if they were delicate miracles of nature or intimate secrets … and many of them are. The poet’s persona captures you with his likeability and does a masterful job conveying love, loss, and mortality through images of the natural world and an extraordinary perception of the ordinary and tangible elements of time and place. — Dennis Daly

Human Cycles, Poetry and prose - By Paige Shippie - In the society of poets, we inhabit the soul of language. As young poets we should be welcomed when we enter this space of literary art with a gift and a precious innocence.I welcome this young poet, Paige Shippie, who has given us here her early truths in Human Cycles,poems that sing ache into beauty. — Afaa M. Weaver (Kingsley Tufts Award)

You Carry the Woods - By Kimberly Pavlovich - Between the lines, we see emerging a literary Romantic, with an eye for the strange beauty of unseemliness (or, as Hopkins put it, “pied beauty”). The wonderfully titled You Carry the Woods makes for an auspicious beginning.

On Wings of Song - poems by By Molly Lynn Watt - "Watt has written with the sincere and sympathetic hand to mark a path for the reader to return to the Civil Rights Era of the 50’s and 60’s, a history that never leaves us." — Afaa M. Weaver, The Plum Flower Trilogy

That poem that you didn’t understand that the poet read at the jazz bar By Jason Roberts

Poems by Jason Roberts. From the Ibbetson Street Press/Endicott College, Young Poet Series

The Girl Who Wore Sunshine By Meghan Perkins

With disarming precociousness and pearl-like insights Meghan Perkins pulls on life's loose threads and unravels them before our eyes. Her poems speak to what she knows best and her powers of sassy observations amaze. — Dennis Daly (Author of The Custom House)

The Shutting Door by Timothy Gager

Timothy Gager is a genius of the quotidian, keenly observing the details of our lives and rendering them so that we can hear the deep pulse of our identities, of our pure being, within them. The Shutting Door is a ravishing, wonderful, enlightening book. — Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize Winner, Author of 18 books.

FLYING CATS (actually swooping) By Dan Sklar

Fans of European 19th century verse, thick with symbolism and multi-syllabic, will find little to love in Dan Sklar’s work. Sklar’s poetry could be characterized as American Primitive, clean and bracing as creek water. Like Whitman, Sklar celebrates the mystery and profundity of the everyday. This is “guy” poetry, muscularly chronicling the days and to-do list of the contemporary American male, helplessly and joyfully committed to the challenges of raising a houseful of boys, teaching sleepy-eyed college students, and handling the ignominies of manuscript rejection letters. Sklar’s poems tumble and sing with enormously universal appeal.
— Lisa Beatman, Author of Manufacturing America

no need to speak By Emily Pineau

Emily Pineau’s poetry is honest, exhibiting a wisdom beyond her age as a sophomore at Endicott College. She promises a future in poetry that will enthrall readers. Her relationship with an unnamed male in I would for you is one which many women have encountered but have not had the courage to enunciate.
— Zvi A. Sesling, Muddy River Poetry Review, author King of the Jungle

SHORE LINES By Philip E. Burnham, Jr.

"Philip Burnham’s poems have a slow-building intensity to them, a quiet meditative force that gathers from the first few lines and takes the reader into the heart of his experiences of nature, love, history, and place. Shore Lines is a rich trove of the well-observed and the deeply felt." — Adam Haslett--Author of You are Not a Stranger Here National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize Finalist

The Custom House: Poems By Dennis Daly
Again and again, in poems of precision, conscience, and formal elegance, Dennis Daly arrests our vertiginous world so we may see its beauty, horror, and promise. Daly is a masterful poet, whether he is writing in free or formal verse, and the poems in this substantial gathering of his work accrue to a mature vision of our world as it is and as it could be. The Custom House is a book to savor, a book to treasure. — Richard Hoffman, author of Gold Star Road and Emblem

God Lights His Candles By Dorothy E. Morris

Dorothy E. Morris, poet and freelance writer, publishes poetry regularly in the South Boston Literary Gazette and in 2009 won its first prize for a short memoir piece. She has published two chapbooks, and she co-hosts a poetry reading series at the South Boston Library.

The Music Man of Terezin: The Story of Rafael Schaechter
as told by the recollections of Edgar Krasa ( $8) by Susie Davidson ISBN 9780984661404

Rafael Schaechter was a composer, conductor and pianist who staged musical productions with inmates at Terezin, a unique concentration camp where the Nazis imprisoned many of Eastern Europe’s most talented artists and musicians. Under starvation conditions, they continued to create works. The camp became a façade, a cultural showcase promoted by the Nazis to convey a false reality of how well they treated the Jews. This new book by Susie Davidson, illustrated by Fay Grajower, tells the story of Schaechter and presents the recollections of Holocaust survivor Edgar Krasa of Newton, Mass., who was a member of Schaechter's choruses. (Davidson worked with Krasa to produce the recollections.)

CHOIR OF THE DAY by Robert K. Johnson ($14.00) A dawn light glows over Choir of Day, this generous selection of new poems, and work drawn from each of Robert K. Johnson’s many previous books. Here are poems of literal dawn and the birdsong that accompanies it. Here also is a more metaphorical light, one that emanates from these poems and their capacity to refresh our vision, to renew our sense of love and relationship, and to face without flinching the inevitable losses and painful truths of our lives. Let us give thanks for this dawn chorus. — Fred Marchant, Author of The Looking House/ Founder of Poetry Center at Suffolk University/ Boston, Mass.

DEAD BEATS by Sam Cornish ($14.00) "Starting with Allen Ginsberg and ending with Charlie Parker, Sam Cornish takes us on a whirlwind tour of some of the livelier segments of 1950s and early ’60s American culture. With non-stop energy, syncopated rhythms, and a fast pace that keeps you humming as you turn the pages, Cornish visits a wide array of writers, musicians, and films, stopping along the way to visit local poetry scenes and pay tribute to the homeless and poor. Calling on Jack Kerouac, Langston Hughes, Marlon Brando, Miles Davis and a host of others, Cornish makes us feel the excitement of those times, even as he and his companions absorb the complex and often disturbing history of what he aptly calls 'My Young America.'" — Martha Collins order link http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/dead-beats/16168498

WRESTLING ANGELS by Freddy Frankel ($14.00) Freddy Frankel brings deep human sympathy and philosophical insight to this book of poems about biblical figures, spiritual and political leaders, and philosophers. These are not biographies, but rather short, deft, impressionistic portraits that say as much about the poet as about his subjects. Looking at these famous (or infamous) individuals from his unique, personal perspective, Frankel helps us see each of them in a fresh and thought-provoking way. — Lawrence Kessenich, winner of the 2010 Strokestown International Poetry Prize and former Houghton Mifflin editor.

THE HOLOCAUST: MEMORY AND LEGACY ($10.00) A one-hour documentary on local Holocaust survivors (2009), WWII soldiers, children of survivors and Holocaust educators, by Journalist, author, poet, community activist and filmmaker Susie Davidson. Based on her 2005 Ibbetson book "I Refused to Die: Stories of Boston-area Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers who Liberated the Concentration Camps of World War II." (Ibbetson Street)
The film received a Mass. state arts grant and has thus far been added to Holocaust curricula at Bridgewater State College and Emerson College. Appearing the in the film: Boston City Council President Michael P. Ross; Andrew H. Tarsy, Chief Institutional Advancement Officer, Facing History and Ourselves; Tatyana Macaulay of the Strassler Center at Clark University; and Sonia Weitz of the Holocaust Center, Boston North, in Peabody; Holocaust survivors Israel Arbeiter, Samuel Bak, Rena Finder (on Schindler's List), Edgar Krasa, Stephan Ross; Armenian filmmaker Apo Torosyan, local poets Harris Gardner and Regie Gibson; World War II veterans and camp liberators Ellsworth "Al" Rosen, Cranston "Chan" Rogers and Phil Minsky, with music by blues musician Ronnie Earl; Glenn Dickson of Shirim; the Terezin Chamber Music Foundation's Hawthorne String Quartet; Rosalie Gerut. Prayers sung by Rabbi Moshe Waldoks

EAST OF THE MOON by Ruth Kramer Baden ($15.00) Ruth Kramer Baden’s poems are witty and with-it, but she is not playing around. These are the poems of a woman who has let wonder ripen into wisdom. Her capacity for empathy, for her earlier selves as well as for others, is rooted in the understanding that life is always a desperate improvisation. “Consider how all that grows/from mud or rock or shadow/ must find a way to live,” she writes. With these poems as our guides, we do consider, and our appreciation of our own lives is thereby deepened. — Richard Hoffman

KING OF THE JUNGLE by Zvi Sesling ($15.00) "To find you, I must navigate a maze of back alleys." Zvi A. Sesling defi - nitely does this in this beautiful collection of poetry. These poems are sometimes fragile, sometimes blunt, but lyrical enough to draw us into his world with poetry that reads like private little laments. We feel his language. - Gloria Mindock, Červená Barva Press

GRINGO GUADALUPE by Kevin Gallagher ($11.00) "Gallagher's poetry is a rare synthesis of great poetic traditions that puts particular emphases on the image and the lyric blended with a uniquely personalized iconoclasticism. His is a perpetual pursuit to make it new." - Anastasios Kozaitis ( A founding editor of COMPOST magazine) http://lulu.com/ibbetsonpress

DEEP LANDSCAPE TURNING by Ann Hutt Browning ($15.00) Ann Hutt Browning has two master’s degrees, one in psychology and one in architecture, four grown children, five grandchildren, and one husband of 50 years. Born in England, raised in southern California, she attended Radcliffe College and has lived in Missouri, Kentucky, France, Macedonia, Chicago, Virginia and now Massachusetts. She and her husband, Preston, a retired English professor, operate Wellspring House in Ashfield, Massachusetts, a retreat center for writers and artists. Some of her poetry has appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, The Southern Humanities Review, The Dalhousie Review, The Ecozoic Reader, Dogwood, Peregrine, Out of Line, Salamander, and several on-line poetry journals.

EVENING WATCH by Cameron Mount ($10.00) "Cameron Mount makes lyric sense of night watches and reveille. An heir to the New England gothics of Frost and Melville, his relentlessly honest poems are lit with absence and wise to the intimacies of observation. Evening Watch is a startling debut. American poetry has a bright, new voice."  — Peter Shippy (author of Thieves’ Latin, Alphaville, How to Build the Ghost in Your Attic).

STEERAGE by Bert Stern ($15.00) "This is the voice of a wondrously common man. By common, I mean generous, inclusive, and able to dance, at times alone if necessary, with God and with life. Heart, and the words thereof, require expansive courage that can regard both death and immeasurable sorrow without dread. The poems in Steerage, whether they are sensuously peasant like and ethnic, or contemplative and spare, are crafted like indestructible carpentry." — Frannie Lindsay

FROM THE PARIS OF NEW ENGLAND: INTERVIEWS WITH POETS AND WRITERS by Doug Holder ($18.50) A series of interviews with poets and writers that took place in the "Paris of New England," (Somerville, Mass.) Doug Holder the founder of the small literary press "Ibbetson Street" conducted interviews on his Somerville Community Access TV Show "Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer," as well as for his literary column in The Somerville News, and at the Wilderness House Literary Retreat, founded by his friend Steve Glines. Poets and writers included in this volume are Mark Doty, Tom Perrotta, Pagan Kennedy, Claire Messud, Lan Samantha Chang, Afaa Michael Weaver, Lois Ames, Steve Almond, and many more... There is also some striking photography by Elsa Dorfman and other photographers in this collection. Included is an introduction by Michael Basinski, curator of the University of Buffalo Poetry Collection.

THE WREN'S CRY: Poems by Dorian Brooks ($14.00) "Dorian Brooks is poetically sound and masterful, working her way through conflicts, overcoming loss and inequalities in life. Dorian's work soars in meditative spirit that is in nature while leaving you open for the harsh slaps from the world." Tim Gager, founder, Dire Literary Series/cofounder The Somerville News Writers Festival

THE WOODS HAVE WORDS by Mignon Ariel King ($15.00) “Mignon Ariel King’s first remarkable collection of poems, The Woods Have Words, is accomplished, joyful and a virtual voice-romp through the new Boston--an inner travelogue of urban sights and people. Readers looking for a new book of poems will be pleased--her poems are openminded and clear. Even those who do not enjoy poetry or find it hard to read will find substance here, as well as a city and person they can relate to and will want to know more about. Ms. King is an original, and is one of the most interesting poets that it has been my recent pleasure to meet on the page. Ibbetson Street Press has another distinguished book to add to its list.” — Sam Cornish, Poet Laureate of Boston, Massachusetts

ON HOW TO READ - THE MANUAL by Pam Rosenblatt ($7.00) "On How to Read undertakes a vital mission, the questioning of the obvious in an age where the surplus of information seems to have created a new acquiescence. Rosenblatt's investigations make play itself an integral part of the act of reading while inviting us to question our world. This is a rich little book." — Affa M. Weaver, Pushcart Prize Winner 2008

SELF PORTRAIT WITH SEVERED HEAD by C.D. Collins ($15.50) “vastly original, fresh , potent and charged— if the poem is to move us, there must be a successful transformation of material, through voice, which feels true to the poem’s deepest intention—Collins achieves this in poem after poem.” —Pam Bernard, Across the Dark Available on Lulu.

REBUILDING THE PYRAMIDS by Mike Amado ($14.95) In Rebuilding the Pyramids, we have the rare gift of a lyric carved in the patient space of the wish to live, to continue, to breathe, to make a genuine space inside our lives. The lyric here is carved out of Keatsian spaces, where the metronome in the poet’s ear marks endings more definite than meter and beginnings more beatific than associative pirouettes. Amado shows us the moments of life as meditations, and he makes them anew and shows us how we can always build these beacons that align themselves to what lives beyond us. -Afaa Michael Weaver

BICYCLES, CANOES, DRUMS by Dan Sklar ($20.95) "I take seriously what Ezra Pound said, 'make poetry new', I do not want to write like anyone else, if that’s possible. I want to create new forms of poetry." -Dan Sklar (Director of Creative Writing, Endicott College Beverly, Mass.)

IN GRATITUDE AND HOPE Edited by Susie Davidson ($3)  “In Gratitude and Hope,” chronicles German Consul General Wolfgang K. Vorwerk’s four-year term in Boston, in which he established the first post-World War II relationship with Boston’s Holocaust survivor community. Vorwerk concludes his time in Boston on June 30, 2008 when he will return to Germany.

PROMISE SUPERMARKET by Elizabeth Quinlan ($16) "The magic of Promise Supermarket is to turn the power of visual imagination and memory into unforgettable stories—to 'grow treasures' out of what was planted in the treeless ground of a difficult but tenderly remembered childhood." —Martha Collins (editor-at-large Field Magazine)

TIME LEAVES by Barbara Bialick ($8.50) “Barbara Bialick’s poems leave the reader with a sad/sweet acknowledgment of the passage of time. Her work is generously laced with humor, irony, and a peaceful acceptance of what is, and what is to come. This is a poetry collection for all seasons; to read when you are old and when you are young.” — Doug Holder, Arts Editor, The Somerville News. Available on Lulu.

MANUFACTURING AMERICA: POEMS FROM THE FACTORY FLOOR by Lisa Beatman ($15) Susan Eisenberg, author of Blind Spot, says, "Manufacturing America bears witness to the lyrical life of a factory and the individuals who inhabit it at the start-up of the 21st-century. Lisa Beatman adds the stories of immigrant workers, heard through the ear of a poet on site to teach literacy skills, to the growing literature of work poetry."

CONFESSIONS Selected and Edited by Llyn Clague ($10) "Nuggets of irony in the ore of verse!"

AWAKENINGS by Richard Wilhelm ($15) "In Richard Wilhelm’s powerful free-verse, sonorous, image-tapestried first collection, the mature poet takes us through a remarkable series of awakenings, most of them to profound interconnections between himself and primordial riches of the natural world—half-buried treasures that glimmer with mystery, ecstasy, and the divine, and that contemporary humans have to a great extent lost touch with in their techno-industrial materialistic lives." -- Douglas Worth / author of "Catch The Light" (Higganum Hill)

SELECTED POETRY (Vol. 2) by Susie D. ($5) More poetry with an edge from journalist, and author Susie Davidson. Davidson is a reporter for the Jewish Advocate and other newspapers, and the author of the critically acclaimed anthology "I Refused to Die..." a compilation of 30 stories of local Boston-area Holocaust survivors and liberating soldiers of World War II."

JEWISH LIFE IN GERMANY - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE: OUR TEN-DAY SEMINAR by Susie Davidson ($5) This new book by Susie Davidson chronicles an Aug. 20-31, 2006 seminar she attended along with five other Bostonians as a guest of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Consulate of Boston. The group visited many memorial sites, met with German dignitaries and government officials, attended synagogue and traveled to sites of interest relevant to German Jewish history. Photos and text. 100 pp.

BLOOD SOAKED DRESSES by Gloria Mindock ($13.50) In her fascinating poem cycle, Gloria Mindock jolts back into memory the roots of El Salvador’s present day violence. Mindock coaxes to the page the voices of the dead who lie, less in peace, than in restless obsession with the atrocities they suffered. She brings forth as well the voices of the living who seem startled to find that they died somewhere between the horrors they witnessed and the grave they have yet to lie down in. Blood Soaked Dresses is a beautiful, harrowing first book. - Catherine Sasanov author of Traditions of Bread and Violence (Four Way Books). 

FROM MIST TO SHADOW: POEMS by Robert K. Johnson ($12) Fred Marchant (Director of the Poetry Center at Suffolk University) writes of Johnson’s work: “His is an art of transparency, an art in which language through its own devices becomes nearly invisible and what is seen through the scrim is usually an epiphany… The ordinary life is under the poet’s gaze transformed into something approaching the sacred…”

SONATINA by Johnmichael Simon ($13) "Discords, misses and tangles, are all addressed and folded into the Sonatina while the carousel revolves. What this book accomplishes for us is the vision of all events meshing in the music of life, the bizarre just another octave, the sweet and miraculous all plucked appropriately in reprise and return: "the clouds and God are all that exist and the music, the music."  --Katherine L. Gordon, author, editor, publisher, literary critic.

WASHING THE STONES by Linda Larson. Photos by Karen C. Davis and Rob Rusk. ($10) Howard Zinn noted activist, historian and authors says of Larsen's collection: "I am very moved by Linda Larson's poems. They are about gliding gulls and young love, and a homeless woman up against a tree--all the stuff of life, straight from the heart." Linda Larsen is the former editor of Spare Change News.

SELF PORTRAIT DRAWN FROM MANY: 65 POEMS FOR 65 YEARS by Irene Koronas ($11.95) Irene receives the smallest whispers - a scrap of paper, a single word, a passing impression and shows us reflections of the infinite, the holy, the human. Her writing evokes ancient dream-time meditations only to return to the mundane details (polish my toe nails) that bring us back to the particular, the present. Her poems are peopled by all sorts of characters; scholars, theologians, children, philosophers, musicians, painters, gamblers, activists, artists, monks, saints, lovers, fathers, mothers, and on. Irene invites us, with this collection of poems, to think about who we are in relation to others - to see ourselves in many different shoes. Ultimately it is an act of great empathy and great imagination. These poems are never didactic, often prophetic, always provocative.

OUTPOST - A COLLECTION OF POEMS by Abbott Ikeler ($16.50) In Ikeler's poetry, we watch the footprints of dancing maidens disappear at the edge of shore. We watch the beasts of the woods watching a wild thing cutting wood. We trace the DNA of Jove back to the scenes of his crimes. These poems combine the observation of a Robert Frost walking a bleak New England landscape, the pessimism of a Matthew Arnold listening to the sea above Dover Beach, and the wit of an Alexander Pope, as Ikeler encounters the paradox of living a life consistently shadowed by death. Spare in expression but unsparing in their vision, the poems manifest a rare fusion of intelligence and imagination. Order from: http://www.lulu.com

CYCLAMENS AND SWORDS AND OTHER POEMS ABOUT THE LAND OF ISRAEL by Helen Bar Lev and John Michael Simon. Poems and Paintings ($36) The achingly beautiful cover of timeless trees, earth, flowers and rock, is redolent of Israel's destiny. This little land, so hallowed in human history, seems the literary and spiritual core of existence to most of humanity. If strife is ever present here, how can there ever be the peace of ancient promise? This land seems to symbolize the eternal quest for harmony where forces of turmoil march ceaselessly. Bar-Lev and Simon explore this theme for us. Cyclamens and Swords will become a treasured classic, echoing as it does so fluently, the longing, fearing and questing that marks these troubled times. Can be ordered on: http://www.lulu.com

SHADOW PEOPLE - Poems by Molly Lynn Watt. ($14) Fred Marchant ( Author of "Full Moon" and Director of the Poetry Center at Suffolk University in Boston) writes of Watt's book: "Shadow People begins far away and takes us on a journey home. We move from the Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska to the Redline in Boston....We begin as observers but by the end of the book we have joined with Molly Watt in the dance of her life, and our own." Can be ordered on: http://www.lulu.com .

LOUISA SOLANO & THE GROLIER POETRY BOOK SHOP - Edited by Doug Holder & Steve Glines. ($10) This is a collection of anecdotes by poets who have patronized the famed Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Harvard Square over the years. Also: an exclusive interview with Louisa Solano, the former owner, who recounts her experiences with Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Robert Lowell, Donald Hall and others. Contributors include: Afaa Michael Weaver, Deborah M. Priestly, Linda Haviland Conte, Lyn Lifshin and other poets. Also order through:http://www.lulu.com/content/353454 .

THE AMERICAN WIVES CLUB - Patricia Brodie. ($5)  "Patricia Brodie's poems are warm and witty with wonderful surprises for the enchanted reader. Her poems reflect a life of love, friendship and travel, of eucalyptus trees, found treasures of the sea, and the bittersweet memories of home and family. They sing." -- Victor Howes, past president, New England Poetry Club.

BAGELS WITH THE BARDS: THE BAGELBARDS ANTHOLOGY No. 1 - Edited by Molly Lynn Watt. ($7)  An anthology of poetry by the "Bagelbards" a group of poets who met in Harvard Square, Cambridge (now in Davis Square, Somerville, Mass.) every Saturday morning over bagels. Included in the anthology: Patricia Brodie, Ann Carhart, Irene Koronas, Marc D. Goldfinger, Beatriz Alba Del-Rio, Mike Amado, Varsha Kukfaka, Lo Galluccio, James Foritano, Matt Rosenthal, Doug Holder, Julia Carlson, Gloria Mindock, Philip E. Burnham, Walter Howard, Robert K. Johnson, Steve Glines, Tino Villanueva, Clara Diebold, Deborah M. Priestly, Afaa Michael Weaver, Molly Lynn Watt, Barbara Bialick, Tomas O'Leary, and Robert K. Johnson.

SANCTUS! SANCTUS! SANCTUS! - Ann Carhart. ($8)  Ann Carhart considers herself an old local Cambridge, Mass. poet and psychologist. In this poetry collection she traces her life as a young girl, her marriage, her divorce, and her resurrection... A powerful collection from a veteran of life.

HOUSEKEEPING: POEMS OUT OF THE ORDINARY -  Philip E. Burnham Jr. ($8) - "Philip E. Burnham's third collection, places him firmly in the company of Rhina P. Espaillat, Donald Hall, Brendan Galvin, and other equally rare talent. These poems cover the gambit of loss, through death, of his wife... This collection like a good marriage, is 'to have and to hold.'" Harris Gardner (Tapestry of Voices).

I REFUSED TO DIE: STORIES OF BOSTON-AREA HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS AND SOLDIERS WHO LIBERATED THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS OF WORLD WAR II - Susie Davidson. ($18)  "In writing this book, Susie Davidson is advancing the eternal message of the most significant event in Jewish history. The Holocaust was an essential element in the establishment of the State of Israel, which reserves an official national day for honoring its memory. Its lessons are the most profound and the most crucial in the creation of our modern Jewish identity. Susie's effort to document its story and its survivors is to be supported and is greatly appreciated." Hillel Newman, Consul of Israel to New England.

HOT RAIN - Lo Galluccio.  ($7) (Published by the Singing Bone Press an imprint of Ibbetson Street.) "...- a totally original voice filled with psycho-social realities of contemporary America. It's act, react, get into the psych-underground and let it flow..." Hugh Fox (a founding editor of the Pushcart Prize)

LIVING IT - Joanna Nealon. ($10) A new book of poetry by a poet who is blind. Acclaimed poet X.J. Kennedy wrote of this poetry collection:" Living It is a spellbinding book.... I haven't read autobiographical poems this stark, harrowing and memorable since Robert Lowell's 'Life Studies...."

THE WOMAN HAS A VOICE - Deborah Priestly. ($10) Rose Gardina publisher of the "Boston Girls Guide" writes of this book: "Deborah M. Priestly's poetry is moving, deep and passionate. She has captured the depth that every woman feels at some point in their lives with such meaning and grace. She truly is one of Boston's great treasures of talent." Illustrated by Lauren M. Geraghty. Edited by Lynne Sticklor.

SELECTED POETRY - Susie D. ($3) A book of provocative poetry by Boston-area journalist, political activist and poet Susie D. Susie's poetry is right-in-your face, as it rails against injustice, and the modern malaise society finds itself mired in.

SAILING FROM BOSTON: POEMS OF LOSS AND REMEMBRANCE - Philip E. Burnham, Jr. ($8) Burnham pens a collection in memory of his wife Louise Hassel Burnham.  Burnham is a graduate of Harvard College,  and was a former American Vice Counsel stationed in Marseille, France. His first collection of poetry was  My Neighbor Adam  published in 2003.

FAIRY TALES AND MISDEMEANORS - Jennifer Matthews. ($5) This is a first poetry collection by this well-known Boston-area vocalist/poet. Matthews "strings words with wings" in both her songs and her poetry. No wonder she is often described as "the next Patti Smith." Check out her website http://www.jennifermatthews.com

STONE SOUP ANTHOLOGY - Stone Soup Poets, Inc. ($7) This joint project by Ibbetson Street and Stone Soup Poets, is a collection of poetry by poets who regularly attend and or contribute to Stone Soup in some way. Stone Soup, founded by Jack Powers, has been a venue of reading and publishing for over thirty years in the Boston area.

THE SAME CORNER OF THE BAR -Tim Gager. ($5) Gager is the founder of the successful reading series Dire Reader, housed at Cambridge's Out of the Blue Gallery. This collection is a hard-hitting look at the war between the sexes, divorce, drugs and booze, and parenthood.

ON EITHER SIDE OF THE CHARLES - Doug Holder. ($4) Mike Basinski, Assistant Curator of the Poetry and Rare Books Collection of the University Libraries at Buffalo writes of this book: "...when I read his works, it was with great gobs of joy that I felt such bubbling joy at his very easy way of capturing instances of common and making them high holy."

RELATIONSHIPS - Marc Goldfinger. ($10) This is former Spare Change's News editor, Marc Goldfinger's first collection of poetry to be released by Ibbetson Street. Goldfinger, a well-known street poet in Cambridge, writes of his hardscrabble milieu, and the relationships that bind and break.

A KOAN FOR SAMSARA - Linda Lerner ($5) These poems, written between late June 1991 and early 2003, arranged more or less chronologically, tell a love story, the kind that, if you're lucky, happens once. Once only.

LEST THEY BECOME - Harris Gardner ($6) " 'Lest They Become' is an exploration of the spiritual, emotional, and physical comforts and complexities of roots by a tireless contributor to the poetry community." Ellen Steinbaum (Boston Globe Columnist and author of Afterwords).

IN THE BAR APOCALYPSE NOW - Gary Duehr ($4) This collection of poetry deals with the 60's and the aftermath. Duehr is an award wining poet from Somerville, Ma., and co-director of The Invisible Cities Group, a performance group based in the Boston area.

SLOW AS A POEM - Linda Haviland Conte ($8) 23 poems written with an observing eye, and a quiet and spiritually reflective voice. Conte brings tender seriousness, as well as wry humor, to the subjects of domesticity and motherhood.

SMALL WORLD - Poems by Jonathan Roses ($5) This is Roses' first collection of poetry that Hugh Fox describes as "...a refreshing break from Beat/Post-Beat tough-guy street poetry...Simply a kind of wonder at what is...genuinely moving."

BOSTON: A LONG POEM - Hugh Fox, Photos/Art: Richard Wilhelm ($2) A trip to Boston serves as a jumping-off point for a man's recollection of his life and times.

THE LATEST NEWS - Robert K. Johnson, Illustrations: Richard Wilhelm ($4) A native New Yorker's journey to Sept. 11.

THE LIFE OF ALL WORLDS - Marc Widershien ($10, $1 p&h) A memoir of Boston in the 40's, 50's and 60's. Jack Powers, founder of Stone Soup Poets wrote: "This brilliant energized portrait of a once-ago urban neighborhood throbs with affection and detail. Kudos!"

CITY OF POETS/18 BOSTON VOICES - Editors, Don DiVecchio, Doug Holder, Richard Wilhelm. ( $10). This is an anthology of 18 Boston poets of diverse background. Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote: " Bravo to the Boston poets for hearing the Muse loud and clear!" Cover art by Richard Wilhelm.

THE INACESSIBILITY OF THE CREATOR - Jack Powers.($3) A collection by Boston Beat poet Jack Powers. Ed Chaberek of Superior Poetry News called Jack, " A powerful poetry presence!"

DREAMS AT THE AU BON PAIN - Doug Holder. ($3) Poems composed during a hot Summer, while sitting at this sprawling Harvard Square cafe. Mike Basinski wrote of Doug Holder, " All a poet...he is among the the vertebra that holds the Boston and eastern Mass. poetry community up to snuff." Art by Richard Wilhelm.

WAKING IN A COLD SWEAT- Doug Holder. ($4) A book of 3 A.M. night sweats...the dark night of the soul.

EARTH SONG - Don DiVecchio-($3)- This is a collection of poetry by the poetry editor of Spare Change Newspaper. It deals with the 70's, activism, poverty, gender issues, and childhood. Pictures by Divecchio and Richard Wilhelm.

POEMS FROM 42ND STREET - Rufus Goodwin- ($6)- Poems of the street...poems that find the poet. Jon Galassi wrote: " I found much to admire in both the poems and the drawings."

THE BERKSHIRE POLISH BAR/And Other Blue Collar Poems - Ed Chaberek-($2)- A collection of poetry by the editor of SUPERIOR POETRY NEWS. This collection deals with a working class town in New England in the 1950's. Illustrations by Richard Wilhelm.

POEMS FOR THE POET, Workingman, and Downtrodden-A.D.Winans-($3)- This collection was praised by the Chiron review...it deals with the streets of SanFrancisco as this veteran poet sees it. Art work by Richard Wilhelm.

LEAVING ONLY IMPRESSIONS-Dianne Robitaille- ($2) A collection by an editor of the Ibbetson Street Press. Robitaille's poetry deals with the passing moment as it dissolves into the ether. Photos by Doug Holder.

WALK OUT - Ed Meek-($4)- Poems about the beauty and horror of nature, in and around a placid suburb of Boston. Art and photos, Richard Wilhelm.

ANGEL OF DEATH - Hugh Fox-($4) - A collection of poetry that deals with mortality...illustrations by Richard Wilhelm.

PRAYERS ON A TENEMENT ROOFTOP -Ed Galing-( $2)-Poems of the Lower East Side of NYC during the 1920's. Art and photos by Doug Holder.

These books can be ordered via mail-Ibbetson St. Press, 25 School Street, Somerville, Ma. 02143 or call (617) 628-2313.

For local folks some of these books such as:THE LIFE OF ALL WORLDS and CITY OF POETS are available at the Israel Bookstore (Brookline), Harvard Bookstore (Harvard Square), McIntyre and Moore (Davis Square Somerville), Rhythm and Muse(J.P.) Booksmith (Brookline).

Contact dougholder@post.harvard.edu for more info.