Calling - Sharon Chmielarz

Calling

by Sharon Chmielarz

In Calling, Sharon Chmielarz recalls the lives of those, who, in Elisabeth Bishop’s words, in “Brazil, January 1, 1502  “... who kept calling, calling to each other...”  They are known and unknown  painters, musicians, the local beautician, islanders and immigrants.  They are subjects for our attention, long overdue.  These are portrait poems serving as windows into the lives of Monet’s egg girl, Galileo’s daughter, the Two Fat Ladies.  They are a record of the people we come from, recorded in lyric and narrative, with dashes of humor and anger, love and sadness at the irrefutable wash of history the poems find themselves in.  They are women who are showcases of strength, reflection, and the ordinary transformed by the desire to be counted.  They seek the remembrance due the neglected.  The poet’s drag-net sweeps them all in. 

BIOGRAPHY

Sharon Chmielarz’s books of poetry include Calling, The Sky Is Great The Sky Is Blue, The Rhubarb King, The Other Mozart,  But I Won’t Go Out in a Boat, Different Arrangements, and one chapbook, Stranger in Her House. Her work has been a finalist in the National Poetry Series, and in ‘99, ‘01, ‘02, ’05, ’07 and ‘10 nominated for a Pushcart.  It’s been featured on American Life in Poetry (‘07) and individual poems translated into French and Polish.  The Rhubarb King, won a Merit Award from the 2007 Midwest Independent Publishers Association. The Other Mozart has been made into a two-part opera. Her book Calling was first runner up in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, 2011, for poetry.

UPCOMING READINGS

Feb. 10, 2012:  Banfill Locke Center for the Arts

early 2012, but as yet undated: North Star Chapter of the German Russians, Berea Lutheran Church, 7538 Emerson Ave. S., Mpls. (Richfield)

WEBSITE
www.sharonchmielarz.com

PURCHASE
Amazon


OTHER BOOKS PUBLISHED

The Sky Is Great The Sky Is Blue (Whistling Shade Press, 2010)

The Rhubarb King (Loonfeather Press, 2006)

The Other Mozart  (Ontario Review Press/ imprint W.W. Norton, 2001)

But I Won’t Go Out in a Boat (New Rivers Press, 1991)

Different Arrangements (New Rivers Press, 1982)

Chapter book: 

Stranger in Her House (Poetry Harbor, 1990) -- contact author through www.sharonchmielarz.com to purchase

Children’s:

Pied Piper of Hamelin  (Stemmer House, 1990) (out of print)

The End of Winter  (Crown, 1992) (out of print)

Down at Angel’s (Ticknor & Field/ Houghton Mifflin, 1994)

PUBLISHER
Loonfeather Press
www.loonfeatherpress.com

Scott R. Walvaert - Poet

PACIFIC

By Scott R. Welvaert

SOL Books

Star-crossed lovers, David and Marti, set out to fulfill their dying wish: see the Pacific Ocean. They begin in Minnesota, where they meet at an AIDS clinic, and Pacific chronicles their journey through the Black Hills, past Devil’s Tower, and to Cannon Beach. Before reaching their final destination, they must first accept their fates and the past choices that have led them down this tragic road.

"Welvaert’s characters rush toward their fate even as they seem to evade it, in poems tender and elegiac, poems full of clear-eyed detail and music informed by compassion, gravity, and grace." —Richard Robbins, author of The Untested Hand and Other Americas

"Welvaert’s road trip West makes us want to do as its young and desperate protagonists and take off our shoes “to feel the world again, to step on the jagged rock.” —Richard Terrill, author of Coming Late to Rachmaninoff and Fakebook: Improvisations on a Journey Back to Jazz

BIOGRAPHY
Scott R. Welvaert lives in Chaska, Minnesota, with his wife, two daughters, and a dog named Sparrow. His poetry has been previously published in the Rockhurst Review, Chiron Review, Rockford Review, Cold Mountain Review, Jabberwock Review, Rosebud, Birmingham Poetry Review, Valaparaiso Poetry Review, and numerous other magazines and journals across the country. His published children’s novels include The Curse of the Wendigo and The Mosquito King, the former title being recently nominated for a 2009 Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Award. Pacific is his first full-length collection of poetry.

WEBSITE
http://solbooks.com/authors/scottrwelvaert.html

BLOG
http://scotchowashere.blogspot.com/

OTHER TITLES BY SCOTT
The Curse of the Wendigo
The Mosquito King

PACIFIC LAUNCH DATE
03/01/10

PUBLISHER LINK
http://solbooks.com/

Wendy Brown-Baez - Poet

Ceremonies of the Spirit

by Wendy Brown-Baez

Plain View Press

Ceremonies of the Spirit is a collection of love poems that travels a spiral from infatuation to consecration, from the romantic to the mystical. Ceremonies has been called "gorgeous", "exquisite", "flirty", and "joyous work that should be celebrated.” Michael Parker’s review in the summer issue of Oranges and Sardines called Ceremonies of the Spirit poetry that heals and transforms: “Here are poems that are living, breathing things; that invite us into them, welcome us into their elegant, ethereal dance, and walk us across the threshold into sanctuary where we look inward, feed the soul's spark, commune with enlightenment, and transform.”

“That’s what Wendy does, she connects us with words and wraps us in the safety of a shawl so we can fall in love with poetry once again.”--Gary Glazner, Founder of the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project.

Riddle

This is a love that has burned me,
consumed me, harvested me like a
wild bracket of grapes
to be trampled into wine. I am the wine,
I am the goblet blown from the crystalline
fire, I am the fire kindled from root,
I am the mouth that speaks in these riddles.
This is the love that cast me to my knees,
breathless and blackened like a tree
limb burnt on the hearth. I am the hearth,
the ash consummation, the warming of
bones, the coming of light. This is the love
that cast me into silver, molten pledge of illusive
grace, destined for beauty, destined for breath,
found in a treasure box of memory. I am the memory,
I am the song that pierces the twilight
and calls to the sky, I am the flute,
I am the river, I am the love that
weaves its way home.

from Ceremonies of the Spirit by Wendy Brown-Baez © 2009

BIOGRAPHY
Wendy Brown-Báez is renowned for her signature style as a performance poet. She takes you into her vibrant, colorful world with sensual imagery, elegant rhythms and poignant stories to celebrate the relentless quest of the human spirit for connection and joy. In 2004, Wendy released her poetry CD Longing for Home and since then, has performed poetry nationally, and in Mexico, in unique venues such as cafes, bars, galleries, schools, women’s retreats, parking lots, and cultural centers, solo and in collaborations.

She has published poetry and creative non-fiction in numerous literary journals, including Borderlands, Out of Line, Mizna, Minnetonka Review, The Awakenings Review, The Chrysalis Reader, Mississippi Crow, and Wising Up Press. Wendy was the recipient of 2008 and 2009 McKnight grants through COMPAS to teach writing workshops with at risk youth. She has performed locally in Minneapolis at Patrick’s Cabaret, The Loft, Magers and Quinn Booksellers, Stevens Square Center for the Arts, Altered Esthetics Gallery, Northeast Community Lutheran Church, Homewood Studios, and Banfill-Lock Center for the Arts.

Wendy has lived a dozen lives, it seems. She has managed shelters for the homeless, lived in Mexico and Israel, been a hospice volunteer, a preschool teacher, and has lost a son and a husband. Becoming a performance poet was a surprise, but her passion is to bring poetry to audiences that don’t usually attend poetry readings, such as at art festivals and women’s retreats. She dresses in costume and acts out her poems theatrically. Ceremonies of the Spirit has created a bridge from stage poetry to page poetry.

UP-COMING EVENTS
February 5 at 3:00 PM CST
Blogtalkradio interview
Nadia Giordana, author of Thinking Skinny and editor of Misissippi Crow literary journal will interview Wendy Brown-Baez on her blogtalkradio show called Extraordinary Women
www.blogtalkradio.com/extraordinarywomen

February 10 at 7:00 pm
Birchbark Reading Series
Birchbark Books
2115 West 21st St
Minneapolis, MN

WEBSITE
www.wendybrownbaez.com

BLOG
http://www.wendysmuse.blogspot.com

PURCHASE BOOK
amazon.com
Magers and Quinn Booksellers
Micawbers Books in St Paul

Laurie Purdie Salas-Stampede

Stampede! Poems to Celebrate
the Wild Side of School

by Laura Purdie Salas
Illustrated by Steven Salerno

Clarion Books

ISBN 9780618914883

These 18 funny and imaginative poems observe students in their natural habitat and reveal their unusual behavior, crazy communication, and very healthy appetites. Whether they’re in the classroom, on the playground, or in the cafeteria, school brings out the animal in all of them. And if you look carefully as you turn the pages, you may even glimpse some of the wild side in yourself!

BIOGRAPHY
Laura Purdie Salas is the author of more than 50 books for kids and teens, including STAMPEDE! POEMS ABOUT THE WILD SIDE OF SCHOOL and SHRINKING DAYS, FROSTY NIGHTS: POEMS ABOUT FALL. She loves to introduce kids to poetry and help them find poems they can relate to, no matter what their age, mood, and personality. She has also written many nonfiction books. See more about Laura and her work at http://www.laurasalas.com/.

WEBSITES
http://www.laurasalas.com/
http://www.stampedebook.com/
http://stampede.ning.com/

BLOG
http://laurasalas.livejournal.com/

For a list of other books, visit Laura's website at http://www.laurasalas.com/