Poet | Words & Tricks

Interview: Jane Levin shares insight on poetry, surviving cancer and self-publishing [with Video]

April 30th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in Poetry, Writing, arts by Chris Pommier

I’ve been lucky to know Jane Levin for over a year now. She and I were awarded a Mentorship by SASE/Intermedia Arts, a local arts organization, and the Jerome Foundation in 2006. With several other local poets we Legacy, by Jane Levin met regularly to workshop and support each other under the watchful eye of Sun Yung Shin, our mentor.

Since then, Jane has worked hard and met with a lot of success in publishing her poetry in both online and print journals. Last week she performed as a featured reader for the SASE/Intermedia Arts GLBT Reading Series. Award-winning writers Andrea Jenkins and John Medeiros curate this long-running reading series.

Part reading, and part book release party, Jane triumphantly held up the gem-green book that she had labored to publish over the previous months. Legacy is a slim volume packed with lyrical, wry and moving accounts of the author’s experience dealing with the fear and pain of cancer, and celebrating the triumph of health, family, friends and her lover Judy.

In her own words, Jane says:

My poems, especially those in my chapbook Legacy, explore universal issues that arise from living as a Jew, a cancer-survivor and a member of the LGBT community. My hope is that my poems will also heal.

I used my digital camera (a Cannon PowerShot A95 for you poetry-loving gadget-geeks out there) to record some short video clips during Jane’s reading. You can watch three of those clips edited together here.

In this 4:42 minute video, Jane thanks her supporters and reads “Atoll” and “Passover” from her book, Legacy.

To order the book, you can send an email to moonflowerpress [at] gmail.com. Each copy is only $8.00 USD. Legacy is also available at the following Twin Cities independent bookstores: Amazon Bookstore Cooperative, Birchbark Books, Brochin’s, Elijah’s Cup and Micawbers.

Read the full interview with Jane Levin after the jump, and below the video.

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All you Literature Lovers:Exclusively Available Here for a Limited TimeFree Poetry! Come and Get It Please

November 27th, 2006 | 1 Comment | Posted in Poetry by Chris Pommier

I’ve been unwilling to post my poetry to this blog as simply a text post, but I’ve wanted to share it with my readers for a while. So, I’ve come up with a compromise. I’ve uploaded and made available for free four of my poems at box.net, a handy little free Ajax-built file hosting/sharing website. They are in .pdf format, so you will need a PDF reader.

I’m going to keep them here and active until December 8th, 2006. If you know any other poetry lovers, or writers (and aren’t we usually one and the same?) please share this post and the link with them. I would love to here from you, as well.

What is strong, what is weak in these poems? What sorts of poetry do you like? Love? Rhymed? Dark? Prose? Found poetry? Share your interests with me and also, if you have any of your own poetry to share, please post a link to it in the comments section, or just email it to me.

Thanks.

I Survived My First Poetry Reading in Years

November 27th, 2006 | 5 Comments | Posted in Poetry, Writing by Chris Pommier

This past Sunday I participated in my first poetry reading since i lived in across the street from Dolores Park in San Francisco in th late ’90s. I went a couple times to a bar around the corner on Valencia whose name I forget and would read for three minutes. I remember the cavernous space, the stage and microphone and the luiquid green and blue spot that turned the patrons, most of whom were drunk or nearly drunk into a dim mist. I especially remember the curator motioning the “cut! cut!” motion across her throat as I went over my time and I remember thinking, people really do that?

By contrast the PRISM reading this past weekend was held at a coffeehouse in one of the most beautiful buildings dedicated to the literary arts that I know, OpenBook. I could read for up to an hour. Now, I ask you, what kind of sadistic writer would subject her or his audience to a whole hour of their poetry? Not I. Considering the special sort of trauma that public speaking visits on my brain, I was not prepared to read for more than 20 minutes.

It turned out well I was told. My partner and several of my friends came. Besides them there were maybe 10 or 11 people. The other featured reader was poised and delivered a good reading. His poetry is well worth checking out. His name is Steve Mueske. Below there is a link to his website on the left-hide side of this page under the Poets & Authors heading. He reminded me that humor in poetry is a good thing.

I’m looking forward to the next two readings I have lined up. December 18th at Intermedia Arts in Uptown and January 24th at Intermedia Arts as well. I’ll post specifics soon.

Do come.