Amergael's Irish Arts Day

Irish Arts Day Sat, Feb 26-

11:00 to 4:00 at Maris Stella in Harvey Cedars, LBI

I'll be harping sometime around 1 and Kevin will be

piping just after. Come have some soda bread and tap your feet

to our jigs and reels.

Poetry Reading At the Williams Center - June 2

William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative of Southern Bergen County presents:

This program is held at the Williams Center for the Arts,

One Williams Plaza, Rutherford NJ

Call the Rutherford Public Library at 201.939.8600 for more information.

Poetry in Rutherford

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

7:00 PM

Featuring

Rosemarie S. Sprouls and

Michael O’Brien

Plus the words of William Carlos Williams

& open readings from the floor

Rosemarie Sonye Sprouls teaches writing at Richard Stockton College in

Pomona New Jersey, and performs as a celtic harpist around the metropolitan

area. She has an MFA from Brooklyn College.

Her poems have appeared in anthologies and journals such as The

Red Wheel Barrow Anthology, South Jersey Underground, Identity Theory,

Stockpot, Lips, Muse Pie, Bear Swamp Road, ReWrites, The Little Magazine,

Junction, and Lunch.

Michael O’Brien was born in Decatur, IL, went to local schools and earned a

Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. He is a professor of English in the

Petrocelli College of Fairleigh Dickinson University, Hackensack, NJ. His

poems and reviews have appeared in The Literary Review, Lunch, Muse-Pie

Press, Poet, Lips, Context South and numerous other journals. Mike has read

poetry throughout New Jersey and was featured at the William Carlos Williams

Center in Rutherford and at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, The

Village of Waterloo.

Mike’s first book of poetry, Absence Implies Presence, is the result of years of

disciplined effort. His work examines the condition of man, starting from when

our ancestors' gestural language turned into spoken, and then written,

communication. O'Brien's work is wise and thoughtful, concentrating on the

human condition in our own epoch, between the first speaker of the language

and the last. He currently lives in Bloomingdale, NJ with his wife, Moira Shaw

O’Brien, and their cat Saja.

http://www.rutherfordlibrary.org/june2010poetry.pdf

The Wedding Road Show

I will be pulling my harp strings for all you shopping brides at Mallard Island Yacht Club http://www.mallardislandyachtclub.com/ for the first annual Long Beach Island Wedding Road Show.http://www.visitlbiregion.com/weddings/road-show-registration/

http://www.southjerseyunderground.com/

South Jersey Underground has published my short story "Pis En Lit"

This issue is full of striking photos, artwork, poetry, short stories and music.

I am excited to be a part of this total arts venue.

Michael O'Brien - Book Release: Absence Implies Presence

Gaineville Coffee Shop Rutherford NJ

December 4th

Book Release and Reading

Conjure Illinois deckled in rain:

Corn fields

whispering through

the Connemarra burren;

Hear the crop

crackle over a peat fire.

OBrien's lines blend

the midwest's abundant harvest

with hot irish whiskey.

come sit and listen

In Honor of the Upcoming Reading at the Williams Center

So Much Depends

The meadows were soaked in rain.  

The meadows soaked up the rain.  

The soaking meadows rained, 

The rain soaked the mead, oh!, 

The mead owes the soaking rain,  

soaking rain make me some mead!    

The drive home was like 

that:  wiper mad rain 

pelting the windshield, 

the gush - way too loud 

for the soft voice of Nick Drake 

humming from the cd player 

to calm the difference.  Coy kept up 

his scrabble of words, initially 

inspired by misremembering 

William Carlos Williams' 

Red Wheel Barrow poem.

  

Glazed with rain, hah! 

I'm amazed with rain. 

Crazed with rain, ....... 

maize'd with rain.  

Ok that's a bit corny, 

he giggled 

I crack myself up, 

flinging his hands repetitively 

on the steering wheel for effect.  

He peered at the car stopped 

next to his at the light.  A woman 

was staring at the strange man 

in a brand new Lexus:  balding, 

pasty, suffering the aggressive 

attack of middle age eyebrows.  

He was having a conversation, 

waiving his hands, guffawing, 

working those mangy brows 

for emphasis. His blue suit looked damp. 

Jeez - what the fuck do you think 

he's goin on about?"  

She checked herself in the rearview, 

twirled her brow stud, sucked 

her front teeth and rolled down 

her side window.  She wanted 

to hear his sign language,

to comprehend the visual.  

Her Rage Against the Machine 

blared into the space separating 

the two vehicles.  The traffic light 

turned green.  Movement - 

simultaneous acknowledgement 

and the all too puerile flipped 

birds conjoined.

 

She yelled,  her words pelting 

the wet air,  filling in the few 

spaces of clarity between 

his spattered windows - 

she had filled the void 

for herself.  He had shown her how.

 Poetry in Rutherford
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
7:00 PM
Featuring the
Red Wheelbarrow
Poets
&
celebrating the release of
the second edition of
The Rutherford Red
Wheelbarrow

July

During its fiercest 

moment fire flies 

across a highway:

a soubresaut by 

Merce Cunningham.

His hot body leaps 

forward with feet 

pointed and legs 

together. And just 

moments before

the blue lick sparks, 

by no particular storm,

lightening bugs my dog

Sleep Tight

Sleep Tight

Why blame the skin - 

it does not have legs

so it cannot crawl 

or slither when the midnight 

hour calls the bug to slide

out of its baseboard. 

Darkness is her silent 

dinner bell. Each night 

it beckons more uninvited 

guests to dine amidst four 

hundred count linen. Polishing 

off in silver service, feasting 

on the unsuspecting, hosting 

on the host. They tuck into 

our body banquet, sipping ichor, 

gorging well past a gentile sufficiency.  

Suck it up - we all can agree -

reduces us to a meal ticket 

with welts and resulting hives: 

not the sweet home 

of productive bees, merely the itch

of secreted secretions traded 

for a sustenance that we hope

to squash before each 

beastie creeps away.