“Necromancy Never Pays” Features Rose Solari Poem
The unique literary blog from writer Jeanne Griggs features Solari's “Somewhere Between Four and Five A.M.”
Blogger and English PhD, Jeanne Griggs, discovers a gem while sorting her bookshelves. Reading as she sorts, "because, you know, that’s why we keep these books, so we can dip into them whenever we want to," Griggs picks out a thin volume with deckled edges and French folds: The Last Girl by Rose Solari, a poet friend from graduate school.
Read the entire blog post on Jeanne's blog Necromancy Never Pays.
The Last Girl is Solari's third collection of poetry after Orpheus in the Park and Columbia award-winning Difficult Weather. The Last Girl represents a writer working at the peak of her powers, possessed of technical mastery, fierce perception, and a tender but unsentimental heart.
Featured Audio: Rose Solari reads “The Beginning, 1939”
In “The Beginning, 1939” Rose Solari’s mastery of recitation is put to the music of her capricious mother and the frantic hopes of her father who wishes to leave “no long, tight pauses for her to fill.” I’ve written before about Rose’s use of swing and rhythmic motifs in her work, elements which are alive in this poem, but what is really mesmerizing to me about “1939” is the musical image toward the end which harbors no pretense of cramming lieder into language, but instead focuses on the very physical act of her mother playing the piano:
Mikaela Lefrak Examines the Life of Maryland Poet Laureate, Grace Cavalieri
The beloved Grace Cavalieri “contains multitudes” according to Mikaela Lefrak in her newest article from WAMU taking a look at the life and career of the 10th Poet Laureate. And Ms. Lefrak treats her subject with the due respect of a life which cannot be covered succinctly in 500 words. She delivers a reverent tourists’ view of Grace Cavalieri’s life, hitting the big things: her poetry and work ethic, the passing of her husband, Kenneth Flynn, her conversion to Buddhism, and finally her new tenure as Poet Laureate.
Listen to Grace Cavalieri on the Kojo Nnamdi Show
Grace Cavalieri’s recent stop at NPR’s The Kojo Nnamdi show is now streamable. Over a substantive 22 minutes, listen to Grace talk about poetry, inspiration, and her plans as the 10th Maryland Poet Laureate.