Rose Solari to Debut New Poetry at LitBalm Reading
At September 4th's LitBalm reading series, Rose Solari will debut new poetry. She is joined by Linda Pastan and Jean Nordhaus.
As part of the Lit Balm Reading Series, Rose Solari will debut several new poems concerning music, from Coltrane to Jackson Browne to Shirley Horne. The Reading will take place virtually on September 4th at 5pm and is free to all. Find out more HERE.
Solari is no stranger to writing poetry about music. Her most recent full-length collection, The Last Girl, includes a poem after Charles Mingus, "Myself when I was There." You can read this poem at the Redux Lit Journal HERE.
Lit Balm is a biweekly interactive livestream reading series which includes readings, Q&As, open mics, and more. For this reading, Solari will be joined by poetry heavyweights Linda Pastan, Jean Nordhaus, and Karren Alenier. Interesting factoid: Alenier’s 2002 collection Looking for Divine Transportation was published by none other than Grace Cavalieri’s The Bunny and the Crocodile Press who also Published Solari’s sophomore collection Orpheus in the Park. Alenier won the coveted Towson University Prize for Literature for that collection.
More about the reading HERE.
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.