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In Celebration of Saara Myrene Raappana

An evening of poetry and remembrance hosted by Eric Doise, husband of late poet Saara Myrene Raappana. Eric was joined by Lauren K. Carlson and Halley Cotton, all of whom read from Saara’s collected work, Chamber After Chamber, which was awarded the Juniper Prize for Poetry. Saara was also the author of the chapbooks A Story of America Goes Walking (Shechem Press) and Milk Tooth, Levee, Fever (Dancing Girl Press).

A gifted poet and teacher, Saara left a legacy of not only powerful and award-winning poetry, but also as an educator, mental health pioneer and animal lover. Her great warmth, intelligence and kindness was evident to all who knew her and will be celebrated in this one-of-a-kind reading.

We invite you purchase her book. Please use the code CHAMBER at checkout to receive a 30% discount. A donor has offered to contribute $10 for every book purchased at a reading to her scholarship fund. If you already have her book, we also invite you to make a gift in her honor by donating to her scholarship fund by making a contribution and writing Saara’s name in the comments field.

The Reading

In Conversation: Marcus Myers & Rivka Clifton

Poets and co-founders of Bear Review, Marcus Myers & Rivka Clifton have grown together as poets, even as their own work is aesthetically different. As Marcus says, “This sharing and cheering each other on, discussing craft and aesthetics, swapping and giving books with and to each other has led, in some ways directly and in others indirectly, to our creating Bear Review.”

The Event

In Conversation: Eugenia Leigh & Diannely Antigua

We welcomed poets Eugenia Leigh & Diannely Antigua to The Notebooks Collective for an evening of conversation about creativity and connection. We are thrilled to host this In Conversation, in which the poets discussed their newest books, Bianca and Good Monster respectively, among other things.

The Event

In Conversation: Jessica E. Johnson & Tyler Mills

Writers Jessica Johnson & Tyler Mills join the Notebooks Collective to discuss their new memoirs, Mettlework and The Bomb Cloud, which both invoke their family history and how the personal and the politic intertwine.

About Mettlework

“…The resulting journey encompasses Johnson’s early memories, the story of the earth told in the language of geology, bits of vivid correspondence, a mothering manual from the early twentieth century, and the daily challenges of personal and collective care in a lonesome-crowded Pacific wonderland. Mettlework traces intergenerational failures of homemaking, traveling toward presence and relationship amid the remains of extractive industry and unsustainable notions of family.”

About The Bomb Cloud

“A shimmering memoir defined equally by its lyrical prose and profound historical implications, The Bomb Cloud untangles the intersecting strands of information running through a family mystery shaped by national secrets…Extending from the poems in Mills’ Hawk Parable, this memoir wrestles with her grandfather’s likely involvement in a top-secret bomb wing that trained in the New Mexico desert, taking the reader to the very edge of the unknowable.”

The Event

In Conversation: Leah Umansky & Melissa Fite Johnson

We welcomed poets Leah Umansky & Melissa Fite Johnson to The Notebooks Collective to celebrate their new books on May 14, 2024. They talked about their love of pop culture, forms, how they cultivate their writing practice, and more.

About Of Tyrant

“What does it mean to live in a country at war with itself–historically, spiritually, politically? Where does this sickness originate? In poems both personal and sweeping in scope, Umansky opens the door to all the possible answers, pointing outward but also in, to the twists and turns of our collective psyche.”

About Midlife Abecedarian

“Midlife Abecedarian is a nostalgic collection that takes the reader on a journey through time. It provides a template for a life well-lived, even if you’re only halfway through. Conjuring memories and a sense of satisfaction and comfort, Midlife Abecedarian is a map to things remembered and things best left forgotten.”

Watch the event below!

The Notebooks Reading: Video

On April 16, 2024, the Notebooks Collective held its first collective reading. We did so in honor of National Poetry Month and to celebrate the collective impact we can have when we work together. This reading allowed us to share the brilliant words of our collective while raising money for direct aid to Gaza. With the help of guests and readers, we raised $600 dollars to donate across three fundraisers. As the situation worsens, new ways to help are being added to the Operation Olive Branch spreadsheet. Please consider giving time or money to this urgent need.

Featuring!

The reading features the work of Quintin Collins, Sara Moore Wagner, Lisa Allen, Claire Schwartz, Sarah Ghazal Ali, Kathi Aguero, Jessica Johnson, Suzanne Frank, Anne-Marie Oomen, Meg Kearney, jason b crawford, M. Soledad Caballero, Marcia Karp, Eileen Cleary, Rebecca Kirk Connors, Karen Rigby & Jessica Cuello.

In Conversation: Trish Bogle & Shu Tu

From the Introduction:

This is new for us at The Notebooks Collective. We’ve never hosted an artist before. We’re doing so tonight because Shu and Trish have collaborated on an exhibit that’s currently on display at the Hamilton Grange Library in New York City. Titled In a Garden of Small Dreams, Art + Poetry in Conversation, the exhibit is a study in collaboration, concision, and compromise in the best possible way.

It’s also about the blossoming of a friendship that started with a shared love of, well, gardens. And art. And words and the worlds we can enter when we speak to each other through art, through poetry, through the beauty and shine of life, the fear and underbelly of the darkness we all sometimes feel.

As individual creatives, Trish and Shu are accomplished, focused, fiercely loyal to their respective crafts. As collaborators, they learned to speak yet another language, one in which they learned to listen to and see each other not just as friends, but as artists with something to say. Together, they said those things in a way they may not have have, had they not accepted an invitation from Isaac Sorell at Hamilton Grange Library to display their work as an ekphrastic exhibit. 

And this is why they’re here tonight: to talk about the genesis of this collaboration, how they worked together, what they learned from one another and how their friendship changed–or didn’t–through the process. 

In Conversation: Kathleen Aguero & Jennifer Martelli

 Our speakers for this conversation are poets, are editors, and are a part of a writers group in Salem MA. Kathi & Jennifer have spent their time locked up with their work and also time with each other revising, workshopping, reviewing, reading. They know each other’s work intimately and while the words are their own, they were supported and propelled by others. Writing is writing. Writing is also revising, reading, talking, mentoring, editing, sharing, and supporting.

The Event

In Conversation: Amy Hoffman & Meg Kearney

A reading and conversation with novelist and memoirist Amy Hoffman and poet Meg Kearney. Amy reads from her new book, Dot & Ralfie, and talks with Meg Kearney about humor in the face of challenges, craft, and transcending genres.

“Amy Hoffman creates unforgettable characters, and her scintillating wit keeps things lively even in the face of the decline that awaits us all” writes Alison Bechdel, author of The Secret to Superhuman Strength.

A writer, editor, and community activist, Amy Hoffman is the author of the novels Dot & Ralfie and The Off Season, and three memoirs—Lies About My Family;  An Army of Ex-Lovers: My Life at the Gay Community News; and Hospital Time. An Army of Ex-Lovers was short-listed for a Lambda Book Award, and both An Army of Ex-Lovers and Hospital Time were short-listed for the New York Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award. Hospital Time was also a New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age selection and has been adopted in college and university courses. It is the subject of chapters in several works of literary criticism.

As Long As I Know You: The Book Launch

From Lisa’s Introduction:

So let’s talk about my week instead. I spent it with Anne-Marie Oomen’s newest memoir in essays, As Long As I Know You: The Mom Book, winner of the Sue Silverman Prize for Creative Nonfiction. It was my companion as I sipped my first cup of coffee on weekday mornings, my lunch date on Saturday, and my break at work, between meetings and desk shifts. It made me smile. It made me cry. It reminded me that good memoirs are built from tight yet breathable essays, that essays are constructed from paragraphs weaved together to tell a bigger story, and that paragraphs don’t sing without exquisitely written sentences. And, even if someone accomplishes all of that with technical skill, a good memoir in essays needs an invisible scaffolding: lacework of deep thinking and a willingness to be vulnerable, to show our bruises, to face ourselves in the most unflattering light without being so focused on the I that we exclude the reader from the truths we’re trying to share. 

The Event

Please enjoy this in conversation with Anne-Marie Oomen & Patricia Ann McNair:

In Conversation: Jessica Cuello & Jan Beatty

When Lisa and I began planning this project over a year ago, we had the same vision in mind. Our hope was that we could provide a non-competitive space, a space where people at all stages of their writing life could feel welcome and bolstered by the creativity they see in others. We also wanted to give creatives the time and the platform to do what they might not get to do in the course of a normal reading at a bookshop.  

And another reason for doing what we do is selfish, but selfish in the way that it nurtures us. We get to participate in the events we host and revel in the curiosity, the motivations, and the practice of being a poet. We are so honored to host Jessica Cuello and Jan Beatty for this conversation. We are so grateful to them for their time and for sharing with us.

Both of them are fierce writers about womanhood, exploring themes of the body and autonomy, the changes we experience as we grow from child to adult. This conversation doesn’t shy away from menstruation, death, or neglect… and it also celebrates the work, the words, the moments that give us peace.

Please enjoy Jessica Cuello & Jan Beatty.

The Event

In Conversation: Marcia Karp & George Kalogeris

When I think about what makes my creative life fulfilling, I realize that my relationships with other writers and creatives are vital to not just my work, but my life. 

We brought two poets together for a conversation. Marcia Karp and George Kalogeris have known each other for 25 years. They have been privy to each other’s successes and to each other’s struggles. They have similar backgrounds but different writing styles.

I imagine their relationship akin to a lifeline: A thread that can be followed back to the beginning, a thread that’s been woven into everything between that beginning and now.

I also realize, when I’m thinking about my own creative life, that when I’m curious, I’m more engaged, more committed, more excited. These events give us a chance to learn, discover, and celebrate what it means to be in a creative community.

The Event

In Conversation: Allison Adair & Eileen Cleary

“Fall in love with someone else’s work,” Meg Kearney told us. “It’s the best way to stave off the jealousy and that insidious belief that we do not belong.”

And how can we not fall in love with other people’s work when poets like Eileen Cleary and Allison Adair make the falling so easy? How can we not fall in love with Eileen’s clear and haunting images, her mastery of form? How can we not fall in love with Allison’s ability to find beauty in the dark, in her lush language? 

I could go on and on, cite poems from these two poets that have kept me up and night and poems that have soothed me on difficult days. I could tell you how much I admire how they move in the world, how they champion other poets, how they continually put good work into the world and notice the same of others. 

But mostly, I want you to take the time to listen to this conversation, because it is like being at the table with two generous and brilliant people. If you haven’t already, you will fall in love with their work.

Allison Adair’s debut collection, The Clearing, was selected by Henri Cole as winner of Milkweed’s Max Ritvo Poetry Prize and named a New York Times “New and Noteworthy” book. It is coming out in paperback on June 9th. Allison’s work has been honored with the Pushcart Prize, the Florida Review Editors’ Award, the Orlando Prize, a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant, and first place in the Fineline Competition from Mid-American Review. Originally from central Pennsylvania, Allison teaches at Boston College and Grub Street. 

Eileen Cleary is the author of Child ward of the Commonwealth’(Main Street Rag Press, 2019), which received an honorable mention for the Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize and 2 a.m. with Keats (Nixes Mate, 2021). In addition, she co-edited the anthology Voices Amidst the Virus, the featured text at the 2021 Michigan State University Filmetry Festival. Her poem “The Way We Fled”  was recently anthologized  in Tree Lines: 21st CenturyAmerican Poetry (Grayson Books, 2022.)

In Conversation with Three Poets

On Saturday April 23, we hosted three wonderful poets with new books: José Angel Araguz, Quintin Collins, and Daniel B. Summerhill.

These three poets: José Angel Araguz, Quintin Collins, and Daniel B. Summerhill, know each other in ways that go deeper than simply reading at the same event. Quintin and Daniel workshopped together in the Solstice MFA Program, now at Lasell University. After graduation, they trusted each other with their works in progress, emailing work back and forth, one on the East Coast, one on the West. And José serves on the faculty of the Solstice program, where Quintin is now the assistant director.

But that’s just the easy stuff. The not so easy stuff is how these three poets witness the world we move in, how they speak past the inherent, institutionalized barriers they continue to face as creatives, as scholars, as partners, as fathers, as Black and Latinx men.

This is a reading, yes. But it’s also community, and proof that when one poet falls in love with and champions the work of another, poetry turns from solo connection to conversation, to recognition, to witness. 

Check out the recording of the event below: