ArtSake

Recently, the multi-disciplinary performing arts troupe Sleeping Weazel marked its dramatic arrival to the New England theatre scene. We checked in with the group’s leader, playwright Charlotte Meehan, about the company, its past/future, and its fascinating Artistic Director.

Why Sleeping Weazel, the org.? Why Sleeping Weazel, the name?
Sleeping Weazel was originally founded in 1998 by my late husband David G. Hopkins to produce independent films, live and audio theatre, and a multi-genre experimental web magazine based in Bristol, UK. After David moved to New York to live with me, we continued our collaborations until his untimely death in 2004. This iteration of Sleeping Weazel, which we just launched with a festive party/performance night at The Factory Theatre in Boston, is a brand new endeavor I have taken on with three of my former Wheaton College students, Adara Meyers, Amanda Weir, and Jess Foster. We are producing live performance and music in Boston and presenting art works online for viewing across the globe on our Vimeo channel.

The name Sleeping Weazel alludes to the idea of “dreaming awake,” or being in a productive state of unconsciousness wherein the artist works to imagine and manifest what was previously outside the realm of possibility. In extending the invitation to join a work of art finding its way to new dimensions, the imaginary becomes a place of enchantment, growth, and abundant potential for all participants. In today’s economy, this is not an idea to “sell” and so the weazel himself is our wily little mascot slipping his way into the leaky system that is the American arts establishment.

What’s the most surprising response to your art you’ve ever received?
Someone once said to me after seeing four of my short plays in an evening that I had to decide whether my plays are funny, or sad. I politely responded that I’d decided to leave that up to each audience member.

Share a surprise twist in the Charlotte Meehan story.
I’m a 9/11 refugee. If the tragedy of that day had not occurred, I might still be living in my fifth floor walk-up on Grand and Mulberry in Little Italy. Shocks me to say this as a die-hard New Yorker, but I’m very glad to be here in New England where the sky is endless and there’s time to dream. I’m also very excited by the explosion of new theatre companies in Boston right now, and recently joined the Small Theatre Alliance through getting to know Meg Taintor and seeing the wonderful work of her company, Whistler in the Dark. It’s taken seven years to circle back to Sleeping Weazel after losing David, but I’m very proud to have reclaimed our company and look forward to sharing exciting new cross-disciplinary performance with the greater Boston community.

Like, what does your work MEAN?
Though perfectly capable of being charming and entertaining, my plays are stubbornly idiosyncratic in form and philosophical in nature. Others have described them as surreal fables, multimedia dance theatre, operas, performance plays, and choreopoems. Whatever form each play takes, the full array of circumstances that “ruin” people – childhood trauma, unexamined privilege, mental illness, frailty of character, war, poverty, etc. – make up a significant part of my theatrical landscape. I’m also very interested in how American culture in this late stage of Capitalism encourages all forms of predation upon the neurotic masses for profit and in the impossibility of communication that ensues. Fortunately, this can all be quite hilarious.

What do you listen to while you create?
Sometimes nothing, but I was greatly influenced by Erik Satie’s Les Inspiration Insolites and Nick Drake’s Pink Moon while writing Ceci n’est pas une Pièce (this is not a play), a sound performance version of which can be heard on my website.

What’s next?
Next up is an evening of performance and song by our affiliated artists on March 13 at The Factory Theatre. Erik Ehn, Head of Playwriting at Brown University, will present one of his puppet plays from Soulographie, a commemorative performance cycle, that will premiere at La Mama in New York in November. Also performing will be the incomparable Magdalena Gomez and a few other surprise guests. You must come and see…

Images: all photos by David Marshall. Pictured, from top: Amanda Weir, Charlotte Meehan, Adara Meyers, Jess Foster (Charlotte is Artistic Director and the others are Associate Artists of Sleeping Weazel); Loretta Pope and Jacob Richman perform RATS! (LYDIA SHERMAN, ARCHMURDEROUS OF CONNECTICUT) composed by Kirsten Volness (Kirsten and Jacob are Affiliated Artists of the company); Stephanie Burlington Daniels performs Ken Prestininzi’s BIRTH BREATH BRIDE ELIZABETH, a pseudo-lecture to young brides by Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein; Adara Meyers chats with Provost Linda Eisenmann and Dean of Students Lee Williams of Wheaton College.

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Hold onto your bootstraps kiddies. Celebrating the re-release of their album Flesh, the 80′s synth band extraordinare duo Jeff and Jane are returning to the stage at Mass MoCA. Before they unleash their sonic excellence to a live audience in Western MA, ArtSake caught up with one half of the duo, Jane Hudson. Here’s our 160 beats per minute nano interview:

First concert ever attended? For me it had to be my father, Leonard Shure’s concert at Carnegie Hall late ’50′s, for Jeff, Rolling Stones, Boston Garden, 1965-66. I saw that one, too.

What musicians/artists work do you most admire but work nothing like? Pat Metheny, Missy Elliot.

How would you describe Jeff and Jane’s sound? Kraftwerk meets punk rock.

What’s the most surprising response to your music you’ve ever received? All the reissues of our music over 30 years, Daft Records, Belgium; TigerSushi, France; Dark Entries, San Francisco; Electric Voice Records, Canada, and YouTube and iTunes.

Why now, the re-release of the album Flesh? Because Josh Cheon (Dark Entries) and Mike Sniper (Captured Tracks) called us within a week of each other, and they happened to be friends. So it was the birth of a dual release.

What’s the best/worst day job you’ve ever had? For me selling wallpaper, for Jeff, no comment!

The unauthorized biography of your life is titled: ?

Who wins in a paint ball war (not that ArtSake ever advocates violence), a synth player, a video artist, or a guitarist? The synth player!

Top five records: David Bowie, Rolling Stones, Roxie Music/Brian Ferry, Kraftwerk, the Clash.

How much do you love guitar distortion? A lot!

What do you like about performing live? Adrenaline.

What can we expect from the upcoming show at Mass MoCA? Uncorked synthesizers, technological, modern, sometimes edgy, sometimes beautiful. Machine music.

Jeff and Jane will perform at Mass MoCA in Club B-10
Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 8 PM.

Image credit: Photographs courtesy of Jane Hudson.

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ArtSake confesses to a fondness of the materials used in drawing, particularly Pink Pearl erasers. Yes, we adore all things drawing, except when a pencil lead breaks when you don’t want it to. So when we found out that the artist Deborah Davidson has curated Cannot Be Described in Words: Drawing Expanded, an upcoming exhibition at the Concord Art Association,  we jumped at the opportunity to talk with her. And by the way, Deborah and the artists will also be giving a free talk Materiality and Intimacy – A Conversation, on October 27th in conjunction with the exhibition.

How did you select these artists? I was asked to make a proposal for a drawing exhibit and this group presented itself, my criteria was – what artists would I like to see in the same room together – all of whom push the definition of drawing.

Being a curator is like a) flying a plane, b) being a gardener or c) waiting for the subway to come? A gardener – after coming up with a great idea for an exhibit, it takes a lot of nurturing and supporting of the artists to make that idea become manifest.

What excites you these days? I have noticed many drawing-related exhibits both here and in New York. With the Maine Drawing Project, the state of Maine is devoting a year’s worth of exhibits to drawing. I just saw the Dance/Draw exhibit at the ICA – it is exciting when that kind of synchronicity happens.

The show’s title is Cannot Be Described In Words: Drawing Expanded. Explain? I was thinking about the relationship between drawing and writing – thoughts or images coming from the hand, and then it occurred to me that when words are incapable of expressing something, that drawing is.

What do you hope to achieve with your curation of this show? I am hoping that there is a visual dialog with the actual works in the gallery, and that will engender further dialog among the artists and with the viewers.

The unauthorized biography of your life is titled? A Circuitous Route From There To Here.

What is the most misunderstood aspect of being a curator? Perhaps how much administration it takes to present an exhibition, all the things that are not visible.

What advice would you give an artist that has been rejected from a call to exhibit? Oh, that is clear – look for the next opportunity and try again.

Cannot Be Described In Words: Drawing Expanded
Curated by Deborah Davidson. Exhibiting artists include Jill Slosberg Ackerman, Ilona Anderson, Sheila Gallagher, Audrey Goldstein, Raul Gonzalez, Chuck Holtzman, Fred Liang, Cynthia Maurice, Randal Thurston and Debra Weisberg
October 20 – November 20, 2011.  Opening Reception: October 20, 6:00-8:00pm
Concord Art Association, 37 Lexington Road Concord, MA

Image credit (top to bottom): Raul Gonzalez, Chuck Holtzman, Randal Thurston, Fred Liang, Audrey Goldstein, Sheila Gallagher, Jill Slosberg Ackerman, Debra Weisberg and Cynthia Maurice.

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The Boston Book Festival is a free, day-long schedule of events, readings, workshops, and other bookish happenings on Saturday, October 15, 2011, at Copley Square in Boston. A number of past MCC fellows/finalists are among the presenters, including Jessica Bozek (Poetry Finalist ’10), who joins poets Stephen Burt and Sandra Beasley for the reading/discussion Poetry: Personae, Self-Portrait As….

Here, we super-briefly interview Jessica, a terrific poet and founder/host of the Small Animal Project Reading Series.

What’s the worst day job you’ve ever had?
I’m not sure if this is the worst, but it’s the weirdest. I moved to Barcelona for a year and taught English in my mid-20s. Because I couldn’t work legally, I ended up with a few regular private students who had seen my poster in a bookstore. Two of these students were huge devotees of American self-help. They each had distinct goals that we worked towards. One wanted to be able to give motivational speeches in English, so he read transcripts of self-help texts while I corrected his pronunciation and intonation. He also wanted to co-create an ESL curriculum for masochists, but I politely declined. The other was the Spanish delegate to a Tony Robbins conference in England. He just wanted to be able to have a conversation with Robbins should their paths happen to cross, so we enacted hypothetical situations. Sometimes I was Tony Robbins, sometimes I was Juan Garcia.

Computer, longhand, or typewriter?
All three. My poems start in a notebook, but only about 10% of that ends up on the computer, where I tinker endlessly. The typewriter is mostly for fun – love letters, gift tags.

Do you secretly dream of being a) a pop icon, b) an algebra teacher, and/or c) a crime-solver/writer a la Jessica Fletcher?
Crime-writer for sure. When I was younger, I wanted to be a PI. But now I’d settle for writer. Crime fiction is my word-candy. I love the late 60s/early 70s Martin Beck series by Swedish husband-and-wife team Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall (a poet!), Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie books, and Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander series. But Mankell gives me nightmares. The villains are such villains – they have no fear, and someone without fear scares me the most.

The unauthorized biography of your life is titled:
“Whenever there’s words on the walls, your face gets sucked into them.” My husband said this to me while we were at Mass MoCA – I can’t not read all the text beside a painting or drawing at a museum, even at the expense of not properly seeing the artwork itself.

Jessica will read her poetry and explore the persona poem as a form of self-portraiture in Poetry: Personae, Self-Portrait As… at 10:30 AM, Boston Public Library Washington Room, Saturday, October 15, 2011.

Jessica Bozek is the author of The Bodyfeel Lexicon (Switchback Books, 2009) and several chapbooks, including Squint into the Sun (Dancing Girl Press, 2010). Recent poems appear in 751, Action, Yes, Artifice, Black Warrior Review, Guernica, horse less review, and Sixth Finch. Jessica teaches writing at Boston University and runs Small Animal Project, a reading series in Cambridge, MA.

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The fiber revolution continues to evolve in the hands of Elizabeth Whyte Schulze (Crafts Fellow ’09). If you look closely at her work, you’ll notice the influence of petroglyphs from the American Southwest, contemporary graffiti, and the cave paintings of Lascaux, a place that she actually visited firsthand (and we are all the better for it).

What artists’ work do you admire most but create nothing like? Richard Serra. I saw his installation The Matter of Time at the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, and the experience was memorable.

Where do you get your pine needles and raffia? My husband’s family lives in Florida and is kind enough to gather up the pine needles and send them to me.

The unauthorized biography of your life is titled: It’s a Wrap.

What do you listen to while you create? Jazz.

What are you currently reading? Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr.

What famous person in history would you like to have met? Louise Bourgeois.

Why basketry? I arrived in Boston in the early 1970′s when the fiber revolution was taking place in the university art departments throughout the city. This development in the East and a similar one on the West coast changed the role of textiles as art. It was a stimulating time, as a new respect for the medium appeared, and in it I found my true interest in basketry.

All Things Considered VI: National Basketry Organization Biennial Juried Exhibition
July 30, 2011- December 4, 2011
Fuller Craft Museum, 455 Oak Street, Brockton, MA

The Vessel Redefined
August 2011
Mobilia Gallery, 358 Huron Avenue, Cambridge, Ma 02138
617-876-2109

Image credit: All images courtesy Elizabeth Whyte Schulze.

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ArtSake caught up with the documentary photographer Paris Visone for wicked fast nano-interview that takes about 1/1000 second at f/16 to read. So relax, slow down, and take a good, long look at the gorgeous scavenged images she shot. Better, yet, check out her show that opens on Friday at Suffolk University’s Art Gallery.

What artists’ work do you admire most but create nothing like? Philip Seymour Hoffman and Patrick Stump

What is the most surprising response to your photographs you have ever received? I recently went on tour to photograph the legendary punk/new wave band, Blondie. The guitarist Chris Stein has been taking photos of the band throughout their 30 year long music career. So getting an awesome response from him about my photography was surreal.

Worst day job: A tie between selling sausage and shooting weddings.

How do you know when to click the shutter? It is a mixture of feeling and timing.

What do you listen to while you create? I feel like I am more of a scavenger than a creator.

Spring, Summer, Winter or Fall? I usually shoot the most during the Spring, Summer and Fall. And Winter is my time to edit. So I like them all.

Do you have a procrastination ritual? Currently – Pawn Stars (TV show) and Call of Duty (video game)

What famous person in history would you like to have met? Henri Cartier-Bresson

Analogue or Digital? Respect Analogue. Shoot Digital.

Paris Visone – Culture of Looking, A Solo Exhibition
Suffolk University Art Gallery
July 15-September 4, 2010
Opening Reception: Friday, July 22 5-7pm.

Image credit; All photographs courtesy of Paris Visone

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1001, Jason Grote‘s explosive theatrical reinvention of The Arabian Nights, opens tonight in Boston, in a production by the adventurous Company One.

Mr. Grote, who has family ties to Massachusetts, is a Brooklyn-based playwright/screenwriter and a past reviewer for our Artist Fellowships. Intrigued by the writer and his new production in Boston, we poked our nose into his business with a nano-interview, and he poked right back with the following A’s to our Q’s.

What artist(s) do you most admire but work nothing like?
I’d say ensemble/auteur creators like Elevator Repair Service, The Civilians, Young Jean Lee, and so on. As an audience member I gravitate towards what’s called “devised work,” and my most successful plays to date (including 1001) vaguely resemble this kind of work — but I’m definitely a writer by temperament. This is one of the reasons I enjoy writing for television so much, as it combines collaborative with writerly methods.

What’s the worst day job you’ve ever had?
Ugh, I’ve had dozens, but probably the worst was working for a contractor at the Javitz Center whose name escapes me now. I had to wear an ill-fitting yellow baseball hat with the words “May I Help You?” written across the forehead, and police a line at a tech conference while horrible yuppies made fun of me. I guess the supervisor knew how awful the gig was, because at the beginning of the week he said that if any of us walked off the job before the end of the week, he would do whatever he could to delay our paychecks. This was, of course, totally illegal but I desperately needed the seven dollars an hour or whatever sad amount it was, so I stuck it out until the end of the conference and never returned the contractor’s calls again.

What’s the most embarrassing line of dialogue you’ve ever written?
I can’t remember it exactly, but it was something like “I’m not stupid, you know. I’ve read Camille Paglia.” I don’t know why I thought Camille Paglia was an unassailable example of intellectual sophistication, but I definitely meant it without any irony. I was 23.

Computer, longhand, or typewriter?
Longhand, then computer, then print it out and write longhand on it again, and back and forth ad infinitum.

Share a surprise twist in the Jason Grote story.
My real name isn’t Jason Grote.

Have you ever performed your own writing, and if so, did you revise it mid-performance?
Yes, and yes. I’ve done stand-up comedy and solo performance, though I no longer do either very often.

What’s next?
I’m currently writing for the Broadway-themed NBC/Steven Spielberg show Smash under the supervision of the amazing Theresa Rebeck, premiering February 2012. 1001 is running in Chicago at the same time Company One is doing it in Boston — it’s a revival of Collaboraction‘s 2010 production, directed by the brilliant Seth Bockley.

My latest play Civilization (all you can eat) is being done by Woolly Mammoth in DC and Salvage Vanguard in Austin in early 2012. Over the long term I’m working on a musical adaptation of 1001 with composer Marisa Michelson and a new play about Stalin and Shostakovich commissioned by Seattle’s ACT.

1001 by Jason Grote, directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian, opens tonight, produced by Company One at the Boston Center for the Arts. The show runs through August 13, 2011. See a video trailer and learn more about the production.

Image: Jason Grote, photo by Lisa Jane Persky; actors Lauren Eicher and Nael Nacer, from Company One’s production of 1001 by Jason Grote.

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By combining her love of precision and geometry with the rendering of identifiable objects of everyday life, Kathleen Volp has created a highly personal body of work with her current solo exhibition, Meridians and Parallels, at Bromfield Gallery.

What artist do you most admire but work nothing like? Jim Nutt.

What do you listen to while you work? Oh, I love this question! Music is like conversation for me. It’s the closest companion I have in the studio. I find there is certain music that becomes almost a theme to the particular series I am working on. During this series I mostly listened to instrumental. Some of which would I guess be called post/alternative metal. Drums are the key element for me. I always have Isis rotating through my Ipod. Maserati, If these Trees Could Talk, Russian Circles, Godspeed You Black Emperor, MGR, Pelican. I also found myself playing a lot of Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Rachel’s, Explosions in the Sky, Jaga Jazzist and Philip Glass’s Uakti. But to be fair, I often can’t afford any distractions, so I put on ear buds and listen to binaural sounds, basically white noise that filters out everything, allowing me total focus.

What’s the best/worst day job you’ve ever had? Worst: I de-tasseled corn one summer while in college in Wisconsin. Brutal work. Its hot, its muggy and you’re standing in a claustrophobic jungle of unruly green reaching up, pulling down the top of a stalks, yanking out the tassel, then onto the next one. Over and over and over. I quit after I found myself rolling around the floor one night de-tasseling in my sleep. I think if every American actually worked a week as a migrant worker their views on immigration might be better informed.

What are you currently reading? In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and An American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larsen.

Have you ever revised your work on once it’s been hung in an exhibition? Yes. Revised, wiped out, thrown out. But not in response to anyone or anything in particular. I just always keep tinkering on pieces. And I am very critical of my work. I nag it once it’s back in the studio. I need people I trust to remove it from my sight. What is it they say in Art and Fear - “Your next piece is in your last”?

Do you live with animals? Oh this is a sad question. At this very moment I have a lovely puppy, Karina, I’m caring for while her family is gone for two weeks. Judith and Paul, her owners, previously had a wonderful dog Hobbes who was just the best of friends with my dog Lily. Lily died suddenly last summer of kidney cancer and Hobbes followed a month later. We had vowed to get puppies together, but my life right now couldn’t accommodate a dog. So they found Karina at the Sterling animal shelter and I’m her god-mother. When the time is right, the perfect rescue dog will be there for me.

Etch a Sketch or Permanent magic marker? Permanent marker.

Ipod or record albums? Ipod. Gotta take it with me.

Which color(s) do you least like? Any pastel.

What’s the most surprising response to your art you’ve ever received? At this show I have been under the impression that the subject of many of the pieces was a deeply textured cantaloupe. I photographed it extensively and have been working with the images for several years now. Not once have I thought otherwise. I was surprised to find many viewers didn’t even remotely see a cantaloupe! Not even a kumquat. I’m serious. It blew my mind (and my artist statement which I’d already revised seven or eight times). Seriously. People saw protoplasm or coral or some kind of micro-organism or a CAT scan of the brain. It’s all good, even exciting, but really, really shocking to me. How could I not have seen this in my own work?

The unauthorized biography of your life is titled: She-Who-Prefers-Not-To-Be-Known.

What’s next? My work has been moving towards 3-D for a while. With more time this show would have included installation. I have always considered myself an object-maker more than anything else.

Kathleen Volp’s solo exhibition Meridians and Parallels at the Bromfield Gallery runs through July 30, 2011.

Image credit: All images courtesy Kathleen Volp. From top to bottom:

Bound Melon #2; 2011; 12” x 12” x 1”; photographic transfer, oil, metal and graphite on fabric and wood panel

Sketchbooks 2010 -2011

Three Balls; 2011; 36” x 19” x 2”; photo transfers, acrylics, pencil and graphite on pvc panel

Babel; 2011; 27” x 24” x 2; vellum, acrylic mediums, tape, and graphite on pvc panel and wood

Tethered #2; 2011; 47’ x40” x 2”; Photographic transfer, acrylic, graphite, and rust on fabric and paper

Theology and Geometry; 2011; 24” x 24” x 2”; Man’s dress shirt, oils and graphite on fabric and wood

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Daphne Kalotay is the author of the acclaimed short story collection Calamity and Other Stories (Doubleday, 2005) and the novel Russian Winter (Harper, 2010). The latter, a critically lauded tale of a former Bolshoi Ballet star and the stirring of her secret past, is now out in paperback. We checked in with Daphne with a nano-interview – just in time for a June 14 reading at Porter Square Books in Cambridge.

What artist do you most admire but work nothing like?
Stravinsky apparently did a headstand every day before starting work. I often do yoga first thing in the morning, but it has yet to turn me into an experimental genius.

What’s the best/worst day job you’ve ever had?
The worst job I had was at a copy shop, the summer before I went to college. Not only was it mind-crushingly boring, but it of course also meant dealing with finicky photocopiers and documents that were suddenly too long or too small or had staples that needed to be removed, or some other frustration…. Everyone has at some point had to deal with jammed printer paper or toner getting smeared all over everything – but imagine doing that all day long.

As for the best job, I have it right now, in that I’m giving myself a chance to write full-time. If only the job came with a salary and health coverage, then it would be perfect.

Share a surprise twist in the Daphne Kalotay story.
My novel, Russian Winter, is coming out in Macedonian. I didn’t even know what the language was and had to look it up. Of course it’s thrilling to see your book in any foreign language, and just knowing that readers in another country have access to it is profoundly moving. But it’s even stranger when the letters are Cyrillic or Korean or some other characters you’re completely unable to read. The surprising thing to me is not just that foreign publishers have taken my novel under their wing but that it’s now coming out in less-common languages. I call it a surprise twist, because who would have thought such a thing would happen for a a traditional, realistic novel by a writer whose work is usually described as “quiet?” In fact, my first book was described even less glamorously, as “stories of ordinary life.”

How many revisions does your work typically go through?
Too many to count. Really. If I kept track, then I’d have to admit just how cost-ineffective the entire enterprise is and would probably never write again.

Of course it’s possible to over-revise, but most people don’t revise enough. I know it sounds schoolmarm-ish, but it’s true. The ability to revise is probably the most underrated and necessary skill, even more important than imagination. Because your imagination will only get you so far; then you need to fix everything up – develop it fully, make sure it flows and is well-formed, that it isn’t under-baked or overly wordy or unnecessarily confusing. From what I’ve seen as a writing teacher, in most cases what stops aspiring writers from reaching their goal is an unwillingness to revise as much as is truly necessary.

What’s the most surprising response to your work you’ve ever received?
A teenager in France recently wrote to say that he wanted to turn my novel into a movie – but that since he’s just 17 it would probably be 5 years or so until he’s able to direct a film. I find such modesty rare and refreshing.

Daphne joins local ballet luminary Marie Paquet-Nesson for a dual event at Porter Square Books in Cambridge on June 14, 2011, at 7 PM. Daphne will read from her novel Russian Winter, now in paperback. Ms. Paquet-Nesson will read from Ballet to the Corps, her memoir of a long career performing and teaching ballet.

Daphne Kalotay is the author of Russian Winter and Calamity and Other Stories, which was short-listed for the 2005 Story Prize, A former fellow of the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony, she lives in the Boston area.

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Us: Are you planning on participating in this weekend’s Massachusetts Poetry Festival (May 12, 13, & 14) in Salem?

You: Yes.

Us: Great, it will be a BLAST and it’s sure to leave you burgeoning with poetic fervor.

You: That’s cool.

Us: Exceedingly! Besides, lots of great MCC awardees are taking part. Ben Berman (Poetry Fellow ’08), for instance, is running the Grub Street Poem Generator workshop at Green Land Cafe, 12-1:30 PM, on Saturday, May 14 and reading in Follow the Fellows at the Phillips Library in the Peabody Essex Museum, 4:30-5:45 PM, on the same day. Ben will join a group of other MCC Poetry Fellows.

You: Can I find out more about the participants?

Us: Find out about the Follow the Fellows poets here, and about all of the festival’s poets here. And the following is our own 2008 nano-interview with Ben…

You: Wait, you’re including an interview within an interview? That’s meta.

Us: You meta believe it! Anyway, back to Ben’s nano-interview: three years later, it still makes us giggle. (As with all of our nanos, it’s brief, a bit silly – and did I mention brief?)

ArtSake: What are you working on these days?

Ben: A poem called The Great Molasses Flood (what a tidal!) It’s about The Great Molasses Flood of 1919 that killed 21 people in the North End.

ArtSake: What’s the most surprising reader response you’ve ever received?

Ben: A student once told me that my ears look like they’re made of wax.

ArtSake: Who wins the poets vs. prose writers paintball war?

Ben: The poets – paintball is an amateur sport no place for pros.

The Massachusetts Poetry Festival begins today and continues through Saturday.

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