Robert Fanning is the author of five poetry collections: Severance, Our Sudden Museum, American Prophet, The Seed Thieves, and Cage (forthcoming this year). His poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, and many other journals. He facilitates The Wellspring Literary Series and teaches creative writing at Central Michigan U. www.robertfanning.wordpress.com
Click on the YouTube logo to watch the recording of this reading.
Hedy Habra is a poet, artist, and essayist. She has authored four poetry collections, most recently, Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? (Press 53 2023) a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award; The Taste of the Earth, winner of the Silver Nautilus Book Award and Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Book Award; Tea in Heliopolis won the Best Book Award and Under Brushstrokes was a finalist for the International Book Award. Her story collection, Flying Carpets, won the Arab American Book Award’s Honorable Mention and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Her book of criticism is Mundos alternos y artísticos en Vargas Llosa. A twenty one-time-nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and recipient of the Nazim Hikmet Award, her multilingual work appears in numerous journals and anthologies. https://www.hedyhabra.com/
If you missed the live reading, click the link to our YouTube Channel to see the video of Hedy’s reading.
Khaled Juma’a was born in Rafah and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp. His 29 publications cover the genres poetry, prose poetry, short stories, children’s stories, TV sketches, plays and over 100 songs. He has held several editorial positions including Head of the Cultural Department in Palestine News and Information Agency (WAFA). A bilingual reading.
Yousef el Qedra, a poet, novelist, and playwright living in Gaza, expresses the emotional effects of residing in the occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly during the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead (2009) which presaged the current war. He will read his poems in Arabic, matched by Edward Morin and Yasmin Snounu’s co-translations in English.
The link will be sent via email a day or two before the event. The reading will be followed by an open mic. Participants are welcome to read a poem of their own or a favorite.
If you have attended an event in the past two years, you are already registered.
Zack Rogow is author, editor, or translator of twenty books or plays. His memoir, Hugging My Father’s Ghost, will be published in April 2024. His dad was also a writer, and in the memoir, Rogow attempts to solve the mystery of the father he never knew. Zack’s ninth poetry collection is Irreverent Litanies. www.zackrogow.com
Email cwpoetrycircle@gmail.com for Zoom link.
The link will be sent via email a day or two before the event. The reading will be followed by an open mic. Participants are welcome to read a poem of their own or a favorite.
If you have attended an event in the past two years, you are already registered.
Your hosts: Ed Morin, David Jibson and Lissa Perrin.
Ken Meisel, a Detroit area psychotherapist whose poems dramatize personal and social conflict and recovery, is author of nine poetry collections, including Mortal Lullabies, The Drunken Sweetheart at My Door and—released just this year—The Light Most Glad of All. He was featured poet in the movie, Detroit: Tough Luck Stories.
Russell Thorburn has authored five books of poems including Somewhere We’ll Leave the World, and Let It Be Told in a Single Breath (2024). Among his awards is a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He wrote the play Gimme Shelter. In 2013 he was the Upper Peninsula’s first Poet Laureate.
Email cwpoetrycircle@gmail.com for Zoom link.
The link will be sent via email a day or two before the event. The reading will be followed by an open mic. Participants are welcome to read a poem of their own or a favorite.
If you have attended an event in the past two years, you are already registered.
Your hosts: Ed Morin, David Jibson and Lissa Perrin.
Rachel DeWoskin began her career staring in the Chinese TV serial, Foreign Babes in Beijing, watched by 600 million viewers. Returning to the U.S., she published 5 novels and, most recently, two collections of poems: Two Menus: Poems and the forthcoming absolute animal: poems. She teaches fiction at The University of Chicago.
Missed it? Watch this and other readings on our YouTube Channel. Just click the link on the right.
Ellen Bass, protégé of Ann Sexton, has poems in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, and nine poetry collections—Indigo being her most recent. She co-wrote a groundbreaking guide for survivors of child sexual abuse and one for gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth. Chancellor Emerita of the Academy of American Poets, she teaches creative writing at Pacific University.
Email cwpoetrycircle@gmail.com for Zoom link.
The link will be sent via email a day or two before the event. The reading will be followed by an open mic. Participants are welcome to read a poem of their own or a favorite. If you have attended an event in the past two years, you are already registered.
Your hosts: Ed Morin, David Jibson and Lissa Perrin
Jeff Gundy has published eight books of poems including Without a Plea, Abandoned Homeland, and Somewhere Near Defiance, for which he was named Ohio Poet of the Year. His latest prose book is Wind Farm: Landscape with Stories and Towers. Former Fulbright lecturer at U. of Salzburg, he’s now Writer in (Non)residence at Bluffton University.
Colleen Alles is a native Michigander and award-winning writer living in Grand Rapids. The author of two novels and a poetry collection, she’s also a contributing editor with Great Lakes Review and Barren Magazine. She enjoys distance running and corralling her kiddos. You can find her online at http://www.colleenalles.com.
7:00 PM – 8:45 PM, Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Email cwpoetrycircle@gmail.com for Zoom link.
The link will be sent via email a day or two before the event. The reading will be followed by an open mic. Participants are welcome to read a poem of their own or a favorite.
If you have attended an event in the past two years, you are already registered.
Your hosts: Ed Morin, David Jibson and Lissa Perrin
Our Crazy Wisdom team member, Ed Morin, wrote this song inspired by the recent autoworker strike in the tradition of Woody Guthrie. Listen to it on our Crazy Wisdom YouTube Channel.
THE BALLAD OF THE LINE About the time that I was born, the floods washed out our corn. Locusts and the Dust Bowl brought hard times. When banks and companies fail, your best meals are in jail. Man, I’m tired—have you got a dime? Hey Brother, don’t you give up— the Lord will fill your cup. They say Ford’s pays five dollars a day! If you reach Detroit in time, join the production line and whistle your troubles away. They hired us in our jeans, then drove us like machines, and for years we labored in a rage. At the Rouge we fought Ford’s goons; at Dodge Main we sat down with Reuther and won a living wage. Hey Brother, don’t give up now— the Union wipes our brow. We’re earning fifteen dollars a day. Yes, you’ve reached Detroit in time, come join the picket line, and walk your money troubles away. We built war planes and tanks and opened up our ranks to women and minorities. Unions fought for civil rights as the country set its sights on bigger cars and prosperity. Hey Brother, why give up now? We’ve got benefits and how! We’re makin’ more than fifty bucks a day. Come on and work some overtime on the line, line, line, and laugh all your troubles away. Oil crisis and recession forced us into concessions: Management had more chance to compete. They outsourced parts with ease to makers overseas, then bargained us right out into the street. Brother, we gave away the store in nineteen eighty-four. Foreign robots are receiving our pay. I was afraid to strike that time. Now where the hell’s our line? I’m sorry we voted it away. Hey Brother, don’t you give up— The Lord will fill your cup. They say Ford’s pays five dollars a day! If you reach Detroit in time, there’s unemployment lines to whistle your troubles away. Management’s remuneration soared well above inflation, leaving the working man behind. We were hired in lower tiers, pensions shrank in later years, Detroit and the middle class declined. Well, the union’s had enough; we’re tired of the bosses’ guff. We are rising to a brand-new day. We want the bosses’ respect with a living-wage paycheck, and we’re not going to give it away. This time, we’re not going to give it away. We won’t give it away! Copyright ©1988 & 2023 by Edward Morin
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley is the author of seven critically acclaimed books including Praise Song for My Children: New and Selected Poems. She has edited Breaking the Silence, the first comprehensive anthology of Liberian poetry, published this year. Originally from Liberia, she is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Penn State U.
A recording of this event is now available on our YouTube page.
Your hosts: Ed Morin, David Jibson and Lissa Perrin
Crazy Wisdom Poetry Circle 