Artists and Writers: Updates November 2011

"The Best Five Places for Kissing in Warsaw," Karen Kovacik's poem, appears in the latest issue of The Cosmopolitan Review. The issue also contains Ewa Chrusciel's review of Karen's book Metropolis Burning.

I interviewed poet Anne Colwell at the r.kv.r.y. blog, and then she interviewed me. We had fun talking about academic vs creative writing, strong women, and eternal optimism. Check it out by clicking here!

John Minczeski and I are still accepting submissions for our anthology of Polish American Writing. To find out more about the anthology, click here.

Journalist Bozena Zaremba recently interviewed Rita Cosby, TV reporter and author of the memoir about her Polish father who fought in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, Quiet Hero: Secrets from My Father’s Past. Here's the link to her interview.

The deadline for the Two Review poetry contest is November 30, 2011. Complete guidelines are available by clicking here. Two Review is co-edited by Polish American poet Jeremy Shiok.

Leonard Kniffel interviewed Philip Levine for American Libraries Magazine. You can read it by clicking here.

Photographer Bogdan Frymorgen continues to share his gift with the world. Here's one of his photos:

Oriana Ivy blogged recently about love and the poetry of comfort at her Oriana Poetry blog. If you haven't read one of her blog posts, you're in for a treat. Her poem "Mrs. Noah" recently appeared in the Cosmopolitan Review.

Poet Linda Nemec Foster is working on a collaborative project with Hungarian musician, Laszlo Slomovits. A few months ago, Slomovits contacted Foster after reading her chapbook, Ten Songs from Bulgaria (Cervena Barva Press, 2008). He was so moved by the poems that they inspired him to compose music using the poems as lyrics for the songs. Foster has heard five of the pieces and is impressed with Slomovits' talent as a musician; he fully realizes and engages the spirit and tone of the poems. He plans to complete the compositions for the entire chapbook (plus possibly other songs based on Foster's other poems) this winter and record the CD in March. An article about Ten Songs from Bugaria appeared earlier in Writing the Polish Diaspora.

Lisa Siedlarz's What we Sign Up For, a book of poems about those who go to war and those who are left behind, has just been published by Pecan Grove Press. That link will take you to one of the fine poems from the book, "Tea with Elders." The book is also available from Amazon.

A reading by Poet Mark Pawlak is now available on youtube. Click here.

Artist/Poet Grzegorz Wroblewski has two new images works online in the current Otoliths. His painting "I Will Survive" is featured here.

Polish film maker Michael Adamski has recently posted his film Granica Niagara/The Niagara Frontier on youtube.

Christina Pacosz's poem "Blood Moon Kansas City" appears on New Verse News today. And writer/scholar Danusha Goska has written a piece at "Bieganski the Blog" about Ms. Pacosz and my upcoming chapbook "How to Measure the Darkness." The blog includes a youtube of Ms. Pacosz reading her poems.

Andrena Zawinski has placed two poems in the online anthology, AMERICAN SOCIETY - WHAT POETS SEE produced by Future Cycle. The poems are available online and are forthcoming in a print edition of thirty poets. To read her two poems ("Bittersweets for Camellia" and "The Pickers"), follow this link and then click on her name.

Frank Zajaczkowski posted a poem "I Held Perfection" at his blog My So-Called Paradise.

Here's another of Bogdan Frymorgen's photos. To see more of his work, click here.



Poet Sharon Mesmer has moved recently and started a new blog called Dubious Labia where she writes bout her move and her writing and her friend. I especially recommend her blog about her friendship with Allen Ginsberg.