This Week on the Readings Circuit
October is one of the busiest months on the Buffalo area literary scene, but since the News Poetry and Literature Page runs on the first Sunday of the month, this month the literary events calendar won't appear until Oct. 7. That leaves us with nearly a whole week of readings featuring several of the community's leading voices that you might not realize are happening.
So here's a day-by-day rundown of some events around town this week:
(Tuesday, Oct. 2), 7 to 9 p.m.: Buffalo poet, translator, and longtime editor/publisher of White Pine Press Dennis Maloney joins Rochester based poet and RIT professor Jerome Cushman in "An Evening of Haiku - Poetic Journey of Japan" at Tru-Teas Teahouse/Insite Gallery at 810 Elmwood Avenue.
Maloney and Cushman will present a discussion and reading of haiku poetry from the traditions of Japanese masters: Basho, Issa, and Buson to contemporary American haiku written within and expanding the tradition. This event is a part of the Buffalo-Niagara 2007 Year of Japan project sponsored by the Buffalo-Kanazawa Sister City Committee.
Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.: The Just Buffalo/Center for Inquiry Literary Cafe presents fiction writer, playwright, and UB professor Gary Earl Ross and performance poet Liz Marani.
Ross is author of the short story collections The Wheel of Desire and Other Intimate Hauntings and Shimmerville: Tales Macabre and Curious as well as the award winning plays "Matter of Intent" and "The Best Woman." His wit and gift for satire are on regular display in his WBFO listener commentaries, which have won several public radio awards.
Marani, a dynamic young writer and performer, is the organizer and host of Allen Street Hardware Cafe's "Spoken Word Sundays" series.
The Center for Inquiry is located at 1310 Sweet Home Road near the UB North Campus in Amherst.
Thursday, 4 p.m: The Rooftop Poetry Club presents readings by Perry Nicholas (pictured) and Dennis Reed. Rooftop readings are held (weather permitting) in the 2nd floor Rooftop Garden of Bufalo State College's Butler Library. The inclement weather location is the International Students reading area on the library's 3rd floor.
Nicholas is professor of English at Erie Community College-North and author of the recent chapbook Stars That Cover You. He a frequent contributor to the Buffalo News Poetry Page and other publications including Skyline magazine, where his poem "Comealong" shared first prize in the Winter Poetry Contest and an earlier poem "Father's Toast" was nominated for a 2006 Pushcart Prize.
Reed, a graduate student in English at Buffalo State College, is the tech-savvy mastermind behind the Rooftop Poetry Club's much praised website and podcasts, which you can sample at Welcome to the Rooftop Poetry Club.
Saturday, 5 p.m.: Poet and Buffalo area native Dan Liberthson returns to read from and sign copies of his 2006 collection A Family Album at Talking Leaves Books, 3158 Main St. in Buffalo.
Liberthson, who attended Sweet Home Middle School and Calasanctius School before moving to Rochester with his family. He returned to Buffalo to graduate school at UB, from which he earned a Ph.D in English in 1975. After a stint teaching at Kent State University, he moved west to San Francisco where he works as a consulting medical writer and contributor to literary magazines and journals.
A Family Album has been described as Liberthson's bittersweet remembrance of his upbringing in an immigrant Jewish family trying to cope with the schizophrenia of one of his siblings in the America of the 1950s and 60s.
--R.D. Pohl
