Groundswell Release Party

Every year I get the pleasure of advising the student literary magazine at the University of Bridgeport, and every year we hold a release party/poetry slam/reading in April. It is always exciting to read and hear the poets of the next generation feeling their way toward voices. Check out more about it here.

John Surowiecki

Recently saw poet John Surowiecki give a lecture and read at the University of Bridgeport. Afterwards I read his book, "The Hat City After Men Stopped Wearing Hats" and was suitably impressed. What a poet needs, I think, is a control of language, a different way of looking at things, and endless persistent variation. Surowiecki definitely has that. Yet another of Connecticut's cultural greats. Keep up the good work, John.

From The Hat City after Men Stopped Wearing Hats

 

 

The Hat City after Men Stopped Wearing Hats

 

At the inauguration no one wore hats, not even

the poet whose hair the wind shaped into a fin.

We sat at the kitchen table trying to figure out

how we would make a living now that the river

no longer flowed carrot-orange to the Sound.

 

We used to tell the children that its fish wore

fedoras and suffered from mercury shakes,

twitching, lurching, losing scales as we would hair.

Every street used to be a river of hats and when

a war was won a sea of hats would suddenly appear.

 

Every day we’d walk to work leaning into the wind,

hands on our hats, and never once did we think

the factory doors would close and never once

did we notice the frost late on the lawns

like an interlude in a slaughtering of moths.

UB Creating

Amy and I are featured in the latest UB promotional materials for UB in Action. Our section is UB Creating. Find us and our statistics at the bottom of the page here.

Building a Better Argument

Read my 'closing thought' in this season's alumni magazine Knightlines. It is called "Building a Better Argument" and could be a primer on how not to argue with people on the internet. As an example I chose Ezra Pound's ABC of Reading, which I loved during college and now feel less enthused about. So, if you're a big Pound fan, you might not like it.

Otherwise...Enjoy!

Breakthrough - Sharing History's Secrets

Read all about my research on Tom Thumb in the latest issue of UB Breakthroughs.

Future Authors of America

Here are some of the future novelists and poets of America - some of our creative writing majors at the University of Bridgeport. We have dozens more, and we're growing all the time.

Left to right - Michelle Calero, Michael Doran, and James Novoa.

At the annual poetry slam and literary journal release party - James Novoa giving one of his excellent readings of his long poems, which don't seem long at all when he reads them out loud...

Old Saybrook Historical Society

Gave a presentation on Tom Thumb for the Old Saybrook Historical Society at the Acton Library, and had a lot of fun. I met a man (above) who graduated in the first class of the University of Bridgeport. He actually went to the Junior College of Connecticut, and it changed to UB during his senior year. Amazing guy, and still sharp as a tack.

General Tom Thumb in the UB Art Gallery

It was my pleasure to present the findings of my new book, Becoming Tom Thumb, at the University of Bridgeport art gallery last week.

The bookstore sold a bunch of books! I think they were happy. In attendance was a former ringmaster of the Barnum Festival, and he gifted me a few great souvenirs. Thanks to everyone who attended!

Amy Nawrocki as seen by Larry Locke

Filmmaker Larry Locke gives my wife the star professor treatment in his new faculty biography series. I am positive he got some of the photos in the video from this blog!