Belinda Subraman Presents: Recent Episodes
Belinda Subraman
Belinda Subraman Presents produces the Gypsy Art Show which specializes in interviews and performances of poets, writers , musicians and occasionally has an interview with an outstanding contributor to another field..
Originally (in 2005) Belinda Subraman Presents was the umbrella name for several shows produced by Belinda. This is why if you want to download to your ipod you need to subscribe to Belinda Subraman Presents rather than to the Gypsy Art Show.
I’d like to thank past affiliate stations: Progressive Blend radio. Lit Station, VI radio, Tyne FM, Bzoo and Net Talk Radio.
SKYE JACKSON was born and raised in New Orleans. She holds an English degree from LSU and a degree in law from Mississippi College School of Law. She is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop where she serves as Associate Poetry Editor of Bayou Magazine. Her work has appeared in the Delta Literary Journal and Thought Catalog. Her chapbook A Faster Grave was published in May 2019 from Antenna Press.
BENJAMIN ALESHIRE travels the world as a poet-for-hire, composing poems for strangers on a manual typewriter. His work has been featured recently in The Times UK, Iowa Review, Boston Review, and on television in the US, China, and Spain. An excerpt of his novel, 'Poet for Hire: Kismet of a 21st Century Troubadour' is forthcoming in LitHub. Ben was a Breadloaf waiter in 2016, and serves as assistant poetry editor for the Green Mountains Review. He lives in New Orleans.
www.poetforhire.org
Dee Sunshine is an artist, poet, yoga teacher, massage therapist, spiritual healer and new age hobo. After a brief foray in the Default World he sold up and hit the road. That was back in 2006. Since then he has spent the bulk of his time in India and Thailand, following the twisted, rugged and strange path of a tantric yogi.
Dee is the author of three poetry collections - The Bad Seed (Stride, 1998), Dropping Ecstasy With The Angels (Bluechrome, 2004), and Visions Of The Drowning Man (Skylight Press, 2012). He edited the charity poetry anthology, The Book Of Hopes And Dreams (Bluechrome, 2006). He edited The AA Independent Press Guide (1998-2011). His website is at www.thunderburst.co.uk and his Facebook page is at www.facebook.com/Sunshine.Visions
Vince Gotera writes poems and stories, as well as the occasional creative nonfiction or critical article. His books include the three poetry collections — FIGHTING KITE, GHOST WARS, and DRAGONFLY — as well as the critical study RADICAL VISIONS: POETRY BY VIETNAM VETERANS.
Vince has been a Professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa since 1995. He has also taught at Indiana University, Humboldt State University, Grinnell College, and Wartburg College. He also frequently teaches creative writing at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival sponsored by the University of Iowa.
Vince earned an MFA in poetry writing and a PhD in English from Indiana University. Other institutions where he has studied include Stanford University and San Francisco State University, where he earned his BA and MA, respectively.
Since 2000, Vince has been Editor of the NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, originally established in 1815, the longest-lived literary magazine in the US. He was also Associate Editor of the LITERARY MAGAZINE REVIEW (1995-2001) and Poetry Editor of ASIAN AMERICA: JOURNAL OF CULTURE AND THE ARTS (1991-1993).
Gotera has won international, national, and local awards for his writing and teaching. In 2004, Gotera won the Global Filipino Literary Award in Poetry, an international award sponsored by the journal Our Own Voice. His national awards include a Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts (1993), The Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry from The Madison Review (1988), the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award in poetry (1988), and an Academy of American Poets Prize (1988). He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times. At the University of Northern Iowa, Gotera won a Faculty Excellence Award from the College of Humanities and Fine Arts (2006).
Try these links to learn more: http://vincegotera.blogspot.com http://facebook.com/vince.gotera.poet http://www.filedby.com/author/vince_gotera/357779/
Tantra Bensko plays toward Lucidity in many ways, and has presented some methods and results through formats such as her writing, in a genre she calls Lucid Fiction. She has traveled across the country for decades doing healings, which she learned to do at a distance at 12. Her music, art, acting, Tantra Yoga teaching, and hypnosis combine play, spontaneous movement and sound, writing without pre-composition, and also expansion of the self, as well as a kind of feral wildness, and absurdist humor.
Two new books are recently out, The Cabinet of What You Don't See (ISMs Press) and Lucid Fiction (Night Publishing.) http://lucidmembrane.weebly.com/ Lucid Membrane addresses all levels of the self, from zany realism to explosively meditative. Three stories are hidden within it, one of which speaks directly to the subconscious to nudge it to become more Lucid, able to see truth, through manipulation, and illusion. Readers can put the password found in the book into the website's Secret Womb, and find even more of the book, in new, participatory forms.
HENRY DENANDER was born in 1952 and lives in Stockholm, Sweden and on Hydra Island in Greece. For over 25 years he has worked on the business side of the entertainment industry. He is also the editor of Kamini Press.
Henry Denander’s books are I know What She Will Say (Bottle of Smoke Press, 2003), Weeks Like This (Bottle of Smoke Press, 2005), Bring Down The Sun (ArtBureau, 2005), The Poetry of Mr. Blue (Bottle of Smoke Press, 2007), The Loulaki Bar (Miskwabik Press, 2009),
His first poem was published in 1999 and now he’s had over two hundred poems and many illustrations published in small press magazines and on the web. He’s been published mainly in America but also in places like Belgium, New Zealand, Australia, India and the UK. He has a website with poetry and art at http://www.henrydenander.com.
He is also a fine artist.
Learn how a grade school dropout earns two Masters degrees and becomes an English teacher, an exciting performance poet and great catalyst in the poetry community. Hear BL's personal stories of his time with Alan Ginsberg and Anne Waldman. Learn about BL's other influences including but not limited to the Alamo, The Wizard of Oz, Frank Sinatra and Godzilla.
Peggy was inspired to begin the Afghan Women’s Project after meeting with a delegation of Afghan women who passed through Austin, Texas during the fall of 2002. The strength, humor and resiliency of these women was contrary to the media image of Afghan women as helpless victims. It inspired Peggy to create The Afghan Women’s Project in order to share this side of Afghan women with western audiences. This project’s goal, seeking out wisdom and sources of strength from women who have experienced such repression and hardship, is one of the ways Peggy can merge her love of photography with her interest in human psychology as well as concretely benefit both Afghan women and the viewers.
Peggy traveled to Afghanistan in August and September of 2003, returning with photographs and interviews of 40 women. They are of various ages and come from differing social classes, ethnic groups and areas of the country. Currently, 23 of the women form an exhibit that also includes their biographies and excerpts from their interviews.
Since that time, she has interviewed Malalai Joya, the member of Parliament who stood up the first day it was in session to declare “how can we have a democracy when there are warlords and criminals in the government?” In July of ‘09, she interviewed Nasreen, one of the organizers of the demonstration against the marital rape provisions of the Haraza Family Law.
Use of the exhibit, Afghan Women, Portraits and Stories, is available to organizations worldwide that wish raise awareness about Afghan Women. Additionally, Peggy offers three different slide shows: Spirit of Afghanistan, showing Afghanistan in general and her observations there, Women of Afghanistan which focuses on the lives and stories of individual women, half of whom are not included in the exhibit. Spirit of Afghanistan for Photojournalists expands Spirit of Afghanistan to cover what it takes to put together a project, tells stories about the photographs and gives tips on working in foreign countries.
Omaha native Lars Erickson based The Pi Symphony on the digits of , the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. The melody uses the first 32 digits of Pi (pi=3.14159265358979323846264338327950 ...), "e", and the cycle of fifths. The first eight digits represent notes in a scale and become the melody's foundation (think "1-2-3, do re me.") Erickson combined a lifelong passion for music with a fascination for computers to produce innovations in both areas. Proficient in orchestration and a self-taught jazz pianist, Erickson has recorded five CDs and music for ads, documentaries and films. The Omaha Symphony, numerous local artists and clarinetist Richard Stolzmann / Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra have used his arrangements. A summa cum laude graduate, he earned an Engineering Physics degree from UNO and worked as computer programmer and software development manager for seven years, patenting a document translation software. Erickson and his wife Lisa have four children and three of them currently join him in "the Burt Street Individuals," a jazz combo that performs throughout the midwest and in the metro Omaha area.
Visit Lars' website http://pisymphony.com
Leon is a performance artist from Cd. Juárez, Mexico. He has been working on creating vehicles where poetry and multimedia art collide for almost ten years, with a specific concentration on video and poetry, his two main media.
For a 6 minute sampling of one of his recent events visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqdJsZP8Xvo
To learn more about Leon and to see more of his performances visit his website http://leondelarosa.org
To learn more about Unlikely Stories, one of the oldest literary and multi-media ezines visit: http://unlikelystories.org
William Al-Sharif is a British humanist intellectual and author of many works including "Christianity, Islam and Secular Criticism," "Rethinking Quranic Studies," "Islamism: Religion and Ideology," "Men and Ideas," "The Dearest Quest," "Asian Papers," and "Ireland: A History. He is currently associated with the University of Glasgow and lives in Scotland. He is Director of Jerusalem Publications. William was born in Palestine and grew up in Kuwait. He speaks English, Arabic, Urdu, Persian, French and Spanish.
Mark Schwartz is an accomplished shoe designer and artist. He has been designing shoes for over 20 years for some of the biggest names in our industry.
Born in New York City, Mark has traveled the world gaining inspiration for his ideas from artist Andy Warhol, who Mark beneficially watched at work and knew for two years. Warhol encouraged and helped Schwartz cultivate his artistic renderings of shoes while Schwartz was working for Roger Vivier as an assistant designer and creative director. Mark Schwartz is now pioneering a new shade of talent within his work by exploring the grace and eclecticism of footwear as works of art.
www.highheeledart.blogspot.com
Larissa Shmailo's new collection of poetry is In Paran (BlazeVOX [books] 2009). Larissa is the winner of the 2009 New Century Music Awards for spoken word with jazz, electronica, and rock; her poetry CDs are Exorcism (SongCrew 2008) and The No-Net World (SongCrew 2006). Larissa's translation of the Russian transrational opera Victory over the Sun is part of the collections of the New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), the Hirsshorn Museum of the Smithsonian Institute, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art. She has been published in numerous journals and anthologies, including Barrow Street, Rattapallax, and Fulcrum.
David N. Moolten is the author of three books of poetry, Plums & Ashes (Northeastern University, 1994), which won the Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize, and Especially Then (David Robert Books, 2005). The manuscript for a third book, Primitive Mood recently won the T.S. Eliot Prize from Truman State University Press, with publication anticipated in the fall of 2009.
Poems by David Moolten have appeared in Poetry, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, The Southwest Review, and Epoch, among other journals and reviews. His work has been widely anthologized and his honors include a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship and a Pushcart Prize.
Moolten, a physician specializing in transfusion medicine, was educated at Harvard College and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He lives, writes, and practices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Moolten can be contacted by email at dmoolten@gmail.com
Peter Buffett, a well-established composer/producer, has released his third vocal album, IMAGINARY KINGDOM.
Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Buffett began his career in San Francisco writing music for commercials. He has eight released albums on Narada, Epic and Hollywood labels as well as six releases on his own label - including the EMMY
award winning CD, Ojibwe.
Buffett also composed and produced the score for the Duncan Group production of WISCONSIN – AN AMERICAN PORTRAIT, a regional EMMY award winner. Highlights of his film and television work include the Fire Dance scene in the Oscar winning film Dances With Wolves, and the score for 500 Nations, the eight-hour miniseries for CBS produced by Kevin Costner.
Buffett's theatrical production, Spirit – The Seventh Fire, originally launched as a successful PBS pledge event, was located on the National Mall for the Smithsonian's opening of the National Museum of the American Indian. As co-chairman of the NoVo Foundation, Buffett helps guide the strategic plan that he and his wife Jennifer will implement with a small dedicated staff over the coming years.
http://peterbuffett.com
http://youtube.com/isound1
Jill wrote Transformative Power In Sound: Intelligence, Health and Energy Through the Magic of Music, and lectures throughout the U.S. on this topic. She has numerous CDs out, with healing and transforming energy. Also, visit Jill's cyber gallery of art, fluid and evoking paintings and prints. www.jillswingsoflight.com http://myspace.com/jillswingsoflight http://newagehealingmusic.blogspot.com
Mark Yakich is an author and professor in the Department of English at Loyola University. His collection of poems Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross was one of five winners of The National Poetry Series in 2003. Another collection, The Making of Collateral Beauty, won the Snowbound Chapbook Award and was published by Tupelo Press in 2006. His most recent collection is The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine (Penguin Poets, 2008).
ATTENTION. DEFICIT. DISORDER. is a book.
It's a novel.
It's a story about how difficult it is to find meaning in the Information Age.
It's a contemporary rendition of the classic coming of age novel.
It features a man who wants to shave his head for reasons he can't explain.
It features a really old man and a really young prostitute.
It features a big desert, a charming mentally disabled man, and some hardcore spelunking.
If you so desire, you can order it online at:
amazon.com
Barnes & Noble
Powell's
Borders
BookSense
....Or at any other online bookseller.
Otherwise you can pick it up at your local bookstore.
Or you can steal it.
Cliff Kindy has spent parts of several years on peacemaking trips to Iraq. He is a member of CPT which places violence-reduction teams in crisis situations and militarized areas around the world at the invitation of local peace and human rights workers. CPT embraces the vision of unarmed intervention waged by committed peacemakers ready to risk injury and death in bold attempts to transform lethal conflict through the nonviolent power of truth and love.
Diagnosed with advanced colon cancer on her birthday in 2005, Sylvia Thompson discovered the healing power of creative writing through her illness. She teaches meditation, Reiki, Chakra and Color Therapy and takes part in a women's Kabbalah study group in her community. Her book "In the Garden of Illness I sit by the Well of Hope" is available through SHADOW POETRY or you may have a special expanded version printed just for you through LULU. For more samples of Sylvia's poetry go to Author's Den. Her book is also available at Barnes and Noble.com and Amazon.com Check out her web site at http://myspace.com/thompsonpoetry
David Biespiel was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1964 and grew up in Houston, Texas. He has degrees from Boston University and the University of Maryland. A former NCAA scholarship diver who competed in the United States National Diving Championships, he continues to coach national, international and Olympic-caliber divers. The recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Individual Artist Award in Poetry from the Maryland Arts Council and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, Biespiel has taught at several colleges, including Stanford University. He now lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is Director and Writer-in-Residence of The Attic Writers’ Workshop and also teaches at Oregon State University.
Biespiel’s second book of poems, Wild Civility, was published in 2003 by University of Washington Press in a new series edited by Linda Bierds. His first book of poems, Shattering Air, was published by BOA Editions in 1996. He writes a monthly poetry column for The Oregonian and edits the recently revived Poetry Northwest, once revered as the longest-running poetry-only journal in the United States, and now back in print in a new format.
Buffett's full-bodied electronic sound and rock-influenced accessibility make his music a congenial transition between the lighter pop instrumentals that have flooded the market and artists who are pushing the boundaries of modern electronic music with more challenging fare. The Nebraska-born pianist went to Stanford University, where he converted his Bay Area apartment into an efficient recording studio that provides soundtracks for numerous advertising, television, and film companies. Upon hearing of Kevin Costner's plans to create the movie Dances with Wolves, Buffett sent the actor a copy of his album One by One, which featured several cuts inspired by the plight of Native Americans. Costner was impressed enough to use some of Buffett's music in the film. Buffett's four Narada recordings combine a flair for drama and cinematic-style electronic orchestrations with his interest in Native American cultures. His later albums feature a progressively more prominent use of acoustic timbres, both sampled and authentic. ~ Linda Kohanov, All Music Guide
(This podcast was originally posted in the Fall of 2006.)
From Bryan's Bio:
“Born Manchester. Educated Bolton School and King’s College. Cambridge. Degree in English. At The Times as Financial News Editor and Deputy Arts Editor from 1976 to 1984. Freelance journalist ever since. Three times won Feature Writer of the Year and twice commended in the British Press Awards. Have contributed to, among others, Times, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Spectator, Times Literary Supplement, The Tablet, New York Times, Vanity Fair etc. I am currently a special feature writer, commentator, reviewer and columnist for The Sunday Times.
My books are: The Culture Club: Crisis in the Arts, Richard Rogers: a biography, The Pleasures of Peace: Art and Imagination in Postwar Britain, Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man, The First Church of the New Millennium: a novel, Brave New Worlds: Genetics and the Human Experience (winner of a medical writing prize whose name I cannot remember); Aliens: Why They Are Here and How to Live forever or Die Trying.
I have lectured, debated or taught numerous universities, including Boston, St Andrews, Glasgow, Leeds, Cambridge, Oxford, Trinity College, Dublin, London, Liverpool John Moores, Architectural Association, Glasgow School of Architecture and I have been a fellow of the World Economic Forum.”.
Internationally renowned as a performance poet, Patricia Smith is four-time national individual champion of the notorious and wildly popular poetry slam, an energized competition where poets are judged on the content and performance of their work. She is also regarded as one of the few performance poets whose work translates effortlessly to the page. Indeed, the Small Press Review declares, "Smith writes the way Tina Turner sings." Smith's most recent collection, Teahouse of the Almighty , was chosen by Ed Sanders for the 2005 National Poetry Series, and was published by Coffee House Press in 2006. Her three previous books of poetry are, Close to Death (Zoland Books), Big Towns, Big Talk (Zoland Books), and Life According to Motown (Tia Chucha). She has won the prestigious Carl Sandburg Award, as well as a literary award from the Illinois Arts Council and an honorary degree from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. In 2006, she was inducted into the International Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent, putting her in the company of Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Alice Walker, and others.
She was featured in the nationally-released film "Slamnation", and was a featured poet on the award-winning HBO series "Def Poetry Jam." Smith has shared the stage with Adrienne Rich, Rita Dove, Joyce Carol Oates, Allen Ginsburg, Walter Mosley, Ntozake Shange, Gwendolyn Brooks, Galway Kinnell and Viggo Morgensen.
An author of prose as well poetry, Smith wrote Africans in America (Harcourt Brace), a chronicle of slavery in this country and the companion volume to the groundbreaking four-part PBS series.
Peter Krok is the editor of the Schuylkill Valley Journal and serves as the humanities/poetry director of the Manayunk Art Center where he has coordinated a literary series since 1990. His poems have appeared in more than seventy publications including the Yearbook of American Poetry, America, Midwest Quarterly, Poet Lore, Potomac
Review, and in 2005 his poem "10 PM At a Philadelphia Recreation Center" was included in Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (published by Penn State University). His book Looking For An Eye was published by the Foothills Press.
Lyn Lifshin has written more than 100 books and edited 4 anthologies of women writers. Her poems have appeared in most poetry and literary magazines in the U.S.A., and her work has been included in virtually every major anthology of recent writing by women. She has given more than 700 readings across the U.S.A. and has appeared at Dartmouth and Skidmore colleges, Cornell University, the Shakespeare Library, Whitney Museum, and Huntington Library. Lyn Lifshin has also taught poetry and prose writing for many years at universities, colleges and high schools, and has been Poet in Residence at the University of Rochester, Antioch, and Colorado Mountain College. Winner of numerous awards including the Jack Kerouac Award for her book Kiss The Skin Off, Lyn is the subject of the documentary film Lyn Lifshin: Not Made of Glass. For her absolute dedication to the small presses which first published her, and for managing to survive on her own apart from any major publishing house or academic institution, Lifshin has earned the distinction "Queen of the Small Presses." She has been praised by Robert Frost, Ken Kesey and Richard Eberhart, and Ed Sanders has seen her as "a modern Emily Dickinson."
Raised in Marietta, Georgia, Royal became a local singing sensation at Savannah, Georgia's Bamboo Ranch in the 1950s and 1960s. He is best known for the 1965 Top Ten pop hit "Down in the Boondocks," which, along with the singles "I Knew You When" (Top 20, 1965) and "Hush" (1967), were written and produced by Joe South. His 1969 single, "Cherry Hill Park," peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100.
During the 1980s, Royal scored a comeback with several Top 10 country hits, including "Tell It Like It Is," "Burned Like a Rocket," and "I'll Pin a Note on Your Pillow."
When his rejuvenated career as a country music hitmaker quieted down, he followed up with bookings throughout the 1990s in large country music bars and became a successful act on that circuit. And, he is still making music. His latest release is “Going By Daydreams.” Check http://BillyJoeRoyal.com for more info. Also you could check any of the several million entries on any search engine to learn more about this legendary performer,
Scotland's National Bard, Robert Burns, gave a voice to ordinary life and was himself as much an inspiration as his poetry. Burns profound belief in the worth of every human being, no matter who they are or what their origins was the most inspiring aspect of the man. He may have endured grinding poverty for most of his short life, but he did not allow hardship to destroy his future.
Nearly 250 years after his birth, the greatest tribute we can pay Robert Burns is to adopt his worldview and recognize that every child is exceptional no matter where they are from or what their circumstances.
Janice Hale-Hobby is an El Paso poet and writer. You can sample her writing and read her bio at http://JaniceHaleHobby.com
Diagnosed with colon cancer on her birthday in 2005, Sylvia Thompson discovered the healing power of creative writing through her illness, She teaches meditation, Reiki, Chakra and Color Therapy and takes part in a women's kabbalah study group in her community. Her book "In the Garden of Illness I sit By the Well of Hope is available through http://www.ShadowPoetry.com