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The Harpur College Dean’s Office and the Department of Romance Languages at Binghamton University present
Crossroads
The Fifth
Binghamton
International
Poetry Festival
October 15, 3 - 7 p.m.
The Atrium at the
Binghamton University
Downtown Center
Featuring:
Funding is provided, in part, by: The Office of the Vice President for Research, and the Convocation Committee at Binghamton University.
Roberta Borger
Jessica Femiani
Peter Fulton Mahmood Karim-Hakak
Mario Moroni
Emily Skillings Yvan Tetelbom
Joe Weil / Emily Vogel
Order of Events
3 p.m. - Coffee and Pastries served in The Atrium of the Downtown Center
3 - 4 p.m. – Poetry readings by students of the Creative Writing Program at Binghamton University
Coffee break 4:30 p.m. – Poetry performances Peter Fulton, Mahmood Karimi-Hakak, Mario Moroni
Coffee Break
Emily Skillings, Yvan Tetelbom, Joe Weil / Emily Vogel
Our Presenters
Our Presenters
ROBERTA BORGER is originally from São Paulo, Brazil, where she studied Filmmaking
and Screenwriting. After moving to the U.S. in 2008, she earned a second Bachelor's
degree in Creative Writing from SUNY Purchase, and an M.F.A from Chatham
University. Borger is currently pursuing her PhD at Binghamton University. Her poems,
short stories, and photographs have appeared in The Voices Project, On the Rusk,
Lux, The Acentos Review, K Magazine, and others.
The Victory
A traditional tree tries to trespass on a trellis’ territory with a trifling trot over the transitional
terrain. But the trimmed trellis is not tranquilized by the tree’s trivial trajectory, translating the
intrusion as a type of treachery. And so, she treats the transgression as a troubling threat to
the treaty for truce the tree and the trellis had traded. With trust trampled over, the tricky
trellis triggers a tremendous strike, trekking its trained troops over the traitor’s trunk, until
tragically, the tree is trounced and traumatized, and the triumphant trellis trods over the tree’s
trails.
The train
I go
I go
I go
Tunnel
Now I go
I really go
Now I go
I really go
I bring joy
I bring tears
I bring hope
And many
fears
Every day
All the way
A single
chance
To take a
stand
I fight alone
All on my own
Because I
need
A lot of soul
A bunch of
soul
Always soul
Living soul
Give me soul
I've got
Coal
To think about
Look around
Give a shout
Make it loud
Make a change
Make it strange
Smother rage
Like the mange
I fight the gas
I fight the fog
I search for light
Say goodbye
Say farewell
See you in
heaven
And they in hell
Down I slow
With the flow
Take a guy
And take a girl
As I stop
As I rest
Pass the town
Pass the city
Pass the
people
Pass the pity
On the faces
Of some races
On all places
Where I ride
Where I slide
Keep on trying
Keep on lying
For the people
Who keep
dying
Yellow stars
In my cars
Doesn’t matter
More the
better
And so I blow
So I know
So I grow
So I show
Every one
Every thing
Every try
I can begin
Moving along
I take the grief
With the belief
I take the sorrow
And bring the
morrow
Peace of mind
Change of heart
Steel and iron
From the start
As I hope
For the best
JESSICA FEMIANI was born in NYC, reared in Rockland County, and headed back to
NYC after college. She lives in upstate New York, is pursuing a Ph.D. in English and
Creative Writing at SUNY Binghamton, and reads aloud to whomever, whenever and
wherever.
Our Presenters Our Presenters
PETER FULTON is a Massachusetts poet. His first hearing Dylan Thomas perform Under
Milk Wood inspired Peter to write and perform a verse drama entitled Death of a Worn
Man. This was followed by a collection of poems entitled Boulders in Ice; a novella with
original songs entitled Silicon in Sand; a book of poems and photographs in collaboration
with sculptor McAlister Coleman entitled Figures; and a chapbook and CD entitled How
to Carve an Angel - with original compositions by four outstanding musicians. How to
Carve an Angel was premiered at the International Poetry Festival in Swansea, Wales in
the Dylan Thomas Theatre in June 2011. Peter’s latest work is an interactive multimedia
ebook entitled flying stones that can be enjoyed without charge or obligation at
mediafusionarts.blogspot.com
MAHMOOD KARIMI-HAKAK mahmoodkarimihakak.org, President of Festival Cinema
Invisible cinemainvisible.org, is a poet, author, translator and film and theatre artist who
has created over 60 stage and screenplays in the U.S., Europe and his native Iran. He is a
recipient of four international awards including Raymond C. Kennedy 2005 and Fulbright
2009-10. Mahmood’s literary credits include six plays, four books of poetry, several
translations from and into Persian and numerous articles and interviews in both English
and Persian. Dr. Karimi-Hakak has taught at Towson, Southern Methodists and New York
City universities as well as universities in Antwerp, Tilburg, Tel Aviv and Tehran. Presently
he serves as Professor of Creative Arts at Siena College in New York.
being Wright
you must know what Bernoulli knew -
Bernoulli who, with mathematical gifts,
drew from thin air the lift through wind
on wing to levitation – otherwise,
you should have died from the sheer weight
of medical benediction, awaiting your time
to expire when predicted so many years ago.
instead you float as a bright star
draped in a black tux onto the stage
for us to recognize your life’s work -
your robes concealing your frail
resistance to tumors creeping through.
surely Bernoulli would have been
so honored too, just before the orchestra
played its cue for him to end
his “thank you” and depart,
leaving us to question the probable
“how” and “why”
in our uncertain heart of hearts.
sometimes it’s better not to be right
but just to believe: even stones can fly.
© 2011 Peter Fulton
from flying stones at mediafusionarts.
blogspot.com/
Courtesy of The Seventh Quarry Poetry Press;
Peter Thabit Jones, Editor
If my world in my control!
If the world…
in my control!
Days begin with sunrise
end with sunset.
Nights born in moontide
die in moondusk
No light prisms
the sun and
the moon.
***
If the world…
In my control!
People breathe peace!
Fire is honored
and water too.
Earth is worshiped
and creatures on earth,
and winds,
and rains,
and stars. ***
If the world…
in my control!
Colors are shown
as they are
Grass, green.
Sky, blue.
Blood, red.
Blood, maroon.
Blood, red.
If the world…
in my control
Everyone lives for a reason
and dies for a cause.
And death
won’t be
the end of all.
he living speak language
understood by death
(claimed, and
unclaimed)
If the world… in my
control. Beauty is
caressed and
justice is just.
Decision
evolves
deed.
If the world…
in my control
Woman, man
create
god.
© Mahmood Karimi-Hakak, 1991
***
Our Presenters Our Presenters
MARIO MORONI was born in Italy. He moved to the United States in 1989. He has taught at
Yale University, the University of Memphis, Colby College, he currently teaches Italian at
Binghamton University. Mario Moroni has published eight volumes of poetry and one of
poetic prose. In 1989 he was awarded the Lorenzo Montano prize for poetry. His poems
have been published in numerous journals and anthologies. As a critic, Mario Moroni
has published Essere e fare (Luisè, 1991), La presenza complessa (Longo, 1998), and Al
limite (Le Monnier, 2007). He has co-edited three collections of essays: Italian Modernism with L. Somigli (U. of Toronto Press, 2004), From Eugenio Montale to Amelia Rossellii, with
J. Butcher (Troubador Press, 2004), and Neoavanguardia, with P. Chirumbolo and
L.Somigli (U. of Toronto Press, 2010). In 2006 he released Reflections on Icaru’s Lands, a
DVD of poetry, music, and images in collaboration with composerJon Hallstrom. He has
performed his poem “Reciting the Ashes” with piano music by composer David Gaita in
various venues in the US and Europe.
EMILY SKILLINGS is the author of two chapbooks: Backchannel (Poor Claudia) and Linnaeus:
The 26 Sexual Practices of Plants (No, Dear/ Small Anchor Press). Her first full-length
collection of poetry, Fort Not, will be published by The Song Cave in 2017. Recent poems can
be found/are forthcoming in Brooklyn Rail, BOMB, Hyperallergic, LitHub, jubilat, Pleiades,
Phantom Limb, and Washington Square. Formally trained in ballet and modern dance, she has
performed with The Commons Choir (Darïa Faïn and Robert Kocik) and the A.O. Movement
Collective and her choreography has been presented at Dixon Place, Triskelion Arts, Spoke
the Hub and The New School. She lives in Brooklyn, where she is a member of the
Belladonna* Collaborative, a feminist poetry collective and event series. Skillings is an MFA
candidate at Columbia University and runs the Earshot reading series with Allyson Paty. She
is the recipient of a 2017 Pushcart Prize
The Hour of Rest
End of the flood, of the great rains.
End of the journey,
of the miles counted over the years.
Until there is even an end to the endless self-obsession,
Of the vacillating mirror hung daily.
Canary I held my canary out for you when you said your canary felt a little droopy. Your canary was a ruby drop in my frosty glass of canary. The canary between us grew for many days. I wanted to fight the canary, but you held me back.
The officer shot the unarmed canary on a canary I used to walk down every day. When you touched the canary underneath my knee a balloon filled with canary in an eastern corner. The sound of unmarked canaries overhead frightened the rural hospital. The president has never commented publicly on the controversial canary program.
Can you remember where that canary was that we tried so many years ago? Oh, that canary feels so good—just like that. The canaries carry electricity to our houses in even smaller canaries. When the activists passed out yellow canaries I took one and read it. A canary is born every 8 seconds.
I log onto the large canary to check how my canary is faring. When I go to the supermarket, I check the codes on the canaries to make sure they are not genetically modified canaries. Many canaries suffer.
She pressed a thumb into my muscle and all the canary was released into me. When I went outside I saw the sky, it was filled with canary. You held the canary up to my face. You vibrated the canary at a new frequency. You said the best time for canaries was 11:30 am.
Our Presenters Our Presenters
Basement Delivery
Having lived so long without one, we forgot
what a basement felt like—how it seemed
to the carriers, to the inhabitants,
the structures, that there was an underneathness
to all that daily interaction and exchange—
i.e. an empty teacup hovering just above a pool.
On the day the basement was delivered
pink air made its way underneath the canopy.
Ten strong women arrived to pump it through the ground,
evicting domestic earthworms, telepathic moss
and scarce minerals. An important rivulet was rerouted.
The sub-story attached and crystallized like in that dream.
The whole procedure only took a few minutes.
In the presence of a basement, our history was whisked,
indexed into a ladder, roped down—our kidneys and lungs
wrung out. We stood around slowly. We were cooled
and stored. In the parlor, at first blush of waking,
our usual words and arrangements seemed normal enough,
but then that lower sound, that kept air, funneled up to us.
A collection freed itself. It was again again. Leave no stone
already.
YVAN TETELBOM was born in Algeria (Kabylia) in Port - Gueydon (Azzefoun) in 1947. His
family spoke Yiddish mixed Kabyle (an Amasigh langage) and French. He had a carefree
upbringing in a kabyle village on the Mediterranean in spite of the war between Algeria and
France. Tetelbom moved to France in 1962, after the Algerian independence. He then
discovered a passion for the French language. At the age of sixteen, he attended a poetry
recital by Jean Marc Tennberg at the Municipal Theater of Orleans It was a revelation, his
vocation for poetry was born. Tatelbom is an author of SACEM (Society of Authors
Composers and Publishers of Music) and the SACD (Society of Dramatic Authors and
Composers). He studied as a comedian at the René Simon school in Paris and sang his
own songs in public places. In 1985 he decided to perform as an actor-poet, reciting his own
poems with just his naked voice on stages in France and abroad . Among thousands of
shows : the tour in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Paris, Rome, London, Genève,
Budapest, Brussels, Geneva, Istanbul, Algiers and many others. Tetelbom usually performs
his poetry at national and international literary festivals and events in a variety of venues and
countries. He experiments with the slam and many other forms of interpretation. For all his
life he has worked in prisons, schools, universities, and very recently at « Sciences Po », a
great school for future politicians, where he talked about poetry to initiate the youth to think
differently. Tetelbom especially likes these words written for him by
Alessandro Gebreziabiher, an organizer of a festival in Rome : "I
appreciated very much your energy, I love revolutionary forces. In my
modest opinion, art must always to be revolutionary, if it is not, then it's not
art." He organized many poetry events in France and in the world, including
the International Poetry Festival in Paris.
He published : « D’amour et de révolte », « Je reviens en Algérie chercher
les fragments manquants », « Les migrants ».
Identité
Comment définir
l’origine de la vie
le mystère de la mort
l’attrait de l’infini
l’envie d’être plus fort
entre ce qui s’efface
et ce qui va venir
pour créer son espace
pour mieux se définir…
Identity
How to apprehend
Life form's Origins?
Death Mysteries ?
Attraction to the infinity?
The compulsion to be stronger
Between what is fading away
And what is to come
To create One's own space
To become a better expression of Self Realisation
Naplouse
Je me préparais au feu et au sang
au combat de rues sous le ciel rebelle
à la passion de vivre au goût de pierres
je croyais que je vivrais en enfer
dans le hurlement des fuites en avant
je m’attendais à la misère partout
j’ai vu Naplouse au milieu des étoiles
même les coqs chantaient des poèmes d’amour
Naplouse, Naplouse, j’ai arraché ton voile
et te voilà…nue et vierge…soudain
Naplouse
I got ready for fire and blood
street battle under the rebel sky,
the passion to live with a stony taste
I believed my life would be Hell
in the howl of escapes forward
I expected misery everywhere
I saw Naplouse amongst the stars
even cockerels sang love Poems,
Naplouse, Naplouse, I tore off your veil
and, suddenly, you are here… naked and virgin…
Translated by: Christine Maffei
Our Presenters Our Presenters
EMILY VOGEL’S poetry has been published widely, most recently in Lyrelyre, Maggy, The
Comstock Review, The Paterson Literary Review, and The Journal of New Jersey Poets.
She has published five chapbooks: Footnotes for a Love Letter (Foothills, 2008), An
Intimate Acquaintance (Pudding House, 2009), and Elucidation Through Darkness (Split
Oak Press, 2010), Still Life With Man, (Finishing Line Press, 2012), and Digressions on
God (Main Street Rag, author’s choice series, 2012). The Philosopher’s Wife, a full-length
collection, was published in 2011 (Chester River Press). She is the poetry editor of the
online journal Ragazine, and teaches expository and creative writing at SUNY Oneonta
and Hartwick College. She finds solace at home with her husband, the poet and essayist,
Joe Weil, and their daughter, Clare.
JOE WEIL was born in Elizabeth, a mid sized industrial city in North East New jersey,
and his poetics were formed by the spirit of Elizabeth's neighbourhoods and peoples.
He conveys in poetry and music a spiritual Elizabeth which is diverse, hard working,
and pained at the political correctness that imperils so many attempts at honesty in the
contemporary world. He is the author of three chapbooks and four full length books of
poetry, the most recent of which are The Plumber's Apprentice (New York Quarterly)
and A Night in Duluth. His forthcoming book will be a collection of essays. Weil lives
and sings with his wife, the poet Emily Vogel, and his daughter Clare. He currently
teaches poetry at Binghamton University.
Kierkegaard's Riddle and Emily's Proclamation According to Kierkegaard, all poets are riddles, caught up in their own riddles. And so, a melon is a model for the shape of the world. A book is desperate explanation of the soul. Winter, come at once again with your blustery gusts. A computer is not God. A telephone pole is not God. Man, embroiled in erotic love, is most certainly not God. This morning, I interrupted a man's writing to admit to him that I was Julian of Norwich. What clumsy ambition of poetic intention! Inebriate of air am I, and debauchee of dew! Emily, your light and memorial soul, absolve me of this despair. Kierkegaard, for instance, would say the despairing are only happy once they have died. So let me die, only to be intimate with the Eternal Word. Or no Word, but grass instead: a cardinal in a low bush. What presumptions render my frivolity! What long drink of ale would quell my fear before the pronouncement of the Holy Trinity? I say, pissing into the wind makes a stronger soul. My love is a body with a mind and it is a mind I cannot see. I long to touch the hemming of his long robe. Thus carry me this far slung like a wench over the haunches of a horse! Dispel all arbitrary house fires of the sweetest rage!
For dear my Lord, let me not misconstrue your daily Missals, and if I should, let me fume with mortal confusion. And my Lord, once again, how stupidly I fall before your grace, writing by the secret desire of a low-lit lamp, after everyone is asleep, after--what imperfect arithmetic anoints this passion upholds this unlearned liturgy.
Academia
You are nothing
you are
nothing you
are
nothing if not that bright glint
of semen
or is that seagull on the horizon?
Distinguished by the sibilants of excellence:
the bright ivory tusk that gores you
brings you down to mix the blood of your thigh
with the dust or is that some other story?
Oh yes. You were digressing.
It is another story: it will not fit in with the works published section
it comes out of the sun and makes you squint, makes you
vomit up your dead, as if you were a sea of
qualifying adjectives:
They will tell you this poem is too obscure.
You are angry. You never meant to be. There is
the grey man-- over there
he is mistranslated, and the red woman over there
who is misread, and every one is guarded
as if the boar were already prowling the quad
it's eloquent achievements screwered high up
on its tusks.
