RISCA Poetry Fellowship Winner at Warwick Museum
Mad Poets Cafe Featuring Mairead Byrne and Joanna Nealon
Saturday, October 22, open-mike signup starts at 7 p.m.
Admission only $5
Mairead Byrne and Joanna Nealon feature at the award-winning Mad Poets’ Cafe program at the Warwick Museum of Art on Saturday, October 22, 2005 at 7 p.m.
Mairead Byrne immigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1994 for reasons of poetry. Her collection Nelson & The Huruburu Bird was published in 2003 by Wild Honey Press. Recent and upcoming publications include two chapbooks, An Educated Heart (Palm Press, 2005) and Vivas (Wild Honey Press, 2005), and poems in 5 AM, CONDUIT, DENVER QUARTERLY, THE DRUNKEN BOAT, and VOLT. She is the author of two plays, two books of interviews with Irish artists, a short book on James Joyce, and a lot of journalism in Ireland and the United States. She earned a PhD in Theory & Cultural Studies from Purdue University in 2001 and lives with her two daughters in Providence, Rhode Island, where she teaches poetry at Rhode Island School of Design.
Joanna Nealon is a blind woman, married, with three children and four grandchildren. She grew up in an old houseboat on Ash Creek in Bridgeport, CT., and now resides in Newton, MA. She received her B.A. in French Literature and studied in Paris, France, on a Fulbright Scholarship.
In 1987 she began circulating her poems and reciting in the Boston area, mainly with the Stone Soup poetry group, founded by Jack Powers in 1971. She joined other Stone Soup poets in programs for social and cultural renewal, such as Boston’s First Night, benefits for the homeless and on-going readings at Bay State and Norfolk prisons.
Joanna is also affiliated with Tapestry of Voices, founded by Mad Poets’ host Harris Gardner in 2000. She has participated previously in readings at the Warwick Museum of Art as well as Border’s Bookstore in Boston, Northeastern and Brown Universities, the John Greenleaf Whittier houses in Amesbury and Haverhill, and the annual National Poetry Month Festival held in the Boston Public Library. This year she is delighted to be part of the newly founded Brockton Libra ry Poetry Series.
Joanna has five published books: The Lie And I (Stone Soup Press, Boston: 1990), Poems Of The Zodiac (Cosmic Trend, North York, Ontario: 1992), Said The Sage (New Spirit Press, NY: 1993), The Fourth Kingdom (Cosmic Trend, North York, Ontario: 1998), and Living It (Ibbetson Street Press, MA: 2004). Her poems have appeared in Stone Soup Quarterly, Stone Soup Gazette, Cosmic Trend Anthologies, Bitterroot, Expression, The Aurorean, Northeast Corridor, Medaphors, The Ibbetson Street Review, and the anthology, We Speak For Peace.
The Mad Poets’ Cafe features some of the area’s best poets every month in the Museum’s gallery space. Host Harris Gardner invites budding poets or writers wanting to debut new material to take part in the Mad Poets’ open mike segment. Sign-up begins at 7 p.m. and is open to all ages and skill levels.
Admission is $5.00 at the door and includes hors d’oeuvres and beverages. For reservations or further details, please visit www.warwickmuseum.org or call the Museum office at 401-737-0010.
