© 19iU, TEN' PENNY PLAYERS INC.

THE NEW Y,0RK STATE WATERWAYS PROJECT grew out of a desire to prese.nt to New York resident.s the artistry of the word in a novel. set.ting. The waterways caught our imaginations from a concern Ear aesthetics and the eqology of New. York rivers and 1ak.es. We thank the SQuth Street Seaport Museum, the N'ationa;lMaritime Historical Society, the New York Harbor FestiVal and the Department of Rorts and Terminals fa r their coopera ti on and re commenda.ti ons . P aymen ts to poets were made possible by grants from Poets & Writers and The New York State Council on the Arts.. Additional employment of poets Was made possible tbrough the CETA programs of the American Jewish Oongress' Martin Steinberg Center and the Cultural Council Foundation whose participat.ing poets were funded under grants from the US Department c f Labor and t.he NYC Department ot .Employment CETA Title VI.

The 1978 schedule of event.s included exhibitions and readings at the South Street Seaport Museum on July 4th; at Pier 13

in Staten Island on July 21st: on Pier 84 at West 44t.h Street in Manhattan on July 29; at the pier at 44th Drive in Long Island City on August 12; at the North River Bulkhead in Greenwich Village, (West Street and Bqnk Street) on August 19th; at the Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn on August 25th and August 26th; and in Kingston at Roundout Creek on September 8th and Sept.ember 9th. Each fair site was marked by the publication of a dated waterways chapbook that included one poem from each of the participating poets. The Waterways Proj~ct will continue documenting the activities of poets working in New York State du~ing the 'off-season' by publishing a bi-mont.hly series of Waterways Magazines that will bring to the reading public materials from poets wr i ting in unusual workshop locations. The small press exhibitions and poetry rea(Hngswil1 be resumed at waterways locations as soon in 1980 a's the "feather permits. Membership of presses

in the NYS Wat.erways Project is welcomed throughout the year and individual subscribers to bhe pubLishing program are at so encouraged.. Subscript:ion and membership information can be ;found on the last:. page of this issue.

NYSWAWERWAYS PROJIlcr MAGAZINE

Vel. 2, No. 2 APRIL 1980

Th1:S issue eX]jl10:£es varying aspects of the poet; in the c i ty .

The first group of poets represented will be reading at the New York

Book Fair 'hel.d April 4-6 at Loeb Student Genter; the second group of poets will be reading at the Cedar Tavern on April 6; the third! group will be reading at the Cornelia Street Cafe that same evening. Both

the CedaF Tavern. and the Carnelia Street Cafe have ongoing programs offering readings:[0 the public. The fourth gFOUp of poets represented willi be JIlaIking poetry on April 19 at the Newark Public Library as part

of a New Jersey three-day literary exploration. The WatenV'ays Project is al so participating in thai progrzqn by bringing a Combined Exhibit of . materials fil!arn member presses 'to the Library that day for a mini -fair ..

Our series of Waterways Book FaiTS officially opens on July 4 and July S. at the South Street Seaport, Mtls'eum wflere we wIT 1 hard a two-day book far. in the park in front af Bowne Printing (211 Water Street) where we are cosponsoring a series of poetry readings contrasting 19th & 20th century American peets , April 13 (5:00-7:00pm~ walt Whit:mafl and Richard Davidson

April 27 (S:OO-7:00J?ITh) Adah Isaacs Menken ~ En±d Dame May 11 cS: 00-7 : OOprn) Pauline .Johnson & Maurice Kenny (Moderator fOJ! each evening - Richard Spiegel; letterpress poetry broadsides availab!Le at every reading printed at Bowne & Co)

July 26 - all day book fair on the Con~y Island Boardwalk near the Aquaruum

August 2- aill day book f¢ at the North River Bulkhead,Bank Street ill

Greenwich Village

AuguSt 9- book fair scheduled for Fire Island (still tentative) ANgpst 16-bo0k fair scheduled :EOI' Albany (still tentative) August 23-mook fair scheduled for Buffalo (still tentative)

¥ernbership in the Waterway;s Proj ect is open to small presses who can either corne to the fair and poetry readings and exhfb i.t; their materials @~ put their printed matter into our Combined EXhibit. Every book fair Inc.ludes a poetry reading and simultaneous pablication of the magazine .. As of the June issue we will be calliBg the magazine 'Waterways'.

'I11ie Magazine is ooill:ted and designed by Richard Spiegel & Barbara fisher. 1I1he Proj ect accepts ne respenswoilllity f0r unsolllicllited manuscr ipts; AIIl] Fights revert back to tlle cGRtrillbw:t@rs after publicatil!on.

]SSN Ol95-718X

~ ER]EF NIST0RY ®F [ME NEW YGRK BOOK F~R RiGRal'Q Spd.egelli·

THE NEW YORK BOOK FAIR (April 4-6)

at Loeb Student Center of NY University,

Washington Square South & LaGUardia Place

Friday Evening Poetry Reading, 7:30(in the Auditorium) Readers: Ai, John Gardner, Joyce Carol Oates, Diane Wakoski

Saturday, April 5, Readers noon - Frederick Buell 12:10- Marie Ponsot

12: 20- Ellen Marie Bissert 12:30- 'Zone Press'

12:40- 'Confrontation' 12:50- Beverly Lawn

1:00- E1izabet.hMarraffino 1:10- 'Wooden Needle Press' 1:20- Ed Hogan

1:30- Jim Villani

1:40- Harriet Brown

1:50- Enid Dame

2:00- Ruth Lisa Schechter 2:10- Roberta Kalechofsky 2:20- Kathryn Nocerino 2:30-· Bob Holman

2:40- Jeff Wright

2:50- Ernest M. Robson 3:30- Carol Polcovar 3:40- Robert Fox

3 : 50 Ron We1burn

4:00 Stanley Barkan 4:10 Diana Kwiatkowski 4:20 Zack Rogow

4;30 Dorothy Friedman 5:00 Barry Godensohn 5: 10 Leah Paransky 5:20 Donald Lev

5:30 Michael Horovitz 5:40 Jan Castro

5:50 Lyn Lifshin

6:00 Charley Shively

6:10 George-Therese Dickinson 6:20 Alice Mattison 6:30'Oliver Lake

Sunday, April 6, Readers

noon - Sharon Skeeter 3:00 Lucy Angeleri

12: 10 - Kary.l Klopp 3: 10 Frank Kuenstler

12:20- "Rosemary Mealy 3:20 Ranice Crosby

12:30- Robert Cohen 3:]0 Matthew Elison

12:40- Patty Mucha 3:40 Safiya

12:50- David Altabe 3:50 Alison Colbert

.AND OTHERS YET TO BE ANNOUNCED

All the reading poets represent small press publishers exhibiting at the New York Book Fair.

On the closing night of the Fair, Sunday April 6, Poetry Readings will be held at the Cedar Tavern (82 University Place, Ilpm);

and at the Cornelia Street Cafe (27 Cornelia Street, 7prn). These programs have been organized by the Waterways Project and Home

P1q.net News with the cooperation of Box 749.

_j

l

Leah Paransky

TIN CUP

tired eyes tattered mind pen

in hand I beg

a poem

LOST

with the sl.DlHllering flock

I flew lost

my sun

my compass ... you

WIND

Beverly Lawn

As the door slams shut and I step into the street, I realize

I've been talking to myself all moming. I feel the need to walk into the wind, to release my noises into bigger noise. I find others walking beside me,

moving their lips with the rush of the wind.

I walk among them for hours, strangely happy that others have similar business with the wind, and listen to the many voices building up

this one huge roar. When I get harne,

I tell myself, I shall write this down, write this down. "

SANDPIPER

Lucy Angeleri

To be up - rooted;

from town to church to have him die and leave

shall be rootless. Then

i saw the small sand -

me with leaves blossoms

plants we loved. No more,

piper; like Jesus walking on water - -

i said, no love care for planted life; i

a seaweed

bay - - the bird knew where to stand.

.'

,

GLANCE

D. Barone

sincerity might make up for our lack of sanity she sits there

her shirt so low it makes up for

any lack of halo now two of them

I

more god like than

goddess

power, power

wind blows their hair the powder, a moment

gone the two of them

the powder, the shirt so low our sanity, sincerity

remains we were so sincere about our seeking peace

gone all of it

but look, above - see it? that. telling halo

how pretty in the wind of our last war.

)

CORNELIA STREET: nIE SONGWIUTERS EXOLANGE. Cornelia Street is a tiny one-block street in the heart of Greenwich Village, New York City. It was laid out in 1794 on the £aon of Robert Herring who named it for his granddaughter. Com=I4-It bas had an inreresting history.

In the nineteenth cenauy it housed. the stables of the rich. During Prohibition it shel~ one of New York's most famous speakeasies.. In the late fifties and early sixties, at the Cafie Uno, it save birth 10 Off Off Broadway.

At one end of the street is Murray's where the Mayor of New York buys his cheese . .At the other is bmpieri's which bakes bread for restaurants all over the city. In between are a couple of the finest little restaurantS in all of New York. .

It is a meet of diversity and of surprises-of food, of drink, of art, and of discreet snbvmion.

In the Spring of 1977 three of us munb1ed across a tiny smrefront· on Cornelia Street and thought it the perfect place to open a cafe. For two mon~ we built, scraped. sanded, plastered, plumbed, and painted, and did the intricate ~, one bas to do with the authorities who live beyond Cornelia Street. On July 2 we looked up and, mirabik MafJ, we bad a cafe.

Perhaps it was the street, perhaps it was the faa that all three of us were connected with the am, perhaps it was a combination of all kinds of things, but within a month we were having regular poetry readings and mnsic periormnnces; and then a tiny play writren for the cafe; and pretty soon all IOtt$ of things: fiction writers: and journalists; and programs of bawdy and Eskimo poetry: and puppeteers and flute playeft and classical gu.imrim; and a ponrait of James Joyce; and mime shows on the Street OUtSide the cafe: and comedians: and recorder, oud, and concertina music; and shows of paper and air; and fairy tales and srorytellers and Punch and Judy shows. And on Monday nights beginning in December of our first year, and on every Monday night since then, the Songwriters &change.

But thereby bangs'a tale.

One of the 1ixrures that first summer was a young woman with a little dog who would sit in the doorway during the day and drink iced cappuccino. At night she sang and played piano in a bar arowid the corner, She sang her own songs and songs by friends of hers. They were' wonderful songs-touching, innocent, abrasive, ambitious; sometimes funny, sometimes raucous, sometimes sad.

But in Wt bar around the comer people did not pay too muc:b attention. They were there to drink. aoe listen to the musiJ;. And the lady with the little dog grew more and more d.iscoosolat=.

So we suggested she might like to give Ii con· c:ert in the cafe-sms piano, of course, because if you put Ii piano in our cafe there is DO room for people. So she sang and played guiaIr • .And for the next eigh=n momhs her concerts became a staple of Cornelia Street. She aho-in a suicidal pattern whereby our best customers end up worlcing for the a£e - became our waitress. Her name was Carolyne Mas.

Carolyne's frieuds. some of whose songs I had first heard around the corner-Nancy lee Baxter, Frank Ottistian, Steve Forbert, Jack Hardy, Tom lntondi. Rod MacDonald, Da\Tid Massengill, and all sortS of R.odles-also began to play at Corndia Street. I remember one early concert in pan:iaUar. in November, where, by the ead of me fMDiD& scattered across the cafe, there were Tom aDd Carolyne on guitar, David on dulcimer, Jack on mandolin and Jack's brother Jeff with his hose staDdnpbass virtually oblitcratinS the esp1eIID machine, all singing Tom's song ".Americ:a".

It was of course completely crazy. The afC is profoundly unsuited to such extravaganzas I don't even remember whether the people listening outnumbered the people playiDS. But that was not the pOint. Here were. half a dozen young musjcjsos,. each with ind~enrly developing auee:s. all engaged for a moment in a commoo mrerprlse, making music for the sake of the song. It was campktely aazy-but it was exhilarating.

And it was in this spirit that the SozJprilm ETCh.nge was bam.

Beginning in December of dlat fim year aDd 00 every Monday night since then some of the best and briBhtest young songwriteu in New York have gathered at the Cornelia Street Cafe 10 exchange music. The rules are simple. They are allowed 10 sing oilly what they have written that week-ir: may be a ftagment which either grows or is discarded. it may be a revision or an amplification, or it may be a song which springs forth fally-armed, like Athene from the head of Zeus. H tizne permits, they are also allowed to sing their song from the week before.

In this way something like a thousand IDDSS have been gently nurtured intO life on Monday nights.

They are a little present from Cornelia Street, a street of diversity and of surprises - of food, of drink, of art. and of discreet subversion.

-Robin Hirsch

LOUIE'S

David Ferguson,

Close overhead stalactite dust feeds upon the atmosphere

in a plaster catacomb. Memories associate

with the issue of beer soaked floors, the not quite disinfected air

stale as a sleeper's breath.

The dUll cave shines in the glass of the bottle~bright wall, '

the gleaming liqriids all distilled to melt the climate of the mind

or brace ironically convivial Eostures at the bar,

faces bruised by pink and lingering smoke. Against the wooden pillars,

figures, leaning, spill

as if hung there by their coats, nursing a beer in hopes

someone will appear

to shape their emptiness.

Tunes too smooth bring times to mind, imperfect pleasures passing

into yet to be remembered'

elbows on a checkered cloth,

futures pictured in

arrangements, blue

like' a kind of happiness.

I

VOYAGE WIlli TIlE BLACK CAT

Patricia Bakins

I won ' t be allowed to carry him many more times around the world. A current pulls my hand through thinning fur too fast. Bone houseboats tremble in the wake. In each a light flutters, an eye blinks, an eyelid falls an ash. Ahead, an island: mice parting grass, the musk of trees inviting claws, the air awed. My shadow waits there, quiet for once, and l1eartless, as the eyes of the cat in the dark, without center. Come morning we may be allowed to continue, but all night teeth will rest against our skulls, we'll remember OUT love of meals, sleep with the pulse of salty waters lapping the shores of our wrists. Someone large whose breaths are long and cannot be counted claims the cat. In no wide waters will his trail elude his tracker. Already the island, the dark, and the cat are lost as stars.

PAUSE

Lester Afflick

Just

now

a

red winged blackbird

and a bluebird together

on ,

a living branch singing to

each other my

song that was

on

my

lips

!

POETRY AT THE CEDAR

Donald Lev

Back when you and I were young and. Ike was liked and. the tunn.Ilt & shouting were dying for Adlai the serious painters of 'the School of New York, like Jackson Pollack, Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, etc. used to gather in a little joint by 8th and Pniversity called the Cedar Street Bar, run by a couple of brothers-in-law home from the wars, Lower East side locals named Sam Di Liberto & John Bodnar. Some poets & writers, like Frank O'Hara, Joel Oppenheimer, Fielding Dawson, to name a very few were hanging out there too, and at one period it seemed that thousands of aspiring youths would pilgrimage out to that particular mecca of the arts especially on week ends (I remember being awfully impressed when a young lady infonned me she got her mail at the Cedar Bar) ... So much for oft recalled ancient history. Around 1962 or '63 the joint was razed to make way for a highrise, and the Cedar moved up three blocks to its present location (82 University Place).

The present Cedar Tavern is the most camfurtable bar in the world. And possibly the most beautiful. And it's babi t -fcrming . Whether you I re young Or old, ,painter, poet, actress, businessman or worker you can relax there possibly better than in your 0\\IIl Uvingroom (if you have one) or kitchen Cif you don't) ... And the food's nice too. Not great but comfortable. So are the prices.

The roofgarderi, personally designed by Sam, was opened up in the winter of 1971-72.

It is spacious and filled with flora and fauna both live and artificial. There are birds & goldfish and trees and flowers and perfect acoustics between the service bar and the big front window. The perfect place for a poetry reading. Poets always seem at their best there no matter how large or small the audience. They seem to make contact with the audience and be able to share their work intimately in a way that seldom happens elsewhere. The first reading, in the roofgarden was in August of 1972, under the kind auspices of John Bodnar. John, who died in 1977, used to 'really listen to the poets and have .something very definite to say after a reading, sometimes pro, sometimes con (especially when the reader happened to have been an old customer). In the eight years of readings here we've presented over a hundred poets (I wish I could name them all) ranging from "o.ld timers I like Harold Goldfinger, Joel Oppenheimer, Jack Micheline, Ted Joans, Brigid Murnaghan, Barbara Holland, George l-bntgClllery, Steve & Gloria Tropp, to prose writers like Seymour Krim, Fielding Dawson, Sid Bernard, to poets of burgeoning reputation like Anselm Hol1o~ Gerard Malanga, Eileen Myles,

and the three fine poets appearing this Sunday (Jan Clausen, Enid Dame, Toi Derricotte). Also appearing this spring will be William Packard, Sid Bernard, the Tropps, Margot

de Silva, and probably Harold Goldfinger, Frank t.lirphy and John Burnett Payne.

The inaugural (1972) reading took place on a Saturday midnight; the poets were l¥irgot de Silva, Richard Davidson, Harold Goldfinger, Eunice Wolfgram, and myself. .Iohn made a nice poster for us, and we packed them in. However, the management felt Saturday nites too busy to mess with poetry, and so we got shifted to Sundays.

Ah, well, not everyone works Monday mornings, and the magic still happens.

I

I

LILITH AT THE ABORTION CLINIC Enid Dame

11m never prepared. This has

been happening

for centuries but every time

is the first.

It might

take after its father

(whoever he was). It certainly would be a demon.

This clinic

is pleasant. They've gotten more civilized after all: the Chinese doctor

with his up-to-date vacuum cleaner, the West Indian woman

who holds ,my hand

and says, 'Don't be scared,. honey. I

Later

they give us applejuice. We bleed very quietly. The black

teenager in the next bed

quietly cries.

I've done what

I have to do. The universe clicks back into place.

Somebody's god is satisfied.

MORNING RIDE

Toi Derricotte

i kiss the faces of those i love; let them sleep. the white

meat of the lotus

hooked to its governing

star; everything

passes beneath me: my feet brush the crusted tips of the lit

city

soft as 2 scarves

rriglrt is a heat on my back. i climb a war

of elements sequinned

beast

tmpenned in ,blue

air

J

GRANDMA

Jan Clausen

for fifty years

his breathing at my back then separate rooms

and then his blindness terror of the dark

then even that light gone

i visit his body in the nursing home i clean this house

and hope for another summer a few tomatoes

the amputation

arrives almost too late

my children come

heavy with money

and middle age complaining of daughters who refuse to marry

but more and more i want to be alone

sometimes i remember

a winter i taught school in a border district

it was before the war

there were nights i walked the path, the icebound river miles from the nearest farm unafraid, wolves howling

on the frozen shore

1

CONFERENCE ON LITERATURE AND TI-IE URBAN EXPERIENCE Rutgers University in Newark, April 17-19

"The Newark PUblic Library & The Newark Museum

(Sponsored in part by the NJ Committee for the Humanities and the NJ State Council on the Arts)

This conference is bringing together writers from many parts of the country to explore the relationship between urbart literature and society. Panels will cover such topics as - Drama and the Urban Experience (Julius Novick, Moderator:

Panelists-Edward Albee, Richard Eder, Albert Innaurato, Douglas Turner Ward); Ethnicity and the Urban Experience (Henry Christian, MOderator: Panelists -Samuel W. Allen, Amiri Baraka, Jerre Mangione, Jo1m Morressy, Chaim Potok, Pedro Juan Soto) ;The Novel and the City (Robert Penn Warren, Moderator:Panelists-I~qb Hassan, Marge Piercy, Richard Price, Piri Thomas, Jo1m A Williams);The Poet" in the City (J01m Ciardi, Moderator: PanelistS-Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Nikki

'Giovanni, David Ignatow, Ntozake Shange, Helen Vendler) ;Urban Literature and the Young (James Scott, Moderator:Panelists-Bruno Bettelheim, John Burstyn, Rachel Davis DuBois, Jolm Holt, Jonathan Kozal, M. Jerry Weiss);Urbah Literature and the Shaping of Society (Irving Howe, Moderator:Panelists-Leslie Fiedler, Leo Marx, Toni Morrison, Stephen Spender). The Con~erence includes poetry readings at Rutgers.

Pablo Le Riverend will be reading his poetry in Spanish at the Newark Public Library where there will be exhibits as well covering such' .:' subject areas as - Cities and the Poetry of Place; Graphic Art and the City; The City and Printing History; Nine Views of Newark: A Literary Cameo; Music from the City.

The Jazz Institute (Bradley Hall,Rutgers University) will feature an exhibit of materials relative to the growth of jazz in its urban environment.

an exhibition of paintings of city scenes from including five Stella Murals in New York

POET AND CITY

(A Workshop on the Poetry of the City, April 19, at the Newark Public Library. Workshop leaders - Margaret Tsuda and Betty H. Neals)

As conceived, the workshop will explore the images of the city

as they are distilled into poetry. We will present the city as

it appears to our poets as well as discuss some of the relevant elements of poetry itself and the writing of poetry. For those attending our workshop but not contributing, our purpose is to encourage the poetic experience in city dwellers, and to stimulate them to see their city in poetic terms.

No poet encompasses all images of the city; neither will the same poet always present a consistent view. One of the striking aspects of the poems received is the number of poets who are vividly aware of the extremes of contrast the urbanite confronts daily.

. Margaret Tsuda

I. Is it possible that the most exciting and meaningful outcomes of the workshop are those things which, at this tjme, have not been anticipated or projected?

Will some poet be encouraged by suggestions given? ~ Will there be collaborations of poets who prior to ( this meeting did not know each other?

Will some poet decide to explore another

II. What do we do with the unmeasureable results?

Betty H. Neals

MANIFESTO

Pablo Le Riverend

Para Lidia Cabrera, clasico en vida.

Los j ovenes no saben que son j 6venes ' y que giran, cercados, por.el tiempo.' Cuando los anos pasen

'tendran, como nosotros, pre£erencias, los poetas

de su tiennnpo.

Ante nuevas poetas que vendran los j6venes poetas de este ahara seran, como nosotros, sombras;

sombras, que un fuerte rayo de otra epoca empalidece 0 b~rra.

Y ya no seran j6venes.

Y sus inconrnovibles preferencias como las nuestras de aquel ahora rOldas por los allOS, caducas, habrnn envejecido estrictarnente y no seran ya j 6venes ,

como los jovenes poetas de ahara ...

URBAN RIVER

Margaret Tsuda

A stream slowly winds

through the view from my high window. The hills, recalling former scenic splendor, curve sweetly dO~TI

to banks now lined with

round gas storage tanks factories/chemical refineries

with one lone picnic area

maintained as a green garrison

by one community to protect

its citizens from total industrialization.

Fish have long since fled its turgid sludge

but what water remains holds onto blue sky by day silver by night.

When winds whip up whitecaps

it seems to reaffirm its noble identity as river

and to repeat to itself and to me 'I am not defeated!

I will not deny myself. '

ON BEING URBAN

Betty H. Neals

It just sits there, five letters/

two syllables, resting

llllabridged

while we crowd into its meaning.

Thousands of pronouncements, multicolored

contradictions.

Urban characters

catch ones fancy by sounding

like you (u)

are (r) ...

a wonderful beginning to a complete idea.

STATIJES IN TIIE" PARKS - NEWARK, NEW JERSEY

Flora T. Higgins At 2;12 am George Washington smiles on his imagination And climbs down the little hill

(Graceful, for such a large man).

He reminisces briefly with the Indian and the Puritan;

He strides to Military Park to converse with John Kennedy QWho, being only a "bust, does not travel).

Returning, George Washington pauses to rally

The stragglers of the 'Wars of America' monument, And, exchanging a glance'of Perfect Understanding

With Christopher Columbus, who also got more than he bargained for, Returns to the little hill in the South

End of the Parle. The cast form receives the great heart before dawn.

But George Washington's horse, being dumb

Founded only of bronze,

Despite legions of power in the flexed haunch, And poetry in the arched neck,

Can only paw the ground in puzzled lust,

Forever gazing across Broad Street to Little Theater, Where, under tiny key-shaped minaret windows, Constantly unreel movies rated x.

NEWARK

Phillipa Kafka

A weird crescendo of t.inny

sOllilds A cat

A baby

A tnunpet.

Quick, put out the light.

Another Eyesore Is burning

In Newark tonight.

",., ""'-.- - ..-

III \ t:
'.,
'A RISK'
Jan. W. van Arsdale
A street cat, with one eye working,
Rubbed against my leg,
Its sighted side to me.
So that its amorous approach
Betrayed a certain wariness of me, I'
Or else a need so desperate
That it would tum its blind side to the city.
-
II:I.'!:'!' FEBRUARY: AVENUE B

Nereo E. Condini

How can we stop

poor people from being cold?

To bring warmth to one body will not help. I want a blanket

eighteen miles long:

to cover every inch of Manhattan.

,

UPTOWN A TRAIN

Mwatabu Okantah

I·

a blood brother blew an alto blues red riding"riff roaring

8th avenue A train torpedoing over under-Harlem rails;

\

brother blue blew"

his Self in/thru an

alto horn blowing

dirging juxtaposition

absorbing steel against steel subterranean 125th street scream

New York City

,

CITY IDYLL

Chris Mazauskas

wild Buddleia

flourishing

on the banks

of the waste canal

by the foundry;

tendrilly purple & fragrant

branches bending & waving above the oily

water

all afternoon.

~I' ~ __ ~ ~~~ ~ \~ ~ 1

Poor of spirit shorn of soul Fumbling City's a crumbling shoal. Rays of sun wave-kissed sun burn despair grow a goal.

Sights of river· make me whole.

Sounds of river hints of sea create a longed-for harmony.

Ray of sun feel of sun

healing sun course through me. Tides bring me harmony.

Sound of gulls sounds of FREE fly afar, incanted plea.

Heat of sun feel of sun power pure work your cure eroding cruelest anomy.

,

INCANTATION AT LIBERTI PARK Lori Fisclnnan

I'

Constant garbage dust and din form a prison' I'm locked in. Escape now to the water front painted people sweetly grin:

Concrete canyons you won't win.

I

I

Richard Cammarieri

There's room under that water there for thousands.

Lawrence

a smoky multiple al.arm fire has broken out

on a vacant pier

on the Hudson River

there are miles

of these dockyard

piles blasted and blown groaning in plans

and exploded eyeless factories and scarred black walls

where shock

in cnnnbling blind windows becomes tedium

in rust and brown rotted wood

an expanse of useless things left broken

in frozen and eternal genuflection into

soft black waves .never stop lapping

these vacant smoky piers withering guardians

of crumhl in.g harbors

witnesses to a world in reflection the progression of things

in oily still water

with each bright turn

the jeweled inscrutable eye makes shadows

I.

\

JUST BECAUSE I LUV YOU NEW-ARK

Ka tunge W. Mi.J1lY

n people / my beautiful Sun people lout today

,ee that old woman

;ee that old city mama sitting tall / but bent ;he is calling you / with her eyes

;he is directing you / with her ghetto words of ancient wisdom

;he is listenll1g to the spirits / pleading with you through her/minds eye

m people / my beautiful Sun people

;0 out into the streets today

hear the children

hear the children laughing through their poverty games

they are playing / in the lots of garbage and bottles and empty rhythm cans they are sliding do\~ highway construction sites/

for want ofa better place ' to grow

they are cursing at each other / for want of a better way to say / I LUV YOU NEW -ARK

In people / my beautiful Sun people ]0 out today

feel the city

feel the city falling do~ / while pushing up

it is wanting you / while the masses hurry in and out / not seeing/ . hearing / feeling

it is dying / wanting you to bring the climbing towers do~ to let the sun come in

it i? watching you do your thing / on saturday night and sun-ady morning un people/ my beautiful Sun people

Go out today

Smell the air

smell the air all foul from the fumes of man's destructive progress we are chucking out the sun and stars / and only hints of trees and

grass remain

we are laughing and dancing while She is growing old /

and wanting Luv and care

we are living in the Heart of a woman / stripped of her inner self hm people / my beautiful Sun people

Go out again / like you did once before seek out the old women

hear the laughing - crying children

feel the smell of progress needing positive definitions Go out again / like you did long ago

it is not / never/ to late to change your image

I'

I

I I

SILK RIBBON WORKS, PATERSON 'In Business for Two Centuries'

Sherida Yoder

At J. Rosen's and Sons, manufacturers of ribbons, many girls worked: used to its red bricks at morning,

they let themselves at first be cheered by it and the welcome down sound of their buttoned shoes on cobblestone,

at another morning coming.

Working with ribbons is genteel work - only fine ladies buy them. With the discrimination of taste they, like ladies,

run their fingers through

long bolts of ribbed scarlets, carnelians, meridian blues, sapphire blues and silky greens, like wet, pressed rainbows running on wheels between their hands.

All day half-dazzled by the jewels of color jacquarded-.on punched cards rippling on machines.

The factory darkness was like the setting of these ribbons Tlllllling through their hands: they all glowed against it,

girls, and silk, and dye.

Still the ribbons run now, .

though for different girls. At the high window behind the time-hazed glass in grit-scarred panes, I see the face tired with work, -yet bright with youth and color,

with young feet yet that well can climb the hill

to the factory at the foot of the Falls.

The empty streets are silent, but the young girls walk there still, bound by ribbons,

summoned by the brilliant jacquard clacking

in the darkness of the factory rooms

that are not silent even in the night.

, Grandma' !by Jan C!Lauss en, appea;redi in WAKING A.T 'IlliIElBO'ITCMo

0F illHE IDARK, Long BIaw Press, 197.9 0

'Louilie's' by IDav1id Feif:guson~ fr@m Box 7.49, Voilume 2, No s. 2 lj :3, 19810

''Fm Cap' and'I!.ost I by Leci:h Parransky from 'F[CKER T.ARES P1Jbiiilished @y l.inteill, 197.9

'MUH'lling &rude' by l'oi DeuicQtote, forom H~g;ing ffi&JJ)se 29, ~V,;im!ter, !L977

'Ul1ban Riv;er 'by Margar;et Tsuda: from URBAN RIVER, 1976

All the yPems printed as select.ions from the P@et and (1;i ty Workshop were, submitted by the ]poets to the W0rkshop Leadeus as examplJ.es ef their work and these wil~ be read and d'iscussed at the Newa·~k fulHlic Library on Saturday, ~r~l 19.

(5 Washingten £tr.eet, NewaFk~

Subsequent to the pr:i,nt.ing of the ccve ns we have been Doined bf the £ol10w;ing presses:

, 0

Aifie:riean A!I!'tists in Ex;:hibiti,on J30X 749

W W. Norton

Out & Out B00ks Stati0TI FIill IDelephone Vik:i!nglPe~guin

The Wa1::emvays P[,,0D ect: is a program of 'Den Penny Players

which is a 50ruC3 chM?:terecl NYS n0t-for-J::lrofit cOIfl0ratlion specializirrlg in the deveaopmenn of educatdenah and tir-

e17~1o/ programs. It;j)s supported through membershdps , sales

of its mater,ials, subscriptions and donations to the program ~rom - The National Bndowment for the Arts, Con Edison, the J .M. Kapil.an Fund, and the Coord'inauing Counci h of Literary Magazines. In 1979 payments to poets were made possible through the sponsoring efforts of Poets & Writers and the CETA pr0gTaIRS of the Cullturalli Oouncil: Foundation & of the :Am.er:ican Jewish Congress.

Please address all mail to: Waterways Project, 799 Greenwich St, NY NY 10014. Please make checks payab~e to 'Den Penny Players

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I would like to make a tax dedUctibLe contribution to the Waterways Project.

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BARD PRESS 799 G.reenwich Street, NYC 10014. Poetry and graph.ic works.

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AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW PO Box 188, coope!? Union Sta., NYC 10003 Literary criticism and essays.

A SHOUT IN THE STREET English Dept., Queens College. Flushing, ,NY lI367. Litera.t1:lre and poetry.

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