Articles – Page 122 – Philadelphia Stories

Philadelphia Stories, Jr. Announces First Writing & Art Contest

[img_assist|nid=10168|title=Pinocchio|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=86|height=100]Inspired by the Arden’s production of Pinocchio, which ran from April 13-June 23, 2013 to rave reviews, Philadelphia Stories co-hosted its for contest for young writers and artists! Philadelphia Stories, Jr., in partnership with the Arden Theatre Company. Here’s how it worked:

Reimagine Pinocchio’s story through an original poem, short story, or work of art. Your original work can consider questions such as: What is your character made of? Where does your character live? What does he look like? What lies does your character tell and why does your character tell them? What act of bravery must your character do to earn forgiveness? Have fun with these questions, or feel free to make up your own ideas!
Submit: Writers & artists in grades K-12 emailed their contest entries.
The editors of Philadelphia Stories Jr. chose the following 9 finalists:

From this list, readers voted for their favorites on the following pages: Philadelphia Stories, Jr. or Arden Theatre Company Facebook pages or the Philadelphia Stories, Jr. or Arden Theatre Company blogs.

And the winners are…

The top winners receive $50 cash prize, a one-day workshop at the Arden Drama School, and publication in the print issue of Fall/Winter 2013-14 issue of Philadelphia Stories Jr.

All 9 finalists will win four tickets to the first show of the Arden’s 2013/14 Children’s Theatre season: Sideways Stories from Wayside School!

Thanks to all who submitted, voted, and cheered our young talent on. Congratulations everyone!

Anastasia Alexandrin: My Soul is Charcoal

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Through her innovative technique of crossing lines of charcoal, Anastasia Alexandrin is charting a fresh, new, course in the art world. A skilled draftsman, Anastasia is combining a distinctly modern use of line with classic modalities of contrast and tone. Her distinctive style sets the stage for a visual collision that offers a soulful departure from traditional expressions of European beauty. “With each line I am creating a statement,” she says. “There is something very simple about a straight line. To draw it over and over can be very meditative. It’s a repetition of simplicity through which a complexity of forms can emerge.”

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The result is a contemporary narrative of female empowerment infused with fragments of metaphorical structure that provide reflections of new wave feminine identity. “The subject of women and modern day struggles are a huge wellspring for me,” she says. “Partially because they keep moving and changing and I am a woman living in these times, surrounded by these circumstances as they are happening.”

Currently residing in Philadelphia, Anastasia credits living in the Northeast with being a significant factor in her choice of palette. “I don’t think I would be a black and white artist if I lived out west or in a warm climate,” she says. “I like the seasons and the ebbs and flows the city goes through. There’s a prolonged period of grey skies and cold weather that my creative side enjoys thoroughly.” Alexandrin’s artwork has appeared in solo exhibitions in New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco, as well as in group exhibitions all over the United States. Her art is housed in various museum collections including, The Woodmere Art Museum, DiCarlo Gallery, and Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia.

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A native of the Ukraine, Anastasia fled the Soviet Union with her parents and brother when she was 5 years old. The family eventually settled in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where Anastasia attended Barnstone Studios, a nearby academy of drawing and design. “I was always an artist even as a kid,” she said. “My parents knew that if they gave me a piece of paper and pencils I was satisfied for hours.” When she was a senior in High School, Anastasia won the National Scholastic Silver award. She eventually matriculated at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art (PAFA), where she served as a teacher’s assistant on her way to achieving her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

It was at PAFA that she found her voice under mentor, Peter Paone. “I very much admire Peter Paone,” she said. “He is able to work in so many different forms of art and he’s never lost who he is through all the changes his work has gone through.” Referencing a transition in Paone’s career, when he left New York City to pursue a new direction with his art in Philadelphia, Anastasia emphasized how important it is to continue evolving as an artist. “What leads me is the entire process of evolving,” she said. “Sales can drive an artist into making art that is no longer his own but driven by the market. That is when your imagination begins to stagnate and you start to repeat yourself.”

For an artist that is driven by perspectives of female identity, it’s conceivable that may create a chasm in the art. After all, an artist must evolve if he or she is to provide a relevant and timely social commentary. It is easy to be drawn into the narrative complexities that manifest as a result of Anastasia’s frenetic style. Her hyperactive use of line suggests motion and projects a timeless dream-like quality. “My soul is charcoal,” she says. “My way of working changes with each drawing, and different types of paper and pencils. I don’t perceive myself as having a style as much as a visual voice that is very much my own.”

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Anastasia’s art playfully shrugs at convention and celebrates transcendence. “It’s about confidence and enjoying it all,” she says. “These women are smart and driven to be seen and heard, as well as look as beautiful as they can be.” Through incorporating recognizable symbols, such as a smattering of bubbles or a towering wave, she clues viewers in to the psychological processes of women, as well as the obstacles they confront on their way toward reaching self-actualization. The women in her art address their fears and embrace individuality. In the process, they offer brave conceptions of self. As the viewer is staring at them, they aren’t afraid to stare back. “A woman’s courage is different from a man’s,” she says. “A man becomes solid and tough, while a woman persists and permeates. She keeps moving forward.”

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She credits much of her understanding of that feminine resolve to the city that supported her growth as an artist. “Philadelphia is a wonderful place to work,” she says. “I am inspired by the people I meet and places I visit. The surroundings influence my choice of palette. Even when it is warm and full of color here, there is still a certain draw for drawing in black and white.”

Anastasia has built a strong following among collectors. An appointment to her Philadelphia studio to view her art has become a sought-after invitation among collectors. Having had that opportunity, I’d equate the experience to being in a carnival fun house. When she talks about each work, it is much like seeing her stand before a wall of contorted silvery mirrors. Her art frames and magnifies fragments of female transcendence and reflects a bright visage of their brash and sassy creator.

“I say what I want to say in my drawings without hesitation or worry of satisfying anyone but myself,” she says. “It’s been quite a ride and I love it.”

Marc Londo is a media scholar and popular culture critic. When he is not writing about the arts, his creative energy is spent researching the effects of mass communication on our global culture. Marc has always been fascinated by culture. An avid traveler, he is intrigued by the celebrations of humanity that bond societies and transcend differences across cultures. Through writing about the unique expressions that touch his imagination, it is his ambition to serve as a bridge between global networks. Presently, he is working toward completing his doctoral dissertation at Temple University.

Kenning

Being from, for its own sake,
couldn’t satiate. Many
reasons for an ash-cloud.

Our fields half-plowed,
we woke to magma
on our eyes, five lashes
leapt across your back.

Plotted course along
the line of the son.
Fox paws before horse.

In time you will
change your coat,
wish-weld your words.
The heard forgotten,
what endures is telling.

Gabriel Johnson is a Bay Area native currently finishing his MFA in Poetry at Saint Mary’s College of California. He lives in Oakland, where he was born, where the coffee is delicious, and the oak trees plentiful.

All Souls’

My husband lies beside me
like archeological time.
(The word husband
shimmery as a new purchase,
still chafing a little in my mouth.)
I love you I love you
we say to one another.

Somewhere in another country
skulls have been spun from sugar.
I would I were an orange, a peach, a palm.
I lie on the bed, a living thing,
a raft on this side of time.
The afternoon a meadow.
I lie here like the tongue of a bell.
I lie here like a coin, new-minted.

Underground my grandfathers lie,
not even coins on their eyes.
But today I am alive,
and generations-to-come mill about
like crowds on the street.

I peer at the future ones
as from the window of a tall floor.
Like me they paddle lonely as an orphan.

I am a woman speaking
from the crumbly past–
words slipping out from the cake of time.

I want simple advice to give you.
I would seal myself in words.
I would be clear, and whole as bread.

A native Houstonian, Emily Bludworth de Barrios is currently a student in the University of Massachusetts MFA program. She also teaches writing at UMass, and serves as an editorial assistant for Factory Hollow Press. Her poems have appeared in (or are forthcoming in) The Found Poetry Review, Emrys Journal, Belletrist Coterie, Goldfish, and Sight into Sound.

Weizenbock

for Kevin

You waited three days after the gray fits and groans
of the superstorm to leave, as if its broken trees
had paved a woody path to bring everyone home,
and once gathered, could build you a swinging bridge
to step out over the gorge, sure-footed and certain
it would hold. How does an arborist leave without
first inspecting the damage: shag of sycamores
coating sidewalks, maples chest-cracked open under
a naked moon, old oaks dropping limbs in the dark?

We knew this wild storm would arrive. Some of us expected
a flattening of the known world, footprint of sawdust
where our lives had been. Instead, cyclone of light and dark,
beech and vetch, family and family, banjoes and your beautiful
wife by a pinesweet campfire. Maybe the wind was confusing,
every loved thing whipped into the life you lived. Then quiet.
Six hours after you left I open a Weizenbock made from waters
of the Brandywine as if I could retrieve one laughing hour
from that hop devil, golden monkey night in Downingtown
we gathered to launch you into the eye — you standing green,
braced for the bending and rising of any bloodstorm.

Deborah Fries began writing poetry in earnest in 1994, when she moved to the Delaware Valley from the Midwest. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Powder: Writing by Women in the Ranks, from Vietnam to Iraq – work nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the author of Various Modes of Departure (Kore Press, 2004) and anticipates publication of a second book of poetry, The Bright Field of Everything, in 2013.

Lady Sidewalk

mud coat

festooned with

guttural skulls

and rusty mice.

Her daddy made it for her.

Her daddy made it!

Her daddy sewed it with his tiny hands

and frog shuttered needles.

Her hair is a bulky tumor

on the back of her head

that hasn’t been combed in years.

She says it’s

someone following her –

an adversarial eavesdrop

she couldn’t forget about.

Until a policeman gave her,

a policeman handed it right over!

Gives her this beautiful hat out of nowhere,

says it’s made of nail holes.

Where he got it, she don’t know,

She wears it askew

as she dances in yipping green

bramble shoes through

the blindness of June as it turns to night.

Lady Sidewalk leans back on a park bench

and reaches up with both hands

to pull the star blanket down around her.

Her sleep is yellow stained,

knotted like rope, a dream

heaving toward itself, a school a

flounders that won’t be thrown back.

She’ll mutter till dawn,

her words cut flowers bending away

from one of them pretty blue bottles,

that used to hold Milk of Magnesia

Her laughter at this, is hard and cold as

a soot covered snow pile

hanging on after the end of winter.

Lady Sidewalk does not

burn off

the way the dew does.

Days, she haunts our eyes.

Eileen Moeller lives in center city Philadelphia, PA. She has poems in Paterson Literary Review, SugarMule, Ars Medica, and forthcoming in Schuykill Valley Review. Access her blog: And So I Sing at http://eileenmoeller.blogspot.com/

Field Trip To The Underworld

I follow single file the awkward girl
before me down damp wooden walkways dimly lit
with scalloped strings of incandescent light bulbs

as a guide in cats-eye glasses blandly clarifies
the difference between stalactite and stalagmite,

making this sixth grade, Endless Caverns,
the awful year I couldn’t stop myself from staring at
boys’ crotches. At least it’s dark, at least

those agates shaped like fried eggs make my oddness
almost safe. I keep walking. From this day on

I’ll picture every story of the underworld
in caves like this: Persephone, pale as a shoot,
on a throne between stone curtains, Orpheus

on the walkway where it rises, curves toward
the gift shop, Odysseus weeping in the great room

with his dead. Room after room of emptiness
lies underneath- great vaulted absences, small vacancies
connected by odd passageways, tight turns-

where what’s been washed away
gives way to what’s been washed away,

each loss communicating to the next.
All there in figured residue, drip, drip of years:
the intricate architecture of what’s gone.

Hayden Saunier is the author of the poetry collection, Tips for Domestic Travel. Her work has been published widely and was awarded both the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry and the Rattle Poetry Prize in 2011. She lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

The Sandy Crimmins National Prize for Poetry 2013

In this, our second year of the Sandy Crimmins National Prize for Poetry, we selected Dorothea Lasky to be our judge just before her book Thunderbird (Wave Books, 2012) was released. The book has since gone on to appear on many of 2012’s best-of lists including those of The Boston Globe, Ms. Magazine, and Coldfront. If you are still unfamiliar with her work, you should remedy that situation immediately.

As we saw in last year’s contest, a great variety of poets came to Philadelphia Stories to share their work. Out of the hundreds of poems we received, our poetry board and screeners selected twenty-four poems from which I selected ten to send to Dottie. She had the unenviable job of ranking those poems. The poem she chose, Debora Fries’ “Marie in America,” is an evocative and transformative piece that exemplifies a commitment to storytelling through image and momentum. We are lucky to be able to share “Marie in America” as well as the poems of Kelly Andrews, Debora Gossett Rivers, Amy Small-McKinney, and Nissa Lee with our readers.

One of the pleasures of this contest has been finding new poets in the area who hadn’t sent work to us before. If you are a poet who writes alone and feels isolated or alienated from the so-called scene (that never-ending, amazing party to which your neighbor forgot to invite you), send us your work! Go to an open mic! Join or start a writing circle! Find ways to share your poetry and your stories. You can hear what our winning poets have to say at our spring fundraising event, PARTY LIKE A POET, 5-8pm, on Friday, April 19 at the Center for Architecture. That amazing party won’t be the same without you!

Thank you to Nicole Pasquarello who coordinated this contest, our board and screeners, Carla and Christine, Dottie, and Joseph Sullivan who so generously sought to create this opportunity for poets. Thank you to the poets who submitted their poetry, and finally, thank you to Sandy Crimmins for being the kind of poet and person who continually inspired others.

Courtney Bambrick

Poetry Editor

Honorable Mention: The American Treadmill

TV on all night woke me up this morning
The clock radio is a bird with no song that just tells the time
I don’t move until the 4th time weatherman announces the forecast
Hoping it snows north and west of the city
Because I-C-E has no respect for my SUV
The temptation of calling out sick plays like a sweet song
And I want to sing every word out loud
Slowly I scrape myself off the sheets
Wake up the children singing a happy little wake up song
Saying hello to the sunny sun
Ironing white school blouses
Cooking bacon grits and eggs
Chasing groomed dressed and fed offspring out of the house
To catch the big yellow school bus
To learn to live the American way
To chase the American dream
Looking up in the glass ceiling
Sitting on the side of the tub
Sitting and thinking
Looking at my toes
A muscle twitch away from going back to bed
Cleaned up groomed up dressed up
Running into myself coming and going
Turned off every electric appliance
Spouse and I leave the house
Get in the car
For the five minute commute to work
Singing songs in prayer before I enter
The God-forsaken den of despair called the office
My prayers for natural, man-made office disasters
Went unanswered again
Serving occupational penance for being a
Short, fat, bald, white overseer on a Mississippi cotton plantation
In a prior life
At my desk I sit
Listening to my voice mail
I’m tired of hearing the cries of the
The dependent and the expectant
The needy and the greedy
Enduring the criticism of the powers that be
Serving at the pleasure of the Governor
The whims of the politicians
On the strength of the unions
Issuing free cash and food stamps
Running faster to stay in place
Working hard to keep myself in gas and pantyhose
Plotting and planning for a way out
To prove the naysayer’s wrong
That my dreams are stronger
Because I know that there is a better world
Just waiting for me to get there
Praying for six months of jury duty
Going on safari in the urban jungle
To hunt and kill my lunch
Washed it down with fruit punch
Waiting for a phone call
To bring news of afternoon deliverance
Absolution and ascension
Ambition filed away in a manila folder
Locked in a drawer waiting for retirement
Youth replaced by strained eyes and gray hairs
Too young to retire too old to quit and start anew
Stuck in a holding pattern
At quitting time
I ran out of the building like I was
Being chased by Satan
To start my second job
Picked up the children from supervised playtime
Listening to a litany of juvenile drama and angst
Evening errands and supermarket runs
Before we get home
Checking the homework of straight A students
Checking out the evening news to hear about the world run amuck
Sitting down to a quick-cooked meal
Holding court in the dining room
Surveying all that I claim on my tax returns
Doing the dishes
Downshifting and channel surfing until I find myself lost in a
Made for TV movie
Looking for happy endings that seem to only happen
To white women
Falling asleep to TV lullabies
Drifting into the world of slumber and dreams
Looking for the lamppost on the corner
To show me the way
Until the TV alarm wakes me up again
To start a new day

Debora Gossett Rivers is a Philadelphia native and the author of “The Working Mind of a Working Woman”. She completed her 2^nd book of poetry titled “Running Into Myself Coming and Going, released in 2010. Created MALL SCIENCE proram for girls ages 9+ in 2008. She is a 1981 graduate of Simon Gratz High School and earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1985 from the University of Pittsburgh. She has been an Income Maintenance Caseworker with the Department of Public Welfare in Philadelphia since 1988. She is married and has two children.

Honorable Mention: Desire, That Fish, Swims Up Against My Ankles

in my head, out in the fog
against the creak of boat hull.

I ache from his closeness
from his sudden disappearance.

The shore is steps away
but I keep swimming

my own notes spilling
onto the new moon’s reflection.

He’s made an outline of me
so I’m wanting to be filled

by fingers, by ink, by the serrated
edge of a fishing knife. Here

my rib-bottoms feel the catch
and pull, ripple of hunter green.

I feel how I am tied to that voice
how it is drawing me out

next to the tackle box. He hums
viscous air into my gills.

The moon sharpens to a sickle
when he raises his arm.

Nissa Lee lives and teaches in southern New Jersey. She holds an MFA in poetry from Rutgers University in Camden, and her work has been published in Raleigh Review, Requited, and Wicked Alice.