Cape Cod Poetry Group Poetry & Music Celebration of Naional Poetry Month

The Performers

Ellen Watters Sullivan studied with Rudolph Kratina, an Austrian cellist who had studied with Strauss, and at N.E. Conservatory, University of Massachusetts-Boston, Longy School of Music, Boston Conservatory, Atlanta Symphony, Boston Symphony, & Boston Chamber Music Society. She was principal cellist of the Melrose Symphony, played in the Otter Trio, New England Women’s Symphony, and played free form jazz at Friends of Great Black Music in Boston. She is a cello soloist as well as a member of the Black Whydah Trio and the Music With Heart Duo.

Lori Desrosiers is author of The Philosopher’s Daughter, Sometimes I Hear the Clock Speak, and Inner Sky. Poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She holds an MFA in Poetry from New England College, edits Naugatuck River Review, a journal of narrative poetry and Wordpeace, an online journal dedicated to social justice. She teaches Literature and Composition at Westfield State University and Holyoke Community College, and Poetry in the Interdisciplinary Studies program for the Lesley University M.F.A. graduate program.

Susan Berlin poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly, Asheville Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Mudfish, Naugatuck River Review, Ploughshares, many others. Twice finalist for National Poetry Series, multiple Pushcart Prize nominee, 1st Prize Galway Kinnell Poetry Contest, International Publication Prize and International Merit Award Atlanta Review. Her book, The Same Amount of Ink, has been published by Glass Lyre Press.

Alice Kociemba’s “Bourne Bridge reckons with evanescence.” Fred Marchant says, “These poems reveal an abiding buoyancy of spirit…(that) show us, in other words, our often-surprising capacity to ‘fall upward into wonder.’” She is also author of Death of Teaticket Hardware, the title poem of which won an International Merit Award from the Atlanta Review. Her poems have been published in numerous literary journals She is the founding director of Calliope—Poetry for Community, facilitates a monthly Poetry Discussion Group at the Falmouth Public Library, and was Guest Editor of the Cape Cod Poetry Review and Mass Poetry’s Common Threads.

Eileen Fendler has been working on Cape Cod as a singer, dancer, teacher and theatrical performer since 1998. Her education is in dance and musical theater and she is a former resident of Westchester county, NY, where she worked professionally in Regional theater for many years. Before joining forces with Steve Gregory to form Two Cool in 2007, Eileen & Steve along with drummer Chip Anzola played as the trio Felonious Funk all around the Cape and New England from 2004-2012. Eileen is also currently partnered with Sarah Swain as choreographer and instructor for their Total Body Dance program which is offered at the Masjah Center in Harwich. She resides in Hyannis with her husband Paul.

Steve Gregory is the owner of Score Music studios in Sandwich and plays guitar with the Cape Cod jazz / pop duet, Two Cool. He is the founder of the Cotuit Center for the Arts Ukulele Orchestra series of classes and the Ukulele Kidz series of classes at the Cape Cod Conservatory. He coaches middles school aged kids how to play rock and pop music in a big band setting for the Conservatory’s Summer Sounds program. Steve is also the Saturday Service Music Director at West Parish Church in West Barnstable.

Donna O’Connell-Gilmore arrived on these shores to write poetry seventeen years ago. She has been published in Willow Springs, Blueline, Hopper’s, Off the Coast, The Cape Cod Poetry Review, Written River, Glassworks, and others. Her chapbook, Africa Is The Mother who Lies in the Grass: Poems on Safari, won second place from Writer’s Digest for best self-published poetry collection. Her second book, Thunder Moon, has been accepted for publication by Finishing Line Press.

Judith Partelow wrote, directed and acted in A Woman’s Heart, a play based entirely on her chapbook of the same name. It’s been produced at The Jacob Sears Library, the Cape Cod Museum of Art , the Women’s International Playwrights’ Festival, and will be at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod in August. Her play was taught as a course at 4C’s this spring as part of the Academy of Lifelong Learning’s offerings.

Barry Hellman is a clinical psychologist whose poems have appeared in literary journals, anthologies, broadsides, playbills, and The King of Newark published by Finishing Line Press. He’s the founder of the Cape Cod Poetry Group, curates and hosts its Poetry & Music Series and group page on Facebook, and leads workshops on the art, craft, and performance of poetry. He is the Outer Cape Outreach Representative for Mass Poetry in Boston, an advisor to WCAI’s Poetry Sunday with Mindy Todd, and previously was co-curator and co-host of the Poets Corner Poetry & Music Series at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod.