Événement

Tony Howarths Thrownaway w/the Beat of a Drum ft Wayne L Miller

Tony Howarth will read his book-length poetry manuscript, Thrownaway. Fellow classmate and poet, Wayne L. Miller, will accompany him on the drums. Wayne will also read a few of his own poems. Introduced by Jennifer Franklin.

FROM TONY HOWARTH:

I have worked as a journalist, a teacher at high school and college level, a playwright, and a theatre director, but retired now, and since a visit to Dove Cottage, I spend my time writing poetry, often focusing on the pleasures and perils of being old.

My manuscript, Thrownaway, is a narrative, which was a semi-finalist in the Concrete Wolf Louis Award competition, no publication, but a note from the editor calling it truly powerful."

It follows someone I call Wild Man of the Mountain, essentially an ekphrastic response to the found art assemblages of Clarence Schmidt. He builds a house out of doors and windows which have been thrown away, and surrounds it with a garden of imaginations. In spite of accidents and setbacks, he can't stop building his paradise.

Wayne is a whiz with a drum. I asked him if there was some way we could put his djembe together with my poetry, as if he's the Wild Man drumming on the hubcaps, the buckets, tables and chairs, an old car. We worked together and created, not an accompaniment, but a conversation, with each of us telling the same story in our own medium.

I find Wayne's drumming breath-taking, adding a driving intensity to the narration. We presented it publicly in Sleepy Hollow in April. Since then we were invited to present it at the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, in Peekskill, NY.

BIOS:

Tony Howarth's poems have appeared in The Connecticut River Review, The Blue Door Quarterly, The Sow's Ear, the Grayson Press anthology Forgotten Women, Chronogram, Chantrelles Notebook, Drown in My Own Fears, Tigers Eye, The Naugatuck River Review, and Prompt Literary Magazine. His poetry has also been published in the British magazine, Obsessed with Pipework. His chapbook, As the Glider Glides, was published in 2013 by The Last Automat Press.

Wayne L. Miller is a writer and poet living in Northern New Jersey. His work has been published in Arc Poetry Magazine, The Paterson Literary Review, LIPS, Turtle Island Quarterly, The Edison Literary Review, Exit 13, Narrative Northeast, and various other journals and anthologies. His monologue, There Is Life To Do, was the closing selection of Lit Youngstowns 2016 Strand Project. Wayne plays percussion with his band, The Fire Catchers.