Trio of voices ends season at Chapter and Verse May 2


DOROTHY DERIFIELD

Chapter and Verse will host the multitalented literary trio of Janet Cormier, Peter Bates and Lo Gallucio on May 2, to celebrate the end of its 2006-2007 season.

Poet, artist and comedian extraordinaire Janet Cormier hardly needs an introduction to the Jamaica Plain community. She has read at “Word on the Street” and at the First Friday series at Jamaicaway Books, and her art has been exhibited locally as well.

She says her interest in writing poetry began in high school with an assignment to write a poem about a painting, an experience that, she says, “proved a valuable lesson in understanding the concepts of muse and inspiration.”

Cormier is also well known as the host and producer of Cormier’s Comedy Madness, a monthly happening in Cambridge. Her poetry reflects her wit and insight, with recurrent themes of politics and social commentary. Her artwork will be exhibited at Somerville Open Studios, May 5-6, at Somerville Community Access Television, 90 Union Square.

The inimitable Peter Bates of Roslindale is a hard man to describe: photographer, videographer, poet, writer, web designer—the list goes on and on. Bates grew up in Danvers, which, he likes to point out, is renowned for the quaint Victorian architecture of the former Danvers State Hospital, now a condo development. He “misspent” his youth hanging out in a local pool hall called The Rathole and turned his family’s fallout shelter into an artist’s pad, complete with a 1936 Royal typewriter, Persian wall hanging, incense and brooding photo of D.H. Lawrence.

Bates says that dealing with his father, “a duke of deception whose politics were slightly to the right of Adolf’s,” inspired his first stories.
And the stories inspire great glee, as anyone who has heard them can attest.

Lo Galluccio is well known to the Boston poetry world, and she is an accomplished jazz singer as well, having two albums to her credit, “Being Visited” and “Spell on You.” Her fine chapbook “Hot Rain” was published in 2003, and she has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in poetry. Currently, she is working on a memoir called “Sarasota VII” to be published in 2008 by Cervena Barva Press.

On May 2 at 7:30 p.m. Chapter and Verse ends its 13th season and its first at the historic Loring-Greenough House at 12 South St in JP Center, directly across from the Monument.

Everyone connected to the Loring-Greenough House—especially Carole Mathieson, president of the Tuesday Club, and Katharine Cipolla of the House Committee—deserves thanks for making the venue available and for their help with Chapter and Verse, according to members of Jamaica Pond Poets, sponsor of the series.

Chapter and Verse is free, and refreshments are served. For information call 617-325-8388 or email [email protected] or [email protected].

The writer is the director of Chapter and Verse.

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