John Surowiecki


Recently saw poet John Surowiecki give a lecture and read at the University of Bridgeport. Afterwards I read his book, "The Hat City After Men Stopped Wearing Hats" and was suitably impressed. What a poet needs, I think, is a control of language, a different way of looking at things, and endless persistent variation. Surowiecki definitely has that. Yet another of Connecticut's cultural greats. Keep up the good work, John.

From The Hat City after Men Stopped Wearing Hats
 
 
The Hat City after Men Stopped Wearing Hats
 
At the inauguration no one wore hats, not even
the poet whose hair the wind shaped into a fin.
We sat at the kitchen table trying to figure out
how we would make a living now that the river
no longer flowed carrot-orange to the Sound.
 
We used to tell the children that its fish wore
fedoras and suffered from mercury shakes,
twitching, lurching, losing scales as we would hair.
Every street used to be a river of hats and when
a war was won a sea of hats would suddenly appear.
 
Every day we’d walk to work leaning into the wind,
hands on our hats, and never once did we think
the factory doors would close and never once
did we notice the frost late on the lawns
like an interlude in a slaughtering of moths.

Building a Better Argument

Read my 'closing thought' in this season's alumni magazine Knightlines. It is called "Building a Better Argument" and could be a primer on how not to argue with people on the internet. As an example I chose Ezra Pound's ABC of Reading, which I loved during college and now feel less enthused about. So, if you're a big Pound fan, you might not like it.

Otherwise...Enjoy!

Future Authors of America


Here are some of the future novelists and poets of America - some of our creative writing majors at the University of Bridgeport. We have dozens more, and we're growing all the time.


Left to right - Michelle Calero, Michael Doran, and James Novoa.


At the annual poetry slam and literary journal release party - James Novoa giving one of his excellent readings of his long poems, which don't seem long at all when he reads them out loud...

Old Saybrook Historical Society


Gave a presentation on Tom Thumb for the Old Saybrook Historical Society at the Acton Library, and had a lot of fun. I met a man (above) who graduated in the first class of the University of Bridgeport. He actually went to the Junior College of Connecticut, and it changed to UB during his senior year. Amazing guy, and still sharp as a tack.