Four Poets to Read Sunday

at Forest Hills Cemetery

By Susie Davidson

Advocate Correspondent

JAMAICA PLAIN - Four acclaimed area Jewish poets will read from their work on Sunday, Feb. 2 at Forsyth Chapel in Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain. Lisa Beatman of Roslindale, Doug Holder of Somerville, Ellen Steinbaum of Boston and Mark Widershien of Roslindale will appear at the third event in the Poetry in the Chapel series organized by Tapestry of Voices, which continues through April at Forsyth Chapel. All four poets are Jewish, and are known for the emotive, expressive quality of their work.

“Their writing, taken together,” said Forest Hills Educational Trust Program Coordinator Abigail Norman, “resembles a fragmentary portrait of life in Boston at the end of the 20th century and the start of the 21st - secular and assimilated, yet somehow flavored by their specific backgrounds. Their voices together are extraordinarily empathic and descriptive, evocative of both childhood and the present, and grounded in careful observation of experience and emotional relationships.”

Founded as a municipal, nondenominational cemetery in the city of Roxbury in 1848, Forest Hills, with 275 acres of grounds, was an innovator of the rural garden cemetery movement of picturesque designs within public parks. Its nonprofit Forest Hills Educational Trust preserves historic sculpture and organizes cultural programs including poetry and concert series, a sculpture path and a summer art exhibition.

The chapel, a Victorian brownstone designed in 1884 by Frank M. Howe and Henry Van Brunt (who co-designed Harvard Square’s Sanders Theater and Memorial Hall), seats 100 and is adjacent to the cemetary’s administrative offices. “Its combination of resonance and intimacy makes it a perfect place for hearing poetry spoken aloud,” said Norman.

Lisa Beatman, who teaches basic skills to immigrant workers at Ames Envelope factory in Somerville, was raised in New London, Connecticut; her mother is of German/Austrian Reform Jewish heritage; her father Orthodox Ukrainian. “I believe the identity of ‘other’, ingrained in Jews and other members of diasporas,” she said, “creates an empathetic ear and natural desire to help.” Her recent book, Ladies’ Night at the Blue Hill Spa, available at the Brookline Booksmith, the Chestnut Hill Borders Bookstore, and the Harvard Coop, examines the lives of the community of women who gather at the Norwood shvitz on Friday evenings.

At ten years of age, Beatman’s clothes caught on fire from a yarzheit candle; the resultant scars on her torso initiated her focus on the imperfections of beauty and aspects of aging, as well as global responsibilities. She has worked in the developing world, planting trees in the Pacific Northwest, teaching English in Mexico and Central America, mule-packing in the Dominican Republic and developing training programs in Colombia.

Doug Holder, who runs Ibbetson Street Press, a nationally known poetry journal and publishing house based in Somerville, writes about society’s marginal characters. “He brings odd moments of everyday life,” said Norman, “under an imaginative microscope: a crowd watching a dog stalk a squirrel, an old man occupying a park bench.” Holder, a mental health counselor at McLean Hospital, teaches poetry workshops and runs a poetry series at the Newton Free Library. “It will be surely be a humbling and haunting experience,” he noted, “to read at a venue that is the resting place of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton."

Boston Globe City Weekly columnist and recent Easton Cultural Council grant recipient Ellen Steinbaum’s recent book, Afterwards, ventures into the realm of human loss, including her husband’s death. “Winter's dark days seem to carry echoes of loss and hints of spring's renewal,” she said, “so I'll read poems about both. I look forward to reading in this historic venue.

Marc Widershien grew up in a Franklin Field triple decker in the 40s and 50s. His family’s involvement in the Chai Odom Synagogue set the stage for his successful book “The Life of All Worlds,” published in 2001 by Ibbetson/Stone Soup Press.

“It was a close-knit, ethnically defined community,” Norman said, “of neighbors and familiar architecture and objects woven together with affection and mutual recognition. His memories bring forth vivid images of childhood and the past.”

“All four readers,” she summarized, “use remarkably accessible language, and all reflect upon aspects of everyday life of one kind or another. Together, they present a fascinating poetic window on secular Jewish experience at the beginning of the 21st century - including memories of childhood, through which the past maintains a position within the present.”

Poetry in the Chapel features Lisa Beatman, Doug Holder, Ellen Steinbaum and Marc Widershien this Sunday, February 2 at 2 p.m. in the Forsyth Chapel at Historic Forest Hills Cemetery 95 Forest Hills Ave., Jamaica Plain Admission is $4. Free parking. One block from Orange Line T, Forest Hills stop. For information, please call 617-524-0128, or visit www.foresthillstrust.org.