Harris Gardner’s New Work
Explores Universal Themes
By Susie Davidson
Advocate Correspondent
BOSTON - Harris Gardner’s new poetry book Lest They Become,
due for January release by Ibbetson Street Press, will explore and connect the
expansive, profound and all-embracing themes the local poetry organizer is
known for.
“This book is a blend of Old Testament theses superimposed upon modern-day issues,” said Gardner, a local real estate broker known among the local poetry scene as the “Boston poetry impressario.” “The book also examines cultural issues and includes family portrait poems,” said the author, who grew up in Lynn and attended Beth El Synagogue, where he was bar mitzvahed.
Gardner, who holds a B.A. in English from Northeastern and attended graduate courses in theatre education at Emerson, hosts three poetry venues for his Tapestry of Voices umbrella organization, at Borders Books and Records in downtown Boston on the second Thursday of each month from 6:30-8:30 p.m., at the Poetry in the Chapel series held at the Forest Hills Cemetary on the first Sunday of each month from 2-3:30 at its 100-plus year old Forsyth Chapel, and lastly, at his Mad Poets’ Café, held at Warwick Museum of Art in Warwick, Rhode Island, on the last Saturday of each month from 7-10 p.m.
Each April, his Boston National Poetry Month Festival, which features over 50
poets, occurs at Boston Public Library; this year’s fest is April 12 and
13, from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and 11 a.m.-5 p.m., respectively, at the Rabb Lecture
Hall and its adjacent rooms.
“Through all these series, I wanted to give other
poets’ voices more exposure,” said Gardner. “It’s part of our mission
as poets, to weave poetry into the social fabric.”
Gardner, who authored the poetry book Chalice of Eros in 1999 and
is included in Ibbetson Street Press’ 2001 City of Poets Anthology, is
also poet-in-residence at Endicott College in Beverly for the academic year
2002-03, with an expected renewal into 2004.
This newspaper published Gardner’s Holocaust poem Barbed
Wire in 2000. Many of his works have Judiac themes, including his newest,
“I Am a Jew,” written for Daniel Pearl, which was published in
Midstream Magazine in September of this year. Spare Change, Ibbetson Street
Press, Harvard Review, Concrete Wolf, Journal of Modern Writing, the South
Boston Literary Gazette and other periodicals have featured his poetry.
The new book includes comments from award-winning Boston Globe
journalist and poet Ellen Steinbaum, author of Afterwords, poet Lisa Beatman,
author of Ladies’ Night at the Blue Hill Spa, and Marc Widershein, author
of Life of All Worlds.
“Lest They Become is an exploration of the spiritual,
emotional and physical comforts and complexities of roots by a tireless
contributor to the poetry community,” said Steinbaum.
“Harris’ new book sheds light on love, loss, family,
ethnic identity and more,” said Ibbeston Street Press publisher, editor
and poet Doug Holder. “It does so not in an obtuse manner, but with clear
and packaged language, so that everyone, from the academic to the casual
reader, can glean something from it.
“It examines the universal enigma of family and
identity;” Holder continued, “in this case, with a look at the
poet’s extended Jewish clan and unique sensibility. This is not a work
that people with pronounced Jewish leanings would enjoy. It is poetry that
examines the pain, sorrows, and the joys we all encounter as we come to terms
with a turbulent world.”
Widershein lends great universal significance to Gardner’s
work. “These riddles concerning man's nature, which haunted the ancient
mind, are prevalent as an idée fixe throughout these poems,” he
reflected. “Why in such a perfect universe is man so imperfect? I leave
it to the reader to sample these most worthy utterances that begin in bereavement
but end with the metaphysical quest for the Zion that lives in all of us. The
kaddish, which is here quoted in Hebrew in Exalted, is not as mournful as it is
affirmative, because death is never mentioned. ‘May the kingdom return,
speedily, and in our days,’ serves to remind all of us that history is
cyclical, and that man's works on earth are never completely finished.”
The book’s 24 poems will comprise 26 pages of poetry, with
anticipated availability at McIntyre & Moore in Davis Square, Somerville, Harvard
Book Store in Cambridge, Brookline Booksmith and other outlets.
“I feel that Gardner’s poetry can reach the mandarin
as well as the machinist, and hopefully, it will touch every reader,”
said Holder.
For information, please contact ibbetsonpress@msn.com.