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.