Mae Soule Featured Reader at Tavern of Fine Arts on Monday, March 30

Mae Soule will be a featured reader at Tavern of Fine Arts, 313 Belt Avenue, on Monday, March 30.

Also featured will be Robert Earlywine, and Carole Cohen.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is free.

Open-mic follows the featured readers.

Mae Soule is a poet, singer, songwriter and single mother from St. Louis. Raised within the extended family of literary, musical and eclectic bohemian artists of 1970's inner city St. Louis, she was the youngest member of the Soulard Culture Squad literary group and attended CASA Midtown, St. Louis Conservatory and School for the Arts, for dance and drama. Mae received her BA in English, with an emphasis in creative writing from Coe College, where she was Poetry Editor of the Coe Review. Her poems have been published in several Midwestern and local journals and she has two poetry collections: As Blue As I Can Be and Wash Line. Additionally, she has performed her writing in spoken word modern dance compositions, multi-media performance art and slam poetry competitions in Iowa and New York City.

Pawn Shop Whore/Common Measure

There was a time when she swore
she'd never go back, but want
broke the spirit she had made her
hot back, shoot some and flaunt.

She thought she was cool brick
red as cherries, but she blew it
baked her brains on spoon sugar
lost out on faith, cashed blanks and lit.

Flew straight fast and blacked
found out she'd been fucked up the ass
she walks crooked, axed her neck
fat with blue swells, blood mass.

-- Mae Soule

Carole Cohen Featured Reader at Tavern of Fine Arts on Monday, March 30

Carole Cohen will be a featured reader at Tavern of Fine Arts, 313 Belt Avenue, on Monday, March 30.

Also featured will be Robert Earlywine, and Mae Soule.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is free.

Open-mic follows the featured readers.

Carole Cohen graduated from University of Missouri St. Louis, and was former poetry editor for Boulevard. Her poems have appeared in many magazines, among which are Cape Rock, Madison Review, Ascent, Sou’wester, Margie, and Spoon River Poetry Review. She has also had her Door poem series featured a the Mary Tomas Gallery in Dallas, where artists interpreted her poems in mixed media. She has also appeared in several anthologies. She has published two books, Restless Beauty and The World Arranged.

Recital

Through the late afternoon fog,
I can see branches of trees
swaying, conducted by light breezes.
Thin, arthritic fingers
play clouds like a piano.
Falling leaves swirl,
musical notes fall gently,
calming the water.

A lake serene and intent
as an audience listening
to a Bach concerto, concentrating
on every note, absorbing
each fallen leaf onto its surface.

Night drops in, music fades out,
the concert over
until the next performance,
ushered in by the raucous calls
of morning herons.

-- Carole Cohen

Robert Earlywine Featured Reader at Tavern of Fine Arts on Monday, March 30

Robert Earlywine will be a featured reader at Tavern of Fine Arts, 313 Belt Avenue, on Monday, March 30.

Also featured will be Carole Cohen, and Mae Soule.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is free.

Open-mic follows the featured readers.

Robert Earleywine earned his MFA in Fiction from Washington University in 1980 where he has been teaching fiction writing and literature since 1983. In 2001, he was awarded the Dean's Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching and Service to University College. During the Vietnam Era he served as an Air Police Sentrydog Handler, but in Southern California. He has worked as a shoe salesman, bartender, and high school teacher in the inner city. He has also taught at Forest Park Community College, Webster University, St.Louis University and Lindenwood University.

In 1972 he co-authored, with Edward James Scannell, a book of short stories and poems entitled In the Big Sky's Mouth. He has published fiction, non fiction and poetry. His short stories have appeared in Epoch, Webster Review, Delmar, Natural Bridge, and Scintilla Press. His story "Fido the Talking Dog" is included in an anthology of St. Louis writers called Under the Arch.

Children’s voices from the schoolyard
call me to my windows. High up here
from my third floor they look small and far,
all looking up and yelling
at the big dark cloud over their heads
as the wind spins fallen leaves up,
wind swooping dead leaves, swirling
together up from the ground
and the kids distant voices babbling
while they wait for the wind to
twirl them, too, up and away
while teachers’ voices call for order.

-- Robert Earlywine