MARYCLAIRE WELLINGER Poet & Painter
Performance Scrapbook

READINGS & PERFORMANCES, 1992-2002:
Note: this site was created on December 5th, and many more images from the archives will be uploaded  . . . hopefully, preserving a herstory/history of  living poets, and one aspect of the greater continuum of poetry, music and the arts.
 

M-C reading at the Harvard Poetry Festival, May 1997.

MC READING AT HARVARD SPRING POETRY FESTIVAL 1997
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PHOTO BY MARK J. FISHER

It was an honor to be an invited reader at the 1997 Annual Spring Poetry Festival at Harvard University.  I read Poem #6, from "Black Joe's Pond," The Great Blue Heron poem. The all-day event was organized by Louisa Solano, for decades the owner and manager of the Grolier , weBookshop, a bookstore established in 1927 and exclusively dedicated to poetry. Louisa is a remarkable woman who has dedicated her life to promote poetry and contemporary poets. My new husband, Mark J. Fisher, called Louisa's attention to my work.  I was grateful for Mark's support, and also from my poet colleagues and friends, Peddlar and Steve Hemingway who were there to support me.  Peddlar and Steve are dear friends who helped me for years during a period when I had few resources.  Thanks to their support, I continued to research and write"Black Joe's Pond." 

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MC DISCANTING AT THE HERRESHOFF CASTLE
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CROCKER PARK, MARBLEHEAD, MA 1998 PHOTO BY MARK J. FISHER

MC READING AT THE SUGAR SHACK, KEROUAC FESTIVAL
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LOWELL, MA, 1999 PHOTO BY MARK J. FISHER

STEVE HEMINGWAY & M-C
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SUGAR SHACK, LOWELL, MA 1999 PHOTO BY MARK FISHER

below: M-C reading at the Old Worthen Tavern at the Kerouac Festival in Lowell, MA, 2000.  Edgar Allen Poe lived at the Old Worthen for a year. 

MC READING AT "THE OLD WORTHEN" TAVERN
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KEROUAC FESTIVAL, LOWELL, MA 1997 PHOTO BY MARK FISHER

PEDDLAR READING HIS POEM "WHAT DO I WANT?"
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PEDDLAR, MAD-DOG BIKER & BEAT POET & HARVARD STUDENT, 1994

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The Grolier Bookshop on Holyoke Street in Harvard Square is the oldest poetry bookstore in the country.  It is owned and managed by Louisa Solano, who has dedicated her life to poetry and to promoting poets.

THE GROLIER BOOKSHOP, HOLYOKE STREET
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PHOTO BY MARK FISHER

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The Grolier Summer Poetry Festival,
Harvard Square. left, Lloyd Schwartz & 
above, Martin Espada read their work.

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MC READING AT "BLACK JOE'S POND" MARCH, 1996
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PHOTO BY MARK J. FISHER. THIS WAS OUR FIRST DATE.

DAVID AMRAM & STEVE HEMINGWAY
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SUGAR SHACK, LOWELL, 1999 PHOTO BY MARK FISHER

The Sugar Shack, Lowell, 1996-Present.  On the left M-C projects her verse, above Steve Hemingway reads his poems, accompanied by David Amram. The Annual "Lowell Celebrates Kerouac!" Literary Festival takes place over a 4-day period the first weekend in October to honor Lowell's most famous writer, novelist, essayist, and poet, Jack Kerouac.  Each year the city hosts  poetry and music performances, readings, & events throughout the city at the Old Worthen Tavern, The Rainbow Cafe and closing out the festival, the Sugar Shack on Sunday afternoon.  Kerouac's close friend, colleague and cocreator of their film "PULL MY DAISY",   musician/ composer David Amram, hosts the event and jams with the poets. 

below:  M-C and David Amram at the Rainbow Room, The Kerouac Festival, Lowell, 1999

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below:  David Amram, Compuser/Musician, Jams with Poets at The Sugar Shack, The Kerouac Festival, 1999. David Amram accompanies poet John Sinclair, the most dangerous man in America, the most beautiful delta blues messenger-man!

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left: M-C appeared at many readings with Peddlar -- Harvard Undergaduate, creator of Wail! literary journal, host of his own cable TV show, & founder of Poets of the Highway, a biker gang which requires publication as a poet. Here Peddlar reads his passionate  list poem" What Do I Want?  . . . "

" . . . I come to, sort of like,
a jump-start to life;
it's 3:00 in the morning
and I'm standing in front of her door . . .
Well, she opens the door all pissed
and says, "What do you want?".
Not, "How ya' been?"
or, "Where ya' been?" or even
"What happened to ya?".  No!
She questions me like I'm a salesman.
What do I want?  What do I want?
I think,  What is this, a game show? 
What do I want? . . .
I want a two-hour headstart
for the Canadian border,
a tankful of gas,
a roastbeef sandwich with pickles,
a new copy of the latest
Easy Rider Rodeo Video . . ."

Left, As Events Coordinator at Borders Books, M-C hosted poets & writers who are not necessarily part of the literary mainstream or well-known to the public. Here, M-C with  poet and painter Yala Korwin, a Holocaust survivor. Yala read from her book of  very dark and difficult poems which somehow  remain lyrical and filled with hope, as well as deep despair.   Yala illustrates her poems with pen & ink  drawings..

1996-1998.  "The Invisibles." M-C and Mark Fisher performed  with a group of poets who called themselves "The Invisibles" to emphasize the focus on the poetry itself and not the personality of the poets.  M-C & Mark hosted  monthly readings at the King Hooper Mansion.  The last event producd in May of 1998 on the Surrealist movement drew 50 people.  There were performances by Ttwo poets,  Marcel Kopp and Suzanne Duboroff,  who  read  Appolinaire  and other French surrealists in French,  poet Gerritt Lansing, "Heavenly Tree, Soluble Forest," and a magical, surreal appearance on tape by the voice of Andre Breton.  Four breakthrough original surrealist films created in the 1930's through the 1950's were shown.

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Below.   Poet Gary Snyder (winner of the Pullitzer Prize for "Turtle Island" and the Bollingen Prise for "Mountains and Rivers Without End") gave a rare East Coast reading at Colby College in Maine on September of 1999.  The photo below was taken by Mark Fisher after Gary blew the Conch shell to gather the spirits, and he read  beautifully Shelley's poem "Clouds."  To our imaginative eyes, it appears that Gary Snyder is being embraced by Lew Welch, who was a close friend of Snyder's; this is the figure standing facing Gary with very long hair, and in the back upper left of the photo one can see figures wearing black clothes with white collars -- perhaps Shelley and Keats, and others we can't identify are seated in the audience.  (Note:  more photos from this reading will be added -- m-cw.)

"Calling the Spirits Forth."  Gary Snyder reading at Colby College, September, 1999.  The double-exposure "accident" creates an intriguing image.  Gary read selections from "Mountains and Rivers Without End."

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left: Gary blowing the conch shell to gather in the spirits.
right: Gary speaking with the students during his reading.

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October, 2001 at ARTSPACE, Gloucester, MA 
John Sinclair Gig,. featuring poet and blues scholar John Sinclair  projecting his verse,  including poems from his new book "Fattening Frogs for Snakes" backed by Ted Drozelhoff's Boston-based band, "The Devil Gods" and rock musician Willie "Loco"Alexander.
 
below:  Willie "Loco"  Alexander at keyboard jams with friend ,  filmmaker Henry Ferrini on sax

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left and below:
John Sinclair does not "read" his poetry
and he doesn't "sing" his poetry . . .
he projects his verse  accompanied by the
driving, deeply blues  infused rock sound
of  the Devil Gods , a Boston-based band
which tours with John in Gigs
throughout New England every fall.

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below: Willie "Loco" Alexander  (left) with John Sinclair," . . . the most dangerous man in America . . ."  and (right) Shep Abbot, Founder and Director of Artspace, Gloucester, Massachusetts.

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Artspace hosted numerous gigs produced by Walter Wright, Video Shredder and his "band" of noise art musicians.   Above, left: poster announcing gig in August, 2001, and  (photo above on the right) an inkling of Walter's cutting-edge video-computer  "weapons of mass destruction". It's a digital world, babe!

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photo left:  Marilda Castro dances with Teresa Marrin Nakra
on violin and Marc Bisson on guitar at right. Poets Mark Fisher
and Maryclaire Wellinger occasionally joined the group with performance poetry. 
On the left, M-C as  enthusiastic audience.
 

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Birthday Boys. 
Mark Fisher and John Sinclair share the same birthday, October 2nd . Here they celebrate at the Annual Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! literary  Festival in 1999.

More Kerouac Festival photos will be uploaded soon . . .
I'm quite exhausted uploading all these pics  from our archives!