Poets

Lisa Silverberg Starr, founder of the Block Island Poetry Project, divides her time among a variety of interests, her family, and her passion for poetry.

The Poet Laureate of Rhode Island from 2008-2013, a two-time recipient of the Rhode Island fellowship for poetry, a former college instructor, waitress, freelance writer and publicist, Lisa has published three full-length collections of poetry: Days of Dogs and Driftwood (1993), This Place Here (2001), and Mad with Yellow (2009). Her individual works appear in journals and publications around the country. With her two children, Orrin and Millie (both high school students), Lisa owns and operates the Hygeia House, along with the love of a dog, Brother, and a cat, Jules.

The Block Island Poetry Project provides a way for her to combine her seemingly disparate vocations as poet and innkeeper with her love for the land and devotion to building community.

Heather Sullivan is an active member of Ocean State Poets, a group whose mission is to give voice to Rhode Islanders by conducting workshops in prisons, nursing and group homes, addiction recovery centers and alternative learning environments. Sullivan is the editor of two poetry chapbooks, Butterfly Wings and Poems on Branches, published by Salve Regina University, featuring the works of 75 individuals.

In 2007, Heather was appointed Assistant Creative Director of the Rhode Island Writers’ Circle, where she volunteered until 2010. In 2007, Sullivan served as a panel judge for Barnes and Noble’s State-wide Maya Angelou High School Poetry Contest.

Heather holds an M.A. in English and won First Place in Writers’ Digest’s 1999 Competition in memoir / personal essay category. Sullivan’s work has appeared in Tiferet: A Journal of Spiritual Literature; Balancing the Tides: A Newport Journal; The Writers’ Circle’s 2008 & 2010 Anthologies; Newport Round Table’s Walls and Bridges Anthology; The Providence Journal; Newport Life Magazine; The Newport Daily News and She Shines Magazine. Her essay Compassion aired on Rhode Island’s National Public Radio’s This I Believe series, and she has recorded her poetry for Insight Radio for the visually impaired.

2014 Update:  Heather's first chapbook, These Onyx Hours, is published by Finishing Line Press.

Kara Provost is a poet, runner, mother, and college professor. 

Her latest book, Topless, is a collaboration with two other poets and was published by Main Street Rag in 2011.   Her chapbook Nests was published in 2006 by Finishing Line Press.   She has poetry and memoir published in Connecticut Review, Hurricane Alice, The Newport Review, Tar Wolf Review, The Aurorean, and other journals, as well as in an anthology edited by David Starkey and Wendy Bishop, In Praise of Pedagogy: Poetry, Flash Fiction, and Essays on Composing.

Kara teaches writing and directs the First Year Honors Program at Curry College (Milton, MA) in addition to conducting creative writing workshops. Although she grew up in Florida, she has grudgingly learned to tolerate winter and now lives near Providence, RI with her husband and two daughters.  She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

► Kara's Origami micro-chapbooks & selected poems are available below.

Origami Micro-chapbook	Selected Poem(s)
Blame it on Billy
Cover Photo of Kara •	{mooblock=Writing} I am mad with words, sick as Blake’s rose tunneled through by poems like worms, each word eating another red petal. What kind of mother feeds her children poems instead of bread? What kind of wife wishes her husband out the door so she can rush back to her black ink, mark the white paper? What family wants a poet among them, scratching secrets until they bleed? I am obsessed as coyote with full moon, running, nose to trail, poem’s tail swishing into a bush just out of sight. I catch its scent on night wind, howl. • Kara Provost © 2013 {/mooblock}
Opening
Kathleen Speranza Painting, "Nest with Twigs“ •	{mooblock=Praise Song}      (with recognition of W. S. Merwin)   You invisible one music of all the songs sung beat of wind, wing, breath you, purpling the violets after winter’s death   swaying the lace curtain warming my skin with yellow lifting the scent of jasmine carrying voices through hollows   plunging kill spiral of hawk cooling green-shadowed woods singing spring water over rock grounding April with deep mud   you, shining on the flashing silver fishes headying the air with orange perfume feeding shoots reaching up through rot causing all the world to be still or move:   you invisible one music of all songs sung. • Kara Provost © 2011 {/mooblock}
Baby's Point Of View
•	{mooblock=Youngest Daughter Series} My sleepy girl tucks her head beneath my arm, butts: kid seeking comfort. Tucked in mine, swinging: young elephant’s tender trunk, my daughter’s small hand. Wind twirls fall oak leaf sun-gilded—a gold fairy!— she tugs me to see. • Kara Provost © 2011 {/mooblock}
Acknowledgements: “Baby’s Point of View” & “Picking Up” first appeared in Nests, Finishing Line Press: 2006.
What They Say
•	{mooblock=My Dear Ring} Yes, yes, I love you— were we not made for each other? Do I not wear you day and night, wet and dry, only remove you when dough or dirt threaten your beauty? And then how naked I feel, and a slim whiteness circles where your gold should go— I am so marked by you. I confess once or twice in twenty years I have taken you off just to see if the world feels different unchartered, unclaimed, but I missed you, my dear and in truth want no other. Rest easy—I’ll not put you asunder. • Kara Provost © 2011 {/mooblock}
Everyday Eros
Cover photo: Kathleen Speranza •	{mooblock=everyday eros} The feel of the shaft in hand                 polished as blue stone smooth as lake water surface                 on summer waveless days rhythm rubs between hot palms                 into the curved bowl open, waiting with longing. A car rumbles to a stop                crickets sing their strings— will she be discovered wrapped                in night’s velvet breath mashing garlic in the dark                with mortar and pestle, hungry for their bodies’ music? • Kara Provost © 2011 {/mooblock}
Figures of Speech
•	{mooblock=Figure of Speech} “What a lovely figure of speech you have,” the oxy-           moron commented to the epithet, who shot           daggers at him from atop stiletto heels, until,           leaking metaphors, he fled to conjunction junc-           tion and hopped the “A” train, not realizing it           was only an article, not a predicate, so couldn’t           take him anywhere. As he sat drumming his           fingers waiting for the train to move, he sighed           a hyperbole like a giant cartoon speech bubble,           then grabbed hold of the tail and floated away           from all his misery and shame into a setting           cliché. • Kara Provost © 2009 {/mooblock}

 

       Beatrice Lazarus's poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals inc
luding The Lyric, Pearl, Sou’wester, Clark Street Review, Poem, The Iconoclast, Plainsongs, Small Pond Magazine of Literature, and Pegasus Literary Magazine, among others.  One of her poems, "Laparoscopy," can be found in the February 2012 issue of JAMA (Poetry and Medicine column).  Her poem, "Break of Day," is the winner of The Briar Cliff Review Poetry Prize, 2013.  

In 2008 she founded The Poetry Loft, which first gathered writers together in a "loft" space above a grocery store nestled on a hilltop. Their core vision:  How can we improve our craft and grow as writers? How can poetry make a difference in our lives and in our community?

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► Bea's microchap & selected poems are available below.

When she isn't writing poetry, Emily Sack is a Professor of Law at Roger Williams University.

When she isn’t teaching the abundant virtues of the comma, writing about big hair and Elvis, and doing the Cha Cha, Kim Baker works to end violence against women.  She performs in the annual Until the Violence Stops Festival Providence. 

Kim's poems have been published online and in print.  Her most recent reasons to cha cha cha include an honorable mention in the Poetry Society of New Hampshire National Poetry Contest, This I Believe essay broadcast on NPR of Rhode Island, and first play stage-reading at the Culture*Park Play Marathon in New Bedford MA.

 (Photo by Seth Jacobson)

► Kim's Origami micro-chapbooks and selected poems are below.

Origami Micro-chapbook	Selected Poem(s)
Beachy Sea Scenes
•	{mooblock=Dream of a Red Boat on a Winter Day} It rests its hull on sea grass ecru, a cardinal listing in crisps of crimson on a beachfront wearing icy blue.   Majestic in its leaning, but lonesome, keeling starboard as it waits for spring to raise it up on southwest, fulsome   breezes billowing sails that sing a rainbow of fantastic travel I dream this schooner once unraveled   the ancient legend of Saint Luke that Satan tempted Jesus at Ravello with breathtaking Mediterranean views.   Then, that enchanted rig embraced an unassailable journey to these muted hues, uplifting me from my winter place,   a cinnabar savior with a conveyance grace. to worlds beyond this dismal sting. • Kim M. Baker © 2009 {/mooblock}
Choreography of a Courtship and Marriage
Cover art, 'Lights on the Water,' a fabric art painting by Kerstin Zettmar www.zettmar.com •	{mooblock=Love at First Sight} Inspired by 'Lights on the Water,' a fabric art painting by Kerstin Zettmar   The riverwalk is pixilated with people in waterfire reverie. Yet in that madcap jostling along the path to the fireworks, our eyes meet, for just a moment. Then, whoosh! We are swept along in the sway and crush, rushed to opposites sides of the bridge. All through the night, I think I see you, there, near the vendor with his lemony ice, no, there with the blue cotton candy man, wait! there in the mauve of love splayed insane across the water like petals, exploding in fireworks of “find him!” • Kim M. Baker © 2009 {/mooblock}
Fun with Words
•	{mooblock=Iamb No More} It was love at first poem. You batted your sonnets at me. I flirted my internal rhyme. We exchanged the syntax of our stories, narrating them with alliteration, onomatopoeia, and conceit.   It was clear you were well versed. I idyllized you and longed to be a couplet. But then, you suggested a caesura, blamed my assonance, my fib, my free verse, sending me into eternal elegy. I dragged my feet for lines, consonanced, totally enjambed. I showered you with limericks, ballads, and odes.   Then, heard through the grapevine you’d taken the last Quatrain to Clarkesville. What was a broken-hearted blank verse to do? I haikued it out of town myself. And while getting tankaed at the local pub, I could hardly refrain myself as I watched you trope over, wrap your figure around me, and apostrophe my hyperbole. And, as we lay together in personified bliss, I tried to imitate your accent and stuck my foot into my mouth,   again. • Kim M. Baker © 2009 {/mooblock}
If I Could Be Baptised Again
•	{mooblock=Opening Lines} If I could be baptized again, I would first be immersed in fiery verse, in poetic language of rebirth, then doused with the ineffable affection of God and my parents dripping affirmations of the glory of my one uniquely extraordinary self. • Kim M. Baker © 2009 {/mooblock}
Origami Poetry Poetry
•	{mooblock=The Art of Poetry} I reach for the volume thin as forgiveness, sniff its cover, grab at the stanzas, lick the lean words. I am hungry for comfort.   But there is no salve here in simply reading. I must run my fingers along the white marble of verse, study the music the molded lyre makes, melt into the Italian swirl.   Then, when I can see the apple Venus held or the battle plans of David or the bodhi of Buddha, I know I am ready. I know I must take a cool block of language and mold it into the shape of beauty and grace • Kim M. Baker © 2009 {/mooblock}
Peek-A-Boo Spring
•	{mooblock=Evening Prayer} By the fire we sit, two old church ladies, quiet inside the sanctuary of home worshipping next to the exhale of genteel geraniums, faces pressed delicately against the window counting the days until spring.   With knowing nods, we lift up the flames licking the sides of two logs stacked like hands praying, each of us secretly offering the sacrifice of ash and tongue for just one more glorious evening, silent, by the fire. • Kim M. Baker © 2009 {/mooblock}
Prayer of the Bent Over Woman
•	{mooblock=Opening Lines} Banish the bent-over spirits, the raging regrets, acoustics mute to all but me, voices like paranoia, cluttering my brain, bending my spine. • Kim M. Baker © 2009 {/mooblock}
Stone Love Poem Collection
•	{mooblock=Mother Nature} A hawk stalks a stonewall. Dinner is stacked up there. Chipmunks and snakes. A mouse plays dead but is only stoned between a rock and a moss place. This quarry covers for its guests facing predators. Face it: Nature is a Mother. • Kim M. Baker © 2009 {/mooblock}
Unsent Letter To God
•	{mooblock=1.} I cannot love everyone. I cannot let the tsunami of each grief tidal my tenuous time in what you call paradise. Christ! There are rivers of blood. Did you really mean to create aneurysms and cancer and the useless premise that you don’t give me more than I can handle? • Kim M. Baker © 2009 {/mooblock}

Mary Mueller is a Providence psychotherapist who specializes in therapeutic writing. Peruse her website here.

She aspires to wit and wisdom in her poetry.

Her poem Embedded was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by New Verse News in 2009.

Mary is advisor to Dr. Bert, famed Corgi therapist. See: Corgi Confidential

 ►  Mary's Origami microchaps & selected poems are available below.

Origami Microchap	Selected Poem(s)
Dr. Bert's Thoughts on Sibling Rivalry
Cover:  Dr. Bert in his office •	Opening Lines Most therapists just sniff around the subject of sibling rivalry.   We’ve all read the classics - The Alpha Puppy Sleeps Here, What about the Runt? For years we’ve chewed on the horrors of the Oedipal Complex,but we still deny a secret wish to obliterate our siblings. I suspect it’s because we were the caretakers of the litter. • Mary Mueller © 2014
Best in Show (or why I miss Winter TV)
•	Best in Show May I have the Sonnets in the ring, please? This versatile breed had its origins in Tuscany in the 1300s. The Petrarchan sonnet is known for its witty, yearning, argumentative form. Its knack for barking at its own questions make it a darling of the intellectual set and a model of self-sufficiency. Breed standards require only five rhymes to qualify, unlike its offspring Shakespearean sonnet, which needs seven. Adopted in England, the sonnet’s tail was modified by Thomas Wyatt into a rhyming couplet. Beloved by Romantics, Shakespearean sonnets are welcome guests at weddings, anniversaries and candlelit dinners. This short little breed’s ability to stand on its own fourteen lines insures it’s place as a heavy-weight in the formal rhyming group. Here is Sonnet Number 29. • Mary Mueller © 2013
Found Yarn
Cover Photo by Janice Forsstrom Infinity scarf created by Ginny McClure •	The Knitting Cure Modern experts agree that knitting is good for “flu-in-the-nerves,” my grandmother’s phrase for upset and worry randomly plaguing our town.   “If only she’d take up handwork,” Grandma would sigh regarding Rose, whose nasty case of flu-in-the-nerves required hospital stays.   Her sigh encompassed the world. If only we knew that anxiety, grief and family wars, disappointment beyond despair, when woven into a simple act of plying yarn in endless beats can transport our minds to infinity. • Mary C. Mueller © 2013
Tuscan Idyll
Cover photo, ‘A Tuscan View’ by Brian Murphy •	Opening Lines In the morning     one sentence            appears -                 like mist                      from the hills.     The breeze is as it was yesterday. • Mary C. Mueller © 2012
Spring Twittertry
•	Selection Tulips expand, snow was cutback. Unless god intervenes, rain will be sacked. • Mary C. Mueller © 2012
Local Moments
Photo courtesy of Richard Benjamin •	On Buying an Orchid at Whole Foods The orchid soared white, a swan’s neck arching over Easter Lilies, common tulips and harlequin spring bouquets. Its roots like parched tentacles overflowed the pot. They predict long life, smiled the gypsy clerk, unless they’re overfed. An orchid must have fear,” she said, which explains its roots primed to flee if daffodils attack, but not its knack for artful poise as it forces shoots through thirsty stems in a desperate bid for life. •   Mary C. Mueller © 2011
The Golden Apple
•	Aphrodite Reflects on the Apple How odd that apple did not like a dove take flight to alight on my hand – perhaps with my arms entwined I was impossible to find. Now I must scheme for what is already mine. •   Mary C. Mueller © 2011
A Cup of Origami
•	Cappucino Steamed peaks float like meringue in the swimming pool cup that warms my hands. Ready to dive nose first into roasted mist, I pause and sip. Alchemy of capuchin – elixir of bliss.                                      ‘Cappuccino’ by Mary Mueller © 2009
Little Arrows
If Dorothy Parker Could Twitter (In 140 Characters or Less) •	No. 5 If greed is a sin, and its wages to die, how do corporate transgressors end up in Dubai?   Thoughts? •   Mary C. Mueller © 2009
Twittertry
If Dorothy Parker Could Twitter (In 140 Characters or Less) •	Opening Twittertry, like ennui creeps in on kitten feet. Twittertry, like archery aims at the grand conceit. •   Mary C. Mueller © 2009

Pat Hegnauer was an actor, playwright, and director who returned to Rhode Island from New York.  Her poetry has published widely and includes 2 River Review, Adagio Verse Quarterly, Lily Lit Review, Moondance, Newport Review, Pedestal Magazine, Poems Niederngasse, SaucyVox, Scrivener's Pen, SouthernHum, T-Zero, Tattoo Highway, The Centrifugal Eye, Thunder Sandwich, Tryst, Wicked Alice.

Peg has a chapbook entitled, A Few Uncompromised Letters (Premier Poets Chapbook Series, 2004) and her work is included in the anthology, Regrets Only (Little Pear Press, 2006).

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Pat Hegnauer: 1947 - May 17, 2017

'Patricia G. Hegnauer, 74, co-founder of 2nd Story Theatre, actress, director, teacher, playwright, and poet, passed away Wednesday, May 17, 2017 at Hope Hospice & Palliative Care Rhode Island. She was the longtime companion of Ed Shea. Born in Abington, PA, she was a daughter of the late Lewis George Barber and Mildred Elizabeth (Barber) Bostrand. Patricia was the loving mother of Jacob R. Richards-Hegnauer and his wife Liz and Rachel E. Hegnauer Nguyen and her husband Nguyen; loving grandmother of Noah, Petronila, and Emmett; sister of Sharon Lowell and the late Linda Hale.

A memorial service will be held Friday May 26, 2017 at 10 am in Grace Episcopal Church, 175 Mathewson Street, Providence, RI 02903.'

http://www.quinnfuneralhome.com/obituary/Patricia-G.-Hegnauer/Newport-RI/1728421

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 ► Pat's Origami micro-chapbooks & selected poems are available below.