memory by the mood all be cause of what you time i go over this is the final take i head to cry out then and i'll never love again but by the way i carry on no one would ever know that you wen have you know that there's a secret at the end of the night we will do the second song that they wrote thirty years later they wrote a song together today and we finished writing the song we said this is the first of a bunch of  start the official show we have an official act who is here and officially in the room and she's actually officially really really good yeah we've seen her show at princeton t v many times but of course she was actually such a sociologist the passion of a writer and the joy of a woman a live host producer of princeton t v and the backstory with joan goldstein she teaches a poetry writing  harriet bryan house and plants a publisher works this year joan studied writing at the famed iowa writers workshop and was published in the u s one literary issue so joan please come on appeared and joined us here at cafe and probably would love to hear your know we'll start at the beginning of my life and so the first poem is called my gorgeous blue baby carriage you can guess what that's about no comment there i am talked into the well of my gorgeous blue baby carriage from germany dark blue without benefit of brakes parked on the side outside the butcher shop through the plate glass window of his store benny the butcher despised me rolling towards the gutters and rolling spritely towards the murderous auto and he felt the door long legs stretching reaching out to grab my dark blue german baby carriage without brakes and me inside  you could have been killed my mother would tell me later recalling a time before words when i had been rescued by a man i never knew this poem i called kindergarten a friend from long ago childhood recalled our kindergarten class visit to my grandmother's house he said that we children holding hands walking two by two were led along foster avenue you i have no memory of this at all why my gramma did she come out to see us i asked he didn't recall he could go no further so i pulled up a faded image of my grandma saw her smiling among sly like bushes at her doorstep heard her funny english asking me you want some do you remember that she secretly say nieces and nephews from the nazis in this next poem is for everyone here to remember to go out and vote now why does it tell you to remember to go out and vote anybody want to guess ok the poem is called wild dogs of romania and of two thousand and four my cousin joyce and i traveled to along to romania where we hoped we could find some way history of our family even our family name which is not the one we have what we saw was a product of fascism and dictatorship as you can never imagine how mean and cruel it could be and this poem is about the packs of wild dogs that i saw looking like wolves and wandering through the streets of the cities and sometimes killing people and it tells you what a dictatorship can do to the spirit of sprawled across a tombstone haunting the jewish cemetery they are everywhere at the gate an entrance to the famous dead poets home m and s crew i mis step i speak i look into the tearful searching eyes of a mottled grey and orange roughy and he rises slowly to his creaky paws and begins to follow me tells me there used to be so many of them then one day they seem to disappear she brightens maybe they shot them actually the backstory i was able to cull from this is that they used to have these one story huts that people lived in and they tore them down and they build post stalinist apartment buildings but they wouldn't let the people keep the dogs so they sent them into the mountains where apparently they did mate with wolves so that part of that story ok i was home one day in a very cold march day and i was alone and i said i'm going to write a poem but i'm going to write a poem in spanish which is my second language is not my first language and so i sat down and i wrote this poem and then as an added challenge i translated it back into english well i had a friend then in a music club named she was a composer named all good corelli all good took the poem and set it to music to a tango rhythm and and here's the translation when does spring come when the spring come when will it come when spring comes when the rain drops fall and open the flowers and when the dry countryside bare and barren gi itself a rain shower and afterwards there are fantastic flowers with brilliant red petals and after the rain comes the weeds so when the spring come when will it come i have been a educator for most of my life probably since my early twenties and i've been a teaching college for a long time sociology and sometimes my classes open themselves up to a poem they become a poem and so when i hear the students talking it becomes a poem and this one is called social class sociology one o one who wants to be poor i ask and no one raises their hand or middle class and nearly every student know what except for to why middle class and brian says that's how you find love you need to have money jason who rarely speaks mutters i'm tired of living paycheck to paycheck i push on and rich who wants to be rich the two aren't spoken  their hands up into the air and how will you achieve this by finishing school and working hard scott speaks in a low voice as if he were embarrassed to yearn for riches whit ever calls out his face lined with conflict can i be both rich and middle class he has already chosen the middle class but looks at me imploringly if i were a greek all recall deciding his  and even before i can find an answer eric crashes this fish this on the edge of his chair no he shouts determined i'm tired of being a spoiled brat i'll be middle class and the students cheer those kids they're wonderful and there was a fellow who used to show up very early for class always it was eight o'clock in the morning class and one time i said to him you know you're an early bird you get is so nice and early he said well i never get to sleep i said what do you mean you never get to sleep he said i work in a warehouse at night and i come directly from the warehouse to the class and after i take it your class i go home and i go to sleep ok i also taught a chinese schools in and around here several of them and i had an interesting time understanding their life and culture and this is one of the times i spoke to the kids and this is the poem it's in the chinese school a game of chess where is the queen i ask jack and show two boys in chinese school playing chess intently their rounded wouldn't pieces and boston with swirling characters in red or black there is no queen  chinese chess jack answered solemnly politely then who is powerful i persist certainly not the king no the boy of twelve thinks for a moment the horse or later the castle but not the king then why are there no queens in chinese chess i have bothered the woman in me needs to know jack stops still the wooden piece in his hand poised whoring for a fatal move because a woman does not belong on the battlefield he pronounces his english with care slowly as if you were an old man wise and knowing how do you heard these very words in chinese from his grandfather was he translating as we spoke yes on women do not belong on the battlefield sorry i just i moved some things back and forth here in the school bus to cape may i like whale to watch whales dolphins their sleek speckled human torsos toss an arc into air and disappear under the boat like babies while moans of absent whales taped piped through the captain's tower sings pitched high heaving we might cite where is the captain soothes the scrambling children on deck in and out of cabin the cafe where grilling hot dogs rotate glistening rolling on their fat backs taking thanks this is the poem i had opened up the description of myself the woman who does tie chee on elm road and that is exactly what i did  so you know picture me doing the rides i the woman who does tie chee on elm road the fair lady cells than a momentary stare from s u v s as this woman who does tight she mornings on elm road and she stops the neighbors walking by his thumb pointing up calling teacher and songwriter he's currently putting finishing touches on his first cd of ritual songs sweet all of life his books include overtipping the fairy man the holy both it's a pleasure to be here with you tonight a cafe improv thank you for having me this is a fairly new song so if i forget the words could you just sing along with me how thank you so much as the introduction mentioned i'm a poet as well and i'm probably you know the only singer songwriter here tonight promoting books of poetry out in the lobby when this is a poem this is a poem this is a song that was written in honor of patterson new jersey poet maria mazzy gillen i don't know if any of you out there she has one and some friends of mine did a documentary film about her and her work and they asked me to do some music for it so i wrote this song and maria tells her students that everybody has an imaginary crow that sits on their shoulder and that crow speaks to us and all the voices of the people that have ever told us you're not smart enough you're not strong enough you not pretty enough you're not thin enough and she says we have to ignore that crow here down to the place she calls the cave deep within ourselves with the true stories of our lives reside and we have to bring those stories up and ignore the crow in honor of that allegory i guess this is as close as i come to  going to bring up the next act but you said it was the four saturday of every month but this is not a fourth saturday this is a this is a special one that's right happens on the third inconsistent chatter come on down there yes yes come on down here i'll introduce you inconsistent chatter is pointing out life's consistent in consistencies and shedding light on places we don't always want to look silly and ridiculous and like that's just not effective means of transportation but someone's doing it just for the sake of it you know and you know really strong core to ride a unicycle so mean to have strong corps and remember that we're all kind night i'm rachael inconsistent chatter on the internet now has some music recorded sometimes thank you rachel also known as inconsistent chatter thank you so much it was wonderful thank you very dream most consistently interesting artists of princeton he does so many incredible things he paints he writes he does and tonight he's doing instrumental music but he does incredible rip your heart out pop music he writes incredible stuff he just every time you turn around the guy is doing something that just makes you want to cry why did i think of that anyway now we're going to have the mike over to mary for the official introduction to her interview can do the yes they're more right now it's a projection right now you and i are both going to wiggle the fingers on our six year old self right now ok we're doing it my five year old s because this is sort of summarizing the song you know it's like you know it is a simulate ok that the name of that was the beginning of the end of the universe and so i wind up naming some of my songs after people i know who have died so you don't want to have a song written after you know so i call that last one the beginning and the end of the universe it's a whole freakin symphony you can play in with those with beautiful beautiful what do you what was the name of that song beautiful name beautiful to thank you very much curtis look if you recorded any of these i doubt he's about to record he's done all his records are great all right very good thank you very much