Event Review: Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series Featuring Chandra Alderman, Matt Ussia, & Bart Solarczyk
If you’re looking for a poetry lover’s dream, the White Whale Bookstore in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has a wonderful eight-week series of readings called “Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series.” This celebration of poetry was founded by the Pittsburgh poet Jimmy Cvetic around 1974. On Tuesday, July 11, 2023, I was able to join the Zoom livestream of their evening featuring the insightful poetry of Chandra Alderman, Matt Ussia, and Bart Solarczyk.
Writer, editor, and host of the evening, Scott Silsbe, introduced these three poets with a comparison to Walt Whitman. As he read from “Song of Myself,” Silsbe noted how each poet writes with a sense of generosity and wonder, and how they “say in public what is known in private.”
Chandra Alderman began the reading with her extensive selection of short poems, many written over the past thirteen months with an online group of creatives led by Wiley Cash. Alderman is a photographer in Ohio and her photos have appeared online at Thirteen Myna Birds, The Octopus Review, and The City Poetry, as well as in chapbooks. She primarily writes letters, but occasionally poetry, and her words have been featured in Trailer Park Quarterly. The selection of poems for this reading was diverse and rich in subject matter, ranging from “Stanley Kubrick” to “Drunken Noodles.” I found the most powerful moment of Alderman’s reading to be her final poem, “06/24/22,” in which she reflected on last year’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. She powerfully spoke about her reaction the day she heard the news, and how she told her child about her own abortion due to cancer. Her words were searing as she explained, “Doctors cutting away the part of me that grew death. All this, so I can be here today.” Alderman exposed the fear she has for the future, urging her child, “Choose your partner carefully.” As a woman, I was deeply moved by Chandra Alderman’s passion, honesty, and visceral language.
Matt Ussia, director of Duquesne University’s First Year Writing Program, followed with his booming voice and commanding personality. His work has been featured in Mister Rogers and Philosophy, Future Humans in Fiction and Film, North of Oxford, Trailer Park Quarterly, Anti-Heroin Chic, and the podcast, The Open Mic of the Air. Ussia’s poems also tackled a wide variety of subjects, as he explored family, racism, religion, and mortality. A unique poem from his reading was “Hope,” a reflection on how the sun will reach peak solar activity this year, an alarming fact. Ussia paints a bleak vision of slow demise: “Wondering if I could survive the walk home, I’d only to watch my medicine run out a decade before the power grid comes back online.” He would rather the sun hurl our planet quickly, so he could, “Spend the last hour of creation in bed with my wife and our dogs, freezing to death as a family, together.” My favorite poem out of the ten read by Ussia was “The Most Powerful Hobby.” He mentioned writing this piece after the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh, as it tackles gun violence and the popularity of gun ownership. The poem builds on the hobby of collecting guns and concludes, “If you can pay for it, you can have it. Even if you don’t understand the price.” Matt Ussia’s poems reflect the nuances of surviving in this day and age.
Bart Solarczyk, a Pittsburgh native, closed the evening with a heartfelt collection of short musings. Solarczyk has written eleven chapbooks and three collections of poetry, including his most recent work, Carried Where We Go, from Redhawk Publications. For the past forty years his writing has been featured in Pittsburgh Magazine, Roadside Raven Review, and Be About It Zine & Paper Boat Haiku Revue. Solarczyk brought wisdom to his segment of the reading and was refreshingly candid about his own struggles with depression following the death of his wife at the beginning of the pandemic. In his poem, “Crow Heart” he uttered, “I can only be happy in pieces.” This concise, yet complex line hooked me. Solarczyk writes emotionally charged content and yet finds ways to hide humor and profound insight. He spoke about the comfort animals provide, like his own dog in “Shaking Sticks.” He confronted his grief directly in his poem, “Empty Hands” in which he said, “This is death. This is long.” Solarczyks also read the first poem he ever wrote about his wife, as a young man in his twenties—a bittersweet moment to witness as an audience member. I watched this reading with my partner, and we were both deeply moved by Solarczyk’s words about his wife. We could feel the love and loss in every syllable. Bart Solarczyk writes about both the joys and pains of daily life, how we are all suffering and loving and living, together.
The poems of Chandra Alderman, Matt Ussia, and Bart Solarczyk captivated me, as each poet writes with sincerity, warmth, and curiosity.
