Arts & Life

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Written by: Ted Kooser

Published: 03 January 2011

Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. Photo by UNL Publications and Photography.

In Iowa in the 1950s, when we at last heard about pizza, my mother decided to make one for us. She rolled out bread dough, put catsup on it, and baked it. Voila! Pizza! And inexpensive, too.

Here’s Grace Cavalieri, a poet and playwright who lives in Maryland, serving something similar and undoubtedly better.

Tomato Pies, 25 Cents

Tomato pies are what we called them, those days,

before Pizza came in,

at my Grandmother’s restaurant,

in Trenton New Jersey.

My grandfather is rolling meatballs

in the back. He studied to be a priest in Sicily but

saved his sister Maggie from marrying a bad guy

by coming to America.

Uncle Joey is rolling dough and spooning sauce.

Uncle Joey, is always scrubbed clean,

sobered up, in a white starched shirt, after

cops delivered him home just hours before.

The waitresses are helping

themselves to handfuls of cash out of the drawer,

playing the numbers with Moon Mullin

and Shad, sent in from Broad Street. 1942,

tomato pies with cheese, 25 cents.

With anchovies, large, 50 cents.

A whole dinner is 60 cents (before 6 pm).

How the soldiers, bussed in from Fort Dix,

would stand outside all the way down Warren Street,

waiting for this new taste treat,

young guys in uniform,

lined up and laughing, learning Italian,

before being shipped out to fight the last great war.

Ted Kooser was US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. He is a professor in the English Department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He lives on an acreage near the village of Garland, Nebraska, with his wife Kathleen Rutledge, the editor of the Lincoln Journal Star.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by Grace Cavalieri from her most recent book of poetry, Sounds Like Something I Would Say, Goss 183 Casa Menendez, 2010. Reprinted by permission of Grace Cavalieri and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation.

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Written by: Editor

Published: 02 January 2011

The show, sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Community of Lake County (UUCLC), will begin at 7 p.m. at the Kelseyville Senior Center, 5245 Third St.

A suggested donation of $15 is asked, though no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

“Live From the Starving Ear” is 90 minutes of “wickedly inventive satirical songs” according to Carol Cole-Lewis of the UUCLC.

The Tea Party, the economy, same-sex marriage, Rush Limbaugh, Creationism, guns, taxes, abstinence and even Barack Obama all come under musical scrutiny.

“There's a whole new political landscape,” said Zimmerman, “painted by Jackson Pollock.”

The Starving Ear is Roy's homage to San Francisco's legendary nightclub, the hungry i, and the name of his new series on YouTube.

For more information, call 707-587-4243.

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Written by: Lake County News Reports

Published: 01 January 2011

Dan Aykroyd is the voice of Yogi Bear and Justin Timberlake voices Yogi's pal Boo Boo in