The Cool Justice Report

NB Herald Notes Entry Deadline For Young Writers Competition

Iceman Greets Michael Nunn

CT Boxing Hall Of Fame Photos

Scully's Utube

NB Herald Notes Entry Deadline For Young Writers Competition

2009-11-26T06:31:00.001-08:00

The CT Young Writers Website

Wednesday, November 25, 2009 7:09 PM EST
Special to the

New Britain Herald

The Connecticut Young Writers Competition, now entering its 13th year, is seeking prose and poetry entries.

Teenage writers of prose and poetry from across Connecticut are being encouraged to submit original entries to an annual literary competition which awards winning entrants with cash prizes and the possibility of having their work published in the literary journal

Connecticut Review.

The literary awards competition, for ages 13 to 18, is a project of the Connecticut State University System and the Connecticut Young Writers Trust.

The awards competition is designed to encourage young writers and poets. During this academic year, two young writers from each of Connecticut’s eight counties will win cash awards for either prose or poetry.

Entries must be nominated by a teacher in a public or private school, and postmarked on or before February 1, 2010. Home school entries are also accepted.

Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, and Western Connecticut State University in Danbury will receive the initial entries and host county award ceremonies in April 2010. Last year, more than 580 entries were received.

From the select group of county winners, a distinguished panel of judges will select the state’s top poet and prose writer, to be announced at a special awards ceremony next spring.

Last year, the ceremony was held at the Mark Twain House &Museum. The two winners will each earn an opportunity to be published in CT Review, the literary journal of the Connecticut State University System.

For more information, including entry forms, visit

or contact Andy Thibault of the Connecticut Young Writers Trust at 860-690-0211 or tntcomm82@cs.com

Iceman With Poet Gaby Calvocoressi Prepping For January Event

CT Boxing Hall Of Fame Photos

Connecticut Review

Announcement Also @ The Darien Patch

Philip Roth Keeps On Punching; Is Nobel Overdue?

2009-11-23T03:18:00.000-08:00

-- Photo Via The Guardian, UK

Creative force

By David Mattin
The National

Philip Roth must be accustomed by now to being called America’s greatest living writer. His extraordinary productivity in the past decade has brought forth novels at a rate of more than one every two years, and upon each publication critics queue to rehearse the superlatives: Roth is a genius, they tell us, the pre-eminent chronicler of that strange, accelerated, furious place that is early 21st-century America. Surely, they say, the Nobel is long overdue.

And the literary world is at it again with the publication of Roth’s 30th novel, The Humbling, about a stage actor who fears that his talent has deserted him.

True Confession: Hard Competition

Masterful & Disturbing

Next Year: the Nemesis

Bad Sex Award Shortlist

New Statesman Interview

CT Boxing Hall Of Fame Photos

2009-11-22T08:00:00.003-08:00

Mr. & Mrs. [Rita]Iceman
-- Photo Courtesy of Iceman John Scully

Sammy Vega, the 7-time national amateur champ, with Hall of Famer Iceman John Scully and Lance Henry, who trains at Richardson Boxing
--Photo Courtesy of Sammy Vega

Sammy Vega with renowned boxing judge and HBO analyst Harold Lederman
--Photo Courtesy of Sammy Vega

CT Boxing Hall Of Fame Annual Awards Event

Iceman With Poet Gaby Calvocoressi Prepping For January Event

CT Boxing Hall Of Fame Annual Awards Event

2009-11-20T16:32:00.000-08:00

Dawson, Cichon, Scully, Roy
Among Connecticut Boxing Hall Of Fame Honorees

Via
FightNews.com

The Connecticut Boxing Hall of Fame has selected unbeaten world light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson of New Haven as its 2009 Pro Fighter of the Year.

CT Boxing Hall Of Fame

Recent Scully Interview

Iceman With Poet Gaby Calvocoressi Prepping For January Event

New Poetry: Ravi's Ode To The Champ, Chad Dawson

Drunken Boat Salute To Ravi & Family

2009-11-20T09:51:00.000-08:00

Congratulations

REGISTER NOW FOR SPORTS WRITING, POETRY WORKSHOPS @ THE HARTFORD CLUB

2009-11-19T07:16:00.001-08:00

Connecticut Young Writers Trust
231 Beach St.
Litchfield, CT 06759

* 800-814-6931 * Fax- 860-567-9119

Hartford Courant Post On CT Young Writers Triple Knockout Event

MUSIC
VIDEOS

Jen Allen Big Band @ Twain House May 2009

Jen Allen Big Band @ Litchfield Inn June 2008

Binnie The Demon Barber Klein Featured In CT Jewish Ledger

Prince of the City @ Hartford Club

CT Young Writers Trust Home Page

Binnie The Demon Barber Klein Featured In CT Jewish Ledger

2009-11-19T06:33:00.000-08:00

SHE'S APPEARING
JAN. 15, 2010 @ THE HARTFORD CLUB
AS PART OF UNDERCARD
IN
GABY VERSUS ICEMAN:
A CT YOUNG WRITERS TRIPLE KNOCKOUT EVENT

Yale prof puts on her gloves...
and goes a few rounds in a new book about boxing

Via
Connecticut Jewish Ledger
Published: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 1:54 PM EST

By Cindy Mindell

The Jewish Ledger

Binnie Klein is a psychotherapist, radio-show host, and lecturer in the Yale University Department of Psychotherapy, where she supervises psychotherapy trainees. It may be surprising to learn that in January, SUNY Press will publish Klein's book, "Blows to the Head: How Boxing Changed My Mind," a memoir that also forays into other areas, like Jewish boxers in the U.S. and immigration history, to name a few.

Klein told the Ledger about coming to the sport as an unlikely contender in middle age, and how boxing changed her life.

Q: Okay, boxing?

A. It's still a little mystifying to me, even after spending a few years learning to box, covering professional fights, working the corner for a young fighter, and interviewing boxers on my radio show. The basic narrative is that, some years back, when I was in my mid-50s, I fell in my back yard -- it wasn't exotic like skiing -- and broke my ankle and my foot. I was in a cast for eight weeks. I was bored in physical therapy, I had never been athletic, and one day I spotted a pair of boxing gloves in the gym. I asked the trainer, "Could you teach me to box?" He took me as far as I could go with punch mitts, and I fell in love with it because it was the first time I felt good in a physical activity. As a psychotherapist, there's a lot of sitting, talking, listening, thinking. With the punching and hitting, I was feeling my body's power for the first time.

The trainer told me, "You need a coach" and I said "Huh?" Around the same time, the AARP magazine came in the mail, which in and of itself was a shocker, and there was an article about a middle-aged guy teaching women to box. My book chronicles how I found a way to get this guy, John Spehar, to take me on. He's co-owner of Fighting Fitness Gym in Orange, where he offers classes, but I wanted one-on-one training. Most of my training went on in my living room. For about six months, we weren't boxing; John was training me, holding up the punch mitts, and he said, "You're getting professional training just like my male and pro fighters," and one day he takes out gloves and headgear and we're sparring.

Q: How did you decide to write "Blows to the Head"?

A. My first idea was to write the book with my coach, like "Tuesdays with Morrie." But John told me, "This is your story." Before I became a psychotherapist, when I was in my 20s and living in New York City, I was trying to be a writer, but I was a poet. Poets can't make a living except through teaching, and I knew I needed a career. When I was training to be a psychotherapist, I left the writing behind. In 2003, I started writing a novel but didn't finish. I got a scholarship to the Wesleyan Writers Conference through the General Federation of the Women's Clubs of Connecticut. The novel didn't get finished, but as my boxing journey had already started, I felt I had a story to tell.

Q: In your book, you talk about more than just your own experience. How did those other inquiries unfold?

A. One day during a boxing lesson, I asked John -- who was really knowledgeable about American history and is a student of history and a former middleweight state champion, and would talk during our lessons and teach me things -- "Were there ever any Jewish boxers?" and out comes the information. In the early part of the century, there were tons of them. That just keeps my interest, because like a lot of people, I grew up thinking that Jews were the pale scholars and that we were not athletic. I learned a lot from writing the book. I didn't have a lot of ethnic pride: we were very assimilated in Newark in the '50s and I was really very disconnected from any Jewish community, though we were cultural Jews. We didn't belong to a synagogue, I didn't go to Hebrew school, I was alienated from the religion.

I started reading about Jewish boxers and felt connected to them, felt compelled to learn about their lives and what drove them to become boxers.

I started reading about immigrant history. I wasn't knowledgeable about immigrants to this country, despite the fact that my mother came here at age 8 from a shtetl in Poland. It made me do some genealogical research. The experience changed me completely. I met people in the boxing community, who were the opposite of what I thought they'd be like. I always thought boxing was repulsive and violent. My father loved it but we had a contentious relationship; he was actually a little scary. All kinds of links started to happen -- to my father, to my mother's immigrant past, and I developed more sense of and pride in my body.

In amateur boxing, which I was more involved with, you're wearing headgear, there are three three-minute rounds, there's not a lot of blood, but there's a lot of sweat. That was thrilling. Another "Yes" moment was getting a press pass to cover a live pro fight in Hartford.

The other hat I wear is at the alternative radio station WPKN, where I've hosted a show for 30 years. Every Thursday, from 9 a.m. to noon, I do music and interviews. I started "In Your Corner," where John Spehar and I interview people in the world of boxing -- Burt Randolph Sugar, a beloved Jewish sports writer and an idol of mine; Yuri Foreman, a Jewish boxer studying to be a rabbi.

Q: Has your approach to psychotherapy changed since you took up boxing?

A. It has. In the most overt way, I have occasionally and very selectively referred people for boxing lessons, people who I felt could really benefit from experiencing their own physical power: for example, gay men who were beaten up as kids and felt scared and weak just walking on the street; a guy with a huge problem with his own aggression, and who was working with me on anger management. I said, "Let's put it in the ring."

The other, more subtle way is that I'm more conscious and aware of how people seem to inhabit their bodies and their relationship with their physicality. I became more aware of issues of aggression; boxing forces you to face your own aggression. In many Jewish families, "aggression" is a dirty word -- we're an intellectual, peaceful people. But aggression is part of the natural world and it's better to work with it and understand it than to pretend it's not there.

Q: What happened to the Jewish boxers?

A. Boxing has always been a way out of various ghettos. People on the lowest rung of the ladder get involved as a way out, and as more opportunities opened up, Jews moved on to other things. For some Jewish boxers, there was a feeling of pride: they would go into the ring with a Jewish star on their trunks. For some of the parents, it was considered a shame, a shanda, but they would bring home the money and the parents would say, "Box." It was more than they could make in a sweatshop.

There are still people -- Yuri Foreman, Dmitriy Salita - who are speaking openly about their Judaism and their boxing. For example, Salita doesn't fight on the Sabbath.

Q: Did you ever consider trying to professionally?

A. I'm so peripheral to competition; I only sparred with my coach. I wanted to go further but I developed the problem with my leg. The way I would go further is to spar with other women. In the book, I interviewed a bunch of women who box, like Samantha Danes, an emergency-room physician and ringside physician, and her partner, who is a referee, as well as women who take John Spehar's boxing classes. On my radio show, I interviewed Dutch boxer Lucia Rijker, one of my heroes. She was in "Million Dollar Baby," and was the first woman inductee into the World Boxing Hall of Fame. Women boxers are going to the Olympics in 2012 for the first time.

AUTHOR BINNIE KLEIN AND COMPLETE LINEUP
POETS & WRITERS JAN. 15, 2010
@ THE HARTFORD CLUB

ALSO FEATURING
THE JEN ALLEN BIG BAND
WITH VOCALISTS

USA BOXING BOUTS
TO CONCLUDE THE EVENING

Special thanks to our sponsors
listed as
heavyweights, middleweights, golden gloves and fans.

Binnie Klein

Prince of the City @ Hartford Club

The Jewish Ledger

Mickey Sherman - Jim Belushi Morph With Diane [Murphy Brown] English - Barry [Homicide] Levinson For TV Drama

2009-11-19T06:00:00.003-08:00

Via

Variety

Belushi, TV vets plot courtroom drama
ICM packaging series for actor post-'Jim'

By MICHAEL FLEMING

Here's an unusual group of creative collaborators: Jim Belushi has teamed with Diane English and Barry Levinson for a prospective TV drama that would cast Belushi as a defense attorney character based on the lawyer and TV commentator Mickey Sherman.

ICM is in the process of packaging the series and hasn't brought it yet to studios and networks, but it would mark a switch for Belushi to drama after his long run in the ABC sitcom "According to Jim."

English, the "Murphy Brown" vet who wrote and directed the remake "The Women," teams with Levinson just as Showtime begins airing "Poliwood," the docu he directed about the convergence of celebs on the Democratic and Republican national conventions and its impact on the 2008 presidential campaign.

Sherman penned the memoir "How Can You Defend Those People?," and the idea is for Belushi to play a likable lawyer who defends the guilty and the innocent with equal vigor.

Levinson, who featured Sherman in a cameo in his film "Man of the Year," is best known on the TV front for exec producing "Homicide: Life on the Street" and "Oz"; he most recently exec produced "The Philanthropist." Levinson directed HBO's upcoming Jack Kevorkian biopic "You Don't Know Jack," which stars Al Pacino as the controversial champion of euthanasia.

Mickey Wiki

Cyber Stalkers Beware

2009-11-17T14:41:00.000-08:00

"Facebook usage depicts a snapshot of the user's relationships and state of mind at the time of the content's posting."
-- U.S. District Judge Janet Arterton

By RICHARD MEEHAN
The Cool Justice Report
www.cooljustice.blogspot.com
Nov. 17, 2009

EDITOR'S NOTE: This column is available for reprint courtesy of The Cool Justice Report, http://cooljustice.blogspot.com

Computer social networking has coined a new type of crime: cyber stalking.

Information on where the user lives, phone numbers, schools attended, friends and activities can give the potential stalker a personal road map. Add to that a bevy of pictures, sometimes displaying the Facebooker wasted at some frat party or describing some other social excesses. What emerges is a profile of a potential victim.

Users can limit who may access their private information by allowing access only to "friends." Friends are people who have requested access to you and whom you approve. Information can be published only for friends but Facebook allows "Friends of friends" to access your pages. You cannot control this expansion of your cyber universe.

Future employers, your boss, your teacher and your parents can often gain access to what you believe is a side of you that you are sharing with a limited few. Routinely, in litigation we are seeking information on social networking sites about potential witnesses and adversaries. Cyber stalkers gain access to this wealth of personal information that feeds their obsessions and empowers their eventual access to their intended victims.

Recently cases have been reported where cyber stalkers have been sued or prosecuted as a result of vicious, demeaning posts. In Connecticut it is a crime to use a computer to harass or threaten another:

"Sec. 53a-183. Harassment in the second degree: Class C misdemeanor. (a) A person is guilty of harassment in the second degree when . . . with intent to harass, annoy or alarm another person, he communicates with a person by . . . computer network, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm. . . ."

If the cyber stalker has a previous serious felony conviction the level of crime is elevated to Harassment int he First Degree, a five year felony.

Victims are now striking back and seeking production of social network posts and pages.

In a recent federal lawsuit in Connecticut, U.S. District Judge Janet Arterton ordered the production of more than 650 pages of Facebook posts. The minor plaintiff had sued Miss Porter's School of Farmington claiming that she had been the victim of harassment and bullying that led to her suspension and an attempt to expel her. Her alleged taunters had reportedly used text messaging and internet posts.

The plaintiff subpoenaed pages from her own Facebook account that she could no longer access and the defendants sought an order that all of the Facebook pages be produced, asserting that those posts would reveal information describing the plaintiff's own conduct. In ordering the production of most of these pages to the defense, Judge Arterton observed: "Facebook usage depicts a snapshot of the user's relationships and state of mind at the time of the content's posting."

Criminal sanctions and civil damages await the cyber stalker or reckless posts. Users, and especially parents of youngsters permitted access to these sites, should understand that comments posted in the seeming safety of one's study or dorm room that are thrown out to the cyber universe are there for all to see, for all time.

Bridgeport,CT attorney Richard Meehan Jr. was the lead defense counsel for former Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim's corruption trial. Meehan has been certified as a criminal trial specialist by the National Board of Trial Advocacy since 1994 and serves on the organization's Board of Examiners. He is a Charter Fellow, Litigation Counsel of America -- Trial Lawyer Honorary Society. Meehan has also obtained multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements in complex medical and dental malpractice and personal injury litigation. He is a past president of the Greater Bridgeport Bar Association and appears regularly on TruTv. His column also appears in the Sunday Norwich, CT Bulletin. Website, www.meehanlaw.com

Meehan law firm

VIDEO: We Know How You Guys Become Judges

2009-11-17T08:56:00.000-08:00

PRINCE OF THE CITY
@ THE HARTFORD CLUB

-- Actor Treat Williams With Director Sidney Lumet During Filming of Prince of the City

EDITOR'S NOTE: Rarely do readers get the real story on cops and courts. When the public focuses on corruption in the so-called justice system, virtually all the weight falls on the cops. The lawyers and judges are much more adept at evading justice. Author and former NYPD Detective Bob Leuci knows the score. He lived it. Leuci will be appearing in Connecticut Jan. 15, 2010 as part of the CT Young Writers Triple Knockout event at the Hartford Club. Following are some video excerpts of Prince of the City and links to Leuci books and details about the upcoming event.

Scene From Prince Of The City

Trailer: IT HAPPENED

Undercover Life Gets Complicated

Prince of the City Wiki

Sidney Lumet Interview

THE BOOKS

Prince Of The City: The True Story Of A Cop Who Knew Too Much

All The Centurions: A New York City Cop Remembers His Life On The Street

AUTHOR BOB LEUCI AND COMPLETE LINEUP
POETS & WRITERS JAN. 15, 2010
@ THE HARTFORD CLUB

ALSO FEATURING
THE JEN ALLEN BIG BAND
WITH VOCALISTS

USA BOXING BOUTS
TO CONCLUDE THE EVENING

Special thanks to our sponsors
listed as
heavyweights, middleweights, golden gloves and fans.

EDITOR'S NOTE:
Paul "Ding-a-Ling" Doyle has graciously agreed to take handoff from George "The Wolf" Kimball for sports writing workshop. Both guys worked the Dawson fight.

Doyle has been a sports reporter and columnist at The Hartford Courant for 20 years. A member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, he has been a baseball beat writer and most recently a general assignment reporter. He has also written for the Boston Globe and The Sporting News.

Hartford Courant Post On CT Young Writers Triple Knockout Event

Gaby Heating Up Miami Beach ...

A Punch In The Face From Gaby "She Be Stinging" Calvocoressi

Odes To The Champ, Including Shankar Poem On Dawson Victory

The Iceman John Scully's Utube

Also @ gotpoetry.com

Quick Hits
On More
Of Our Poets & Writers

News Times Features Author Shouhua Qi

Retired CT State Trooper Jerry Longo Reviews NYPD Bomb Squad Book

Chandra "Bonecrusher" Prasad Featured In CT Mag

Kate Rushin's Black Back-Ups

Kate Rushin

Franz Douskey

Binnie Klein

MUSIC
VIDEOS

Jen Allen Big Band @ Twain House May 2009

Jen Allen Big Band @ Litchfield Inn June 2008

A People's History Of the Revolutionary War, aka Jim Smith Novel

2009-11-17T06:11:00.000-08:00

Via
The Laurel

Hartford Courant Post On CT Young Writers Triple Knockout Event

Also See
Jim Smith Short Story
Fall 09 Ct Review

Ct Review

VIDEO: Wally's Wishin' and Hopin' Time Machine

2009-11-14T11:47:00.000-08:00

Via
HarperCollins

It's 1964 and ten-year-old Felix is sure of a few things: the birds and the bees are puzzling, television is magical, and this is one Christmas he'll never forget.

LBJ and Lady Bird are in the White House, Meet the Beatles is on everyone's turntable, and Felix Funicello (distant cousin of the iconic Annette!) is doing his best to navigate fifth grade—easier said than done when scary movies still give you nightmares and you bear a striking resemblance to a certain adorable cartoon boy.

Back in his beloved fictional town of Three Rivers, Connecticut, with a new cast of endearing characters, Wally Lamb takes his readers straight into the halls of St. Aloysius Gonzaga Parochial School—where Mother Filomina's word is law and goody-two-shoes Rosalie Twerski is sure to be minding everyone's business. But grammar and arithmetic move to the back burner this holiday season with the sudden arrivals of substitute teacher Madame Frechette, straight from Québec, and feisty Russian student Zhenya Kabakova. While Felix learns the meaning of French kissing, cultural misunderstanding, and tableaux vivants, Wishin' and Hopin' barrels toward one outrageous Christmas.

From the Funicello family's bus-station lunch counter to the elementary school playground (with an uproarious stop at the Pillsbury Bake-Off), Wishin' and Hopin' is a vivid slice of 1960s life, a wise and witty holiday tale that celebrates where we've been—and how far we've come.

Time Machine Links Page

Gaby V. Iceman Updates

2009-11-13T09:47:00.000-08:00

Special thanks to our sponsors
listed as
heavyweights, middleweights, golden gloves and fans.

EDITOR'S NOTE:
Paul "Ding-a-Ling" Doyle has graciously agreed to take handoff from George "The Wolf" Kimball for sports writing workshop. Both guys worked the Dawson fight.

Doyle has been a sports reporter and columnist at The Hartford Courant for 20 years. A member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, he has been a baseball beat writer and most recently a general assignment reporter. He has also written for the Boston Globe and The Sporting News.

Gaby Heating Up Miami Beach ...

A Punch In The Face From Gaby "She Be Stinging" Calvocoressi

Odes To The Champ, Including Shankar Poem On Dawson Victory

The Iceman John Scully's Utube

Also @ gotpoetry.com

A Punch In The Face From Gaby "She Be Stinging" Calvocoressi

2009-11-13T03:25:00.000-08:00

APOCALYPTIC
SWING

Be prepared to be knocked out!
-- C. Dale Young, poetry editor, New England Review

A Little Taste Of Gaby Verse ...

Appearing @ Miami Book Fair

Calvocoressi reads from Apocalyptic Swing on Sunday, November 15 at 1:30 p.m. in Auditorium Pavilion C (Parking Lot #9), along with fellow poets Kelle Groom, Stacey Lynn Brown, and Helen Pruitt Wallace.

NEW: Gaby, Her Speed Bag, Miami Memories ...

We Can Only Expand the Boundaries When We\'re Up Against the Ropes ....

Guerilla Girls On Tour

AMAZON READER REVIEWS

Heartbreaking and glorious: a masterpiece.
By Josie Bliss (Brooklyn, NY USA)

poems about boxing, music, violence, sexuality, longing, love, race, Los Angeles, and the small towns of America. a heartbreaking - and ultimately redemptive - look at American culture in its danger and beauty. it reads almost like a short story collection; each poem is complex yet utterly readable, finely polished but wholly alive. i could almost feel the book breathing in my hands. if you love poetry, or if you have ever been curious about poetry but haven't found a way in, i couldnt recommend this book more highly. i'm grateful to Gabrielle Calvocoressi for bringing these poems into the world.

set in many locations
with a major nod to the world of boxing
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)

What's a punch in the face? "Apocalyptic Swing" is a collection of poetry from Gabrielle Calvocoressi which focuses on the tenacity of the human spirit. Set in many locations with a major nod to the world of boxing, "Apocalyptic Swing" is a moving and intriguing collection of poetry ...

A rising star in the poetry world
By Charles A., Fowler (Concord, MA)

If you like poetry, you'll love Gabrielle Calvocoressi's new collection, "Apocalyptic Swing." If you're not a poetry lover, read these gems and you'll become one.
This small volume - 69 pages - is divided into three parts: 21 short poems; a longer - 15 pages - story about the travails of a boxer, "Training Camp: Deer Lake, PA"; and ends with eight powerful poems with more boxing themes, brutality, sadness, spirit and survival.

Other words that come to mind in describing Ms. Calvocoriessi's poems are insightful, intriguing, disturbing, even a hint of salaciousness; all overlaid with a spirit of optimism.

Impatiently awaiting the great reviews
By PersimmonVillage

Calvocoressi's writing joins that pantheon of writers such as Levine, Gluck, and others who cut clean through pretension to reveal pictures of our world as we sometimes wish not to see it. And this is the beauty of her poems. They sway, and indeed swing, and stop the reader cold, and to the many voices that reside in her lines, Calvocoressi contributes her own sweet, mournful timbre. There isn't much that the reader won't feel after reading the last line of her book: "We are almost champions now." Amen to that. Calvocoressi champions the boxer, the beaten, the beloved, and the broken with frightening intensity and clear-minded truth. In nearly flawless form and phrase, she champions the map of our 20th/21st century America with a veneration that humbles us all. This is jazz, blood, bones, and grit, all somehow bearing a joyous refrain. Her work contains clippings straight from hospital wards, asylums, parents and priests -- such saviors, from Sister Perpetua to Mother to the man who "could have passed me by and saved yourself" may not, in the end, rescue anyone. One leaves feeling that in some essential way, Calvocoressi's poems about the fight to save the self have in fact saved us.

Ask This World To Remember
By Rangi McNeil

Calvocoressi's voice is rooted firmly in America. These thirty precise poems remind us of the body's holiness & its necessity. They speak of love: sometimes desperate, sometimes bloody - always hard-won & worth its cost.

Apocalyptic Swing is a mesmerizing & necessary respite from the four walls of our daily lives. Reading it will inspire you to do everything you do (write, sing, love, breathe), better.

Hartford Courant Post On CT Young Writers Triple Knockout Event

The Iceman John Scully's Utube

Also @ gotpoetry.com

Hartford Courant Post On CT Young Writers Triple Knockout Event

2009-11-12T13:11:00.000-08:00

The Connecticut Young Writers Trust kicks off its 13th year on Jan. 15, 2010 at The Hartford Club. Gaby Versus The Iceman is a CT Young Writers Triple Knockout Event: Prose, Poetry And Pugilism.

Courant Post Includes Gaby-Iceman Photo

Darien Public Library Notes Young Writers Competition, Triple Knockout Event

RUMBLE @ THE HARTFORD CLUB: Gaby Versus The Iceman, A CT Young Writers Triple Knockout Event ...

Odes To The Champ, Including Shankar Poem On Dawson Victory

The Hartford Club

Prospect Magazine

Jen Allen Big Band @ Twain House May 2009

Jen Allen Big Band @ Litchfield Inn June 2008

HBO Highlights Dawson V. Johnson

2009-11-11T14:17:00.000-08:00

-- Photo via Round1Mag.com

VIDEO: Dawson's Impact Punches / Combinations & Skillful Avoidance Of Johnson

All Roads Lead To Chad, But Can Anyone Touch Him?

Is Bad Chad Too Good? [Includes Scully Analysis]

Ode[s] To The Champ

A Little Bit Of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes / Spinners

2009-11-11T06:17:00.001-08:00

Illinois Prosecutors Harass Students In Feeble Effort To Save Face

2009-11-10T03:00:00.001-08:00

By RICHARD MEEHAN
The Cool Justice Report
www.cooljustice.blogspot.com
Nov. 10, 2009

EDITOR'S NOTE: This column is available for reprint courtesy of The Cool Justice Report, http://cooljustice.blogspot.com

Former Illinois Governor George Ryan, recognizing the horrific incidence of wrongful convictions in capital cases in his state, commuted the pending death row sentences to life imprisonment in 2003.

Ryan noted that half of the past 300 capital convictions in his state had been reversed for a new trial or resentencing. That, alone, was an indictment of the prosecutors in that state.

Enter Professor David Protess and his undergraduate investigative journalism class at Northwestern University. Protess' budding journalists signed on for demanding projects, investigating cases of possible wrongful convictions. Going way beyond the demands of the typical college course, these youngsters got out from behind their computers to do real life investigative journalism. They hit the streets, the shady bars and back alleys in hopes of finding possible witnesses to right what they perceived as major wrongs of our justice system. Through the years they succeeded in providing the groundwork for the reversal of 11 of 50 convictions -- including five awaiting execution on Illinois' death row!

So how do the prosecutors react?

In response to the work done by students investigating the conviction of Anthony McKinney, who was convicted of murder in 1978, the State's Attorney's office recently issued subpoenas for the students' grade records, expense reports, and other items in an apparent attempt to demonstrate some personal gain by these students.

Why?

Wouldn't committed college students strive for good grades? Does that lessen the impact of evidence that McKinney may have been the victim of a 30 year-old injustice?

McKinney claims that his confession at that time was coerced. The Innocence Project started at Cardozo Law School in Yeshiva University by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld to serve the same purpose. To date, 254 wrongfully convicted inmates have been exonerated. Most have spent years of their lives languishing in jail cells, forgotten by all but the closest relatives, dealing with the despair of knowing their lives have been forfeited. Imagine the desolation and sense of abandonment faced with each day that passes thinking no one really cares that you are innocent of the crime for which you have been imprisoned.

Cases like these and the 11 that Protess' students have pursued are not lightly reversed. The process is grueling. Even when evidence is established that casts serious doubt on the veracity of witnesses and the legitimacy of the verdict, there are monumental legal hurdles. The law favors finality. At some point these convictions become virtually unassailable.

Applications for a Writ of Habeas Corpus may be based on claims of actual innocence but reviewing courts are mandated to construe the evidence in a light most favorable to upholding a jury's verdict. Most challenges fail on this rigid legal standard.

But for the advent of modern DNA testing the Innocence Project would have had little success overturning so many wrong verdicts. Instead of the knee jerk reaction of these defensive prosecutors in Illinois looking to save face, perhaps they should be applauding the efforts of these students. They have succeeded in restoring the lives of 11 people who were left with little hope.

It appears instead that these lawyers are giving credence to the cynical maxim, "No good deed goes unpunished."

CNN: Students who question murder convictions under investigation

Medill Innocence Project

Bridgeport, CT attorney Richard Meehan Jr. was the lead defense counsel for former Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim's corruption trial. Meehan has been certified as a criminal trial specialist by the National Board of Trial Advocacy since 1994 and serves on the organization's Board of Examiners. He is a Charter Fellow, Litigation Counsel of America -- Trial Lawyer Honorary Society. Meehan has also obtained multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements in complex medical and dental malpractice and personal injury litigation. He is a past president of the Greater Bridgeport Bar Association and appears regularly on TruTv. His column also appears in the Sunday Norwich, CT Bulletin. Website, www.meehanlaw.com

Meehan law firm

Ode[s] To Chad The Champ

2009-11-09T10:11:00.000-08:00

-- Emily Harney/Fightwire Images

What a beautiful boxer Chad is. To see him use his shoulders to roll and tuck his chin behind while using a beautiful jab to keep his opponent on the outside, then allowing him to come in and eat the uppercuts. All I could think about was remembering Chad as a young 10 yr old boy fighting in our amateur program. I knew the boy would become the champ.
-- Joe Cusano [at right], professional referee

I enjoyed the cat and mouse of Dawson-Johnson. I appreciate any boxer that another boxer just can't hit. It is exciting to watch the clock tick and wonder if the dog will catch the rabbit before the final bell...

Execution is the key word there. That was flawless. Only a purist can really understand and LOVE that.

I loved it from beginning to end. Especially Chad's jab.

And Chad did show he was the best. Not knocking a guy out doesn't mean you aren't the best. If anything, beating a man by clear decision takes MUCH MORE SKILL than knocking someone out.

-- Iceman John Scully, trainer, ESPN analyst and former light heavyweight contender

The Way He Would Slip Punches
Like A Speedboat Navigating A Cove

By RAVI SHANKAR

Appalled and thrilled is what I wrote for its alliteration
but that was pure showmanship, shimmy shuffle
and shoulder roll, not true to the rapt attention I had
trying to pin the technical terms - jab and cross,
hook and uppercut - onto the bodies of two men
who glided across the roped off ring trying to land
blows. Watching the fight, I watched myself watch
the fight, noticing how in spite of myself raw sounds
gurgled up from my throat. Was it to help exhort
Bad Chad Dawson, New Haven's finest, rip into his older
opponent? Or in appreciation of the way he would
slip punches like a speedboat navigating a cove?
Perhaps it was a muscle memory of the only time
I stepped into the ring, with a buddy, to playfully
grapple, until I got hit with a roundhouse in the ear,
which clicked some primal button I could not unblink,
and charged with animal aggression I never suspected
I possessed, I dropped my good friend to his knees?
Or maybe finally it was being colonized by the crowd,
in synchronicity with the growls and curses that made
me yell out in spite of myself. I could have been in
Baghdad 7,000 years ago, where an archaeologist
discovered a Mesopotamian stone tablet engraved with
two boxers preparing to fight, else in 18th century London
eating meat pies and drinking ales while watching
a bare knuckle prize fight. Somehow each feint and parry,
each exchange of fists, encapsulated an essential
idea about brotherhood and brutality that I could not
put into the right words. All I know is that when the final
bell sounded, cauliflower ear and nerve-cell damage
in the periphery, the ring overrun with promoters, corner
men, men in tuxedos and blue latex gloves, cameras
on cranes, the ring girl in her low-cut dress, I was fixated
on the two fighters with their gloved hands raised in the air.
I was galvanized yet not quite satisfied. I wanted more.

Ravi Shankar, associate professor of English and poet-in-residence at Central Connecticut State University, attended his first professional boxing match on Nov. 7, 2009. Shankar will co-host a day and evening of poetry, prose and pugilism Jan. 15, 2010 at The Hartford Club.

Poised Chad Did What He Wanted

Dawson Still On Top

Review Of Shankar's Instrumentality

Darien Public Library Notes Young Writers Competition, Triple Knockout Event

-- Photo By Bob Thiesfield
For The Connecticut Young Writers Trust,
Courtesy Of The Hartford Club
Iceman John Scully And Poet Gaby Calvocoressi
Tune Up For Jan. 15, 2010 Hartford Club Event

RUMBLE @ THE HARTFORD CLUB: Gaby Versus The Iceman, A CT Young Writers Triple Knockout Event ...

Dawson Still On Top

2009-11-08T09:56:00.001-08:00

Cautious Chad Dominates Johnson

By GEORGE KIMBALL
The SweetScience.com

HARTFORD, Conn. -In a facile and largely untroubled performance in a fight he at no time seemed in any danger of losing, Chad Dawson took the measure of 40 year-old Glen Johnson and remained undefeated at 28-0, solidifying his claim as the world's best light-heavyweight. But he sure wasn't taking any chances.

On the other hand, when Dawson somewhat giddily proclaimed afterward "I had to put on a show for the home folks," some of the home folks seemed to be shaking their heads as if to say "Did he just say that?" That Bad Chad had just won a version of the 175-pound championship for the third time was indisputable, but that, at least on this evening, Chad was Bad at all remains somewhat open to dispute.

Photos Via Boxingscene.com

Boxingscene.com Report

Round-By-Round

Stinging, Slipping, Moving ...

Dawson – Johnson Final Pre-Fight Press Conference

2009-11-07T09:31:00.001-08:00

In an otherwise lively and festive event, Dawson and his crew donned new Yankee hats and “El Perro” Angulo passed out doggie treats to his opponent Yorgey before addressing the media.

Yorgey A Former Football Star

Dawson Family Saga

Looking To The Future

Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Dawson Trainer: "Bernard [Hopkins] wants no part of him."

Darien Public Library Notes Young Writers Competition, Triple Knockout Event

2009-11-06T13:56:00.001-08:00

The Connecticut Young Writers Competition is a great way to showcase your talent and maybe win cash prizes.

Chandra "Bonecrusher" Prasad Featured In CT Mag; To Appear Jan. 15 @ The Hartford Club For Young Writers Event

Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Dawson Trainer: "Bernard [Hopkins] wants no part of him."

2009-11-06T05:42:00.000-08:00

Via
The Sweet Science

“Bernard said he would fight the winner but I know how untrue that statement is. I have the young kid who is 27 and can box and can punch. Bernard wants no part of him. He wants to fight Old Roy. They don’t want to deal with what Chad brings. They don’t want anything to do with him.’’

Jeff Jacobs Hartford Courant Column

Weigh-In & Photo Gallery

Hopkins Interviewed

Light Heavyweight Division Has Plenty Of Solid Performers

Dawson Appreciates Starling Advice; Starling Enjoying Catholic Charities Job

Chad: I Bulked Up

The Media Workout

And In Springfield ...

DAWSON: “I can’t wait to get in the ring and shut him [Johnson] up … "

The Iceman John Scully's Utube

2009-11-05T06:03:00.000-08:00

It's my youtube channel...I have a few things on there already (CT Hall of Fame Announcement, etc)...but SOON I will have some VERY cool stuff for you to see....videos NO ONE has... you'll see, stay tuned...

ICE

Scully's Utube

RUMBLE @ THE HARTFORD CLUB: Gaby Versus The Iceman, A CT Young Writers Triple Knockout Event ...

Connecticut Young Writers Competition Seeking Entries in Prose and Poetry

Chandra "Bonecrusher" Prasad Featured In CT Mag; To Appear Jan. 15 @ The Hartford Club For Young Writers Event

Retired CT State Trooper Jerry Longo Reviews NYPD Bomb Squad Book