PRESENT TENSE IMPERFECT – ARTIST BIOS
FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016
Mark Flanigan (Cincinnati, OH) is a poet, performer, columnist, fiction writer, and screenwriter.
After an 11-year run, many of his “Exiled” columns are now archived at semantikon.com and
citybeat.com, while a compilation, Exiled on Main Street: Dispatches, Diatribes, Stories and
More from the Urban Core, is forthcoming in 2016.
Previously, his volume of poetry, Journeyman’s Lament, appeared in the Aurore Press
publication, Versus, and his free e-book, Minute Poems, is available online from Three Fools
Press. In January 2014, Flanigan co-founded a monthly open/feature reading, Word of Mouth
Cincinnati, and in November 2015 his poem “The Bell Ringer’s Song” won the grand prize in the
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s One City, One Symphony Poetry Contest.
Yvette Nepper lives and writes in the city she loves, Cincinnati, OH. Her chapbook, 26 Poems
for Grown Ups and Children, was published by Perfect Lovers Press in 2013. She has since
started manufacturing her own work through different mediums, including poems written on
dollar bills, a series of poem-stamped postcards, and the zine, You're the Same Age as I Am, I
Love You. Collaborations with musical artists can be found at yvettenepper.bandcamp.com.
Desirae Hosley (aka The Silent Poet) and the Teen Poets of WordPlay Cincy Scribes:
WordPlay Cincy is a creative writing and learning center for children that is dedicated to
transforming community through innovation and education. Serving K-12 students from across
Cincinnati in an inspiring, creatively quirky Northside Cincinnati home, they provide free
academic support and creative programming for more than 150 children and teens each week.
Their weekly Scribes workshop, an upbeat and welcoming community open to students ages 13
and above, meets every Saturday to explore poetry, creative self-expression, and performance.
Scribes is led by WordPlay's artist-in-residence, Desirae Hosley, also known as The Silent Poet.
Desirae is a seasoned spoken word artist and poet who works magic leading the Scribes as
they dive into the world of rhyme and rhythm.
For more information, www.wordplaycincy.org or (513) 541-0930.
Jay Bolotin, a visual artist, filmmaker, and songwriter, was born in Lexington, KY, in 1949. He
now lives in Cincinnati, OH. His work is included in many public and private collections including
the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Australian
National Museum, and the Smith College Museum of Art. The Cincinnati Art Museum will exhibit
The Book of Only Enoch, a new portfolio of prints, beginning in September 2016. Musically, he
has written film scores, an opera, and songs. A collection of his earlier songs from the 1970s,
most produced by Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard, will be released by
The Delmore Recording Society in 2017.
Film Excerpts from The Peach Mountain Psalms:
Circa the late 1990s, writer/director Aralee Strange—with attendant cast, crew and equipment—
descended on southern Ohio to begin principal photography for The Peach Mountain Psalms.
Television legend Soupy Sales and Tony-nominated actress Jane Summerhays are featured in
the film.
The film’s original title was This Train and featured a restored steam passenger train from the
1930s. Shooting locations included Kentucky, rural southeastern Ohio country churches, tent
revivals, rivers, and deep woods, as well as urban street scenes and café interiors in Cincinnati.
Artist/composer Jay Bolotin wrote the score for the film, which was influenced by the melodic
squeals of the shunting yard (the third largest freight yard in the country) below his house in
North Fairmont, a neighborhood of Cincinnati.
A new and final edit of the film, which was being worked on by Aralee Strange when she passed
away in 2013, is expected to be completed by Owsley Manier by 2018.
Owsley Manier cofounded Nashville’s music venue, the Exit/In, in 1971. As talent coordinator
through 1981, he featured many artists who were unknown at the time. Steve Martin performed
there, as did Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, and a who’s who of various musical genres.
Manier was a partner in a Nashville recording studio, and has recorded numerous live shows in
London and stateside. He was the mixing engineer for several Jay Bolotin projects including
Aralee Strange’s NPR Radio Play, Etta Stone: A Film for Radio, and the score for The Peach
Mountain Psalms.
In the 1990s Manier cofounded Winter Harvest Entertainment, a Nashville-based independent
label which released eleven albums, including works by Mickey Newbury, Steve Earle, and
Vassar Clements.
He has directed and edited numerous long-form videos, including concerts by Mickey Newbury
and John Kay & Steppenwolf.
Aralee Strange (1943-2013) was a poet/playwright whose body of work included Etta Stone: A
Film for Radio (1990), which she wrote, produced and edited at WGUC-FM, Cincinnati (aired
nationally on NPR stations, included in WGBH’s Arts & Ideas series); dr. pain on main (1991), a
play based on her series of poems by the same name, commissioned and produced by
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park; The Chronicles of Plague (1992), commissioned and
produced by Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati; An Evening at the Sad Cafe (1995), selected
scenes from her screenplay, This Train, directed and performed at Ensemble Theatre of
Cincinnati and Carnegie Arts Center; This Train, feature film (1996-2001) wrote, directed, and
edited.
Strange also pioneered several open poetry readings and read regularly at regional venues.
Awards and fellowships included the MacDowell Colony, the Kentucky Foundation for Women,
the City of Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Fine Arts Fund, and the Ohio Arts Council.
Prior to moving to Ohio, Strange, a native of Birmingham, AL, lived and worked in Atlanta, GA,
Cambridge, MA, and New York, NY. Strange moved to Athens, GA, in March 2007 and lived
there until her death in June 2013. The last reading series she founded, Athens Word of Mouth,
continues to this day, much like her legacy.
Elese Daniel bounds between hedonism and boredom—existing in mouthfuls of doldrums and
desires. She received a B.A. in journalism at the University of Cincinnati; currently works for a
politician; serves as a board member of Chase Public—author of Seven Hills and a Queen to
Name Them, a poem in collaboration with the ArtWorks CincyInk Project. Elese lives on top of a
hill and enjoys riding her bicycle down it.
Cincinnati, OH, band Jack Burton Overdrive (JBO) formed in 2006 based on the concept of
playing unique arrangements of their favorite songs with stylized vocals circling a simple
concertina and ukulele core. Concertina player Nick Barrows (JetLab) and rhythm ukulist Jack
Rininger honed their skills on their own vision of the Great American Songbook, working up
arrangements from such disparate sources as Elvis (“Suspicious Minds”), Radiohead (“Creep”),
and Cincinnati faves, Wussy (“Airborne”).
With the addition of classically trained guitarist John Stork in 2011, JBO journeyed into writing
originals. The trio grabbed drummer Dave Welsh (JetLab, FrogMan) and a sonic union was
formed synthesizing their divergent musical tastes and inspirations.
In the winter of 2014, JBO went into the studio with Ben Cochran at Soap Floats Recording.
Pulling from their collective memory of the sounds and experiences from their youth in Clifton,
Northside, Downtown, and OTR, the resulting album Tarbell Street strives to capture the late
night freedom of wandering Cincinnati’s vibrant entertainment districts while following the
different sounds emanating from the lively nightclubs and bars. The digital sneak preview of
Tarbell Street gained some notice, landing JBO in the top five of the “local indie” genre on
Reverbnation and scoring them a featured spot on NPR’s Car Talk with the song “Service
Light.”
With no genre off-limits, JBO pulled from many influences: REM, Ben Folds, Weird Al, Dire
Straits, Nick Lowe, and They Might Be Giants, to name a few. JBO prides itself on enjoying the
performance and nuanced arrangement of every song. Unique storytelling, driving
instrumentation and off-the-wall lyrics give JBO its own special sound. From Americana to Prog,
JBO leaves no musical stone unturned.
SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2016
See Mark Flanigan above.
Steven Proctor is a father, husband, musician, writer, and woodworker. He has been playing
guitar, writing, collaborating, performing and recording for more than 30 years. Steve’s passion
for all things music-related runs deep and has never waned, although cabinet-making has
become his profession. His 34 years of experience encompass an expertise in woodworking,
designing and building, as well as construction. He also has a plethora of knowledge about
wood species and properties. Fatherhood and family life have shown him many rewards,
coupled with a large amount of character building.
Mark and Steve have been collaborating since 2001. Present Tense Imperfect marks their first
live performance together since 2007.
Miss Terri Ford is a graduate of the M.F.A. Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College in
Asheville, NC. She’s been a fellow at Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, a summer resident of the
Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, through the Ohio Arts Council, and the recipient of
several grants. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Conduit, Forklift, Ohio and many
other journals. She is the author of Why the Ships Are She (Four Way, 2001) and Hams
Beneath the Firmament (Four Way, 2007). She once made a friend laugh so hard that her
tampon fell out.
See WordPlay Teen Poets above.
Matt Hart is the author of five books of poems, Who's Who Vivid (Slope Editions, 2006), Wolf
Face (H_NGM_N Books, 2010), Light-Headed (BlazeVOX, 2011), Sermons and Lectures Both
Blank and Relentless (Typecast Publishing, 2012), and Debacle Debacle (H_NGM_N Books,
2013), as well as several chapbooks. More recently he collaborated with artist Ken Henson on
Blue Jay Slayer, a book of art and poetry collisions (Aurore Press, 2016), and his book-length
poem, Radiant Action, is forthcoming from H_NGM_N Books. Additionally, his poems, reviews
and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous print and online journals including
The Academy of American Poets online, Big Bell, Cincinnati Review, Coldfront, Columbia
Poetry Review, H_NGM_N, Harvard Review, Jam Tarts Magazine, jubilat, Kenyon Review
online, Lungfull! and POETRY, among others.
His awards include a Pushcart Prize, a 2013 individual artist grant from The Shifting Foundation,
and fellowships from both the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Warren Wilson College
M.F.A. Program for Writers. A cofounder and the editor-in-chief of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of
Poetry, Cooking & Light Industrial Safety, he lives in Cincinnati where he is Associate Professor
in Creative Writing and the Chair of Liberal Arts at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. He plays
guitar and shouts in the band TRAVEL.
See Film Excerpts from The Peach Mountain Psalms above.
Kathy Y. Wilson is a multi-hyphenated nerd: a writer-teacher-closet-poet-community-workerplaywright and sometimes, for the right audience, she will bust a rhyme.
Known largely in sleepy Cincinnati as the author of the incendiary column “Your Negro Tour
Guide,” and the book of the same title, listeners nationwide know her for her National Public
Radio commentaries on All Things Considered. Still more audiences know Wilson for the
eponymous stage play adapted from her book.
Born in Hamilton, OH, Wilson has observed white people for 50 years and has won accolades
for it from the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists, The Cleveland Press Club, the
Associated Press Society of Ohio, was twice a Fellow at the Knight Center for Professional
Journalists, and was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for her profile of Bill Cunningham.
She sometimes works on her next book, Do You Know Who I Think I Am? Curiosities of a
Colored Woman’s America. In September 2014, the Library Foundation of the Public Library of
Cincinnati and Hamilton County named her its first-ever writer-in-residence.
The IdleAires (Cincinnati, OH) are a communications service and information dissemination
apparatus operating as a rock-and-roll ensemble and comprised of former members of the Short
Vine sensations Bulgarian NiteLife, avant-noise onslaught FlySweater, and punk-blues
powerhouse Pearlene.
While these agents have graced stages from Corryville to Coachella—and performed with the
likes of Los Angeles post-punk legends Thelonious Monster, among others—their performance
for Present Tense Imperfect marks the public debut of the IdleAires, and is dedicated to the
memory and legacy of Bulgarian Nitelife guitarist Peter Fulton Riffle.