Sunday, May 27, 2012

THE GHOST OF OSSIE VITT: A Red Shuttleworth Poetry Chapbook



The Ghost of Ossie Vitt

a one poem chapbook

by

Red Shuttleworth


In the course of working on a book-length manuscript of poems based on the "Happy Birthday" and "Ghost of..." poems, plus the bio-sketch poems from the Brief Lives chapbook, it seemed that the Ossie Vitt poem was not going to make the cut... for various reasons.  But I like the poem....

So... The Ghost of Ossie Vitt is now available as a limited edition (44 numbered and signed copies) chapbook.

Decades ago, poet / watercolorist Jim Hubert and I went down to Palo Alto to visit Kenneth Patchen's widow, Miriam.  She showed us a few homemade, with beautiful painted covers, chapbooks that Patchen made from sheets of thin cardboard... the kind inserted at the backs of shirts by dry cleaning stores.  I believe that Miriam Patchen sold or donated her collection of Kenneth Patchen's homemade books to Stanford University.

In this ugly epoch of ebooks and ejournals put out by inelegant folks, literary phonies, it makes a kind of sense to rebel and put out, even by self-publication occasionally, a chapbook using good paper... if only for a few friends.

Having a blog is a kind of  cave-in to au currant technology, yes.  So I am not without literary guilt.

Ossie Vitt was a man of a far different age.  He was a tough old man when I met him.  He'd played on the Tigers with Ty Cobb.  Cobb and Vitt were old school baseball men.  By 1940, the boys who would be The Greatest Generation were too soft and spoiled for the likes of Ossie Vitt and Ty Cobb. Vitt's 1940 Cleveland Indians, including future Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, whined to ownership about Vitt being a hard-ass manager, one quick to blame, one who never praised.  When I met Vitt, as a student at the San Francisco Examiner Baseball School around 1959, I taunted him about the Indians firing him.  He growled back... about my deplorable fielding.  Good days.  The poem, the chapbook arrive out of memory.  Rest in Peace, Ossie Vitt.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Jessi Shuttleworth and Scabland Productions: FEBRUARY

Jessi Shuttleworth

 SCABLAND PRODUCTIONS...

February





Scabland Productions is a New York film production company dedicated to telling singular stories about characters with grit, backbone, and depth.  Scabland Productions collaborates with film artists to create cinematic visions that are revealing, raw, and honest.


The web site for Scabland Productions is: www.scablandproductions.com



Jessi Shuttleworth who has performed in film, television, and on stage, is completing the screenwriting program at American Film Institute.  Jessi Shuttleworth is on IMDb.




Jessi Shuttleworth


Jessi Shuttleworth is the youngest daughter of poet/playwright Red Shuttleworth.


The first film from Scabland Productions, FEBRUARY, filmed in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and in sagebrush-and-rock central Washington, premiered at the 2015 Sedona International Film Festival.




February

(check www.scablandproductions.com for updates)




The cast for FEBRUARY includes:


AIDAN GASBARRO




HAYLEY GASBARRO




CHRISTOPHER HALLADAY




KATHERINE HILER




PATRICK HUSTED



CRISTEN HEMINGWAY JAYNES


ETHAN PHILLIPS




BRIAN ROQUE


DAN SHAKED




JESSI SHUTTLEWORTH


PHYLLIS SOMERVILLE


BILL TUCKER






PRODUCTION STAFF (a  partial list) for FEBRUARY:

CATHY HURST
Executive Producer


CIARA SHUTTLEWORTH
Producer


MICHAEL SWAIGEN
Director of Photography


HOLLY BOARDMAN
Set Decoration


TAYLOR BALTIMORE
Key Makeup Artist


ANNE MULHALL
Casting





Photographs from the Production of FEBRUARY:


Jessi Shuttleworth




Katherine Hiler and Phyllis Somerville




Haley Gasbarro, Jessi Shuttleworth, and Aidan Gasbarro





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Latest Update: May 27, 2018

Friday, May 18, 2012

WHAT DESIRE IT WAS: A Chapbook Poetry Anthology





What Desire It Was was published by Bunchgrass Press in a limited edition ( 29 numbered copies).  Each copy was signed by the four included poets.

What Desire It Was features poems by Barry McKinnon, Ciara Shuttleworth, Luke Shuttleworth, and Red Shuttleworth.