Mago Academy is happy to announce the April Poetry Salon, a spinoff project from the April Salon, Poets Lead the Goddess Feminist Activist Spirituality Movement.
Our presenting poets are Harriet Ann Ellenberger, Tamara Wyndham, Harita Meenee, Mary Saracino, and Sara Wright. Responding poets are Jsabél Bilqís and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang. Then, we will have an open floor time by inviting the audience participants to chime in with your insights, questions, or a poem to resonate with the voices of the featured poets.
The Poetry Salon marks the continuation of “Nine Poets Speak” as part of the Tri-Annual She Rises Poetry Salons. “The Nine Poets” does NOT refer to the designated figures but refers to an open circle of the poets whose poetry works are aligned with the Goddess Feminist Activist Spirituality Movement, a specific thread that began as the She Rises trilogy. The number nine refers to the Nature’s Way patterned through the Ninefold Cosmic Music, the creative force of the Matriverse (Maternally perceived universe), which is represented as the Nine Mago Creatrix (based on Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang’s research on Ceto-Magoism, the Whale-guided Way of Mago, the Creatrix).
Theme: Touching the Matriversal Root, Tell your story of intercomic becoming
When: July 18 (Sat) Noon – 1:30 PM PT (90 min)
Moderator: Mary Saracino
Featured Poets: Susan Hawthrone, Carolyn Lee Boyd, Louisa Cailo, Mary Saracino, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang (Open)
Participating Poets: Harriet Ann Ellenberger (Open)
Contents:
Presentations (each presents for about 10 min)
Respondences (each responds for 6 min)
Open Floor Time with the audience (15-20 min)
Presentation details are included at the end of this page.
Registration: Free of charge but registration required. Nonetheless, any amount of donation will be appreciated (enter your own amount).
Registration Questions: With your answers to below questions, email it to Dr. Helen Hwang (magoacademy@gmail.com):
- Your name (if you are new to the poetry salon)
- Contury of residence at the time of this salon
- What makes you interested in this Salon?
Featured Poets
Moderator Mary Saracino
Biography: Mary Saracino is a novelist, memoir writer, and poet. Her book of poetry, Motherlines, was published by Pearlsong Press in 2026. She is the author of four novels: Heretics: A Love Story, The Singing of Swans, No Matter What, and Finding Grace, and the memoir, Voices of the Soft-bellied Warrior. She co-edited (with Mary Beth Moser) She Is Everywhere! Volume 3: An anthology of writings in womanist/feminist spirituality (iUniverse 2012), which earned the 2013 Enheduanna Award for Excellence in Women-Centered Literature from Sofia University.
Presenting Poet Susan Hawthorne
Title: Unearthing lesbian roots
Summary: The roots of my poetry come from several sources. As an Australian, I learnt many decades ago about the Indigenous traditions of Australia, but I also learnt that while I live in this land, those stories and traditions are not mine to tell, and I respect that. In the 1970s, I read about archaeology, goddess traditions; the ones I came to know best are Greek and I studied Ancient Greek language, but I was booted out of academia for my analyses. I have no Greek heritage, but the Greek tradition informs much of western culture, so it is open to me to some extent. Two decades later I began to study Sanskrit and that has
also informed my poems. Most of all I have been inspired by lesbian poets from Sappho to HD to Monique Wittig,
Judy Grahn, Susan Griffin, Olga Broumas, Audre Lorde, Nicole Brossard and others. Here, finally, I feel comfortable with unearthing a lesbian-centric history. I will note from which book I am reading and the year published. Judy Grahn, you will hear references to your poems in two of the poems I am reading today. The Butterfly Effect (2005) ‘Empurpled’ pp. 19-25. This prose poem sequence includes footnotes which point to references drawn on in the poems. Empurpled is one poem of a sequence called ‘Unstopped Mouths’ in which I am digging into the roots of lesbian culture. The next two poems are from books I wrote while on writing residencies in India (Cow) and Rome (Lupa and Lamb) Cow (2011) ‘What we say about exile’ pp. 99-101. All the poems in Cow are written by a lesbian cow called Queenie. This is a poem in which cows replace lesbians as objects of hate. Lupa and Lamb (2014) p. 120. ‘underground’ In this poem I mention Curatrix an imaginary keeper of ancient lesbian texts and artifacts.
Biography: Susan Hawthorne is the author of nine collections of poetry, among them The Butterfly Effect
(2005), Cow (2011), Lupa and Lamb (2014), The Sacking of the Muses (2019) and other
works of lesbian imagination including novels, The Falling Woman (1992/2004) Limen
(2013) and Dark Matters (2017). She is currently working on a hybrid poetry/fiction work
with the following characters and settings: a Scythian Amazon lesbian, the Pythian oracle,
Sappho’s Lesbos and an ecofeminist poet in contemporary tropical Queensland.
Presenting Poet Carolyn Lee Boyd
Title: The Circle of Generations: Timeless, Bound by Love, Never-Ending
Summary: Each of us is profoundly connected through our bodies, minds, and souls to our motherline, our bodily and ethereal “Matriversal root.” As individuals or as a generation, we may feel alienated and alone while facing our globe’s existential challenges. However, in reality we may be both bolstered by and provide nurturing to interlocking circles of our past, present, and future motherkin connected by DNA, our affection and affiliation, and our dwelling on the same Earth. My presentation is a poetic exploration of the lives of three genealogically-related women from the Upper Paleolithic, 17th century, and contemporary era desperately sending messages to their descendants to create awareness of and celebrate Earth’s magnificence while struggling to hold onto the Earth-based lifeways that can either save or destroy us. We will, together, share in the women’s out-of-time-and-space Matriversal community and so become more aware of our own place in our motherkin web.
Biography: Carolyn Lee Boyd has published poetry, essays, reviews, and fiction in women’s spirituality, feminist, arts, and literary magazines online and in print for 40 years. Most recently, she is focusing on bringing community building lessons from Matriversal and other cultures to contemporary western cities, towns, and organizations through a novel featuring snakes, a magic lake, and cherry pie and a non-fiction book for community builders of all kinds. This work brings together knowledge of globally and temporally diverse communities with her 30 years of experience as a local and state-level public health professional and human services administrator.
Presenting Poet Louisa Calio
Title: The Mother in some of many glorious forms
Summary: The first poem I will read comes from The Divine Mother and Isis specifically as I experienced her when she came and transformed my life moving me from the mother in the personal and old religious ideas of Mary and Eve to the archetype offering both an ancient image/experience of Mother as powerful source as well as a new creative contemporary mother in the making. I will also read 2 poems of power that SHE the great mother inspired. The Second is a set of poems about my human mother, Rosa M. Calio who was an enigmatic inspiration and a painful experience of suffering. Rosa M. Calio was both a large influence and many lessons on my journey. The last poem is Mother as the Earth inspired by Nature and my life in Jamaica. Tell Your Story poem), not necessarily what you are going to do (up to 150 words). That is: what message do your poems deliver to the world? “THERE IS SOMETHING wonderful happening. One could call it a reclamation of something lost or forgotten, certainly something distorted and suppressed. It comes by many names: Moon Goddess or Divine Mother, the feminine consciousness and yin spirit. It is the half of divine consciousness omitted in traditional worship of the Father God under 2000 years of patriarchy. SHE is reemerging today as the result of the inner work of a growing number of women scholars, artists etc. who, while in search of themselves their heritages and ancient goddesses, amid confusion of masculine and feminine roles in their own time, came upon a larger vision for all time – a mystical feminine revelation that is transforming our lives and world. We are the carriers and story tellers of this event in the making through us, our raw honesty, truth and daring explorations.” Louisa Calio Rebirth of the Goddess
Biography: Louisa Cailo is an internationally published, award winning author, photographer and arts advocate whose work has been translated into Sicilian, Italian, Tigrinya, Russian and Korean. Winner: Renaissance Award 2022, Connecticut Commission on the Arts Award to Writers,1978; 1st Prize for Poetry City of Messina, Sicily (2013),1st Prizes” (202, 2017 20191)Il Parnasso Internationale, Canicatti, Sicily or poetry; etc. Honored by Barnard as “A Feminist Who Changed America 2nd Wave(1963-75). Director of the Poet’s Piazza, Hofstra University for 12 years,( 2000-2012) Co- Founder and first Executive Director of City Spirit Artists, Inc. New Haven, Ct (1976-1986). Her recent book Journey to the Heart Waters was published in 2014 by Legas Press. For info see Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisa_Calio
Responding Poet Helen Hye-Sook Hwang Ph.D.
Dr. Hwang is a researcher, author, and advocate of Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way of the Creatrix) and has recently established the MA/PhD. program as well as Lifetime Education Certificate Programs in Creatrix Studies. Having achieved an MA and Ph.D. in Religion with emphasis on Feminist Studies (Claremont Graduate University), Hwang studied an M.A. program at UCLA. Having founded The Mago Work, Hwang has recently launched the S/HE Conference and the S/HE Forum in 2024. She authored, co-edited, and published by Mago Books Reader: Toward Magoist Cetaceanism (2023), The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia (2015), Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar annually since 2018, and the Budoji Workbook series since 2020, Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (2018), Celebrating Intercosmic Kinship of the Goddess (2023), the She Rises trilogy series (2015, 2016, and 2019), and Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (2017).
Participating Poet Harriet Ellenberger
Harriet Ann Ellenberger (aka Harriet Desmoines) was a co-founding editor of Sinister Wisdom, which is now in its fiftieth year of publishing. She has participated in many feminist projects since 1970. Her book, The Ones You Love: Poetry and Prose, 1968-2024, is available for free at akadesmoines@gmail.com. She lives in Hartland, New Brunswick, Canada.
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