Mount Ida author Branch Isole will be this week's feature for Wednesday Night Poetry at Kollective Coffee+Tea, 110 Central Ave. The regular open mic session for all poets will begin at 6:30 p.m. and Isole will perform at 7 p.m., followed by another open mic. Admission is free and open to all ages.
According to a news release, Isole is the author of 22 books, 15 of which are part of his "Poetic Prose" series, which are collections of short stories. "All of them reveal characters, plots and situations familiar to every reader," said Isole. "Some strike a chord, others may touch a nerve. The power of personal responsibility, or its avoidance, is a central theme of my writing."
He was born in Osaka, Japan, because his father was in the Air Force and part of the American occupation of Japan following World War II. "From there we went on to live in lots of places around the world."
This past November Isole and his wife moved from the Virginia Beach area to Mount Ida. "A few years ago, after my retirement, we started traveling around the central part of the United States looking for a place to settle down after my wife retired. Within 20 minutes of our arrival in Hot Springs the first time, my wife had fallen in love. We bought a house in Mount Ida because it was similar in size to a town we lived in back in Hawaii that was also situated near a town like Hot Springs," he said.
In his adult years Isole has been a high school and middle school history and economics teacher before moving on to be an assistant principal in Texas. Then he started selling textbooks and eventually moved up into the administrative end of the publishing industry. Over the years he has shared his writing and publishing experience at book fairs, writers conferences, writers groups, and high school and college classes. Forty-one poems from his books have been reprinted by magazines and other publications.
Isole describes himself as a voyeuristic poet. "Most of my poetry is not about me. It's about what I see in other people and their circumstances. They are stories about my observations of the fundamentals of the human experience," he said. "Except my poems about sex. Those are about my own experience."
He subscribes to what he calls the 3R method to poetry. "The poems must be readable, relatable and real. They should be about issues that the reader can easily identify with and inspire reflection."
Isole will have books for sale Wednesday night. They also are available on his website at www.branchisole.com.
Email [email protected] for more information about Wednesday Night Poetry.
Entertainment on 09/13/2017