This article appeared in the March 5, 2003 Cambridge Chronicle.

CCTV airs local female poets for Women’s Day

By Susie Davidson

CORRESPONDENT

“We try to celebrate International Women's Day with something different every year,” said Cambridge Woman Heritage Project spokesperson Mary Leno. This March 8, they have invited women poets to read in a cablecast at CCTV’s Channel 9.

Beginning at 1 p.m., viewers will be able to catch some of Cambridge’s finest female wordsmiths in a broadcast which will be repeated during this Women’s History Month. The women selected to participate will be subsequently included in a Heritage database, a record of creative women from the area.

The Cambridge Women's Commission and Cambridge Historical Commission co-sponsor the the Cambridge Women's Heritage Project, which is creating a Cambridge Women's Heritage Trail in honor of the multiethnic and socioeconomically diverse women of the city, past and present, and their contributions to its cultural life. The Project is promoted through receptions, slide shows, walking tours, and its Web site, www.ci.cambridge.ma.us/~Historic/womenshistory.html.

“We usually sponsor a lecture or roundtable discussion about women's history or contemporary women's issues on Women’s Day,” said Cambridge Historical Commission’s Designated Property Administrator Sarah Burks. This year, they felt they could reach an even larger audience through the cable broadcast. “CCTV was very generous; they helped us plan the program and provided studio space for us,” she said.

"CCTV is excited to host the live International Women's Day program,” said Cambridge Community Television’s Executive Director Susan Fleischmann. “In this time of violence and fear, it is especially important that the thoughtful and courageous voices of women be heard,” she noted.

The Cambridge Women's Heritage Project began as a 1996 grassroots community effort to recognize poet May Sarton, and culminated with the dedication of a tree and plaque in her honor at the Cambridge Public Library's main branch. As the group expanded to mark the contributions of other Cambridge women, several members founded the Cambridge Women's Heritage Project Advisory Committee.

In 1997, the Committee, in collaboration with Lesley College, organized a bus tour of historic and contemporary women's sites in Cambridge. Community programs celebrating women of various neighborhoods have also been held at locales including the Pisani Center of the Newtowne Court/Washington Elms public housing community, the Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House, and the East End House.

Information and nominations, for women's organizations and individual women both living and deceased, famous or locally-known, are presently being collected for the Cambridge Women's Heritage Trail database. It will be made available on the internet; special recognition will be granted to selected honorees. Judging from the success of this year’s Women’s Day event, enthusiasm appears to be there for the Project’s initiatives.

“The public response to our request for participation by female poets was so great that we had to expand the length of the program to accommodate more poets,” said Burks.

Boston Globe City Weekly writer Ellen Steinbaum, whose City Type column reflects the city as seen by its poets and writers, will participate in the reading. Her poems delve into human loss. “My 2001 book Afterwords was written during my husband’s illness and after his death,” she said, noting that “winter's dark days seem to carry echoes of loss, and hints of spring's renewal.” Steinbaum will be reading along with Susan Donnelly at the Cambridge Public Library on March 20, and will be joined by a veritable legion of literary cohorts on March 8.

“There was such a huge reponse, it will actually last more than three hours,” corroborated Leno.

It is anticipated that the participants will fill the hours with quality work. “I'm looking forward to the event and to hearing the poetry of these talented Cambridge women and girls,” said Burks.

The Cambridge Woman Heritage Project’s International Women’s Day Festival Cable TV poetry program will be broadcast on Cambridge Cable TV on March 8, in celebration of International Woman's Day. The program will be live from 1-5 p.m. on Channel 9, and repeated from 7:30-11:30 p.m. Other repeats will be scheduled throughout the month of March. For information, please contact Mary Leno at 617-349-4697, or email mleno@ci.cambridge.ma.us.