Writer/musician/performer Phyllis Capello is a 1992 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in fiction and winner of an Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award. Her poem “For Jenny and Evelyn Who Were Playing When the Stoop Collapsed” was included in Reading, Writing and Reacting, a college literary textbook (Heinle, 2004). In June 2004 she presented “On the Breath” (her program of stories and songs about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire) at the International Oral History Conference in Rome, Italy. In 2003, Blue Pencil Publishing, Kolkata, India, published her poem “Overture” in Families: a Journal of Representations. Her poem “The King of Sicily” appeared in Legendaria (2004). Her essay “I Denti Famiglia” appeared in Creative Nonfiction and in the anthology Our Roots Are Deep with Passion (Other Press, 2006). Her work appears in the anthologies Don’t Tell Mama (Penguin, 2002), The Milk of Almonds (Feminist Press, 2002), The Dream Book (Schocken, 1985 and 1987; Feminist Press edition, 2003), From the Margin (Purdue University Press, 1991 and 1992), The Voices We Carry (Guernica Press, 1994), and Journey Into Motherhood; and in the literary magazines the New York Quarterly, the Little Magazine, Mothering, and the Paterson Literary Review. Her poem series “Hospital Quartet” appeared in the online journal Literary Mama and was chosen for the “best of” anthology of the same name. Her poem series “Careless Love” was featured in the special Italian-American women authors issue of VIA: Voices in Italian Americana. Her poems have appeared in The Limit of Miracles (Bergin & Garvey, 1984). Critic Edvidge Giunta mentions her work in Where Love Leaves Us (University of Iowa Press, 1996) and in Persephone’s Daughters (Routledge, 2004). Phyllis’ one-woman show Careless Love: Rescued by the Blues premiered at New York City’s The Kitchen.

Also known as Ukulele Lady, Phyllis performs for hospitalized children and their families with Big Apple Circus Clown Care. She teaches poetry writing and music to students, including children with special needs, in many NYC schools with Teachers & Writers Collaborative, Henry Street Settlement, the New York City Ballet Education Department, and the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. She gives pre-school music programs and family concerts for clients such as the Prospect Park and Battery Park City Conservancies, the Brooklyn Public Library, Open House, and many other community and cultural institutions. Her storytelling series was included in the Brooklyn Museum’s centennial celebration. She’s traveled from Ireland to Istanbul as an educational consultant on seven family cruises.

E-mail Phyllis at theukelady@aol.com.