tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22256973284435313612024-03-13T00:35:24.473-04:00Poetry MattersPoetry Book Reviews and InterviewsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger110125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-31792439626673875682021-01-12T09:26:00.000-05:002021-01-12T09:26:06.170-05:00Review of Cathryn Essinger’s "The Apricot and the Moon" <p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 18pt; mso-no-proof: yes;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 18pt; mso-no-proof: yes;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifixFWQz3l3H7OGSYV-P9h_iJYTV2W4dRxI0PPt97NmNrJie1Rh1vkjX7qQMavkhrpOh5-8mKjfcxQUPhk7vXGD6MtSigq2Kxy_RRq8NbvaVK961AThzFL4DNNMBTQhQQA37tiCNfKwK8-/s2048/The+Apricot+an+the+moon00000000000000000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifixFWQz3l3H7OGSYV-P9h_iJYTV2W4dRxI0PPt97NmNrJie1Rh1vkjX7qQMavkhrpOh5-8mKjfcxQUPhk7vXGD6MtSigq2Kxy_RRq8NbvaVK961AThzFL4DNNMBTQhQQA37tiCNfKwK8-/s320/The+Apricot+an+the+moon00000000000000000.jpg" /></a></span></b></div><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 18pt; mso-no-proof: yes;"><br />The Apricot and the Moon</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 18pt;">by Cathryn
Essinger<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16pt;">Dos Madres Press,
2020<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="https://www.dosmadres.com/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">https://www.dosmadres.com/</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">ISBN: 978-1-948017-78-7<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">79 pages<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">__________<o:p></o:p></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: left;">The following biography is from Dos
Madres Press’ website: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;"> </span></div></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">“</span><span style="color: #272c30;">Cathryn Essinger lives in Troy,
Ohio where she raises butterflies and tries to live up to her dog’s
expectations of her.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #272c30; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">She is the author of
three previous books of poetry–<i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">A Desk in the Elephant House</span></i>,
from Texas Tech University Press, <i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">My Dog Does Not Read Plato,</span></i> and <i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">What I Know About Innocence</span></i>, both from Main Street Rag.
Her third book contains a video poem based on the way a community remembers a
local murder. The video was produced by Cathryn’s son, Dave Essinger. </span><span style="color: #272c30; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #272c30; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Essinger’s poems have
appeared in a wide variety of journals, including <i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Poetry</span></i>, <i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">The Southern Review</span></i>, <i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">The New England Review</span></i>, <i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Rattle</span></i>,
and <i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">River Styx</span></i>. Her poems have been nominated for
Pushcarts and “Best of the Net,” featured on <i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">The Writer’s Almanac</span></i>,
and reprinted in<i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> American Life in Poetry</span></i>. </span><span style="color: #272c30; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #272c30; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Currently, Essinger is
a retired English Professor and a long standing member of the Greenville Poets.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>__________</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">I
met Cathryn Essinger only once, ten years ago, when I attended a 2010 poetry
reading and workshop given by the Greenville Poets at Grailville </span><span style="background: white; text-align: left;">Retreat and Program Center near Loveland, Ohio.</span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">
She’s a Facebook friend, and I always enjoy the poems she posts when they are
published in various journals. When I saw her post announcing she had a new
book coming out from Dos Madres Press, I knew I’d want to read it. We also
share the publisher Dos Madres Press in common. Two of my poetry collections
were published by them. </span><span style="background-color: white; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">—</span><i style="background-color: white; mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Karen
L. George</i></p><p style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">__________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; text-align: left;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Review of </span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; text-align: left;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cathryn
Essinger’s <i>The Apricot and the Moon</i></span></u></b><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cathryn
Essinger’s new collection, <i>The Apricot and the Moon,</i> is an exploration
and meditation on abundance, fragility, and loss; creation, imagination, and
memory; time, seasons, and cycles; beauty, mystery, and magic. T</span><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 107%; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">he poems are inhabited by connections to the
moon, sun, water, and wind; family, friends, and neighbors; animals and flora. They
resonate with a complex blend of longing, vulnerability, tenderness, reverence,
and </span></em><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">possibility.
</span><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 107%; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">I was first drawn into the collection by its title, the fact that it’s
dedicated to “the Moon, our closest neighbor and most steadfast friend,” and
the tiny gem of the beginning poem titled “Envy,” that sets the stage for the first
section titled “She Said the Word Moon…”: </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The moon climbs</span></em></p><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; padding: 0in;"><span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span>until she can see</span></em></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>into every attic
window.</span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">So I wasn’t surprised to see the moon appear in so many of the poems—an
ever-present essence, like a main character in a novel. In the second poem titled
“For the Birds,” the “I” of the poem buys a squash whose flesh she says is
“pale / as the new moon, and an aroma so seminal / that it stains all thought.”
The words “seminal” and “seeds” offer the moon as a symbol of fertility, an
image that repeats throughout this collection.</span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The poem opens with the delightful interplay between a farmer’s market
grocer who is compelled to give a Bible lesson on the “Crown of Thorns” squash,
and the buyer whose “sympathy is / with the squash, whose nature has been
hijacked / by religion.” There is such an earthy reverence and a sense of
wonder in the way she describes the squash:</span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>… It fills
my palm</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></em></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span> </span>with its hefty promise and I suspect it of knowing<br /> the true art of resurrection—seeds packed <br /> into a sinewy cave,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>where the pulp is so
fragrant that time holds still.</span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">Such an alluring perception of sight and sound, and how their intensity
makes time stand still. The poem ends with a striking contrast:</span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>With the sharp edge of
a spoon, I scrape out the seeds,</span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and, holding the soft
entails in one hand,</span></em></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span> </span>throw it all to the
birds.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The sharpness of the spoon and the motion to “scrape out the seeds”
effectively rubs up against the delicateness of “holding the soft entrails in
one hand.” The image of throwing it to the birds extends the idea of
resurrection, because the seeds will not only sustain the birds, but they will
cycle through their bodies to disperse and hopefully sprout a new squash plant.</span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The poem “Another Stilled Thing…” begins with another image of
fertility and regeneration—a goose egg found “Tangled in the roots of the
sycamore tree.” But this egg is “cold” and “abandoned,” no longer viable. The
“I” of the poem cleans and saves it for “the neighbor boy / who loves stilled
things— / fossils, locust husks, and sea shells, / anything that might have
been, / but now is not.” Such a haunting image, and one of reverence in the way
she depicts carrying it so carefully: “We honor its fragility, as if it might
be / reawakened.”</span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">“Deconstructing the Moon” is full of whimsy and mystery that spoke to
me of the potential power of creativity, imagination, and language. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It begins with “She says ‘moon,’ and the word
forms like a bubble, / hovering close to her lips…She says the word ‘light,’
and the moon / moves across the patio, touches the table top, / smears the
grass like a slow snail…” The image of an egg recurs, when she portrays the
moon climbing “to the top of the pines, / where it breaks </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">like an egg
yolk</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">, spilling color / down upon
the tree…”</span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The poem “What He Saw…” furthers this meditation on imagination and
wonder. A man in a restaurant sees a woman who “holds the moon between two
fingers / like a pearl and then places it in the sky / between the church
steeple / and the distant river.” The woman leaves and the moon continues its
rise, while the man thinks about “the girl who created / the moment,” and
“thinks / about a watercolor by Monet // and then a Van Gogh arbor painted / ‘by
moonlight.’” The poem ends with the gorgeous image of the moon reflected in the
man’s “empty cup”:</span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></em></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span> </span><span> </span>…the moon, that sweet conspirator,</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <span> </span> </span>bends over the table
and he sees</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <span> </span> </span>the smooth china of
her face,</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <span> </span> </span>reflected in his empty
cup.</span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">I love the way the reflection of “her face” also suggests that he sees
the woman’s face as well as the moon’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">In “Alas…” the “I” of the poem contemplates the mystery, wonder, and
worry of bones and the skeletal system, how she does not like to think of her
“good bones” without her, which repeats the fragility of life theme in the
earlier poem “Another Stilled Thing” as well as the transitory nature of our
imaginings in “What He Saw…” “Alas” also brings up the idea that repeats
throughout the book—our relations to, and histories with, others. She says,
“[I] feel for that bump on the back of my head / that my mother said made me
family.”</span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">“All Hollows” talks of being scared by an inflatable ghost, “the spider
that drops beside my ear,” “the ominous creak of an empty chair,” one of
several poems about the changing seasons, holidays we celebrate, the rituals we
enact.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: red; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">To end the poem, she very
effectively turns and widens her observations into intriguing thoughts and a
question, again bringing up the idea of life’s impermanence, and the importance
of finding the scared, the holy in the everyday—another belief that weaves
through and links these poems together:</span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By morning the ghost
will be nothing but a puddle,</span></em></p><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>his plastic smirk
buried in the grass,</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>a sad reminder that
everything can be deflated</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>in the light of day,
and now I regret having</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>wished him ill. Who am
I to prick the illusion,</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>to name the shades
that honor the night,</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>especially here, in
November’s first light, when</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>suddenly everything
seems holy, cold and bare? </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The two poems that follow “All Hallows” are centered on black cats. In
“To Name the Moon,” she describes one gracefully, carefully walking the length
of a fallen branch in “life or death practice for the day / when she will climb
higher than ever before, // her last life held firmly between her teeth.” The
poem ends with the wistful </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;">image of
the cat in heaven “ready to argue for nine more chances to spit // at feral
dogs, tempt the thinnest of ledges, name / the August moon, and call all of her
children home.” </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;">This idea of regeneration interlaces throughout the collection. In “For
Boo,” another black cat, perhaps the same one, has died and her owner is asking
the gods to “Make clear the midnight path for her…Let there be catnip…Let her
voice be heard…” in the end, desiring that if she’s threatened or longs for remembered
places, “let her return to me as a familiar, / a shade, a companion beside my
door, / her voice too persistent to be ignored.”</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;">The poet’s bond with the moon resurfaces, along with a connection to
neighbors in the poems “Super Moon” and “A Corner of the Moon.” In “Super
Moon,” she sits a chair outside to watch the moon, and is joined by a neighbor
who whittles. I absolutely love that she has a book in her lap and headphones
on, because she says, “I don’t want my neighbors to think / that I am doing
nothing except watch the moon.” When the neighbor asks what she’s listening to,
she admits </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;">nothing</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;">, and he suggests she learn to whittle. The poem ends so </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">dreamily,</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: red; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;">when she asks if her neighbor will teach her, and he agrees, saying, “</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;">you begin by
looking / at the moon</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;">…” </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;">“A Corner of the Moon” is a fascinating reverie that combines the
everyday world seamlessly with the fantastical. It begins: </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Last night I saw my
neighbor throw</span></em></p><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>one leg over a corner
of the moon.</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He must have ridden it
like that,</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>cowboy style, all
night long.</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I didn’t see him again
until dawn,</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>when he came whistling
up the street,</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>slapping moon dust
from his jeans.</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></em></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;">The narrator of the
poem then offers him coffee “in my best china cup,” and the following happens: </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>[I] watched him lift
it to his weathered face,<o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>saw the coffee eclipse
the cup, rise</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and then fall back
again upon itself,</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the way the night
overtakes the day…</span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;">Such a gorgeous image joining the coffee to the moon and its cycles,
and the transformation of night into day and back. It also recalls the earlier
poem, </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">“What He Saw…,” with its image
of the moon and the woman reflected in a man’s coffee cup. The way images
reflect off other images, deepening them, is one element of this book that
makes it so satisfying, so unforgettable.</span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">She says the man’s eyes stopped her from asking what she “wanted to
know about moonlight / and darkness.” Before he leaves, she says he “whispered
into her dark ear, </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">That’s just </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">/ </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">the way things are…just the way they are.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">” Life’s magic and mystery are another thread that resonates through
these poems, along with images and circumstances of light and darkness. </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The last two poems of the first section speak of connection, longing,
and loss.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;">“Missing Wakayama” contains an epigraph of “for my son, in Nachi,
Japan.” </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">This suggests to me that the
narrator went to visit her son in Japan, and now misses both the city and her
son.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: red; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;">In “Serendipity” the narrator</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"> carves a pumpkin for a friend in memory of a cat who recently died,
commenting:</span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…although</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>he persists the way
black cats do,</span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>moving quick-silver in
the October</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>twilight, tricking us
into believing</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>that with moonlight
and darkness</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>all things become
possible.</span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-themecolor: text1; padding: 0in;">One of the main themes of the second section of the book titled
“Tangled in Time…” </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">is the passing of time, and the
stilling of time. It also delves into connection to the natural world, the idea
of naming things, and the magical.</span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The section opens with “The Blue Heron, Fishing,” in which she names a
blue heron </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">Heraclitus </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">“because every day / he steps // into my stream / and every day // I
follow in the wake / of his stepping.” Such a beautiful association
established, and, since it references Heraclitus, an ancient Greek philosopher,
this stream reminded me of a quote attributed to him:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You could not step twice into the same
rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.” And a similar quote: “No
man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s
not the same man,” which reflects the ideas of life’s fragility and
impermanence that runs throughout these poems. This poem also echoes the idea
of naming and the power of words, referenced in earlier poems—the one where a
black cat in heaven gets to name the August moon.</span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">“Reading Basho by Fern Light” is a captivating flight of imagination in
which reading the Japanese poet Basho leads to all manner of magical moments.
She and the clock “take turns spelling / hiragana until even the fern decides /
to give it a try.” The fern says “Hello” in Japanese syllabic characters,
“dipping a frond / to the turtle in the aquarium, to the dog / asleep on the
rug.” The poem continues with:</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Together we make the
sign for green,</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and wonder if anyone
has noticed.</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The violet seems
attentive,</span></em></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><br /></span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>with that open face,
simple blossom, as if</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>he did not know the
season…</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The poem goes on with she and the fern signing “white, joy, happiness,
lovely…and her favorite—the sun!” They converse about language, translation,
the “immediacy / of sunlight, the nightly plunge into darkness / the motion of
stars, the little grief / at the end of every day.” This poem explores the
magic that can happen when reading poetry, and the power of the imagination and
language, and the mysteries we encounter every day.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">“Heliotrope” is a meditation on time and some of the instruments that
keep it—a microwave clock, stove clock, a mantel clock, a grandfather clock
“who always / lags a moment behind, the shadow / of the earth eclipsing the
moon // above his numeraled face.” She goes on with the grandfather clock:</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…He understands</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>that time is not some
digital mystery,</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>but a slow grinding of
the cosmic gears,</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the turning of the
earth measured against</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>its own
circumference…25,000 miles around</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>its middle and still
we say time flies.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">I’m mesmerized as this poet ponders time and its mysteries and
contradictions, such as: “Today my son is flying west, ahead of the sun, /
arriving before he has left…” She ends the poem with the sunflowers that
“followed the light so faithfully” and how they “long for earthly time, / the
darkness of the soil, the steady / tick-tock of the sleeping seed.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such an evocative image of the seeds waiting
for their time to regenerate, an impression which replays in earlier poems. In
“Zinnias” the poet talks about chores at the end of summer, such as cutting
back the zinnias, and “gather[ing] a few seeds to tuck away.” The poem ends on
such a fine, wistful note:</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>hoping to plant them
in the spring, knowing</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>that you will forget
where you saved them,</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and they will slumber
in a forgotten place</span></em></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><br /></span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>wanting to be zinnias,
but stalled forever</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>in some empty space,
neither here nor gone.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">Again, we see this idea of regeneration positioned against the
fragility of life. The “stalled forever” phrase so perfectly echoes the goose
egg in an early poem that the narrator takes to a neighbor boy “who loves
stilled things…anything that might have been, / but now is not.” These visions
of possibility and hope braid throughout the book, creating a haunting sense of
longing and regret.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The poem titled “A Story: Twelve Moments Tangled by Time” is a series
of tiny moments of the natural world observed, what I think of as “stilled
time” preserved in twelve haiku-like stanzas. In one “The wind has a story to
tell, / I listen as if / it were meant for me.” In another, “The story tangles
in the branches / of the sycamores / still lost in the shadows.” One I
particularly like was the following, which mirrors for me the poem “Reading
Basho by Fern Light.”</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I am more interested
in blackbirds,</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>whose calligraphy</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I do not know how to
read.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The time theme proceeds with “The Hourglass,” which the poet says,
“doesn’t measure anything / without a little nudge to get it started.” It also
speaks of memory, another idea that threads through the collection:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Memory does not honor time, but flings / its
shade across any course you’ve charted.”</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">“On the Stairway” is an evocative retelling of a simple moment of
pleasure stilled in time that remains a secret nourishment in a man’s life:</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He was coming up the stairs</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>as she was coming
down,</span></em></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><br /></span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and for a moment his
eyes</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>were level with her
sandaled foot,</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the painted nails, the
pale arch.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He saw her toes lap
gently over</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the edge of the step,
and then </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>her arch rose, and she
continued</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>to move away from him.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">How interesting that the man never saw more of her than the details revealed
above. He says he intentionally didn’t turn around to see more. We don’t know
if she was someone he knew or a stranger. We don’t know if it was an inside or
outside stairway. It appears to be a stairway he climbs somewhat frequently. He
reveals that he never told anyone, not even his lover. “He kept / the moment to
himself, a selfish pleasure / perhaps, but it was such a small thing.” But it’s
evident that this moment of beauty meant something larger to him. He says, “Odd
how you can take such moments / with you—they ride along like shadows, //
almost unseen.” The poem ends with the confirmation of how much he relished
that tiny, secret moment in time:</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And yet, he never
climbed the stairway,</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>never let his eyes
fall on that particular</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>place, without
remembering, without</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>thinking to himself, </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">How lovely</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">I appreciate the mystery of this stolen moment, and his memory of it,
and how much pleasure such tiny bits of stilled time and their re-creation or remembering,
can afford us all in life.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The poem “Away” revisits such remembered moments, and the stillness of
them, how you “drift away…to wherever away is—that small space // that we
promise ourselves, / that precious thing from childhood // within reach once
again.” She goes on to describe that still moment of being away:</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…It is the
step</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>you take backwards
before opening</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>a door, the calm just
before sleep,</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>a moment to remember
whoever</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>you truly are.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">She speaks further of the mystery and sacredness of memory:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“But, deep in memory, there is a charm, / a
talisman that knows you are never // really gone, that you are here and away /
all at the same time.” There is such nostalgia and tenderness in the poem’s
ending lines of a memory invoked by a childhood photo her mother took of her “on
an unremarkable summer / day when there didn’t seem to be // an end to
anything, much less to love.”</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">“Someday, the Sycamores…” is a magical imagining of sycamore trees
having the ability to “pick up their roots / and walk away…” It takes place
along a creek, and ends with the speaker of the poem witnessing just such a
moment of wonder:</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And if you watch
carefully, if you sit down in the dark</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>when the moon, that
old tattletale, is out of sight,</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> y</span>ou will see them stand</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>on gnarled knuckles
and inch away, see them gather up</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>their children, hand
in hand, and even if you call,</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>they will not turn
back.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">“Beside Spring Creek” recreates another moment alongside a creek near a
sycamore “suspended between the reflected world / and the one above, // we can
no longer tell the difference between / the shimmer of the water and the gleam
/ of a September sky.”</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">In “The Old Heron, Rising,” she again follows a heron who she says,
“refuses to migrate.” It’s spring now, but the heron “understands // that
beginnings always foreshadow their ends.” The poet reads to her dog in “After
Flushing His First Muskrat,” the legend about how “it was the muskrat who made
the Earth.” I so loved how she goes into the dog’s mind, his thoughts about the
story she’s reading him. He recalls the moment at the creek with the muskrat:</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Mostly, he remembers
the smell of wet musk in</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>his nostrils, the
adrenaline rush as the animal</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>dove between his legs
and slid into the current.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And then it was gone,
leaving only the world that</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>he loves behind—the
mud beneath his feet,</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>water pushing forward,
the dizzying mix of sun</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and shadow. Of course
the story was true—</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>why would anyone doubt
it? Just look around…</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">In “Gossip” yearlings whisper secrets to trees, who repeat it to
sparrows and “sometimes / early in the morning, when there is still water / in
the gutters and before traffic has begun, / they repeat it in a language that
even I / can understand—</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">Everything will be /
different today, but nothing has changed</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">.”</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The themes of time, memory, and loss</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: red; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">extend into the third section titled “Now, and Again,” which starts with
the tender poem “Summer Apples.” The poet is making an apple pie for her mother
“who is not gone / but whose memory has become / so transparent that she
remembers // slicing apples with her grandmother / (</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">yellow apples;
blue bowl</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">) better than / the fruit that
I hand her today.” It ends on a note that echoes earlier ones of regeneration,
which also gorgeously mirrors the generations of humans in this poem:</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And so, I slice as
close as I dare to the core—</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>to that little
cathedral to memory—where</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the seeds remember
everything they need</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>to know to become
yellow and transparent.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">In the poem “Now, and Again” the poet is reminded of an old T-shirt her
mother washed until it was so thin she “could see right through // to another
time, to a landscape gauzy / through cotton mesh, where the Iowa / cornfields
lie smothered in summer heat. // And I know now that time can be / caught in
the thinnest of nets.” Such a breathtaking image of memory and time.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The title poem “The Apricot and the Moon” tells of the 2017 Solar
Eclipse, and shows the poet, and who I assume is her mother, arranging a
grapefruit, an orange, and an apricot on a table, and “set both to spinning to
show / how something small can eclipse the view // of something much larger
than itself.” The “you” of the poem brings the apricot in front of her eye, and
names what she can no longer see all night, until the daughter puts her to bed.
There is such reverence and tenderness in the following lines:</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I am afraid for you,
until I remember that you</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>have an apricot to
protect you from the things</span></em></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>you do not want to
see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">In “How Words Become Things” the poet tells how her two-year-old
granddaughter calls the moon “balloon,” and speaks of the power and failings of
language:</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Already she knows</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>that every metaphor is
a lie, and that language</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>alone will never
suffice, no matter how words</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>rub against the things</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>they want to become…</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The idea of regeneration enters again in the poem “Of Course,” where
the poet views a sonogram of a grandchild-to-be and sees “a face so familiar
that I know / I have seen you in another life.” This poem is filled with such joy,
tenderness, and vulnerability,</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: red; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">ending with the moving lines:</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…And when you are my age,</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>with the texture of a
full life behind you,</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>remember me, please.
Remember that I knew</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>you in this picture
before I knew your name.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">“Cooking Soba in Ohio” returns to the poet’s son living in Japan, in a
breathtaking way of imagining her way to visit him. While she cooks soba
noodles, “steam…misting the air,” she envisions herself traveling “past plains,
/ coastal waters, oceans, and then // to a small town half way around / the
world, and now I’m in the street, / looking for you...”</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">In “Anniversary,” she depicts a couple in a strip mall parking lot, the
husband loading groceries and lumber into their vehicle: “He taps his wife on
the shoulder and says, / </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">Look at the moon</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">…” The woman “wonders how they came / to this moment, a middle aged
couple, / children grown and on their own…and after all these years, / this
moon still advertising, still outshining / anything that the world has to
offer.”</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">This third and last section comes full circle, returning to autumn and
holidays in a poem about carving a pumpkin, “The Carving Ritual” and a poem
“Halloween.” In “Raking Leaves” she says she knows each kind of leaf and needle
by “the sound of the rake,” imagining how the leaves “mumble, gossip, whisper
among themselves, / refusing to be rushed into forgetfulness.”</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The book concludes with the poem “In October, We Count Our Losses,” in
which the poet accidentally brings in a caterpillar with a bunch of parsley she
picked from the garden. She sets him “in the middle of a bouquet / of parsley,
dill and rue, where he continues / to eat while we set the table, stir the
soup.”</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">They talk about all the caterpillar survived to get there, and about
“people and places” they lost, and “how grief can become its own comfort…”</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">The caterpillar crawls away and is forgotten. She enters the future in
the following lines:</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It will be a month
before I find him</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>wrapped into a papery
chrysalis,</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>plain and nondescript,
a little mummy,</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>tucked on the
underside of a chair,</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>where we will wait
until spring, sheltering</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>on the porch while
snow and rain pelt</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the aging screens.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">She imagines how in spring she will “find him reborn, clinging / to the
farthest screen, wings catching / the sunlight, warming to a new day.” The poem
and the book end on this haunting, hopeful note:</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">There are so many of winter’s little griefs</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></p>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>that I might bring
with me into this Spring,</span></em></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>but I open the window,
let them fly away.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: red; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span></em></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cathryn Essinger’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Apricot and the Moon</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> delves into
our </span></span><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">connections to each other and
the natural world, revolving around the mysteries, complexities, and dualities
of being human. These poems pulse</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: red; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; padding: 0in;">with layered, repeated imagery of beauty and opulence, light and
darkness, moments of stillness and intimacy that braid into a rhythmic whole of
life’s seasons and cycles. They will fill you with awe and comfort.</span></em></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>__________</span><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p>
<div style="background: white; text-align: left;"><span class="mhrhead"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background: white; text-align: left;"><span class="mhrhead"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Visit her website to learn more about her other books
and to find links to her published poems at: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://cathrynessinger.com/">Cathryn
Essinger</a>.</span></div>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">_________<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhntEqn03JVfhJVUIA3JywAj3dG_a8aQ6Bpz5gxUYHYSqaMylS2SDlFIewcGFj7OQ8CSw1dIWgSjKp7H5sc1t-InVepegFZYdcccDBUQ1QTa0IF7MCmCNAtDfOAq61RyNfy0HIJ8MobChyphenhyphenW/s573/Karen+George+Photo+for+BARREN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="435" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhntEqn03JVfhJVUIA3JywAj3dG_a8aQ6Bpz5gxUYHYSqaMylS2SDlFIewcGFj7OQ8CSw1dIWgSjKp7H5sc1t-InVepegFZYdcccDBUQ1QTa0IF7MCmCNAtDfOAq61RyNfy0HIJ8MobChyphenhyphenW/w152-h200/Karen+George+Photo+for+BARREN.jpg" width="152" /></a></span></b></div><b style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Karen George</span></b><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> retired from computer programming to write full-time. She lives
in Florence, Kentucky, enjoys photography and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">visiting forests, museums, cemeteries, historic towns, and bodies of
water</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">.
She is author of five chapbooks, </span><em style="background-color: transparent;"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" lang="EN" style="font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">and </span></em><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">two poetry collections from <span style="color: #222222;">Dos Madres Press: </span></span><a href="https://www.dosmadres.com/shop/swim-your-way-back-by-karen-george/" style="background-color: transparent;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Swim Your Way Back</span></i></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> <span style="color: #222222;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(2014) and </span></span><a href="https://www.dosmadres.com/shop/a-map-and-one-year-by-karen-l-george/" style="background-color: transparent;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">A Map and One Year</span></i></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> (2018)<span style="color: #222222;">.
You can find her work in </span></span><a href="https://sheilanagigblog.com/coming-soon-volume-5-2-winter-2020-the-poets/karen-george/" style="background-color: transparent;"><i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Sheila-na-gig Online</span></i></a><i style="background-color: transparent;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">, </span></i><a href="http://salamandermag.org/georgia-okeeffes-red-and-brown-leaves-1925/" style="background-color: transparent;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Salamander
Magazine</span></i></a><i style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">,
</span></i><a href="https://www.thimblelitmag.com/2020/11/07/georgia-okeeffes-at-the-rodeo-new-mexico-1929/" style="background-color: transparent;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Thimble Magazine</span></i></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho";">,</span><u style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></u><a href="https://atticusreview.org/beauty-and-sorrow/" style="background-color: transparent;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Atticus Review</span></i></a><u style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">,</span></u><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">and
</span><a href="https://theindianapolisreview.com/karen-george-two-visual-poems/" style="background-color: transparent;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Indianapolis
Review</span></i></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">. She holds an MFA from Spalding University. Visit her website
at: </span><a href="https://karenlgeorge.blogspot.com/" style="background-color: transparent;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">https://karenlgeorge.blogspot.com/</span></i></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 1in;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>Karen Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06855467849220914349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-91722701975107507042020-10-28T23:05:00.002-04:002020-10-29T11:17:26.243-04:00Interview with Meg Eden About Her Book Drowning in the Floating World<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>
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<i><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jgsQhCTOmVU/X5RZH_Y_7JI/AAAAAAAADbY/w8Wl5MDXWaU0SWS7Lcv5Q2fWio5VqgEdwCNcBGAsYHQ/s436/meg_eden.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="436" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jgsQhCTOmVU/X5RZH_Y_7JI/AAAAAAAADbY/w8Wl5MDXWaU0SWS7Lcv5Q2fWio5VqgEdwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/meg_eden.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Meg Eden<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />"</i><span style="font-style: italic;">I wore driftwood / </span><span style="font-style: italic;">& got dressed for the ocean.</span><i>"</i><br />
- from "All Summer I Wore" by Meg Eden</div>
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<div>(Interview was conducted via email in October 2020 by Nancy Chen Long.)</div>
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<div><br /></div><div>Meg Eden's work is published or forthcoming in magazines including <i>Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Crab Orchard Review, RHINO,</i> and <i>CV2</i>. She teaches creative writing at Anne Arundel Community College. She is the author of five poetry chapbooks, the novel <i>Post-High School Reality Quest</i> (Rare Bird Books, 2017), and the poetry collection <i><a href="https://www.press53.com/poetry-collections/drowning-in-the-floating-world-by-meg-eden" target="_blank">Drowning in the Floating World</a></i> (Press 53, 2020). She runs the <a href="https://super.magfest.org/mages-blog" target="_blank">Magfest MAGES Library</a> blog, which posts accessible academic articles about video games. Find her online at <a href="http://www.megedenbooks.com">www.megedenbooks.com</a> or on Twitter at @ConfusedNarwhal.</div><div><br /></div><div>Side note: Meg Eden is poetry guest editor for Issue 197 of Press 53’s <i>Prime Number Magazine</i> and will be reading submissions for that issue until November 9, 2020. Writers who are interested, please see the following link: <a href="https://www.press53.com/issue-181-guest-editors-issue-197">https://www.press53.com/issue-181-guest-editors-issue-197</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_tAmc242_CQ/X5RbuCFLn9I/AAAAAAAADbk/VCz5H3abCyEGdNAf0nugHcXs0C99SqT2wCNcBGAsYHQ/s1180/DrowningCover.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1180" data-original-width="774" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_tAmc242_CQ/X5RbuCFLn9I/AAAAAAAADbk/VCz5H3abCyEGdNAf0nugHcXs0C99SqT2wCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/DrowningCover.png" /></a></div></div>
<b>Overview of </b><i><b>Drowning in the Floating World</b></i><br />
"<i>Drowning in the Floating World</i> by Meg Eden immerses us into the Japanese natural disaster known as 3/11: the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Relentless as the disaster itself, Eden seizes control of our deepest emotional centers, and, through insightful perspective, holds us in consideration of loss, helplessness, upheaval, and, perhaps most stirring, what do make of, and do with, survival. This poetry collection is also a cultural education, sure to encourage further reading and research. Drowning in the Floating World is, itself, a tsunami stone—a warning beacon to remind us to learn from disaster and, in doing so, honor all that’s lost."<br />
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<br /><b>Review of </b><i><b>Drowning in the Floating World</b></i><br />
<a href="https://sundressblog.com/2020/04/28/sundress-reads-review-of-drowning-in-the-floating-world/" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;" target="_blank">https://sundressblog.com/2020/04/28/sundress-reads-review-of-drowning-in-the-floating-world/</a><br />
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<br /><b>Response to the Brother Who Wants to Move in After the Earthquake:</b> <div>by Meg Eden<br />
(a poem from <i>Drowning in the Floating World</i>)<br />
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You are not welcome here.<br />
You are contaminated.<br />
You have radiation in your skin.<br />
You breathed in that nuclear air.<div><br />
You are contaminated;<br />
a power plant lives in you now.<br />
There’s already radiation in your skin,<br />
and I can’t risk you rubbing off on me.<br /><br /></div><div>
You carry that power plant inside you,<br />
but we are genki here,<br />
and I can’t risk you rubbing off on us.<br />
We want to live—<br /><br /></div><div>
We are genki here, but<br />
he who mixes with vermillion turns red.<br />
I want to <i>live</i>,<br />
I don’t want to think about Fukushima.<br /><br /></div><div>
Mixed with red ink, anything becomes red.<br />
It can’t be helped.<br />
I don’t want to think about Fukushima.<br />
There are places for that sort of thing.<br /><br /></div><div>
Shikata ga nai.<br />
You breathed in that nuclear air.<br />
There are places for that sort of thing, but<br />
you are not welcome here. <div><br />
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<span style="color: #660000;"><b>NCL: </b><b>Please tell us a little about your book <i>Drowning in the Floating World</i> and how it came to be. Some say that one of the primary difficulties a poet may have with a first full-length poetry manuscript is shaping it into a book, as opposed to of a collection of disparate poems. <i>Drowning</i> is solidly coherent with respect to theme. Did you set out to write a series of related poems, or was it something that unfolded as you went along? </b></span><br />
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ME</i></b>: <i>Drowning in the Floating World</i> is a collection about the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and Fukushima power plant disaster. It explores the literal destruction, as well as the idea of water, and how deeply rooted water is conceptually in Japanese language and mythology, this dual function of killing and sustaining life. The first poem was probably written shortly after the event—I don’t think it made it into the collection. I was haunted by the footage of 3/11, and as I went to Fukuoka that summer, I was disturbed by how normal everything seemed in the rest of Japan—how there was this devastation in part of the country, but everything else was going on as usual. That’s life, but it’s also shocking and troubling. I couldn’t stop thinking about the disaster, and over time the poems collected. The most recent poem(s) were a couple of rewrites once the collection was acquired—I remember the pantoum and “Town Hall” were both rewritten right before printing, and became stronger as a result. <br />
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I think once I had several poems about 3/11, I realized I was going to have a collection. When I write more than one poem about a thing, and those different poems are saying different things (and not just me rewriting the same poem), I tend to have some sort of collection, whether that be a chapbook or a full-length. At first, I set out to gather and create thematically similar poems. By playing with forms, I tried to diversify my perspective on the theme and flesh out gaps in the collection. Through feedback from some amazing readers, I saw how I could open up the collection and go beyond just 3/11 to water at large, and the idea of the floating world. I submitted it over and over, got rejections, and kept tinkering. It was a conscious process of making a full-length manuscript, but at the same time, it felt organic. I’ve tried to make collections happen before and they just didn’t. You can’t brute force it. So I think that combination of intent with natural rhythm was important for the collection to actually become a collection.
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<b><span style="color: #660000;">NCL: I’m intrigued regarding your use of Japanese language in these poems. For example, some of the poem titles contain Japanese words, cities, or characters in them. There are also Japanese words and phrases peppered throughout the collection. I couldn’t help but think of my Taiwanese mother and how she interjects Taiwanese or Mandarin in her sentences, a type of code-switching so to speak. Please share with us a bit about your use of Japanese in the collection and the impact of the Japanese language and culture on your writing. For example, how long did you live in Japan? Are any of your ancestors Japanese? Have any of your poems been published in Japanese journals or have you written any poems entirely in Japanese?
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<br /><b><i>ME</i></b>: I love this question! Code-switching is a natural part of speech, so it only makes sense to me for it to happen on the page. Some things just can’t be translated—and they shouldn’t have to be. Something is always lost in translation. As I wrote, I used the words that came to me, the ones that made the most sense. For example in “Town Hall” I wanted to recreate the visceral experience of the do not enter signs by using their exact language. In “Response to a Brother,” I use both shikata ga nai and its “translation,” “it can’t be helped.” Really, shikata ga nai means shikata ga nai. It’s such a common Japanese phrase, such a big part of the way of thinking in the culture, that using that exact language was critical to me. Interacting with Japanese kanji is such a visual and animated experience that sometimes I wanted to capture a taste of that richness on the page. Translating it into roman letters felt like it would cheapen it. Sometimes that was necessary, but especially with some of the titles, I wanted that visual element. <br />
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While I have not formally lived in Japan, Japan has always been a significant part of my life. My father has been working in Okinawa since I was in grade school. We would visit as a family, and I spent a summer there when I was in college. When I was in high school, my father was there every other month. I ate up everything I could get my hands on, growing up: Japanese mythology texts, J-pop CDs, language courses, manga. It’s hard to explain—I guess I haven’t written enough poems about it yet—but Japanese language and culture just make sense to me. There is a system, a kata, a way of doing things. You know what to expect from others, and what’s expected of you. I love the feeling of the language in my mouth—it’s like rich chocolate. In America, I’m always anxious, never knowing what to expect from others. Americans are so unpredictable sometimes. But in Japan, even though they certainly have their own problems as a country, I have a sense of relief at the expectations—for example, I know the man at the kombini will wrap my croquette the same way every morning! My husband spent several years as a teenager growing up in Japan, so it’s a common closeness for us. I think of it as our heart-home. I do not have Japanese ancestry that I know of. It’s interesting though—my grandfather was based in Hokkaido during the Korean war. Before he passed, he expressed how much he loved it there, how much the culture made sense to him, and how he almost stayed. We both carried that love in our blood. <br />
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Japanese language and culture have had a huge impact on my writing—not to mention how I think and see the world. I have not yet written poems entirely in Japanese, though in my MFA program, I took an amazing translation course with Michael Collier, and spent the semester focused on translating poems of Shuntaro Tanikawa. That was an incredible experience. Studying his work really exploded all these possibilities on the page for me. His language is so accessible yet clever, and his images so shocking. He also translates the Peanuts comics into Japanese! There’s this magical realism to his work, which I suppose is very Japanese, very Shinto—the lack of boundaries between the mythological and the everyday. This has hugely shaped and influenced my perspective for <i>Drowning</i>. As a Christian, I really resonate with this, as I also believe that the spiritual and the everyday have no boundary; they are interconnected and impact each other. For my writing, this magical realism aesthetic gave me an entrance into disaster, being able to imagine and create and open a little window of light into a situation that can seem so relentlessly heartbreaking. <br />
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<span style="color: #660000;"><b>NCL: I read most of the poems as persona poems—i.e., as a distinct person who is not the poet—as poems in the voices of those who have suffered in the catastrophes, for example “<a href="http://hawaiireview.org/poetry/2016/7/15/meg-eden-radium-girls" target="_blank">Radium Girls</a>”, “<a href="http://carte-blanche.org/articles/i-ask-my-mother-what-its-like-living-at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean/" target="_blank">I Ask My Mother What It’s Like, Living at the Bottom of the Ocean</a>,” and </b><b>“</b><b>Response to the Brother Who Wants to Move in After the Earthquake:,” which is printed at the beginning of this interview. How did you approach writing the persona poems? For example, did you conduct any interviews of survivors? or perhaps had a particular person in mind? On the other hand, some of the poems, such as “<a href="http://drafthorse.lmunet.edu/poetry/eden.shtml" target="_blank">Corpse Washing</a>,” come across as possibly something experienced by the poet-speaker. I’m curious, were you in Japan for the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster? Tell us a bit about your research process for this book.</b></span></div><div>
<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><b><i>ME</i></b>: Many of the persona poems were rooted in interviews I read online, or videos of footage I saw. Others were inspired by that Shuntaro Tanikawa brand of magical realism, as well as Patricia Smith’s collection Blood Dazzler. When I first read that book in school, it blew me away. I was so inspired by all the creative perspectives she brought in, and the voice she gave Hurricane Katrina. As I fleshed out the collection, I wanted to explore the fantastical angles—like the idea of living in the bottom of the ocean, or the voice of a town hall or a doll that was lost in the ruins and unable to get a proper burial. <br />
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I was not in Japan during the earthquake and tsunami, but I was in the country that summer. Some poems were from personal experience; for example “原爆 – Atom” was a sort of response to my visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. “In Tokyo, three months after the earthquake” was in response to my time in Tokyo during 2011. “Corpse Washing” was a response to the incredible 2008 film <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B00I03ALIK/ref=atv_dl_rdr" target="_blank">Departures (おくりびと)</a>. <br />
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I think my research process was basically absorbing everything I possibly could about the disaster. Surrounding myself with it. At some point, reading and writing and researching, it becomes more than just distant facts, but a visceral feeling. I remember being in a theater with a preview for the movie San Andreas Fault in the middle of the research process, and there was a scene of water flooding into a room. I almost started screaming and sobbing in the middle of the theater. All I could think of was Rikuzentakata. That it wasn’t just a movie; this was something that people lived through, that really happened in Japan. How can we let ourselves forget?
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<br /><b><span style="color: #660000;">NCL: What is one of the more crucial poems in the book for you?</span></b><br />
<br /><b><i>ME</i></b>: It’s so funny, because I think this has changed over time, as the collection has been out in the world and I’ve done readings. I seem to always want to read “Town Hall.” This was one of the last poems to come together for the collection. I completely rewrote it when the collection was acquired. Something about the voice of the town hall, its anger, its insistence on not being forgotten—I’m haunted by it. As we are increasingly talking about the injustices in our country, I keep thinking about the Town Hall’s anger, it’s refusal to fall or be forgotten. There is so much suffering, so many people suffering that we completely forget. The town hall reminds me to never forget, and to speak out.</div><div><br /></div><div>This poem is inspired by the town hall in Rikuzentakata, which I believe was the only building left standing after the tsunami. In my research, I was reading about tsunami stones, stones marking where previous tsunamis hit—physical warnings to future generations of where to not build your homes. Unfortunately, just enough time passes between disaster for us to forget. If we listened to the tsunami stones, if we did not build below them, so many lives would have been saved in 3/11. The town hall is a kind of tsunami stone, standing to remind us of what has happened, what can come again, how we should not become complacent and forget.
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<b>Town Hall</b><br />
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Watching the town resurrect,<br />
I remain unfixed,<br />
mouth filled with birds.<br />
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My eyes are dusty & split<br />
down the middle; my bowels<br />
washed in mud. A car<br />
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rests in my intestines.<br />
The dog in my chest<br />
just delivered puppies.<br />
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I’ve been given many names:<br />
Dangerous,<br />
Do not enter,<br />
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Tsunami, you may have<br />
erased my neighbors,<br />
but still I remain!<br />
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I defy you, Tsunami.</div><div>I defy you, Town.</div><div>I will always remember<br />
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should you mistakenly<br />
forget. Here I stand,<br />
a new tsunami stone.<br /><br />
<br /><b><span style="color: #660000;">NCL: When do you remember first being interested in poetry? Was there a mentor who encouraged you?</span></b><br />
<br /><b><i>ME</i></b>: Poetry was what my friends were doing in middle school, so of course I conformed! But I got hooked. Up to that point, my interest was in the visual arts. I wanted to be a cartoonist, or a manga-ka. But I found that poems gave me another way to express my thoughts and process the world around me—one that I could do with or without a whole set of artist’s tools. I have had the privilege of having so many amazing mentors to encourage me. The first was my mother. A history teacher in middle school told me I was a good writer. In community college, I was so blessed to have an instructor work closely with me and believe in my poems. I think that was the spark that made me become serious about this whole poetry thing. <br />
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<br /><b><span style="color: #660000;">NCL: You also have <a href="http://www.californiacoldblood.com/post-high-school-reality-quest/" target="_blank">a fiction book</a> out. A number of years back, at an AWP panel on the poetry-prose dynamic, some of the panelists said they found it difficult to smoothly switch between poetry and prose. One panelist said it was, in part, because she wanted to break or control the line. Another said it was because of the compression of language that his poetry seeks. Of course, some of the panelists said they had no difficulty going from one to the other. What is your experience with switching between genres? Do you prefer one over the other</span>?</b><br />
<br /><b><i>ME</i></b>: I used to THINK I was good at switching between the genres, but many of my poems should’ve been novels, and my novels poems! So I think for me the difficulty has been based on content—what container does this content need? Is it a whole story? Or is it a brief moment? I think recently, I’ve been drawn more toward prose, and haven’t written as many poems. But there are seasons. For a while, all I wanted to do was write poems. Now, all I want to do is write stories. This summer, I wrote a novel in verse, which merged the two sensibilities—and that was so much fun. I definitely want to do more of that. <br />
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<div><b><span style="color: #660000;">NCL: I see you teach creative writing. What is one thing that you impress upon your students with respect to poetry?</span></b></div>
<div><br /></div><b><i>ME</i></b>: That it’s for them—that it <i>can</i> be for them if they want it. For so many students, poetry equals Shakespeare, or poetry equals “only for smart people” (whatever that means). I want every student to be able to see poetry as an outlet for their own voice. That there’s a place at the table for everyone. And for my intro students, I want them to see that poetry can be fun—when I learned poetry could be fun, that was everything </div><div><br /></div><div><br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">NCL: What are you working on now?</span></b><br />
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ME</i></b>: I just finished a middle grade novel in verse, which was so fun. I’m also working on a contemporary young adult novel. I’ve not been focusing much on poetry, but every now and then a poem will pop out. <br />
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<b>Purchase <i>Drowning in the Floating World</i></b>: <a href="https://www.press53.com/poetry-collections/drowning-in-the-floating-world-by-meg-eden">https://www.press53.com/poetry-collections/drowning-in-the-floating-world-by-meg-eden</a><br />
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<b>Find Meg Eden online</b>:<br />
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- Website: <a href="http://www.megedenbooks.com">http://www.megedenbooks.com</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">- Twitter: </span>@ConfusedNarwhal.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">All poems printed or quoted in this post © Meg Eden <i>Drowning in the Floating World</i> (Press 53, 2020)</span><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><hr style="font-size: medium;" /><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJxquOOlVw-DEl9hrFr0vrisuzVSFnB1SB_h72Zs-i834XNSBiuRkdnQDW3Ei4WwJqaRNX3C9KNdYBkx77yxZlt586R90R-HKPgvY28Xl09K82FEZTfivhyphenhyphenTjY4oEQycXSPbDOTTJZA3mZ/s1600/image004-782259.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJxquOOlVw-DEl9hrFr0vrisuzVSFnB1SB_h72Zs-i834XNSBiuRkdnQDW3Ei4WwJqaRNX3C9KNdYBkx77yxZlt586R90R-HKPgvY28Xl09K82FEZTfivhyphenhyphenTjY4oEQycXSPbDOTTJZA3mZ/s1600/image004-782259.jpg" /></a></div><strong style="line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="color: #595959; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333px;">Nancy Chen Long </span></strong><span style="color: #595959; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="line-height: 15.3333px;">is the author of two books of poetry: <i><a href="https://www.diodeeditions.com/product-page/wider-than-the-sky" target="_blank">Wider than the Sky</a></i> (Diode Editions, 2020), selected for the Diode Editions Book Award, and <i><a href="https://www.ut.edu/TampaPress/pressDetail.aspx?id=32212257616" target="_blank">Light into Bodies</a></i> (University of Tampa Press, 2017), which won the Tampa Review Poetry Prize. Her work has been supported by a National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing fellowship and the Poetry Society of America Robert H. Winner Award. You’ll find her recent work in <i>The Southern Review, Copper Nickel, Poet Lore, </i>and elsewhere. She works at Indiana University in the Research Technologies division.</span></span></div></span></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-44225884502081688342020-09-29T11:46:00.001-04:002020-10-29T11:09:43.253-04:00<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i><b></b></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK6_TQKWzlpoyw3vvDVmqATNlloQcQW2hkkVy5w6R1Mq6TjqrOwFD-M_cXNXVYIdrogLbqt-bGC9X71yQYn2XZ-U1S7LkGLkuur28REZCpJNsKF-ZMJn77gGYay2Th1fqY2xvibPdFtcV1/s1360/candescent+2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="907" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK6_TQKWzlpoyw3vvDVmqATNlloQcQW2hkkVy5w6R1Mq6TjqrOwFD-M_cXNXVYIdrogLbqt-bGC9X71yQYn2XZ-U1S7LkGLkuur28REZCpJNsKF-ZMJn77gGYay2Th1fqY2xvibPdFtcV1/s320/candescent+2.jpg" /></a></b></i></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Candescent<br /></i></b><div style="text-align: left;">By Linda Parsons<br /><a href="https://irisbooks.com/" target="_blank">Iris Press</a>, 2019<br />ISBN 9781604542578<br />91 pages</div></h2><div style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div><div><b>Review of </b><i><b>Candescent</b></i></div><div><span style="font-size: 12pt;">by Rosemary Royston</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Candescent
</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">by Linda Parsons is a collection of
poems that succeeds in what its title denotes: to glow from within. Is it not a
great achievement in this life to shine from our core, amidst the travails and
tragedies that life brings? In these poems, the speaker documents her wrestling
matches with grief, from watching her father fade away, the pain of broken marriages, to the tedious yet natural
act of aging. Within her collection, where there exists a healthy mix of Judeo,
Islamic, and Christian imagery and practices, Parsons poems show both the sweat
and the gain that discipline offers, allowing the speaker to be present in life
through all its moments. Furthermore, Parsons masters sound, diction, and
imagery throughout these poems; it is evident that she has practiced and honed
her own craft.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The first section opens with “Smudge”
where the speaker lights “…sage bound with thread from my grandmother’s /
sewing box. Smoke rise, melt of burden, bellows nearest my heart, my length,
woodsy / sweet.” The speaker walks through her home cleansing the “odd things
he left behind…” The “he” being her partner of over twenty years, with the
final image capturing the solitude and sudden singleness of the speaker,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As for me, I’ll root in my little Eden,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>a
bowl of ashes to catch the new moon,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>crow
feather on the sill, the remains<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>flapping
off, mateless.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Yet our speaker is not totally alone. She
has a good shepherd in the poem of the same name. In “The Good Shepherd”(and
several other poems) Parsons captures the grace of having a loving canine in
one’s life. Her “good shepherd” shadows her from “counter to couch, / Naomi to
my Ruth, wither going or staying / in the barley fields, finally the shelter of
Boaz.” It is in the fur of this “last man of the house” where the speaker
buries her face in grief, and it is with this loving animal that she finds
comfort, “Eyes ghosted, nose works the air // of what dims but blooms still,
keeper / from whence cometh my help.” The comparison of “Naomi to my Ruth” will
be familiar to any reader that has been raised in the Christian tradition, and
the solace this animal provides is revered through the diction in this poem;
this good shepherd is a faithful servant, a gift from the Divine.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Family, whether it is a father, granddaughters,
or former husband, all make appearances in the collection. The speaker has
reached that point in life where enough time has passed to welcome back a first
husband as in “Confluence. ” The poem opens with the metaphor of two rivers
joining -- the Clinch and the tributary Powell, just as this once estranged
couple now shares a meal, “the rope less taut between us -- / knot by knot, he
mends memory’s seine” with the layered meaning of seine performing much work in
such a small space, as Parsons does throughout the collection.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As opposed to dodging grief (which is
often our first reflex), the speaker in </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Candescent
</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">turns towards her grief, absorbs it, and reckons with it. In “The Only
Way,” with an epigraph from Rumi, “There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss
the ground,” the speaker “[Honors her] grief with ragged breath and privation /
in the body’s dark cell despite how the blithe / word cries </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">enough.”</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> The assonance of “despite” and
“blithe” force the reader to semi-howl, slowing the line and making us pay
attention. And the redemption is that the speaker’s practice pays off, both
literally and metaphorically. In the final poem of the opening section, “The
First Night Pain Doesn’t Wake Me” the speaker notes the ongoing “ache in [her]
hip” is suddenly gone not due to only the “ice, yoga’s cat and child, / tai
chi’s white stork…” but because</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">…I scraped my bowl <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">empty of longing, until I sat in the dust<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">busking my tarnished tune and bowed<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">in gratitude for ache, for moan, for loss<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">at the hot marrow…” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">“The First Night Pain Doesn’t Wake Me” is
a prayer with its musical sounds and deep gratitude for staying with the pain,
“until I invited the hours to the side porch / for oranges and ginger tea, no
longer / friendless and warring.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In section two of the collection we find
the speaker on her own “Damascus Road” where she is lost in thought “thinking
of / Judy Blue Eyes,” and jolted back to the moment after reading her neighbor’s
written complaint about the speaker’s “burning bushes” that block her view to
the road. After all, it is a life and death issue, as her neighbor has almost
been “T-boned three times.” The speaker, “swaddled in grief and remorse” has
neglected the burning bushes, allowing them to grow too big and block the road.
It is in this poem where she compares herself to Saul turned Paul, “…who am I
but my own weary / traveler transformed, blasted new into traffic // without
looking both ways?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Just because the speaker finds her way
through the pain does not mean that life is free of suffering. In “Enough” we
watch as the good shepherd, “the dying dog” brings the estranged couple back
together for the beloved dog’s final breath,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">…our
redemption impossible</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">on
the flowered rug, his bag of bones</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>flown
or sunken wherever the spirit lights – <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>even
that of a dog is holy, my crook<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>and
shepherd unto the psalmed hills.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Again, Parsons’ use of diction conjures
the holy, regardless of religious tradition, forcing the reader to see the
Divine in all aspects of life.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In section three, the practice of
meditation is artfully joined with place in “The Art of Meditation in
Tennessee,” where we learn that “</span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Ah</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
invites the Divine, </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">om</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> gives thanks /
to the Divine.” Whether these terms are familiar to the reader or not, any
reader from the South will recognize these sounds and images, “Heat bugs deafen
the understory, blacksnake / twines in honeysuckle, crawdad pinches / till it
thunders / leeches suckle shin, river / mourns and bleeds…” The practice of
breathing in and out, of the “</span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">om</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> and </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">ah</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">,” leads the speaker to the knowledge,
“..In the end, all is left, all Divine. / Breathe in peace, breathe out joy” –
which is impossible not to do with the music and images that Parsons provides
us in her poems.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The ability to breathe, to be present, also
allows for joy to flow, and the love the speaker has for her granddaughters
spills forth in the playful diction and rhyme within “I Love You Like a Dragon,”
I love you:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">…In mountain’s toes <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">that scoop earth’s foes, scales raging blustery <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">skies slice down to burning questions---chocolate<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">or apple pie? In hot breath, crafty yellow eye,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I set the meatiest afire. I love you bold and bolder…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The passion of “I Love you Like a
Dragon” leads into one of my favorite poems in this collection, which is more
or less a manifesto, “Stand Up.” It is here where the speaker reckons with her
former, docile self who was a “walker on eggshells, the biter of lips, the
please pleaser,” who turns into a woman who is neither silent nor meek, who</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">…sings
without</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>pause,
the unturned cheek, the unshut eye,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>who
digs her heels in this wide-awake<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>moment
and lets the mother tongue fly.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">“Stand Up” is a poem that every woman should
read aloud and often, with gusto. For it is in this poem when the speaker fully
comes alive into her Self – the Self that is referenced in “Oracle,” where the
enjambed line joins the first and second stanza of the poem, “Though nothing is
fair in the dream of life, // our waking akin to a dream, said the Buddha, </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">acceptance of what is, our only magick
wand.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The closing poem in the final section,
“With Me” encapsulates the collection. While we opened to the speaker cleansing
her house with sage, this final poem has the speaker carefully building “the
home of myself,” acknowledging “bones of contention,” and the “</span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">entre chien et loup</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">,” or time of the day
“between dog and wolf, world and otherworld, my dusk,” – the time of life which
the speaker now inhabits. She has witnessed and felt the loss of relationships,
the loss of her father, of her good shepherd of a dog, but simultaneously knows
the gift of discipline, the joy of granddaughters and the sounds and beauty of
the South, and her upcoming “last ecstasy” will pass “into blessing, into hard
surrender.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">These poems invite the reader to return
to them, just as one turns to her most comforting scripture or to the daily
practice of meditation or yoga. Layered with imagery and allusions, deft
diction, and a love of sound, this is a collection I will keep close to my bed;
a bedrock for when things do not go my way, but instead a reminder to embrace
“acceptance of what is, our only magick wand.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAGJn7xLYa2ZvH23fWsHsPLrR3V7_eq_7l3yUQLoPbKk7uCrMEAIONbCjZP3cCIcXbX3uS5KXY-xkRlZeEDd-Eb2LOKZvB80aq1SvipQx7euHAHuU8D25z5XRsrivKXAK4m3ipkUx8_1Ti/s941/Rosemary+Royston+headshot.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="941" data-original-width="941" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAGJn7xLYa2ZvH23fWsHsPLrR3V7_eq_7l3yUQLoPbKk7uCrMEAIONbCjZP3cCIcXbX3uS5KXY-xkRlZeEDd-Eb2LOKZvB80aq1SvipQx7euHAHuU8D25z5XRsrivKXAK4m3ipkUx8_1Ti/w273-h295/Rosemary+Royston+headshot.jpg" width="273" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Rosemary Royston, author of <i>Splitting the Soil</i> (Finishing Line
Press, 2014), resides in northeast Georgia with her family. Her poetry has been
published in journals such as <i>Split Rock
Review, Southern Poetry Review, Appalachian Heritage, Poetry South, KUDZU, NANO
Fiction</i>, and <i>*82 Review</i>. She’s an
Assistant Professor of English at Young Harris College. <a href="https://theluxuryoftrees.wordpress.com/">https://theluxuryoftrees.wordpress.com/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /><br /></span></p></div>Rosemary Roystonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16213742048588469454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-40999435567339508542020-08-29T08:53:00.002-04:002020-10-29T11:10:43.385-04:00Interview with Rika Inami, Tanka Poet<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Interview with Rika Inami, Tanka Poet<font size="3"><o:p></o:p></font></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> by Barry George<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Tanka, originally <i>waka</i>,<i> </i>is a traditional Japanese poetry form that is increasingly being translated and written in the English language. One of the Japanese tanka poets who best exemplifies this meeting of cultures is Rika Inami, who composes her tanka in classical Japanese before carefully translating them into English. She believes this process "keeps her work true to her native language and tanka style." I first encountered Rika Inami's photographs and tanka about five years ago, and have been captivated ever since by the evocative and delicate lyricism of her poetry.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtMJ-VdmiDyCnJ3MV1CURO1YV4JYTerdCEnX7tVjabMGZDoHGMlsnLG1I-baqFS07KlY6HdfYi__r5pYvSHuirIRHL9LcTYNtyNkffq_iS_SacHbUvvQWvUOohQVW-3XKUtWQkOOJpbQc/s1280/IMG_4418.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtMJ-VdmiDyCnJ3MV1CURO1YV4JYTerdCEnX7tVjabMGZDoHGMlsnLG1I-baqFS07KlY6HdfYi__r5pYvSHuirIRHL9LcTYNtyNkffq_iS_SacHbUvvQWvUOohQVW-3XKUtWQkOOJpbQc/s320/IMG_4418.JPG" /></a></div><div>Rika Inami lives in Akita, Japan. A graduate of Waseda University, she is a member of Tanka Association Mirai, Muro Saisei Learned Society, and Akita International Haiku Network. Her books of tanka include <i>Tanka Harako I</i>, <i>II</i>, and <i>III</i>, and <i>Tanka Harako Collection I</i>. She has been interested since her university days in both Eastern and Western philosophy, as well as aesthetics. Writing predominantly about nature, she believes that "poetry is the spirit of language."</div><o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman";">The following are her answers, in edited form, to questions I posed to her. Note: </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Traditionally composed as a five-part poem of 31 Japanese sound-syllables, tanka is typically written and translated in English in five lines, with a more flexible syllable count.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman";">All photographs and poems in both Japanese and English </span><span style="font-family: gungsuh;">(C) Rika Inami 稲美 里佳.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: gungsuh;">All photographs with embedded haiku published in </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Akita International Haiku homepage, Tanka by Rika Inami, No. 32, 33, and 34.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">When did you start writing tanka? Did you learn from a teacher or teachers, or are you self-taught?</span></b></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I started composing tanka seventeen years ago as a member of the Muro Saisei Learned Society for Literature, whose president was my late mentor, Shuhei Hayama. Before writing tanka, I used to write novels. I think the story is like an orchestra as the method of self-expression. Beginning with the plot constructed by the author, the storyline is developed by the characters and events, and the author completes this by following the carefully planned plot. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">But I found out I was not good at creating a plot. In those days when I was still immature, I wandered and was tossed around like a person who couldn't express something in her own heart. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Then I moved back to my hometown from the Tokyo area, going through various transitions in life. Finally, I came to know the self-expression method of tanka.</span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: gungsuh;"><span> </span><span> </span>師に文をしたたむるほど心癒え歌始めりと一言添へむ</span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span> </span><span> </span>painful memory </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span> </span><span> </span>healed enough to write </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span> </span><span> </span>to mentor…</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span> </span><span> </span>adding a phrase to a letter</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> <span> </span><span> </span><i>I start tanka<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">To write tanka is to put oneself in the moment. The flying objects, movements, and emotions of the poet's soul are expressed in a single musical instrument rather than an entire orchestra. For me, this encounter with tanka was the equivalent of becoming a solo violinist.</span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I learned the basic way to write tanka from friends; I have not had a tanka teacher or mentor so far. I have mainly composed tanka based on tanka books and aesthetics that I empathized with.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhava6-8o7Uk7mOv5xVHIY886iF8tEMXZ5uXHHmT-mzKa8yBW5behunhnLHcqqLHk4NS3UaqXNgRsq1piq43GdLlW4L3R_4vwnx6KYn1JKb6xIx7OiZ03I4H6h-_xXCY701GqXziLmuyFI/s1100/5-paddy-in-may2020-water.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="1100" height="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhava6-8o7Uk7mOv5xVHIY886iF8tEMXZ5uXHHmT-mzKa8yBW5behunhnLHcqqLHk4NS3UaqXNgRsq1piq43GdLlW4L3R_4vwnx6KYn1JKb6xIx7OiZ03I4H6h-_xXCY701GqXziLmuyFI/w625-h351/5-paddy-in-may2020-water.jpg" width="625" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div><p></p><p class="normal" style="margin: 12pt 0in;"><b style="font-family: cambria;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">What poets, past or present, have inspired you?</span></b></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">My tanka has been inspired by the classical tanka, or waka, poets, and the Meiji Era (1868-1912) to Showa Era (1926-1989) poets. These include the poets of the classical collections <i>Manyoshu, Kokinwakashu</i> and <i>New Kokinwakashu</i>, especially Abe-no-Nakamaro, Saigyo, Yoshida Kenko, and Ono-no-Komachi. According to one influential theory, Ono-no-Komachi was born in Ono, Yuzawa, Akita, in the prefecture where I live. I love her.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Among my favorites from the modern poets, in the Meiji Period to Showa Period, are Masaoka Shiki, Ito Sachio, Warabi Shinichiro, Nagatsuka Takashi, Wakayama Bokusui, Saito Mokichi, Kubota Utsubo, and Maeda Yugure.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I see that you refer to yourself as "The Poet of the Fifth Dimension." What does this mean?</span></b></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I think that this world consists of what is visible to the naked eye and what is invisible. About the fifth dimension, I think that it is the world beyond the normal time of the fourth dimension. It may be said that it is the world of the invisible soul in which we can freely move back and forth between time and space. The world of the soul, the fifth dimension, is currently being explored in microscopic studies of quantum physics, neutrinos, and photons. In this regard, I believe that literature and science will reach one truth in the future because the truth is One.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Now, as for me calling myself such a mysterious name as Poet of the Fifth Dimension, this means that I write tanka flexibly and disclose myself to this world without being trapped in anything other than the basic set form of tanka.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Many of your published tanka are accompanied by photographs that you have taken. Which usually comes first―the tanka or the photograph?</span></b></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">In tanka, I draw nature while expressing myself at the same time. Thus, I take photographs of nature from which to write the tanka. For these tanka, first of all, I come across the subject. Then, I take a photograph to capture the impression of the subject as it appeared in my mind. This also takes in the weather—is it sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy?—and the light and angle of perception. I want to preserve the moment of passion before it comes out of my mind. That moment may disappear in the next moment. So, I start by taking pictures.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I use the smartphone and write the tanka in the writing app. When the words for the tanka come to me, I cannot help writing them: the urge to keep the words coming out of my heart makes me stop walking and write them quickly. Later, it may be possible to find better words that are more suited to the scene and subject than the words that first came to mind. So I take pictures not only for my instinct but also for later revision.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizjAfZ6dhaHhja3pBsLGSYzqU7MDvwEnjC0-VP2oYce9PyxJyaHyjG9_itf4ilDqVDyIxGy97YVfOOhb6d_JiFu60HmS0eOacTwfBB9jug2PXY52MBiUj2DEKVknKBG__652pHRKghRBM/s1100/6-sanae-atadsutau-may2020.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="1100" height="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizjAfZ6dhaHhja3pBsLGSYzqU7MDvwEnjC0-VP2oYce9PyxJyaHyjG9_itf4ilDqVDyIxGy97YVfOOhb6d_JiFu60HmS0eOacTwfBB9jug2PXY52MBiUj2DEKVknKBG__652pHRKghRBM/w625-h351/6-sanae-atadsutau-may2020.jpg" width="625" /></a></div><p></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span> </span><span> </span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Do you always write the Japanese version of your tanka first?</span></b></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">The first thing I do is compose my original Japanese tanka. I use the old Japanese words as much as possible. Even if I take new words, I follow the archaic Japanese grammar. This is an essential point for me. Carefully selecting the words deepens the work. I see tanka as a linguistic art in which the difference in the choice of one word could change the meaning and sound of the tanka itself.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">What challenges are there in translating your tanka from Japanese into English?</span></b></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">"Tanka" in English literally means "short song." Songs not only have words but also rhythms. When being read aloud, the Japanese tanka has its own unique rhythm. With tanka in English, "song" can mean rhythm, too.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I am usually careful not to be verbose because as a rule, we have to write Japanese tanka with only 31 mora (similar to syllables in English). When a Japanese sentence would make a long English translation, I use the participle construction, along with the conjunctions "because," "as," "although," and so on. Like Japanese tanka, an English translation has implications beyond words. It leads to what I call spacetime.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx1wQ7-X4zw8Jo0xOK9QJBYKqYq6KkxRb6Y8Pnfe_5YdyVVl7xbSAHLb5xdkZoki6jBmWbGRuWKd4CbGqFWBCquArPIfWfkeO0fhiE6_WvwFTmWD0iK6aRozIK5XGjdSNqbPEBuaMJc2Y/s1040/1-soul-of-language-revision.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1040" height="348" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx1wQ7-X4zw8Jo0xOK9QJBYKqYq6KkxRb6Y8Pnfe_5YdyVVl7xbSAHLb5xdkZoki6jBmWbGRuWKd4CbGqFWBCquArPIfWfkeO0fhiE6_WvwFTmWD0iK6aRozIK5XGjdSNqbPEBuaMJc2Y/w500-h348/1-soul-of-language-revision.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><p></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Some of your recent tanka are about the Coronavirus. How has the virus affected life in Japan?</span></b></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">For the Japanese people, new Coronavirus infections are mainly concentrated in urban areas. However, we have continued self-restraint all over Japan in order to avoid a recurrence. We are always alert to the possibility.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">To prevent a new Coronavirus infection in Japan, people have avoided the Three C's: "closed spaces," "crowded places," and "close-contact settings." In daily life, we need to be careful about washing our hands frequently, putting on a mask, and keeping social distance. I think it has been easy for us Japanese people to practice precautions because, for example, we are accustomed to washing our hands after coming home from outside. This is one of the disciplines of parenting. Also, masks have been worn to avoid hay fever by many people. As for social distancing, to some extent, we have always kept a certain distance when interacting with others. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">In my personal life, as I live in the countryside of Akita Prefecture, I hardly have had to change my life. As of July 21, 2020, only sixteen people have been infected here, and the number of infected people has not increased since April 16. The infected people were those who returned from the metropolitan area or outside the prefecture and brought the virus with them. Therefore, we have to keep practicing self-restraint and refrain from going out of the prefecture, especially not to the Tokyo metropolitan area. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">From now on, the Japanese government will emphasize decentralization in local areas instead of focusing everything on one big city. I think this phenomenon will also affect literature. For example, in recent years Japanese tanka has tended to focus on urban subjects. A return to the local, I think, will also mean a return to nature, and poets will tend to compose more poetry on nature. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">It is interesting in this regard that the Japanese Emperor Tenno was replaced last year, and the era changed from Heisei to Reiwa. "Reiwa" is a word taken from <i>Manyoshu</i>, the oldest tanka anthology (published around 783 A.D.). In the Manyo era, people were creative and dynamic in nature. I think the new era was named with such a wish. Reiwa tanka might be more creative and dynamic than Heisei tanka.</span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho14QJ7nZJAHYYTEcQHvMVeMQD0LlWxFLPpmkRA4AVadT7LJ0uvijWdsWW6bQiESQ6P7VlqBmRQCZ9BhEp645XVl6yFBI_WIV5hT6NX_nLtOVTFwSQjJGn1xYEQVpwTMfn5gCpR9z1msM/s1040/10-graveyard.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1040" height="348" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho14QJ7nZJAHYYTEcQHvMVeMQD0LlWxFLPpmkRA4AVadT7LJ0uvijWdsWW6bQiESQ6P7VlqBmRQCZ9BhEp645XVl6yFBI_WIV5hT6NX_nLtOVTFwSQjJGn1xYEQVpwTMfn5gCpR9z1msM/w500-h348/10-graveyard.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><p></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span> </span><span> </span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span><span> </span></span>in the graveyard</p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span> </span>the cherry tree</p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span> </span>may be</p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"> a guardian spirit of the village</p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"> against Coronavirus</p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span></b></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">In one of your tanka you write that "the cherry tree/ may be/ a guardian spirit of the village" to protect against the Coronavirus. And in another tanka you refer to "Dragon Gods." Are spiritual and religious ideas important in your writing?</span></b></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Yes, spiritual ideas are important to me. It's not religion so much as beauty, the spirit that exists in nature, which I think everyone feels whether they are the conscious of it or not.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">The original religion of Japan is Shinto, in which "God" is not the only one god, but there are also the gods that exist in nature. In time, Shinto was united with Buddhism, and monotheistic Christianity also came to Japan, although the number of its believers are still few. I think the reason Shinto and Buddhism based on nature have taken root in Japan is that the Japanese people, living on this small island, have felt the spiritual existence in nature itself—the awe, blessing, and fear.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">As for the spirits of the dead, I feel them when I visit my family grave and temples, and sit at the Buddhist altar in my home. My sect is Zen, Soto-Shu.</span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "yu mincho light";"><span> </span><span> </span>死者とともに生くる世界は果て無しか朝に仏の供養しおもふ</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span> </span><span> </span>is the world living</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span> </span><span> </span>with the dead endless?</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span> </span><span> </span>I meditate—</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span> </span><span> </span>while serving spirits</span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span> </span><span> </span>in the morning</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">What writing projects are you working on now?</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I would like to complete the "Poet of the Fifth Dimension" tanka that are serialized on my blog at present.</span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-AJVIyj2DzzdN3vvK05EbawAgx7P19uGTI7qtxtsUEs0wdfc9t8miWXlnE7kM17B0YGTyJ5MNA1ovwAsorfaFjZYO6D7A_LDXNDLeddU2wtFDGPaKTsSEhLHBb4sRWb2tOb-0tv9VVVs/s1100/1-e5b1b1e68790.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="1100" height="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-AJVIyj2DzzdN3vvK05EbawAgx7P19uGTI7qtxtsUEs0wdfc9t8miWXlnE7kM17B0YGTyJ5MNA1ovwAsorfaFjZYO6D7A_LDXNDLeddU2wtFDGPaKTsSEhLHBb4sRWb2tOb-0tv9VVVs/w625-h351/1-e5b1b1e68790.jpg" width="625" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span><p></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">You can learn more about Rika Inami and see her work on her blog, Poet of the Fifth Dimension</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">, https://poet-rikainami.blogspot.com<i>/, and </i>Akita International Haiku Network, https://akitahaiku.com/.</span></p><p class="normal" style="font-family: cambria; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span></p><div style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAD3tgep5aLzA1XZ5NL9IK3UslRdb7qtWIr286Ukxcoj1AtwQLMzBfy9M_3KP4xzU45U8xbS_eEQxmrgfbkmhbx8Ib83ESRvjhzzMOzEE0Thwu9szULvmdw5hrEkir_0VtF7fSKWx8irk/s1600/Frost+Conference+photos+008_edited.jpg" style="clear: left; color: #888888; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAD3tgep5aLzA1XZ5NL9IK3UslRdb7qtWIr286Ukxcoj1AtwQLMzBfy9M_3KP4xzU45U8xbS_eEQxmrgfbkmhbx8Ib83ESRvjhzzMOzEE0Thwu9szULvmdw5hrEkir_0VtF7fSKWx8irk/w143-h200/Frost+Conference+photos+008_edited.jpg" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="143" /></a></div><p class="normal" style="margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif;">Barry George's haiku and tanka have been published in more than 60 journals and twelve languages. His poems appear in such anthologies as</span><span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif;"> <i>A New Resonance 2: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku</i>; <i>The New Haiku</i>; <i>Haiku 21</i>; <i>Streetlights: Poetry of Urban Life in Modern English Tanka</i></span><span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif;">;</span><span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif;"> <i>Bigger Than They Appear; Anthology of Very Short Poems</i></span><font color="#222222" face=""><span>;</span></font><font color="#222222"><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"> and </span></font><span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif;">most recently, <i>Tanka 2020: Tanka from Today's World</i>. He</span><span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif;"> has won numerous international Japanese short-form competitions, including First Prize in the Haiku Society of America's Gerald R. Brady Contest. He is the author of</span><span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif;"> <i>Wrecking Ball and Other Urban Haiku</i>, <i>The One That Flies Back </i>(tanka)</span><span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif;">, and the forthcoming <i>Sirens and Rain </i>(haiku). His main interest is poetry that explores human nature, and our relationship with "nature" and Earth.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></p>Barry Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00564939607349132454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-17442874128278622512020-07-29T19:00:00.000-04:002020-07-29T19:00:01.007-04:00With Luck, We All Become Persons of a Certain Age: an interview with Leatha Kendrick<div style="line-height: 150%;">
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<a href="http://leathakendrick.com/" target="_blank">Leatha Kendrick</a> lives and works in Kentucky. She is the author of five volumes of poetry, the most recent one, <i><a href="https://www.accents-publishing.com/andluckier.html" target="_blank">And Luckier</a></i> (Accents Publishing, 2020). She co-edited <i>Crossing Troublesome, Twenty-Five Years of the Appalachian Writers Workshop</i> and wrote the script for <i>A Lasting Thing for the World—The Photography of Doris Ulmann</i>, a documentary film. Her poems, essays and fiction appear widely in journals and anthologies including <i>What Comes Down to Us – Twenty-Five Contemporary Kentucky Poets</i>; <i>The Kentucky Anthology—Two Hundred Years of Writing in the Bluegrass State</i>; <i>Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia</i>, <i>I to I: Life Writing by Kentucky Feminists</i>, and others.<br />
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She leads workshops in poetry, life writing, and writing to heal at the Carnegie
Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington, KY, as well as at workshops and conferences in Kentucky and elsewhere. She is at work on a novel that centers on sisters, small town life, relinquishment and adoption.
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Review and Interview by Melva Sue Priddy</h3>
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<a href="http://leathakendrick.com/" target="_blank">Leatha Kendrick</a> guest taught in a few of my creative writing and English class rooms some 15 years or more ago. Engaging and organized, my students and I learned from having her in my high school classes. I also rubbed elbows with Leatha at The Hindman Appalachian Writers Workshop, KY, and The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, Lexington, KY. We have a mutual friend, Ann Olson (<a href="https://annwolson.blogspot.com/">https://annwolson.blogspot.com</a>), who sent me a copy of Leatha’s new book upon its release during these months of the coronavirus pandemic. It has been an uplifting, inspiring and engaging read for this isolating time. I was reading Elizabeth Berg’s novel <i>The Pull of the Moon</i> as I read Leatha’s <i><a href="https://www.accents-publishing.com/andluckier.html" target="_blank">And Luckier</a></i>. Somehow they worked with and informed each other—but that could just be me and my luck.<br />
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Leatha’s readers, mature and young, will enjoy reading these 45 poems, divided
evenly between “I. Home Fires,” “II. Broken, Various, Inscrutable,” and “III. Unasked-for Singing.” Her writing has honed deeper into the human condition with each new book, and, ever personal and real, she holds your hand as a friend who walks with you as you read. You might think I am exaggerating; well, not by much. Leatha caught my hand with her second poem, “Next World” and we walked from there.<br />
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Tell an unborn child<br />
there is dancing here,<br />
a blaze of scarlet leaves<br />
at autumn, seas that whisper<br />
to the sand, vermillion rose-<br />
gold skies at evening,<br />
<i>I dance</i>, he’ll say. His legs,<br />
flexed, test a wall.<br />
<i>I hear the ocean pulse,<br />
drift in warm waters,<br />
gaze on ruby skies<br />
bright and filtered.<br />
Sleep, dream. I know<br />
that other world—<br />
how it must be.</i><br />
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Tell him galaxies, wind,<br />
houses, lightning,<br />
lover’s fingers, dinner’s<br />
warm steams rising,<br />
a flower. <i>Yes, yes,</i><br />
he’ll say. <i>I know.</i>
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Reading on, Leatha doesn’t gloss over the difficulties in life. In another poem, “How to Go On,” one line reads: “So much suffering. We cannot uncause it.” In her briefest poem, “Eviction,” she writes: “Most of what / I lost I took / from myself.” If that isn’t everyone’s truth! Her range of themes move through birth and death, order and chaos, finding and making home, joy and difficulties, and aging. General and very specific. And she conveys so much wisdom. Her skill with words is modest and fluent. And her poems are informed by what is going on in this world and what she has experienced in her lifetime. “Out the Door,” a sonnet, “stands / between us and the world”:<br />
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It’s getting out the door that stands<br />
between us and the world. I know. Open<br />
the damn thing and step through. Broken<br />
promises are all that hold us. Plans<br />
we made and then ignored. The mess in the house<br />
we’re afraid will survive us. The quiet hours<br />
we thought to have. Access to the powers<br />
we felt as children, near in us, now lost<br />
to lack of faith. The only thing that changes<br />
is the heart. There’s the door. The dream<br />
kept the faith you dropped. Time arranges<br />
more second chances than they tell us. Clean<br />
breaks, old reservations waiting to be<br />
taken up.
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The following interview was conducted via email.
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<i>MSP – The first poem in your collection that I fell in love with is your second poem, “Next World”. Tell me about that poem.</i><br />
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<b>LK</b> – The poem began with my trying to imagine the world from an embryo’s point of view. Imagining the sky, the “weather,” the sounds, the day/night cycles of it. An embryo late in its gestation might feel pretty certain about what life and the cosmos were all about. And then comes birth! So the poem is a playful, speculative look at the limits of knowledge. The poem is one of the oldest ones in the book, drafted in 2013 and published in 2014. <i>And Luckier</i> came together as a collection over the past decade, and “Next World” survived multiple drafts as the poems began to teach me what this book was going to be about. One of its biggest themes is limits: physical limitations, the limits of what we know and can know, and the limits of our courage and compassion. This poem could have been a first inkling of the book’s themes, if I had known enough to realize it!
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<i>MSP – “Reinvention” reads like a very coronavirus poem. When did you write this? Do you agree? What is it about?
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<b>LK</b> – I first drafted “Reinvention” in July, 2013. For years I had juggled teaching and writing while commuting between Lexington and eastern Kentucky. As I worked on this poem I was clearing out the house we’d lived in for thirty years <i>and</i> our small place in Lexington as we downsized to the townhouse where we live now. It was another one of those times when I felt that I was never doing enough or being enough, and I wondered what it might feel like to simply stop. The poem is a playful response to my weariness with multitasking and trying to be all things to everyone.
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I suppose that in the back of my mind were visions of a post-apocalyptic world in which we’d be forced to start over, though I certainly did not anticipate that we’d be living through a pandemic that would bring so much of daily life to a halt. I remember wondering what it might look like if we chose stillness. Many of us discovered in the silence of the lock-down a chance to reflect on what matters.<br />
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As in all utopias, however, human nature itself is the ultimate shaper of outcomes. To the extent that they can, old patterns of thought and being will reassert themselves, and the poem imagines some aspects of this as well.
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If many poems in this collection seem fitted to our moment in history, maybe that is because the pandemic forced a recognition of pressures that have been building in our culture. For example, the opening poem of the collection, “Your Fear,” was written in December of 2018—not in response to pandemic fears, but out of my realization that our personal and societal fears are partly created and certainly manipulated by the headlines someone in some media outlet has chosen to present to us on a given day. I am conscious of writing to engage with moments of time in a broader context (on the planet, in our global society) as I age. I have my small sliver of vision about how things are – what do I have to say? what do I <i>have</i> to say?
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<i>MSP – Your poems include many questions, more than I’ve ever seen in any one collection. Can you tell me about that?
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<b>LK</b> – I had not considered that the book is filled with questions until you pointed it out. Maybe part of that is a function, again, of age! I am acutely aware of all that I do not know and will never know.
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Here are some questions from the poems: “What is the new?” “What did I want?” “What do I have to say today?” “What do I know?”
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A question opens a door – it makes space for what I might not have considered before. Questions are about wonder – about taking a fresh look, taking a step back and saying, “Hmmm.”
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At this point in my life I feel an urgency to look at everything differently, to consider possibilities. And part of recognizing what might be possible is learning to ask the right question—the best question to enlarge understanding. Ultimately, the poems are concerned with discovering what questions are important to ask and accepting never having a single right answer for any of them. And it is about having faith in the midst of the unknowable. As a writer, I want to come at the world with what Keats called “negative capability,” which he characterized as “capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.”
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The questions in my poems point to moments of understanding, but they also admit the limits of what we can know. It’s about trusting <i>not knowing</i>. Facts and reason have a important place in discursive writing, but art helps us inhabit other points of view. I want my poems to be about learning empathy, honoring the mysteries of other ways of being.
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<i>MSP – “Poem for a Daughter” appears, scattered in the collection, in three versions, I, II, and III. You chose different forms for each. Tell me about these poems.
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<b>LK </b>– The three “Poem(s) for a Daughter” were written separately and over a long period of time. Each had its own title, and I did not think of grouping them until I was well into making this book. As I chose which poems to include I knew that this collection circled issues of identity: who am I? how do I know who I am?
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For many years, mothering was central to who I was. I wrote my first poems and essays about mothering. “Mother,” of course, is not a static identity. Each of these poems was born of a moment of transition as I moved from parenting children at home to becoming the mother of young adult and adult daughters.
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The poems appear in the order in which they were written – the first one dating from when our daughters were coming home from college, suddenly independent and distanced from me. I had wanted that poem to be a sonnet, but could not get it into fourteen lines of iambic pentameter. I settled for sixteen lines which range from ten to seventeen syllables each. The uneven rhythm mimics my struggle to reach through the changing roles that separated us, though the poem settles toward iambic pentameter in the last five lines.
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“Poem for a Daughter, II” is a villanelle occasioned by our oldest daughter’s pregnancy with her first child. The poem began as a villanelle, though it went through ten years of revisions (our oldest grandson turned 11 in June) to find the truest and most accurate words to express the layers of feeling I was trying to convey. The repetition and variation of the form – and the liberties I took with the refrain – reflect the fact that every pregnancy is both common and one of a kind, endlessly repeated and unique. From the very first draft, the villanelle had be the form for this poem.
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“Poem for a Daughter, III” is a fairly new poem, drafted late last summer on a day that brought back the intensity of mothering our first child in a little house on a hillside in eastern Kentucky above the Big Sandy River during the worst winter in decades (1976-77). Again, the poem leans toward a sonnet’s shape and musicality, though it is not quite a double sonnet. Written on an August day that recalled the heat of our first August in that little house next to the church on Cow Creek, the poem speaks to an “all-at-onceness” contained in some moments when time feels as if it’s collapsed. My daughter and her daughter on the phone talking about a smelly mess made by a broken washer brought back those diaper pails of forty years ago, as if they were not gone at all. Were they truly gone? How can everything be both here and not here at the same time?
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<i>MSP – You include about ten sonnets in the book, five of what I call “”very free verse poems” (pages 7, 27, 35,39, & 50—you may have a different name?), and two prose poems, and at least one villanelle, one ode and one triolet. Can you say something about how you know when a poem should be a particular form.
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<b>LK</b> – As I was saying about the “Poem for a Daughter” villanelle earlier, sometimes a form suggests itself and sustains layers of meaning in a poem. Form, allows me to play with words and step outside my normal phrasing and thought patterns. Far from constricting expression, form is a vehicle for discoveries as I write a poem.
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Fixed forms – like the villanelle or triolet, for example – offer a doorway into difficult material sometimes and other times allow a playful stance. “Dream Shop,” the triolet in AL, gave me a way to render a vividly recalled dream – the form’s repeating lines mimicked the stuckness of the dreamer, her self-questioning: How did I end up here?
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Content pushing against form creates a fruitful tension that makes a poem more interesting – both to write and to read. Meeting the demands of form forces me to consider more deeply exactly what I mean to say. As Richard Wilbur put it, “The strength of the genie comes of his being confined in a bottle.” Pursuing a form as I write makes each decision conscious: every word and line break, the sound and rhythm of each line, the visual impact of the poem.
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The sonnet is my favorite fixed form, a challenging and useful container. Though it seems counterintuitive, the sonnet’s rigid structure has been part of why it has endured: poets through the centuries have wrestled with, adapted, rebelled against, and ultimately made use of the form. It’s just the right length to contain a small argument with the self. Its fourteen iambic lines put a limit on how far you can go. Rhyme complicates and diversifies the conversation with the self, forcing me to find language I would not have used otherwise.
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Most of the sonnets I write begin as sonnets, with me letting the form itself guide me into the content of the poem. Reaching for a line-ending takes the poem in unexpected directions and is very satisfying. It’s rare (and difficult) for me to revise a free-verse poem into a form.
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Very free verse poems – which may be characterized as “astrophic,” or not written in regular stanzas – make use of white space as well as line breaks and stanza breaks. I love this form for its sense of energy and whimsy, as in e.e. cummings’ poems. I can deploy lines across the field of the page to set up another layer of tensions and juxtapositions. Lines can mimic the way thought moves – white space can say, “On the one hand . . . but also. . .” simply by where words are placed in relationship to each other. May Swenson is an influence on my use of this kind of form, and, more recently, the poems of Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
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Prose poems offer a chance to blur genres – to tell a little story yet keep poetry’s strangeness and lyricism. They are (for me) the hardest form to trust. The two prose poems in <i>And Luckier</i> spent years in other forms before I thought to try them as prose poems. Now I try to make it a practice to put poems into un-lineated form to see what happens. Every change of form as I am revising shows me what isn’t in the poem yet – or what needs to come out.
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I usually begin drafting free verse poems in a long unbroken stanza, with the lines finding whatever length seems to suit the rhythm of what I’m hearing in my head. Deciding where to break stanzas and whether open up the lines and use the whole page is part of what is, for me, usually a long process of revision that includes refining the language of the poem and paying attention to sound. Finding the form for a poem is the same thing as finding the poem for me—the form is part of the poem’s content.
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<i>MSP – What did you learn about aging in writing </i>And Luckier?
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<b>LK</b> – It’s not so much a matter of what I learned as what writing these poems allowed me to articulate that I had not found a way to say before. My poet self loves words for themselves, she plays with language and speculates and riffs on lists and sounds and associations, and in the process, she <i>names</i> what she feels, as in the poem, “Naming It.” Here, the aging woman claims her right to sing, “unasked.”
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Writing poems –especially in forms like the sonnet (in “The Warp,” for instance) – leads me to voices I didn’t know I had. In “The Warp” I found images of rust and heat and slivers of light that voiced a wiser and more joyful understanding than I had articulated before. Through those images, I let go of the person I used to be and put away the dream of the person I thought I might become. These surrenders made space for the person who is and allowed me to embrace her in the poem’s last two lines.
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Aging is a lesson in confronting limits. Writing these poems I learned that limits are best confronted with humor (if possible) and a big dose of self-compassion. The latter is not always easy to practice. Courage and optimism are also essential. Singing helps – and dancing, too, whenever and however you can. One thing that did surprise me was that many of the poems of aging took me to light-hearted places.
<br />
<br />
Part of the joy of putting <i>And Luckier</i> together as a collection was the chance it gave me, at 70, to speak back to the circumstances of my life and of the world. The part of me speaking in these poems has made a space for herself and claimed and filled it. When I teach a workshop or write with friends, we are creating and owning space for the kinds of understandings and delights and self-acceptance that making poems can bring us. We are doing it together, and there is joy in that.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>MSP – Do you want to say anything about how difficult it is to have a poetry collection come out during the coronavirus pandemic?
</i><br />
<br />
<b>LK</b> – What I am most aware of is how many writers I know who had books coming out this spring and summer. Artists of all kinds – particularly ones whose art is performance – have faced challenges getting their work to its audience. Most musicians and writers responded by generously sharing work they would have otherwise been performing live over virtual platforms. We’ve had extraordinary online access to all kinds of art these past months!
<br />
<br />
Platforms like FaceBook and YouTube and Zoom have allowed us to get our work heard. In one way, it’s been an amazing thing to reach people around the world this way. Despite the potential reach of a virtual event, however, the trade-off is a loss of the energy and spontaneity of an in-person reading, not to mention the serendipitous conversations and connections that happen at live events. Like my other writing friends with new books, I had scheduled readings and local and regional events beginning in April and throughout most of the year. All but a couple of these have been cancelled – and those will be virtual.
<br />
<br />
It is more important than ever to talk to each other about books that came out during these months of social isolation. Sharing poems on social media and in email and Zoom conversations, writing reviews (even brief ones in social media posts), attending virtual readings, and buying books (from local booksellers if possible) are vital to sustain and support each other. Podcasts, blog posts, and interviews (like this one you are doing – thank you!) keep us aware of new books we can come to love. These days I am more aware of and grateful for the many ways we stay connected as artists.
<br />
<br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; text-align: center;">
* * * * * * *</div>
<br />
Leatha Kendrick’s title poem comes in response to a quote from Walt Whitman: All goes onward and outward nothing collapses, / And to die is different from what any one is supposed, and luckier.” This blog is always a a virtual event, and I thank Leatha for working this interview in, around all the everyday events that yank us up and sooth us down, especially during the coronavirus epidemic. I’ll give Leatha the last word, from “There Was a Door”:
<br />
<br />
What do I have to say today?<br />
Only Oh and Oh and Oh<br />
let me cross my own boundary<br />
open the door—
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Melva Sue Priddy, a native Kentuckian, earned degrees in English/Education from Berea College and The University of Kentucky, before earning an MFA. Her poems witness survivance and growth, bringing to light truths that arise out of felt experience. In addition to poems, she creates gardens, quilts, and some rustic woodwork. Her poetry can be found in <i>ABZ</i>, Accents Publishing’s LexPoMo, <i>Blood Lotus, The Louisville Review, Poet Lore, Motif Anthologies, The Single Hound,</i> and <i>Still</i>. </span>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-16561097847381278482020-06-28T14:35:00.004-04:002020-06-28T14:42:46.059-04:00Some notes on Teaching Poetry in a Crisis—by Cole Bellamy<br />
<br />
“We’re rebuilding the plane in the air” <br />
<br />
That was the metaphor administration kept using—it would be said at least once, in every one of the twice-weekly meetings—from March, when we closed the campus, until graduation in June.<br />
<br />
In my dual-enrollment English class, the shutdown coincided with the end of a unit on Hamlet, and beginning a unit on poetry. The plan had been a straightforward end to the semester: something my high school seniors could handle amid the mad rush of prom, graduation, and the rest of the ceremonial dog and pony show. Of course, as we all know, that was not the case. When the order came to shut down and move to online learning, I was faced with the prospect of quickly changing everything to fit into a Zoom window.<br />
<br />
The job of a teacher, much of the time, is to be an advocate for the material—to sell students on the importance of the subject—this is already a fraught prospect when it comes to poetry. In my nine years in classrooms, I’m not sure if I’ve ever fully managed to convince students of the importance of poetry; not for lack of trying, of course, but in the nakedly transactional age of Trump and Tik-Tok, it can be an uphill battle. Add in the obvious limitations of distance learning, and the looming global crisis, and I wasn’t feeling terribly optimistic.<br />
<br />
Even in the best of times, online teaching can feel like shouting into the void—the organic flow of classroom discussion is lost, replaced with videos, message boards, and infrequent Zoom chats. Poetry has always been a staple of my classroom—it can be an excellent tool for education, as it distills so many of techniques of effective communication into a concentrated form. It’s also a natively communal medium, something that should be read out loud in a small group, as opposed to prose, which is best read silently to the self. Losing that ability to lead face-to-face discussions, and to emphasize the experience of reading and listening to poetry, presented a major difficulty. I tried to substitute with brief video lectures, discussion questions, but it couldn’t replace the experience of the classroom—when a class discussion is really “cooking” there’s nothing quite like it. Still, I woke up every morning, put on a shirt and tie, went out to my back patio, read poetry to my laptop, posted follow-up questions, and waited for the message boards to fill up.<br />
<br />
Feeling out and responding to the needs of students can be difficult enough face-to-face, and nearly impossible at a distance. We always hope that students will let us know what they need, but it isn’t always so simple. It was in our discussion for the poem ‘Lineage’ by Margaret Walker that the character of the class changed. The poem is one that I’ve taught many times, it looks into the past, into the speaker’s ancestors, searching for strength in a difficult time. It ends with a pointed question “My grandmothers were strong. / Why am I not as they?” I asked for students to discuss how the author created an emotional reaction in the poem, and that opened the flood-gates. Students began sharing their anxieties about the pandemic, their doubts about the future, and the feeling of being suddenly derailed right on the cusp of the rest of their lives. That was my cue to shift focus, away from what we can learn from poetry—how it can inform our sense of language and helps us become better communicators—to what poetry can do for us—how it can provide us with words to fit what we might already be feeling, how it can let us know we are not alone in those feelings. I shifted my focus to poems that deal with isolation, grief, disappointment, and the possibility of hope in difficult times. I also moved toward covering and discussing more contemporary work-—recent poetry that I had read and enjoyed. My students particularly liked ‘February and my love is in another state’ by Jose Olivarez, ‘Ruminant’ by Clodagh Beresford Dunne, and ‘America’ by Sarah Maria Medina.<br />
<br />
I would love to say that my online poetry unit was a glorious life-changing experience for everyone involved, a spark that starts a life-long love of poetry; realistically though, I’ll settle for the possibility that I was able to provide some comfort and stability during a difficult time.
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Cole Bellamy is a writer and educator from Tampa, Florida. He is the author of three collections of poetry: <i>Lancelot’s Blues, The Mermaid Postcard,</i> and <i>American Museum</i>, and his work has been featured in <i>The Louisville Review, Penumbra, Defenestration,</i> and most recently in <i>Muse/A</i>. He teaches creative writing at the Morean Arts Center, and blogs about Florida history, nature, and culture.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-46250904624904365532020-05-20T17:47:00.000-04:002020-06-28T14:36:31.739-04:00Review of Sherry Chandler’s "Talking Burley" <br />
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<div style="line-height: normal;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 18.0pt;">Talking Burley</span></b><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 18.0pt;"> by Sherry
Chandler</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">Main
Street Rag, 2019</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><a href="https://www.mainstreetrag.com/">https://www.mainstreetrag.com/</a></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">ISBN:
978-1-58848-721-2</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">81
pages</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">__________</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The following biography is from Main
Street Rag Publishing’s website: </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Sherry Chandler</b> grew up in the
hills near the confluence of the Kentucky and Ohio Rivers, where her family
farmed burley tobacco for generations. <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Talking Burley</span></i> is
her third full-length book of poems. Her work has received several awards,
including the Betty Gabehart, the <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Kudzu</span></i> magazine
prize, the Joy Bale Boone Prize, and the Editor’s Choice Award from <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Waypoints</span></i>. Twice nominated for Best of the Net, three
times for a Pushcart Prize, she has received financial support from the
Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She lives on a
small Kentucky farm.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">I first met Sherry Chandler around
ten years ago at a reading and panel discussion held as part of the Kentucky
Women Writers Conference in Lexington, Kentucky. I’ve
enjoyed her poetry collections <i>Weaving A New Eden</i> (2011) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Woodcarver's Wife</i> (2014) which I <a href="https://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2014/10/review-of-sherry-chandlers-woodcarvers.html">reviewed</a>
and <a href="https://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2014/10/interview-with-sherry-chandler.html">interviewed
</a>her for. Last year I was lucky enough to read with her and Leatha Kendrick
at River Valley Winery in Carrollton, Kentucky. Sherry has a website at: </span><span style="color: #2811d3; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sherrychandler.com%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1b4GbjCH7Lg2PoDF7YyBoeuAem6V-dO1GiIFqmei3WFBEyF4d7cNKn9HE&h=AT1rHjMHBywhPhWchasLen27hSmyFg0jIMiWT4GNuemMTeOg7vwhnsAacvimTGbWa8Dr2iGLKTmn6o6v7DLygn8SkSoHpTKd9Cq71XyX24gPu_B03mCUKabYvcRz1FOQN1LudZKN1zzhdJdd9hF3iQ" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2811d3;">http://www.sherrychandler.com/</span></a>. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> —<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Karen
L. George</i></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">__________</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></u></b></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Review of </span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Sherry
Chandler’s <i>Talking Burley</i></span></u></b></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sherry Chandler's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Talking Burley</i> examines the hardships
and traumas of farming and consuming tobacco, along with aspects of the industry’s
troubling history, woven with personal memories of growing up in that complex world.
The poems intricately braid cultural and social history of Kentucky and the nation,
delving into subjects such as illness, loss, strained relationships, war, debt,
and greed contrasted against moments of beauty, wonder, reverence, and
tenderness<span style="color: red;">. </span>She roots her poems in concrete, sensory
detail, particularly of the natural world, quickened by humor and wit rubbing
up against clear-sighted seriousness.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The first poem of collection, "Cigarettes,"
sets the stage for the book with a stark, honest account of her own history
with cigarettes:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
smoked them.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I
smoked them because I was married at 17 and divorced at 23.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I
smoked them because, when I heard the pistol, one shot in the dark,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I felt nothing. There was
nothing.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> …</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I
smoked them pregnant.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I
sucked on them while my baby suckled on me.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> …</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I
smoked them at a quarter a pack, at half dollar a pack, at a dollar a</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> pack.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> smoked them through vows I wouldn’t pay more.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I
paid more.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The repetition suggests the power of
the cigarette addiction alongside the narrator’s feeling of helplessness to
give them up. The poem goes on to say she smoked them when her “mother-in-law died
of lung cancer,” and when her father smoked while wearing oxygen, ending with the
emotionally intense lines:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I
quit them.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I
sat on the kitchen stool and I hugged myself. I hugged myself and I</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> rocked myself. I rocked myself and I screamed.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In “Founding Principles,” she talks
about our nation’s shameful history, how it was “built by slaves,” how the top
of the Capitol’s columns is decorated with tobacco leaves, as are school rings.
The poem ends with the acknowledgement of our troubling, complicated history,
with a striking contrast of light and dark images:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> We
re a city on a hill</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> We
are a thousand points of light</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> We
are burning crosses.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Several poems examine the tobacco wars of
the early 1900’s in Western Kentucky and Tennessee. Because <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">the</span><span style="background: white; color: black;"> American Tobacco Company pr</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">iced tobacco so low that farmers couldn’t
make any profit from it, the Planters' Protective Association of Kentucky and
Tennessee (called PPA) was formed. The Night Riders, a militant group of the PPA,
began to attack farms of growers who did not support the PPA—destroying tobacco
crops, buildings, machinery, and attacking individuals. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The poem “Pearl
Wilhoit” describes Night Riders in Hopkinsville, Kentucky that “destroyed
property valued at over $200,000.” In “The Night Rider,” written from the point-of-view
of one of the Night Riders, the state of Kentucky’s motto is praised, “United we
stand, divided we fall,” urging all tobacco growers to join the PPA and boycott
the monopoly of the</span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> American Tobacco
Company:</span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Time to teach your old squirrel gun</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> some new tricks. If those hillbilly holdouts</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> take Duke’s bribe, if they don’t pledge</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> their tobacco to the pool, </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> we’ll all fall.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The ones who won’t starve with us,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> we won’t let them fatten against us.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The poem “How to Lose the Family Farm” lists incremental
ways such a loss can occur, starting with such things as war; or when you’re forced
to borrow against the crop so you can have enough money to grow it; or recessions
and depressions. The poem lists other ways, repeating the same sentence structure,
emphasizing the escalating manner of this plight:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Start
when the Night Riders call you hillbilly, scrape your plant beds,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> burn
your barn in the name of solidarity.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Start
when you join the Night Riders, become the enforcer, so you don’t</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #b00000; font-family: "times new roman";"> </span>have
to watch your children starve.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Start
when the juggernaut of agribusiness runs you down, when the</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> American
Tobacco Company swallows up all competition for your</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> money
crop.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> </b></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Start with having
a money crop, all those eggs and only one basket.<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
T<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">he above stanzas convey the sense
of defeat those tobacco growers must have felt. While reading these poems, I
noticed how timely they felt, though placed in the past, because unfortunately
they point out a sad truth still present in today’s world—that money and big
business control everything.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The poem “Smoke Rings” powerfully conveys
how tobacco provided many things, not all wanted:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Tobacco
(dip chews at jawbone, teeth, and tongue) buys</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> life
insurance, health insurance, chemotherapy</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Tobacco
(allotments laced with chemicals grow steroidal crops)</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>crop
my sister raised bought her first piano and necessary lessons</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Tobacco
(smoke fills the organs of breath with carbon monoxide)</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> tithes
bought the organ my sister plays on Sundays, hymns ruined</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> lungs
can’t sing to save their souls</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The poem also alludes to the child
labor practice rampant on the tobacco farms. In a note to this poem, the author
references a 2011 article by Sarah Bosely in <i>The Guardian</i>, which “estimates
that there were 1.3 million [children working in tobacco fields] worldwide under
the age of 14”:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Tobacco farmers’ sons (unschooled) schooled
in tobacco culture</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">paid
the taxes, built the schools</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The irony <span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 48px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">of the above lines
perfectly portrays some of the quandaries associated with tobacco growing and
its business.</span></span><br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Many of Chandler’s poems recount
memories of her time growing up on a tobacco-growing farm. In “Fires at Night,”
she’s reminded of a fire “sixty years ago” when they burned tobacco plant beds “to
sterilize the ground, / ready it to receive seeds small as the dot / at the end
of this sentence.” Such a beautiful image of hope—life rising from the ashes.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the collection’s title poem, “Talking
Burley,” she speaks about the “Mysteries of language,” that tobacco had its own
vocabulary, how “we spoke, our broad a’s and flat i’s / made a job of a jab,
turned a harrow to a hire, / ware to wire, and wire itself to wahr,” and how cured
tobacco was arranged “into ordered piles / / we called books.”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She gives examples of her part in
the family’s tobacco growing in “To Set Tobacco with the Season,” where you
need: “a nine-year-old / granddaughter / willing to drop / the seedlings along
/ the laid-off rows.” In “The Jobber” she and her cousin assist Uncle James and
her big sister in the planting process:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Uncle
James shouts water boy! And me</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> and
my cousin take off with our lard</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> buckets
full. The bucket bail</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>bites
my palm, sweat bees sting the bend</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> of
my knees. When I cry, Uncle James says</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> sweat
bees only sting lazy people.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Many poems are alive with images of
the natural world. In “Cicadas” she expresses their sound so exquisitely as “a
conch-shell swell and fall…as if holding to ear a humpbacked larval husk / to
hear the shimmer of the earth’s pulse.” She has poems about horseflies, tobacco
worms, “soft as baby hair, / vulnerable / as exposed gut,” and grasshoppers who
“bet / their lives on the thrust of their long / hind legs.” In “Grasshopper”
we see her delightful sense of humor and wit:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A
tobacco worm is soft as a Quaker.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span>A grasshopper is hard-shelled as a Baptist.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">**</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This poet apologizes to the Quakers.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">**</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Take a July walk</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">down the farm road</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">just to look over your tobacco,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">a sizzling scatter of grasshoppers</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">will mark your progress</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">like a child’s sparkler</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">shedding stars.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What a lovely image to end the poem,
creating a pleasing sense of awe, along with the marvelous onomatopoeic line: “a
sizzling scatter of grasshoppers.”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The poem “Thurston” opens with a
beautiful description of a creek:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A
thing of roots and mud, the high bank smells</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> of
fish, rotten sycamore leaves, the rank horseweeds,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> growing
thick as a stockade wall along this deep hole</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> where
a grown man might wade up to his neck</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> in
murky water.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the poem “Rivers” she relates a
memory and the poet’s deep connection to the natural world. It opens with rich
imagery of sight, sound, scent, and motion:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Smells of early morning rivers</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">lap at memory in small</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">wind-driven waves, slap</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">against a plywood boat.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I love how it gives a heron and
three buzzards equal footing in the next stanza, creating a gorgeous image of
the buzzards:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Dragging
its legs, a heron</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> takes
flight. Three buzzards</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> on
a snag open prayer-book</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> wings
to greet the dawn.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The poem ends with a stanza of family
with her in the boat, and how they are intricately braided:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Daddy’s
rumbling</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> volcano
voice,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> his
cigarette smoke,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> my
brother’s chuckle,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> all
helix-entwined</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> in
my watery cells.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Those last two lines are so powerful,
suggesting the spiral chain of DNA contains shared memory (genetic memory), and
the idea that memories are held in your body at the cellular level.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Many of the poems examine memories
and various ideas of legacy. In “The Barn or Housing Kentucky Burley,” where the
Kentucky burley hung to dry, is now a place where “a wake of turkey vultures
roosts / in the ruin, nesting on rafters forty feet // above the ground.”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In “Legacy North,” the poet speaks
of, and to, her Grandfather Christoph, who emigrated from Silesia:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For
all I know Silesia is all vampires and werewolves,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Like
Kentucky is all creationists and toothless meth cooks.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Like
Kentucky, it’s a backwater.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Like
Kentucky, it’s known for mountains and cursed with coal.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Further in the poem, she again brings
up her family’s, Kentucky’s and our nation’s complicated history: “I am from
those enslaved. // I am from those who enslaved others.” </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Several poems present her family history
through the gaze of old photographs. In “Chandler Brothers, 1936” her father, “bent
under the propped-up hood” of a “broken-down Buick,” “is a shadow obscured by
deeper shadows.” Her Uncle James, “his body half out of the frame, / cud in his
jaw…looking back to confront the camera.” The poem, “Father and Children in
Sepia, 1937,” opens with a question as to what her sister is “looking at, off
to the right,” and closes with that same sister “ready to run / to whatever it
is that’s out of the frame.” </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Music threads through many of the
poems. In “Rhapsody in Common Time, Episode 1,” she tells of a grandfather who
plays the mandolin. “Rhapsody in Common Time, Episode 2” describes a great-grandfather
as follows: “to survive a 19<sup>th</sup> century amputation, / chugged
straight bourbon anesthetic, / his bone bisected by a bona fide sawbones / as
he lay on the kitchen table singing.”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The poems that explore the complexity
of a troubled Kentucky and U.S. history are echoed in the personal history poems
about difficult relationships. In “No Last Words” she writes of her father
dying: </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“…in those struggling months I
learned that old</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">and breathless men are not thereby
made mild.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Those wasted stringy muscles hold</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">the imprint of a power, a will both
wild</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">and ordinary, strength enough to
punch</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">a nurse.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The poem goes on to reveal she wasn’t
present when he died, and there was “No chance for deathbed drama, no chance to
say / what we would not have said, our softer fealty/</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">sealed in a steel-gray coffin, a
church-yard grave.” There is such emotional intensity in the ending stanzas:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>No
chance to overwrite the day I failed</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> a
father stripped and strapped to a plastic chair</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> without
a sheet or curtain to hide his frailty,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the
day I learned love can be trumped by fear,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> that
I had no resources that could tame</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> the
alien eloquence of his hate-filled stare,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and
since I could not speak to him of shame,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I
don’t remember that we spoke again.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is such power in the phrase,
the image of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“the alien eloquence of his
hate-filled stare,” through the odd pairing of “alien” and “eloquence,” along
with the seeming contradiction of a “hate-filled stare” being “eloquent.” This complexity
and duality of the phrase perfectly mirrors their fraught relationship. In “Little
Man,” she talks about several generations of men (son, grandson), her husband (“my
engendering lover is now the Old Man.”), and her father described as:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>…my
smoking, drinking, roofbeam-walking,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> mean-as-hell
one-and-only-father,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> who
would not have said those two words, [<i>Little Man</i>]</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> but
taught his sons what he knew:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> to
build a barn plumb and never show fear</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The poem “Lost” contains another memory
of the time her mother lost her solitaire ring down the drain. She says, “Daddy
offered / the diamond with his promise of good behavior / after twenty-five turbulent
years.” The poem ends with her musing:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>…I
like to think the ring washed</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> all
the way out onto the hillside slick, that it remains,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> claimed
by clay and sod, leached like greasy water,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> an
emblem of her union with the man, the house,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> the
ridge, and me, the child that hard clay bred.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The poem “Resolved” feels as if it’s
set in the present day, <i>resolving</i> the past. It begins “This year let us
hear our whispering better angels. / This year let us see from a more forgiving
angle…” Then the poem shifts into a past memory:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When
I was a child I’d hang from my father’s boat,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> up
to my ears in the river. While he ran his trot</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>line, I listened to the grunting speech of carp
and buffalo,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> he
song the river sang when the sun was low.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The poem ends with evocative images
and again the wish to let go of what we can’t resolve, and a desire to see
things in a different, kinder light:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>How
easy it was, at nine or ten, to float</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> along
the plane between, neither in nor out.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
year let us cut the knots we can’t untangle.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> T</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">his
year let us see from a more forgiving angle.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The last poem in the book, “The
Monster Opens its Eyes While the Closing Credits Roll” takes place squarely in
the present, speaking of a man who only ever wanted “a farm and a family,” who “expects
to prove himself. Like his father / and his grandfathers, he wants to be / what
he knows how to be: a good tobacco man.” The poem, and the book, ends with the
following stanza:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For
setting, housing, he hires brown-skinned</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span>immigrants he calls Mexican. Who
cares</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> how
many borders the fake news says they’ve crossed</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> or
why –no one else will work like slaves</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> in
August heat at wages he can almost afford.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Not
slaves, no chain gangs, no coiled whips</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> or
shot guns. The bottom line:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>he has to
have</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> cheap
labor. Tobacco is making a comeback.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">These lines echo this legacy of the
hard life and the dilemmas faced, of the tobacco grower now and in the past, as
examined throughout this book. They also suggest to me that this hope for a
tobacco comeback is in reality a false hope, which mirrors the idea of bringing
back coal—<i>a newer, clean coal</i>—just one of the false promises made during
the campaign of our current president.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The poems in Sherry Chandler's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Talking Burley</i> capture tobacco farming, culture,
and industry of the past that factored into forming our nation, seen through
the eyes of various people who experienced it. She brings our country’s,
Kentucky’s and her personal history alive through clear-eyed examination peppered
with wit and humor. These poems are infused with multi-layered rhythm, imagery,
and emotional depth, unflinching in their honesty and vulnerability, instilled with
tenderness, longing, and a reverence for the land and our connections to it and
our ancestors.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">__________</span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Here are links to some of Sherry Chandler’s poems:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<a href="https://bluelyrareview.com/sherry-chandler/"><i>Blue Lyra Review</i></a></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.verse-virtual.com/sherry-chandler-2014-december.html">Verse-Virtual</a></span></i><i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">If you want to hear Sherry Chandler talk about
her book “Talking Burley,” listen to this interview on Katerina Stoykova’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://wrfl.fm/audios/sr_program_2019_11_05_TUE_13_00_00.mp3?fbclid=IwAR18aDHsmWbTtoJMgjopfpXnp1IsNXUfqNZSeNlL114Qwxi1MWNIWGrePC4">Accents,
A Radio Show for Literature, Art and Culture</a>.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">__________</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk13055372"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></a></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="color: #222222;">Karen George</span></b><span style="color: #222222;"> retired from computer programming to write full-time. She lives
in Florence, Kentucky, enjoys photography and </span>visiting forests, museums, cemeteries, historic towns, and bodies of
water<span style="color: #222222;">.
She is author of five chapbooks, most recently </span><em><span lang="EN" style="font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">the
collaborative ekphrastic <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><a href="https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/frame-and-mount-the-sky-by-donelle-dreese-karen-george-nancy-jentsch-taunja-thomson/"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frame and Mount the Sky</i></a> </u></b> (Finishing Line Press, 2017), and </span></em>two poetry collections from <span style="color: #222222;">Dos Madres Press: </span><b><i><a href="https://www.dosmadres.com/shop/swim-your-way-back-by-karen-george/">Swim
Your Way Back</a></i></b> <span style="color: #222222;"> (2014) and </span><b><i><a href="https://www.dosmadres.com/shop/a-map-and-one-year-by-karen-l-george/">A
Map and One Year</a></i></b> (2018)<span style="color: #222222;">. You can find
her work in </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/emily-carrs-forest-british-columbia-1931-2-by-karen-l-george">The
Ekphrastic Review</a></span></i></b><span style="color: black;">, </span><strong><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://herontree.com/george5/"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Heron
Tree</b></a></span></i></strong><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, </i></b><b><i><span style="color: red;"><a href="https://www.valpo.edu/valparaiso-poetry-review/2019/05/21/karen-george-impression/">Valparaiso
Poetry Review</a></span></i></b>,
<b><i><span style="background: white; color: black;"><a href="https://juniperpoetry.com/sombreness-sunlit-emily-carr-1938-40-by-karen-george/">Juniper</a>,
</span></i></b><b><i><a href="https://www.thimblelitmag.com/2019/12/17/georgia-okeeffes-series-i-no-8-1919/">Thimble
Magazine</a></i></b>, <b><i><span style="color: #0b2bb5;"><a href="https://soboghoso.org/2020/03/23/frida-kahlos-the-wounded-deer-1946-karen-george/"><span style="color: #0b2bb5;">South Broadway Ghost Society</span></a></span></i></b>, and <b><i><span style="color: #0b2bb5;"><a href="http://www.gyroscopereview.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/GR-Spring-2020-Issue-20-2-Web.pdf"><span style="color: #0b2bb5;">Gyroscope Review</span></a></span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.
</i></b><span style="color: #222222;">She
holds an MFA from Spalding University, and is co-founder and fiction editor of
the journal, </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.waypointsmag.com/" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Waypoints</i></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">. Visit her website
at: </span><b><i><a href="https://karenlgeorge.blogspot.com/">https://karenlgeorge.blogspot.com/</a></i></b>.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Karen Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06855467849220914349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-21022561600770378472020-04-17T20:22:00.000-04:002020-04-18T12:37:04.263-04:00<div align="center" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: center;">
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Interview with Melissa Fite Johnson</h2>
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Melissa Fite Johnson’s first collection, <i>While the Kettle's On </i>(Little Balkans Press, 2015), won the Nelson Poetry Book Award and is a Kansas Notable Book. She is also the author of <i>A Crooked Door Cut into the Sky, </i>winner of the 2017 Vella Chapbook Award (Paper Nautilus Press, 2018). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in <i>Pleiades, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Sidereal, Stirring,</i> and elsewhere. Melissa teaches high school English in Lawrence, KS, where she and her husband live with their three dogs.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/While-Kettles-Melissa-Fite-Johnson/dp/0982454953/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=while+the+kettles+on&qid=1587169208&sr=8-2" target="_blank">Click here for book info</a></td></tr>
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I can't put a date on exactly when Melissa and I met, but we both lived in Pittsburg, Kansas for a while and had a lot of the same "poetry people" in common. In June 2017, Melissa came to Downtown Poetry, a monthly poetry event in Joplin, MO, that I co-organize, and read poems from <i>While the Kettle's On.</i> On stage, she had no problem connecting with the audience always making them laugh or sit up straight in their chairs for the poem that followed. Her poems are honest confessions of moments in her life that she shares as though having a conversation with you, yet they are also universal at the same time. I envy that in these poems. </div>
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This interview was conducted via email.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-indent: -24px;">Interview with Melissa Fite Johnson</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">How do you define
a poem?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="color: #2e75b6; text-indent: 0px;">I ask my high school Creative Writing students this all the time, often on the first day, and I’m still not sure I have a definitive answer. Ultimately, I think a poem is something that feels like a lifeline for both poet and reader.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">How do you begin a
poem (extra credit if you can think of a metaphor)?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="color: #2e75b6; text-indent: 0px;">Over coffee and breakfast, I read maybe a third of a poetry book, so I’m reading a new book every few days. I don’t put any rules on it; I just read to enjoy. I do find that this act works as a kind of primer, though. Those poems linger in my mind for hours, and that makes me more likely to sit down and write something that day. Because that’s the real answer: I decide to write, make the time.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Who are some of
your favorite poets you find yourself returning back to?</span><br />
<span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">My favorite poet is Sharon Olds. The summer I was twenty was a hard time for me. What got me through was checking out her books from the library and reading them in a downtown coffee shop. I read, stared out the window, wrote my own first hesitant poems.</span><span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s hard to know where to stop when I start making lists of favorites: Lucille Clifton, Fatimah Asghar, David Lee, Linda Pastan, Rita Dove, Beth Ann Fennelly, Li-Young Lee. </span><span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Honestly, a lot of my favorite poets are the ones I know personally—my brunch group of KC-area women, and my old workshop group of fourteen years. I’ve learned so much from them and their work, and I’m fortunate to have such support systems.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Who are you
reading right now?</span><br />
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<span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I am nearly finished
with my friend Ruth Williams’ </span><i style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Flatlands</i><span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">
(Black Lawrence Press, 2018). It’s gorgeous, so much so that I put off
finishing it this morning because I wanted to savor it a little longer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">What are 2-3 poems
from </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">While the Kettle’s On</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"> that you
hold above the others? What led you to write them?</span><br />
<span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Here’s something
hard and honest: Some of the poems in that book are among the first I ever
wrote. There’s so much I would change now. At the same time, these poems are
also the purest I’ve ever written—by that I mean I wasn’t thinking about
publication when I wrote them, and I never dreamed they’d ever be in a book. I
wrote them before I knew to be self-conscious, and the girl who wrote them was
proud of her work. Even though I’m a better writer than I was then, I don’t
always know how to be proud now. </span><span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The 2-3 poems I hold
above the others: “The Dead,” “Vulnerability,” and “Good Housekeeping.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Would you please
read 2 or 3 of your favorite poems from your book:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Your family is a
big theme throughout </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">While the Kettle’s
On, </i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">What was a poem in the book that was difficult to write in theme,
subject matter or lines and why?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I remember “Fear Of”
being hard to write—it was an assignment for class, a fear poem, and I wrote it
as a catalogue as a way to blurt the thing that scares me the most without
having to linger in it: “Worrying fifteen years / after my father’s death that
maybe he died because / I didn’t call the ambulance in time.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Your poem “The
Dead” was a poem I messaged you about after reading your book. It stuck with
me. I love the ending line: “because isn’t that nicer than sitting alone.” You
have some great lasting images and lines in the book. Do you plan your poems
before you write them, or do you kind of stumble along and wait to see what
comes?</span><br />
<span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">First of all, thank
you so much for that. I love your work, and you! </span><span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I still love Robert
Frost’s line that was a mantra in graduate school: “No tears in the writer, no
tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer,
no surprise for the reader.” I usually begin with a scrap—a story, an
image. I try not to force whatever comes next.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">What are you
working on right now?</span><br />
<span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve been tinkering
with my second manuscript for over two years. Sixteen of the poems in this
collection are from my chapbook </span><i style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">A Crooked
Door Cut into the Sky</i><span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">, winner of the 2017 Vella Chapbook Award (Paper
Nautilus Press, 2018).</span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What advice do you have for aspiring poets?</span><br />
<span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #2e75b6; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">When I first began
writing, I had no publication goals at all; I didn’t send work out for a
decade. I was writing to save myself. And when I read poets I admired, I didn’t
feel envious or even competitive; I just read eagerly and learned. In some
ways, I think we best know how to be poets when we’re just starting out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">***<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You can read a few
of Melissa’s Poems listed below, or you can visit her website at:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://melissafitejohnson.com/">https://melissafitejohnson.com/</a></span><o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="http://www.rattle.com/the-woman-and-the-wolf-by-melissa-fite-johnson/"><br /></a></div>
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“The Woman and the Wolf” at <a href="http://www.rattle.com/the-woman-and-the-wolf-by-melissa-fite-johnson/" target="_blank">Rattle</a></div>
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“Neighbors” at <a href="https://broadsidedpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/BearingArms-KammJohnson-1.pdf" target="_blank">Broadsided Press</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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“A Postcard to My Husband While I Vacation
in California” at <a href="https://rustandmoth.com/work/a-postcard-to-my-husband-while-i-vacation-in-california/" target="_blank">Rust + Moth</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0KSjSDNNjR5-S8c3KQscSHXN0w3kUkTnIuRrCZxF1qcmVk1g070sUoKcxzfU2xs0OI87u8y4_BfbQS9KPuFXBH3QmaTeDX_PyMpYx-1IgI8VhdmbqtPfy42ihRV_u5V9NBvxd8EIQnJU/s1600/JulieRamon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="579" data-original-width="380" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0KSjSDNNjR5-S8c3KQscSHXN0w3kUkTnIuRrCZxF1qcmVk1g070sUoKcxzfU2xs0OI87u8y4_BfbQS9KPuFXBH3QmaTeDX_PyMpYx-1IgI8VhdmbqtPfy42ihRV_u5V9NBvxd8EIQnJU/s200/JulieRamon.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Julie Ramon </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">is
an English instructor at NEO A&M in Miami, Oklahoma. She graduated with an
M.F.A from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. Among writing, her
interests include baking, sewing, traveling, and garage sales. She is also a
co-organizer of a poetry series, Downtown Poetry. She lives in Joplin, Missouri
with her husband, sons, and daughter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Julie Ramonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03181552349283573155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-16793793240767690352020-03-20T12:16:00.001-04:002020-10-29T11:12:45.823-04:00Teaching Us to Read: Stephanie Burt and the Slow Climb toward Poetic Literacy<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWl9VF8aB39k49qzsnQXQUxw4SYcm69Qozn4vggDSV1p2Y2pDwQdyFSX4ZExeXIOmV7w-LnHR8UWRCeHUIe7CBExdqCX78fsj8iuOUpnUbjQN2gEEDWAoUbeaDpSnE_6Z9Rmhw6AXH_zV/s1600/Don%2527t+Read+Poetry.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="323" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWl9VF8aB39k49qzsnQXQUxw4SYcm69Qozn4vggDSV1p2Y2pDwQdyFSX4ZExeXIOmV7w-LnHR8UWRCeHUIe7CBExdqCX78fsj8iuOUpnUbjQN2gEEDWAoUbeaDpSnE_6Z9Rmhw6AXH_zV/s320/Don%2527t+Read+Poetry.jpg" width="206" /></a></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">review by Anthony Fife</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<i>Don’t Read Poetry </i>— The white words on the pale
violet cover caught my eye.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I crossed
the library, toward the New Release shelf, to take a closer look.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br />
The title sounded familiar or was at least reminiscent of things I read the
past few years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I recalled Ben Lerner’s <i>The
Hatred of Poetry</i>, and erstwhile Ohio poet laureate Dave Lucas’s blog <i>Poetry
for People who Hate Poetry</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Provocative
titles, all, and part of an obnoxious, yet somehow alluring trend.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br />
Having passed the circulation desk and now close enough to see the quizzical subtitle,
I resolved that the hardback volume was maybe worth a read.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br />
Stephanie Burt’s <i>Don’t Read Poetry: A Book about How to Read Poems</i>, tells
us that, while <i>poetry</i> is often off-putting and maybe even frightening to
potential readers, an individual poem is an accessible snapshot that even those
who “just don’t get poetry” can enjoy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
book is strange, then, in that it is geared for those who simply don’t want to
read it—in other words, those who need it most.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br />
Burt, who declined to be interviewed for this publication, has flooded her book
with relatability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, “Feelings,”
“Characters,” and “Wisdom” title three of her chapters, labels that could just
as easily be replaced with the more familiar poetic terms Lyric, Personae, and Didactic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise, popular references abound throughout
the book, including Hufflepuffs, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black
Panther</i> and Alton Brown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In short,
the author has crafted a book that attempts to be accessible to those with
little to no knowledge of the art form. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br />
The greatest stride toward poetic accessibility, however, is Burt’s ethos that,
A) we’ve allowed wrong-headed teachers to take us away from the study of individual
poems; and, B) no two poems can be approached in the same way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br />
“I am here to say,” Burt writes, “that anyone who tells you that they know how
to read poetry, or what poetry really is, or what it is good for, or why you
should read it, in general, is already getting it wrong” (7).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Burt, an academic herself, does not reject
the academy and its place in literary discourse, but she does understand how
the popular appreciation of the form has suffered at the hands of those who prescribe
meaning or mode without letting readers decide for themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Burt writes:<br /><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
I
started to write this book because I got frustrated with books that told their
readers, and teachers who told their students, that poetry was one thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes the readers and the students
learned to love that thing; sometimes they tried it and decided that this one
thing—this major poet (say, Robert frost), this reason to read (say, mystery
and the sacred), or this style of poetry (say, modern conversational free
verse)—wasn’t for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s like
hearing Beethoven, or hearing Kendrick Lamar, and not getting into it and then
deciding you don’t like music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are
other kinds of music and other ways to listen to music out there, and if you
look and listen and ask the right people, you can probably find one that works
for you.<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So: don’t read poetry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t assume <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">poetry</i> ever means only one thing, other than maybe a set of tools
for making things with words, as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">music</i>
means a set of tools (beats, rhythms, harmonies, textures, instruments) for
making things with sounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, find
ways to encounter kinds of poems and learn different reasons to read poems,
realized in various ways by various poems. (7-8)<br /><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Therein
lies the crux of the entire project; therein lies the way that even a novice
can approach not poetry, but any poem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Method aside, it helps to have a teacher with an infectious love of the
subject.</span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br />
The author’s dominant mood, not just in <i>Don’t Read Poetry,</i> but in many
of her works, is enthusiasm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most appealing part of Burt’s work, in
fact, is without question her willingness to praise that which she truly
appreciates. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his review of <i>Don’t
Read Poetry</i>, <span class="author-name">Sunil Iyengar</span> calls it “an unremitting
geyser of praise for the many different ways a poem can engage readers.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br />
Burt herself, in the preface to her book <i>Close Calls with Nonsense</i>,
fully owns her own gratitude for the poets and works she loves: <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“[A]ll the poets I praise here have</span> <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">added something to the resources of the</span>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">language, have made forms in words for
experiences and</span> <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">attitudes not
given effective shape in</span> <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">English
before” (xiv).</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br />
A healthy dose of negative criticism is certainly in her wheelhouse, but Burt would
much rather share what she loves and tell why than tear down, however justly,
what she doesn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is, after all, the critic’s
code.<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> “[T]he business of critics is not
to assign stars, or to pick</span> <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">winners
in poet contests,” writes Bert</span>.<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It is to say what interests us, what seems
trustworthy, inventive, memorable, new”</span> <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(<i>Close Calls</i> xiii).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poet/critic
whose primary function is to praise and share, taking Burt as an example, should</span>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">not be averse to seeking out work
anywhere. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
In <i>The Poem Is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them</i>,
Burt namechecks the Flarfists, the Black Took Collective, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, and
the Gurlesque poets, among many other groups many of us have never heard of,
and broaches the concept of “the implicit gender of a poet’s voice, embracing
identity as, if not <i>the</i> driving force in a poem or poet, at least
something that we must understand if we hope to attain a deep understanding of
the individual poem or poet’s oeuvre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Identity
is often a dominant force in many of Burt’s works. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is an important feature in and of itself,
but Burt takes accessibility a step further by showing how identity and
experience, while different, are often two sides to the same coin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
Veteran, Latin@, Carny, Cellist, Chinese American, Sous-Chef: all the
individual pieces that make a poet who they are, thereby shaping their poem, are
also what make us a unique, potentially successful reader, and maybe even
lover, of poetry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, as we recognize
and maybe even come to terms with our multitude of identities, we must
understand, too, that each (worthwhile) poem is equally unique and is therefore
deserving of an individualized, intimate reading.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> _______________________________________________</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span>
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: center;">
Works Cited<br /><br /><span class="author-name"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<span class="author-name">Burt, Stephen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New
Poetry</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Graywolf Press, 2009.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<span class="author-name">---.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Poem Is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them. The
Belknap Press of Harvard U P, 2016.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<span class="author-name">Burt, Stephanie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Don’t Read Poetry: </i></span><i>A Book
about How to Read Poems</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Basic
Books, 2019.<span class="author-name"></span></div>
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<![endif]--><span class="author-name"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Iyengar,
Sunil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i>Don’t Read Poetry</i> Is a
Literary Manual for the <i>Instagram</i> Era.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><i>The Washington Post</i>, The Washington Post, 30 May 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/dont-read-poetry-is-a-literary-manual-for-the-instagram-era/2019/05/30/365a35f8-821f-11e9-95a9-e2c830afe24f_story.html.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Accessed 16 Mar. 2020.</span></span><br /><span class="author-name"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></span><br />
Anthony Fifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00101636911609325108noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-31293785734754805402020-02-18T13:33:00.001-05:002020-09-21T15:27:15.806-04:00Interview with Katerina Stoykova About Her Book Second Skin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGhwhRtWqyrXIjHcZXxNNcN07Z1F7ExU4-cY7C8InP1Hro7P-2-Q1VTHuXS1CwZJNGZtQHhlwXwfYZoHoGj1cHKH-_wmaK4bB_-Zd8Z6mYC01vnaMqLfZK61SH4VIsrYABMbz-XzZNjwwR/s1600/katerina_stoykova_md.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGhwhRtWqyrXIjHcZXxNNcN07Z1F7ExU4-cY7C8InP1Hro7P-2-Q1VTHuXS1CwZJNGZtQHhlwXwfYZoHoGj1cHKH-_wmaK4bB_-Zd8Z6mYC01vnaMqLfZK61SH4VIsrYABMbz-XzZNjwwR/s1600/katerina_stoykova_md.png" /></a></div>
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<i>"praise the wound / opening and closing / like a womb"</i><br />
- from "Praise Song for the Wound" by Katerina Stoykova</div>
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Katerina Stoykova and I have been acquainted for almost ten years. We both attended Spalding University, and I have long admired her work and her dedication to the literary community<i>. </i>I heard her read from her book <i><a href="http://accents-publishing.com/secondskin.html" target="_blank">Second Skin</a></i> last year and knew that I wanted to interview her about it. Before you get to the interview, below is a bit about her, as well some information about the book.<br />
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—Nancy Chen Long</div>
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"Katerina Stoykova's poetry collection <i>How God Punishes</i> came out in English in 2017 from Broadstone Books. The Bulgarian version of this book was published in 2014 by ICU press and won the Ivan Nikolov National Poetry Prize. Katerina is the editor and translator of <i>The Season of Delicate Hunger: Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry</i> (Accents Publishing, 2014). For six years Katerina hosted the literary radio show Accents on WRFL 88.1FM, Lexington and recorded hundreds of hours of conversations with poets and writers from the USA and around the world. Katerina acted the lead roles in the independent feature films <i>Proud Citizen</i> and <i>Fort Maria</i>, both directed by Thom Southerland. Additionally, Katerina was the co-writer for <i>Proud Citizen</i>. The film received a number of festival awards, including Best Narrative Feature, Best of the Fest, Audience Favorite, Best Cinematography, as well as two special acting awards for Katerina's performance."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEJyjP7fM4tsjCi8Bqfm9xswbdPY3eiKSbjTrnsC3RDOipXpE2La8kVcZmBCS7D7q9OhiWC4iTffWnjYNUuwDNqCmjjIPgyHUXd-qnh8Tqs4S5dchUrlqeLgYS31BCY4qZVfJVcCEqyg7H/s1600/second_skin_frontcover_md.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEJyjP7fM4tsjCi8Bqfm9xswbdPY3eiKSbjTrnsC3RDOipXpE2La8kVcZmBCS7D7q9OhiWC4iTffWnjYNUuwDNqCmjjIPgyHUXd-qnh8Tqs4S5dchUrlqeLgYS31BCY4qZVfJVcCEqyg7H/s1600/second_skin_frontcover_md.png" /></a></div>
<b>Overview of <i>Second Skin</i></b><br />
"<i><a href="http://accents-publishing.com/secondskin.html" target="_blank">Second Skin</a></i> by Katerina Stoykova discusses the horrors of growing up in domestic violence, and focuses on some of the long-term effects of such upbringings. This poetry collection features three main characters—a mother, a father and a child. The story of the family is told from the child's perspective. Initially published in Bulgarian by ICU Publishing, <i>Second Skin</i> received wide acclaim and attention, including a 2018 Creative Europe grant by the European Commission for the book to be translated and published in English. Upon publication in Europe and launch in London, ICU Publishing and Accents Publishing partnered for the distribution of the book in the USA."<br />
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<b>Praise for <i>Second Skin</i>: </b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Second Skin</i> by Katerina Stoykova is a brief, but more than sufficient book. It is more than sufficient to expose the issue of domestic violence, and along with one child's fear—the fear of every child forced to love an abusive parent. The second skin you wear to hide what happens at home; second skin that cannot contain you. A book about the guilt due to the inability to forgive, about hatred towards the one who has moved on and forgotten. A book about the children cowering in the corners of their own powerlessness, who thirty years later continue hearing the screams from the other room. Difficult, true, and exceptionally important. ~Natalia Deleva</blockquote>
<b>Review of <i>Second Skin</i></b><br />
<a href="https://www.theusreview.com/reviews/Second-Skin-by-Katerina-Stoykova.html#.XhkPiuhKhPZ" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;" target="_blank">https://www.theusreview.com/reviews/Second-Skin-by-Katerina-Stoykova.html#.XhkPiuhKhPZ</a><br />
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<b>How Are You, Child?</b> by Katerina Stoykova<br />
(a poem from <i>Second Skin</i>)<br />
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Wherever I go, I bring my own prison. My restrictions are<br />
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animate. And hazardous. And all-encompassing. Reflective</div>
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of my past like a rearview mirror. I can talk to someone</div>
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and, without asking, surmise what kind of parents she’s had. </div>
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And those mastering spiritual practices I can spot with the </div>
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naked eye. And those in need of therapy. And those who </div>
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can’t manage their own lives, and those who shun the truth,</div>
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because it’s too much.</div>
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<b>Please tell us how <i>Second Skin</i> came about. Also, how did you decide on the title?</b><br />
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KS: <i>Second Skin</i> has a long and complicated history. I worked on it for close to ten years in various forms. At first I wrote the idea of the book into a play dealing with family relationships and domestic violence, titled <i>Black Coat</i>. Then the play became a portion of the screenplay for the narrative feature film <i>Proud Citizen</i>, directed by Thomas Southerland. The movie depicted a Bulgarian playwright coming to Kentucky to see the premiere of her play, <i>Black Coat</i>. In the film actual actors act out scenes from <i>Black Coat</i>. They act out a few of my poems. After the film I rewrote the material into a 300 page memoir, which I’ve since abandoned. I felt I needed to put the manuscript aside for some time and published the surprisingly funny poetry book <i>How God Punishes</i> and then returned my attention to <i>Black Coat</i>. By that point I had written a stack of new poems and felt ready to tackle the material as a poetry book – or a mixed genre book – in Bulgarian. I completed it, though I needed further time to be able to get used to the thought of publishing this book. The title <i>Second Skin</i> came from a line of a short poem discussing growing up in fear in a domestic violence situation. <br />
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<b>The book has a dedication page (or is it an epigraph?) that says “How are you feeling, Child?”, a phrase that is repeated in the book. Can you speak a bit about that?</b><br />
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KS: Yes. The book is dedicated to all of us unimportant children, having grown up distant second to parents’ alcoholism and dysfunction. All of us who haven’t been asked this kind and simple question. All of us who’ve cowered alone in rooms, waiting to be the next recipient of an angry parent’s violent outburst. Having grown up in such environment, I had to learn to reconnect to myself and my own feelings. I had to develop the habit of asking myself how I am feeling, in order to learn to get in touch with my self and my own needs. The book in a way mimics my own process. <br />
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<b>As can be seen in a number of your poems, for example, “You Have the Right to Mourn, Dear One,”, domestic-violence victims frequently feel trapped in their abusive relationships and often feel a loss of identity—a loss of a sense of self—in the midst of those relationships. They also often grieve the loss of the abusive relationship, a mourning that is necessary in order to move on. I imagine some of these poems were difficult to write. How did you work through the emotional aspects of these poems? Did you encounter any other difficulties or challenges in writing some of the poems?</b><br />
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KS: The difficulties were not so much in the writing of the poems, as in living in the energy of the book. As most poets I know, I take my craft seriously and edit extensively, and take my time in completing the project. So, activities such as reading the entire book out loud multiple times was difficult, reading separately for grammar, ordering and re-ordering the material – that was much more difficult, because it kept me immersed in the book for hours at the time. I learned quickly that I shouldn’t work on the book in the morning, because after that I wouldn’t be able to do much else for the rest of the day. But also I shouldn’t read the book too late in the evening, either, because wouldn’t be able to sleep. I found out it was best to do my editing at about 5 or 6 pm, right before dinner, when I still had energy to do the work, but no big plans afterwards.<br />
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I consider personal breakthroughs the act of writing of the individual poems. I believe not that the breakthrough is difficult, but what leads to it. The process could be lengthy, involved and unclear. To quote a line from my bilingual "Bird on a Window Sill”: “Finding your way out of the same labyrinth 1000 times is not the same as exiting once from each of 1000 labyrinths.” I feel that every one of these poems has been the exit of some complicated labyrinth I’ve wandered through for years.<br />
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At some point I knew that I needed to stop working on this book. And the only way to stop working on it was to publish it.
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<b>Have you given a public reading of the work? What was the audience response? Did you encounter anything you were not expecting?</b><br />
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KS: I’ve given public readings, yes. At the beginning I was very nervous and apologetic. I didn’t want to depress anyone. But then again, normally there are no random people at poetry readings. You go to a poetry reading because you want to be there, and you want to listen. So, people knew in advance what the book was about, and still came to the reading. <br />
<br />
I set aside time for Q&A after reading from this book. That’s something I’ve never felt necessary to do before. But with this book people want to know things, to ask questions, and I make it clear that I don’t mind being asked personal questions. Most attendees ask questions publicly, but also there are always a few who approach me after the reading to let me know that my book describes their story, as well. Usually I can recognize these people while I’m reading. I can see it on their faces.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>In <i>Second Skin</i>, what is one of the more crucial poems in the book for you?</b><br />
<br />
KS: At different times nearly every one of the poems in the book has been critically important to me. Why? Because each poem has been the next step forward, and I believe that each step is critical, even the seemingly small ones. I choose to share the second poem in the book, because it quickly walks the reader through much of the story. (Here is an audio of Katerina reading the Bulgarian version of this poem: <a href="https://soundcloud.com/toestbg/katerina-stoikova-chete-terasata-na-osmiya-etazh" target="_blank">https://soundcloud.com/toestbg/katerina-stoikova-chete-terasata-na-osmiya-etazh</a>.)<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>8th Floor Balcony Ghazal</b><br />
<br />
If I catch you smoking<br />
I'll throw you off the balcony.<br />
<br />
If something happens to you<br />
I'll jump off the balcony.<br />
<br />
Dad stopped hitting me: Go ahead, he laughed, scream for help.<br />
Then opened the door to the balcony.<br />
<br />
To free space in the kitchen,<br />
we moved the stove to the balcony.<br />
<br />
Dad got mad and started<br />
dragging Mom towards the balcony.<br />
<br />
You could see the sun rise<br />
out of the Black Sea from the balcony.<br />
<br />
When the guests for Mom's funeral arrived,<br />
Dad hid, smoking on the balcony.<br />
<br />
I hated him in the house,<br />
as well as on the balcony.<br />
<br />
I've been faking all my orgasms,<br />
I confessed to my first ex-husband on the balcony.<br />
<br />
I stared out for a month, waiting for my pen pal to arrive,<br />
as I was scrubbing the windows on the balcony.<br />
<br />
Your marriage will last at most three years,<br />
Dad told me on the balcony.<br />
<br />
When I was leaving for America, I looked up from the cab and saw<br />
my best friend waving from the balcony.<br />
<br />
I'm ready to let go of everything that happened<br />
except the balcony.<br />
<br />
Katerina, there is no heaven or hell,<br />
there is just this balcony.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>You are a master of aphorisms, epigrams, and the short poem. The first issue of your journal <i>Literary Accents</i> featured poems that were less than 50 words long. Blaise Pascal once wrote that he would have made document shorter, but he didn’t have the time. What is it about the short poem that calls to you? Do you find that with your own short poems, that they take more time to finish? Or do you naturally tend toward shorter poems?</b><br />
<br />
KS: I naturally tend to write shorter poems, or if it’s longer piece, it’s normally written in smaller parts. I am not sure why. Perhaps I find writing so intensely emotional, I can take it only in brief bursts. Also, I believe that there are many ways of saying something. As a reader of poetry, I’ve taught myself to appreciate all of these ways. Probably the biggest influence, however, is cultural. I’ve grown up reading poetry from the Balkans, the language of which tends to be more direct. Well, if you say something more directly, chances are you’ll need fewer words. That’s what I think.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>You started Accents Publishing 10 years ago. I remember attending your first release of, I think it was something like 7 chapbooks at one time. It was such a wonderful celebration. What is happening at the press at the 10-year mark?</b><br />
<br />
KS: The press is more alive than ever. We have expanded beyond chapbooks into full-length poetry books, added a printed literary journal. We provide workshops and craft teachings. We’re about to announce results for our novella contest. In near future we plan to add memoirs and short story collections to our catalog. We would like to do more with our blog, as well. At the tenth year mark, we feel inspired to be an active and recognizable voice in contemporary literature in the USA and beyond.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<b>What are you working on now?</b><br />
<br />
KS: Right now, with the generous support of a grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, I’m working on a poetry book about the relationships between the self and others. Waking up to love. Understanding it. Living it. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *<br />
<br /></div>
<b>Purchase <i>Second Skin</i></b>: <a href="http://accents-publishing.com/secondskin.html" target="_blank">http://accents-publishing.com/secondskin.html</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Find Katerina online</b>:<br />
<br />
- Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/katerina.stoykovaklemer" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/katerina.stoykovaklemer</a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">- Instagram: </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/katerinastoykova/" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">https://www.instagram.com/katerinastoykova/</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">All poems printed or quoted in this post © Katerina Stoykova <i>Second Skin</i> (Accents Publishing, 2019) (Initially published in Bulgarian by ICU Publishing)</span><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><hr style="font-size: medium;" /><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJxquOOlVw-DEl9hrFr0vrisuzVSFnB1SB_h72Zs-i834XNSBiuRkdnQDW3Ei4WwJqaRNX3C9KNdYBkx77yxZlt586R90R-HKPgvY28Xl09K82FEZTfivhyphenhyphenTjY4oEQycXSPbDOTTJZA3mZ/s1600/image004-782259.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJxquOOlVw-DEl9hrFr0vrisuzVSFnB1SB_h72Zs-i834XNSBiuRkdnQDW3Ei4WwJqaRNX3C9KNdYBkx77yxZlt586R90R-HKPgvY28Xl09K82FEZTfivhyphenhyphenTjY4oEQycXSPbDOTTJZA3mZ/s1600/image004-782259.jpg" /></a></div><strong style="line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="color: #595959; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333px;">Nancy Chen Long </span></strong><span style="color: #595959; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="line-height: 15.3333px;">is the author of two books of poetry: <i><a href="https://www.diodeeditions.com/product-page/wider-than-the-sky" target="_blank">Wider than the Sky</a></i> (Diode Editions, 2020), winner of the Diode Editions Book Award, and <i><a href="https://www.ut.edu/TampaPress/pressDetail.aspx?id=32212257616" target="_blank">Light into Bodies</a></i> (University of Tampa Press, 2017), winner of the Tampa Review Poetry Prize. Her work has been supported by a National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing fellowship and the Poetry Society of America Robert H. Winner Award. You’ll find her recent work in <i>The Southern Review, Copper Nickel, Poet Lore, </i>and elsewhere. She works at Indiana University in the Research Technologies division.</span></span></div></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-43563398814728037042020-01-09T10:30:00.000-05:002020-01-15T10:38:22.060-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJWVqLSxyqF5cbUSZN9V0U34D-y1B4aRtBwSIKvKyP0JAH68OI1bgAf6drX42KSwtKEfbdge2sHnNpwwLTULRc8-UzXpVnvXfSkZzz6SYbx3Co8EGOQ060z0QS0dsQ8cZGjdV5AvcjQh0T/s1600/leopard_lady_cover-small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="480" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJWVqLSxyqF5cbUSZN9V0U34D-y1B4aRtBwSIKvKyP0JAH68OI1bgAf6drX42KSwtKEfbdge2sHnNpwwLTULRc8-UzXpVnvXfSkZzz6SYbx3Co8EGOQ060z0QS0dsQ8cZGjdV5AvcjQh0T/s200/leopard_lady_cover-small.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Leopard
Lady: A Life in Verse</b></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">By Valerie Nieman<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.press53.com/poetry-collections/leopard-lady-a-life-in-verse-by-valerie-nieman?rq=the%20leopard%20lady" target="_blank">Press 53</a>, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">ISBN 978-1-941209-89-9<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">78 pages<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Review of Leopard Lady: A Life in Verse</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">by Rosemary Royston<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’ve had the
chance to meet Valerie Nieman on a couple occasions, as we both live in write
in Southern Appalachia and have crossed paths at various conferences and
readings. I was delighted to have the opportunity to review <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Leopard Lady: A Life in Verse</i>. Two
of the dominant temperaments working so well together in Nieman’s collection, as
Gregory Orr so aptly described them, are story and imagination. The title lets
the reader know she is about to embark on a life of a woman known as a “Leopard
Lady,” and curiosity alone lures the reader to want to know why someone would
have such a moniker. While the setting is clearly in Southern Appalachia, the
final poem, “Ghost Riders (Coney Island Museum, 1980)” is the clue to what
triggered Nieman’s imagination to conjure this collection of poems that are in
the voices of two characters: the Leopard Lady (Book I) and the Professor (Book
II), both of whom find themselves in the same traveling carnival. While the
setting is certainly non-traditional, the themes are universal, and sound, diction, and image bring these poems to life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We are first
introduced to the Leopard Lady in the opening poem where she is not yet named.
What we learn, though, is that she is orphaned at birth – her “red-haired
mother died” during childbirth and she sees her father “only in that mirror”
that she holds up, her “skin as brown as a nut.” A mixed race child in the
South in the mid-1930s, she is given over to the Gaston family (“grown old as
Abraham n Sarah”), named Dinah, and sent out to earn money by helping to make
sorghum. While the Gaston family proclaims to be a godly family, their true
nature is revealed in “No More Haints” on how they see Dinah’s purpose in their
family,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Gastons would send me out for wages,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">learning and earning</i> they said, and they
leaned on the latter,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>once
I had grammar enough to read the Good Book,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">and a body strong
enough for chopping and toting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">However, the manual labor grows old and
Dinah, who has since become pregnant and been sent to a root-worker for bitters
to drink to purge her body of a fetus, finds herself jumping off a boxcar and
starting a new life with a traveling carnival, honing her natural gift of second
sight and learning to read palms. “The Hunt” offers in its final stanza a description
of palmistry,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>The
hand is a forest<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>cut
through with paths.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Along
them runs a soul<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>like
deer to water.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Dinah moves in and out of towns with the
carnival and in and out of roles within the sideshow. And while her lifestyle
is very different than that of most readers or the “rubes” who attend the
shows, there are universal themes that are inescapable. No matter where she
goes, Dinah is marked by the color of her skin. Her options are limited in
society due to her mixed race, and once her palm-reader mentor, Mrs. Elderia,
passes away, Dinah takes her place. But her name “ain’t strong,” according to
the lot manager. It needs to match her dark skin so it should be Egyptian. Offered
up are “Queen? Oracle? Sibyl?” and it is the Sibyl that Dinah takes as her
palm-reading persona. This additional self is no different that the many selves
the reader takes on in daily life, and Dinah’s personas grow as she does. In
fact, we learn the etymology of her final name, The Leopard Lady, in “The
Leopard Lady at the Market,” where she ponders over the two people who created
her: a Black father and an Irish mother who is,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>…working
to get out, though,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>showing
herself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>That
white woman what left me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>is
taking me back,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>inch
by inch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">While never explicitly named, Dinah
likely suffers from vitiligo, where the pigmentation of her darker skin fades,
turning white, leaving her spotted, hence her next carnie act as the Leopard
Lady. But before she reveals her changing pigmentation to the carnival goers,
she continues to tell fortunes, using her second sight, often spooking the farm
boys who enter her tent. “The Leopard Lady Finds Lost Things” is a prime
example of the power of diction that works throughout this collection, as the
reader can both hear and see this scene, “So the wicker chair crick-cracks. One
sets an overbig hand / on the crystal; a streak of sweat shows and gone.” // “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It’s my watch,</i> he says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I lost it</i> but he got another question /
under his skin like a warble-grub about to burst.” This farm boy, who has lost
his watch making love to his girl at Alder Branch, “gapes like a catfish” when
the Leopard Lady (now also called Lady Panthera due to her changing skin) tells
him that, “Time secretly moves. / Bends the alder branch. / Seek under stone
over sand.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">When it comes to lovers, Dinah chooses
to ignore signs that are right in front of her, signs that she should easily
see, and she loses the man she loved the most – Shelby, who always called her
by her given name, “And so I broke my heart / and shoemaker’s children go
barefoot.” It is this loss of Shelby that leads the reader into Book II: The
Reveal, which opens with “The Ballyhoo,” where it is claimed that the Leopard
Lady, “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Abandoned by her lover, she called on black arts <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">of voodoo, summoning Erzulie of the heart, <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">unholy Mambo Madam of love and vengeance, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">to trade her suffering for a beast’s indifference.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">However, Petey, who was the previous
spiel-giver of the inside show, left the carnival “high and dry in Shinnston,”
and was soon replaced by a pale, book learned man named Jonathan, who is
introduced in “Arrivals” and who becomes an equal voice in the second half of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Leopard Lady</i>. A friendship and a
platonic love grows between Jonathan aka The Professor and The Leopard Lady.
While Dinah has read the Bible and Shakespeare, Jonathan has read these and
more and they often discuss Bible verses and views, with Dinah holding her
ground and not feeling any less than, even without the benefit of Jonathan’s
formal education. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jonathan’s ability to
preach, which he is wise enough not to share, allows him to give an impromptu
and very successful spiel for how Alfredo the Amazing Frog Boy came to be in “
The Professor: A Voice to Speak” – his “homiletics class/ had given [him] the gift to winnow out / ideas from the air with a sieve of words.” It is this speech
that gets Jonathan hired to be the inside man for the carnie show.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Another universal theme that crops up in
this collection is that of a class system. Whether we are in traditional
society where race, gender, and economic status dictate a bias, there’s also a
class system in the carnival. As captured in “Fearfully, Wonderfully,” those
“shaped by God’s thumb” or the “born freaks” are at the top of the class
system. Because Jonathan comes from outside and has an education, it is not
until his own weakness is made visible to his colleagues that he gains their
respect. In “The Professor: Abracadabra” he magically becomes one of them once
the “spectacular scar” from his heart defect is revealed when he passes out:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>…Their
eyes are softer, now<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>that
they have seen the scar. I am no more<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>the
one who has the words, the Inside Man,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>but
one of them, stricken and marked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">This acceptance of Jonathan by his
carnie brothers and sisters is the type of acceptance we all yearn for, as we
all wish to belong to community. In the carnie system and in these poems we
find acceptance no matter what our born defects or our self-inflicted mutations
may be. It is easy to understand the appeal of traveling with a group of people
who accept one another no matter the oddities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Images are prevalent in Nieman’s poems.
From the leopard spots on Dinah’s skin, the Professor’s scar, crows, and root
working, one that stands out and ties together both the spiritual nature of the
poems that runs through the collection and the limitations of women is found in
“The Professor: Fairy Stones.” The poem turns on the image of a stone that the Professor
keeps in his pocket. Once spotting it and asking what it is, Dinah “strokes its
quartered arms / with nothing less than humble reverence.” The cross-shaped
stone has two evolution stories, one scientific, the other more mysterious.
Either it was formed from molten rock or, it was formed when “woodland sprites
/ cried at the news of Jesus’s death, their tears / freezing as crosses.” The
fairy stone was a gift to the Professor from his Aunt Edwina, who wished “to be
a priest herself,” yet, like Dinah, being a woman severely limited her options,
with Dinah’s options being even more restrictive due to the mixed color of her
skin. The collection is rife with Bible verses, allusions, and traditions from
Southern Appalachia of making bitters, using yarbs, to the “gift of prophecy.”
As superstitions go in the region, a bird flies under the carnival tent in “See
You Down the Road,” predicting a death the next day, which happens to be that
of Jonathan. Prior to passing away, Jonathan has given Dinah his fairy stone in
“Gift” and tells her of the Buddhist theory of life as a wheel in “The
Professor Tells about the Wheel,” where Dinah ponders, secure in her
Christianity,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I know my soul is sealed<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>and
glory-bound,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>but
I would surely like<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>off
this earthly wheel<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>of
sadness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">It is in Jonathan’s passing that he is
able to liberate the Leopard Lady. Leaving her his savings, she merges into
both her carnie persona and her true self as Madame Dinah, having the means to
purchase a home and earn a living as “Madame Dinah, Palmist and Seer.” It is a
sad irony that it takes Jonathan’s death to liberate Dinah, but The Leopard
Lady is finally free to live on her own and support herself through her gifts, secure both financially and spiritually.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The final poem, “Ghost Riders (Coney
Island Museum, 1980),” let’s the reader know where Nieman found the
source for these poems and characters, and it also reminds the reader of the essence of Carl
Sandburg’s “Cool Tombs,” where death is the great equalizer. In its final
stanza, Nieman so beautifully shows the harsh reality of the ending of
the cycle of life:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Down
at the edge of the beach<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>sand
and salt keep gnawing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>at
the other. We are none of us more<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>than
a handful of spit and dust.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We live and then we are melted into
air.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Rosemary Royston, author
of </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Splitting the Soil</i></span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Finishing Line Press, 2014), resides in northeast Georgia with her family. Her poetry has been published in journals such as </span><i><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Split Rock Review</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Southern Poetry Review</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Appalachian Heritage, Poetry South,</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">KUDZU</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span></i><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>NANO Fiction</i>, </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">and</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> <i>*82 Review</i>. </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">She’s a lecturer and VP for Planning and Research at Young Harris College, where she teaches the occasional creative writing course. </span> <a href="https://theluxuryoftrees.wordpress.com/">https://theluxuryoftrees.wordpress.com/</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Rosemary Roystonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16213742048588469454noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-76990580343073558832019-12-09T17:53:00.000-05:002019-12-09T17:53:53.344-05:00mcmxciv by Nate Logan and JJ Rowan<br />
Last year, my friend Nate Logan had a collaborative chapbook published, along with JJ Rowan. I got the chance to interview the both of them. Below is a micro-review of the chapbook, followed by the interview.<br />
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—Nancy Chen Long<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[This post was originally published on <a href="https://nancychenlong.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">my blog</a>].</span><br />
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<h3>
<i><a href="https://shirtpocketpress.weebly.com/store/p44/mcmxciv._by_Nate_Logan_%26_JJ_Rowan_.html" target="_blank">mcmxciv</a></i><br />
by <a href="http://nateglogan.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Nate Logan</a> and JJ Rowan<br />
<a href="https://shirtpocketpress.weebly.com/" target="_blank">Shirt Pocket Press</a>, 2018</h3>
</div>
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<br />
<b>xxi.</b><br />
<br />
i’m having numeral anxiety to<br />
which the internet is a bad<br />
bandaid. the administration<br />
claims i is in my toolbag but<br />
they could just as easily buy<br />
that info from aol. seven times<br />
i’ve been a healthy scratch.<br />
here’s something taped on<br />
my skin to simulate healthcare.<br />
here’s a good example of a<br />
bad example. there’s where i<br />
kicked the asphalt to tell you<br />
my bucket list had a hole<br />
in the bottom the size of a zero<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">“xxi,” © Nate Logan and JJ Rowan <i>mcmxciv </i>(Shirt Pocket Press, 2018)</span><br />
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<i><a href="https://shirtpocketpress.weebly.com/store/p44/mcmxciv._by_Nate_Logan_%26_JJ_Rowan_.html" target="_blank">mcmxciv</a></i> is a collaborative chapbook of contemporary sonnets by Nate Logan and JJ Rowan. If the sonnet form is a box as some say, the sonnets in <i>mcmxciv</i> demonstrate that it’s a flexible one: The poems in Logan and Rowan’s sequence make use of the basic fourteen-line structure of the sonnet and most poems can be said to have a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volta_(literature)" target="_blank">volta</a>. However, the poets also freely play with meter and there is no standardized rhyme scheme. Most, but not all, follow sentence syntax and punctuation. Indeed, on the page, the sonnets in <i>mcmxiv</i>
resemble a box—each poem is a single block of fourteen lines without any stanza breaks and all of the poems are in lower case.<br />
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As one who has a keen interest in math and numbers, I was delighted to find that numbers / numbering is prominently featured in <i>mcmxiv</i>. The title of the chapbook itself is a number, the Roman-numeral equivalent of 1994. [Aside: And some of the poems feel as if they take place in the year 1994, with the mention of AOL and answering machines. The first poem puts us there as well, “standing in line / at a ferris wheel in 1994.”] Returning to numbers: The titles of the poems are also Roman numerals, although they are not in numerical order and there are gaps in the numbers. For example, the collection begins with “x”, but there are no poems “i” – “viii”. In some poems, numbers are directly named, such as the mention of the year in the first poem. In addition to actual numbers, things and activities related to numbers make their way into the poems, for example “try counting / to learn about failure. try numbering pages / to learn about sex” from the poem “xv.”<br />
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My favorite use of numbers is in the last two lines of the last poem “xxiii,” which begins with “entered your figure in the search / bar” and proceeds through various things that had been entered, which in itself is interesting, since, as the last poem, it is exiting. As the poem iterates through the various ways of entering, an error occurs (“invalid. error. error. entered / a column as a row. claimed entry.”) The last two lines of the poem come after that declaration of an error and consist of a series of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number" target="_blank">binary numbers</a> that translate into (computer) ASCII codes that in turn translate into letters that spell the word <i>french</i>. For me, ‘french’ here takes on multiple meanings. It suggests that the one and zeroes might as well be another language. Secondly, if the last two lines are the speaker replying to the computer in its native machine language, then the last two lines suggest that the speaker is swearing at computer, as in “pardon my French.” Or the last two lines could simply be a memory dump by the computer that gives the illusion of making sense by spelling a random, potentially human-recogizable word.<br />
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In <i>mcmxciv,</i> the authors create a world that hints at hyperreality and technoculture, a world in which simulation and reality blur, but one that is at the same time intimate and personal. The theme of simulation and stand-ins can be seen in the first poem, “x.” There’s a building used for an activity that becomes a stand-in for the actual human activity (“the hockey rink that doubles as actual hockey”), a person-as-icon-or-cursor on a computer screen (“see you blinking on the page”), a phone call that does not occur, but if it had, the speaker knows s/he would not have been speaking to a person, but to a machine instead (“another hour / almost call to your answering machine.”) References to technology are peppered throughout these sonnets. For example, in addition to “internet,” “aol,” “answering machine,” “cell service,” and “search bar” already mentioned, in “xli,” the speaker demonstrates “bravery by tearing a pixel / wishbone from the night sky.” That simulated experience and technology pushes against the personal and conjures an impersonal, almost lonely space. Then we have those many numbers and acts of numbering and calculating that introduce even more distance to the personal. Amid this swirl of numbers and technology, the speaker says “i saw you across the / room / disembodied.” And I do experience the speaker as disembodied, existing in a seeming virtual, simulated world. However, even in the face of all of these numbers and all of this technology, the voice in the poems is intimate. The poems are like monologues or notes to a friend or lover, of a person sharing private thoughts, for example “unless you’re a fuck-up like me” (“xlviii”), “it’s june but i’m tired / of being brave” (“xxii”), “i try not to want or be” (“xxxvii.”)<br />
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In “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/03/to-sonnet-to-son-net-tuscon-net-" target="_blank">To Sonnet, to Son-net, Tuscon Net</a>,” Sina Queyras writes “It’s a challenge to make [the sonnet] lively, to not feel you’ve handed yourself over and let its history have its way with you: are you writing the sonnet, or is the sonnet writing you?” In <i>mcmxciv</i>, Logan and Rowan have not handed themselves over—they have made the form their own. Their sonnet sequence creates a fluid, asynchronous, stream-of-consciousness world that uses structure sparingly. Rigidly following form, syntax, and capitalization, as well as the use of numbers, are all ways of imposing structure and order. Logan and Rowan’s choices in applying the sonnet form, coupled with the lack of punctuation, the way they use fragmentation and numbers, all work towards releasing the need to be in total control, instead embracing fluidity and spontaneity, an appreciation for surprise. In this chapbook of fourteen fourteen-lined poems, Logan and Rowan create an intimate world through the voice of a disembodied speaker, a sense of logic and wholeness rooted in the unexpected. In one slender sequence, they share with us a world where you can feel the air “falling tenderly against / technology’s faux-romantic whir.”<br />
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<div id="interview" style="text-align: center;">
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<b><a href="http://nateglogan.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Nate Logan</a> </b>was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana. He's the author of <i>Inside the Golden Days of Missing You</i> (<a href="http://magichelicopterpress.com/" target="_blank">Magic Helicopter Press</a>, Fall 2018). He's editor and publisher of <a href="http://spookygirlfriendpress.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Spooky Girlfriend Press</a>.<br />
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JJ Rowan is a poet and dancer living in Southern Oregon. Her previous chapbooks include <i><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/eric-mohrman/prospectors/paperback/product-23117855.html" target="_blank">so-called weather</a></i> (<a href="http://www.moriapoetry.com/locofo.html" target="_blank">Locofo Chaps</a>, 2017) and <i>the selected jesus</i> (<a href="https://shirtpocketpress.weebly.com/" target="_blank">Shirt Pocket Press</a>, 2015). Her <a href="http://www.dreampoppress.net/jj-rowan/" target="_blank">VisPo</a> recently appeared in Dream Pop Journal #2.<br />
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<h3>
<span style="color: #990000;">
An Interview with Nate Logan and JJ Rowan</span></h3>
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<b>Please tell us a little bit about your chapbook <i>mcmxciv</i>. </b><br />
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<i>Nate: </i>mcmxciv<i> (1994) is a collaborative chapbook of sonnets written over a distance of 2,000 miles. </i><br />
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<i>JJ: *Over* 2,000 miles! ;) The fine folks at Shirt Pocket Press recently published it.</i><br />
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<b>How did you decide on the title. The poems are numeric numbers as well, and out of order. Could you say a bit about the poems titles? </b><br />
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<i>N: JJ chose the title. I remember she specifically asked me how to write “1994” in Roman numerals. As far as the poem titles, it wasn’t clever at all. We started our collaboration by giving Roman numeral titles to the poems in the order we wrote them.
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<i>J: I remember having a lot of very minor Roman numeral anxiety. I could never quite get them right and asked Nate to check them a lot of the time. I am pretty sure our book is from 1994.
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<i>N: Haha. This is true, but it’s also funny because once we were in the 20s, I looked up the Roman numeral equivalent for every poem I had to start. I definitely didn’t know off the top of my head. </i><br />
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<i>J: And I was weirdly stubborn about figuring them out off the top of my head. </i><br />
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<i>N: I was more worried about how I was going to follow JJ’s great lines when it was my turn with whichever poem we were working on.</i><br />
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<b>I struggle with sonnets and admire that your wrote a chapbook of them. Are sonnets a form you normally write? If so, what draws you to it? If not, what did you like about writing them? What did you find difficult? Some writers insist a sonnet must follow the rules for a known type of sonnet, e.g. Shakespearean, others say it’s a sonnet if the poet says it is. To you, what makes a sonnet a sonnet? </b><br />
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<i>N: I wouldn’t say I normally write sonnets, but right now I do usually write shorter poems. I think we chose to write sonnets because it was easier to devise a scheme on how we would be writing them together, as opposed to another form or having no form at all. What was particularly challenging and fun was to follow JJ’s lines in a way that kept the poems together. These aren’t really <b>my</b> poems, or hers. This is a third voice somewhere between us. And as far as what makes a sonnet, I say 14 lines. The rest can be played with. </i><br />
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<i>J: I absolutely struggle with sonnets. I write long messy things -- I feel like sonnets are the opposite of that. Nate, the form was your idea, right?
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<i>N: I think maybe I suggested it first, yeah.
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<i>J: It ended up being a great scaffolding for collaboration. The definition we were working with was 14 lines and we mostly stayed within a certain shape. I expected, actually, to have trouble with the form but I ended up really comfortable in it. For me, I think writing them with Nate was key -- I’m not sure I’d write sonnets on my own.</i><br />
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<b>One way that I experience these poems is as call-and-response pieces. What was your writing process for these poems?</b><br />
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<i>J: Nate got into this a bit in the last question -- every poem is from this place between the two of us, this third voice. I like that idea of call-and-response. I’d say every poem is the call <b>and</b> the response. It’s definitely a conversation of sorts. </i><br />
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<i>N: Yes, these are definitely conversations. The nuts and bolts answer to this question is this: JJ - 4 lines, me - 4 lines, JJ - 4 lines, me - 2 lines, 4 lines of the next poem, and so on. </i><br />
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<i>J: So we’d alternate who started and finished each sonnet, which was really the most control either of us had at any given time. And we were always taking cues from each other, and sometimes fucking with those cues, setting out on unexpected paths.</i><br />
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<b>Writing can be such a solitary experience. In addition, for some writers, their personal artistic vision would not be able to tolerate the cooperation and mutual concessions that collaboration can require. How did the original idea for your collaboration come about? How did you find the experience rewarding? Difficult? </b><br />
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<i>N: I approached JJ originally and asked if she’d be interested in writing together. I wanted to do something to break me a little from that solitary experience. And it was rewarding exactly for that reason: JJ’s influence helped give me a booster shot I was looking for.
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<i>J: Well, I’m laughing at myself right now because I keep thinking collaboration was my idea. I love collaborating -- it’s not always easy (and not everyone is the right partner) but when it works it’s amazing. Nate suggested this when I’d been writing solo for a while and really needed it, too. It has been extremely rewarding for me. We’re very different writers on our own and I think it made the work more interesting. Sometimes I’d finish my lines with a clear idea of where the sonnet was going and then Nate would take it somewhere else. I loved that.
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<i>N: It could’ve been JJ’s idea! We can go back in the archive and see. I also think the excitement of not knowing where a sonnet was going kept me on my toes. Any “idea” I had was silly because I had no control, really.
</i><br />
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<i>J: I looked :) It was you! Good job!</i><br />
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<b>What kind of world do you think your chapbook creates?</b><br />
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<i>N: This is a really good question, Nancy, and even after some days of thinking about it, I’m not quite sure how to answer.
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<i>J: For me, this question feels more personal coming from a collaborative space than it would if I was writing alone, I think. In the last question you mentioned writing as “a solitary experience” -- and I don’t think that idea necessarily goes away in collaboration. I feel like a world this chapbook creates (maybe there is more than one?) is the space where that third voice lives, especially when that voice is made up of two voices who are in reality quite far away from each other. I think that world is a sprawling space trying to make itself smaller or closer. I can’t seem to separate the idea of distance from everything else going on in the poems. I feel like Nate and I were, inside of the sonnets and in general, often talking about miles.
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<i>N: While I don’t have a concrete answer, I think distance has something to do with the world here. Almost like a mile scale on a map. An inch will represent lots of miles, but it’s also an inch. Maybe this chapbook is that inch? Does this even make sense? </i><br />
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<i>J: Yessss, that.</i><br />
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<b>Which poem in your chapbook has the most meaningful back story to you? What’s the back story? </b><br />
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<i>N: For me, “xiii.” JJ started this poem and I would’ve been happy to stall and not add to it.
</i><br />
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<i>J: Ohh, I adore that one. And I’m wicked glad you didn’t stall forever! Some of the sonnets feel like we’re standing next to them and some feel like we’re standing inside of them. I think we might live in that one. For me, and this is a <b>really</b> hard question, it’s “x.” Maybe that’s why I was so enamored of “mcmxciv.” as a title for the collection. A lot of the sonnets I know immediately who began and who ended -- if I really sit with it I can figure this one out, but it’s not immediately apparent and I love that. It’s a very clear third voice to me. I know that’s not really a back story.
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<i>N: Haha, I just wanted to linger in those lines for a while. Like JJ says, I really like those places where I don’t remember who wrote what, too. I think that’s where a lot of the magic lays. But even places where I know who wrote what, it’s fun to see what both of us came up with in response to each other. I don’t think I could fully do that when we were writing them.</i><br />
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<b>What else would you like readers to know about you or your chapbook? </b><br />
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<i>N: All the best lines are JJ’s :)
</i><br />
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<i>J: No! Not true. I kind of can’t believe we got this far in the interview without saying anything about being a Capricorn and a Virgo. That seems important. Also! The full sonnet sequence is actually 100 sonnets. We got a little obsessed :)
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<i>N: And also! Our fiftieth and one-hundredth sonnet are double sonnets! Maybe they will be out there in the world in the future.</i><br />
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<b>What kinds of writing (comics, dictionaries, magazines, novels, etc.) that aren’t poetry help you to write poetry? </b><br />
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<i>N: I’m not sure I’d say non-poetry writing helps me, but I’ve had songs inspire my writing and I do listen to music when I write, which seems to be a thing not a lot of poets do. </i><br />
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<i>J: Reading my horoscope! For real. I’m pretty obsessive about Chani Nicholas and Gala Mukomolova (Galactic Rabbit). I think what actually helps me write poetry the most, though, is movement. I have a fairly obsessive dance practice and that has become an essential part of my writing practice.</i><br />
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<b>What advice would you offer to aspiring chapbook authors? </b><br />
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<i>J: I know it isn’t for everyone, but I would absolutely recommend collaboration. It doesn’t have to be anything more than a practice or an exercise, but I think it’s a really great way to learn more about your solo writing practice and shake up your routine. </i><br />
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<i>N: I would say resist the urge to compare yourself to others. There are so many small presses today, there’s probably more than one out there that would love to showcase your work. Be as organic as you can.</i><br />
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<b>If you have any other chapbooks or books, please tell us a bit about them.</b><br />
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<i>J: Ok, I really want to take this opportunity to yell: Nate’s first book is coming out from Magic Helicopter!!!
</i><br />
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<i>N: JJ is too kind! Yes, my first book is scheduled to be released this fall. Last year, I had an anti-T___p chapbook published by Locofo Chaps as part of their series of political chapbooks. I know JJ has at least one other chapbook out there, right?
</i><br />
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<i>J: Yep. I also had chapbook in that series from Locofo (there were a ton of us!). Previous to that I had a solo chapbook with Shirt Pocket.
</i><br />
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<i>N: I’m starting a petition to get JJ a full-length collection. Her work is <b>so great</b> and deserves the breadth of a collection!
</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>J: See, we’re sort of each other’s superfan. </i><br />
<br />
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<b>What are you working on now?</b><br />
<br />
<i>N: I’m just doing my sacrilege once a week writing routine (I know, I know).
</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>J: Though Nate and I wrote our sonnets in a shared space online, I have a pretty staunch write-by-hand practice. I do this daily for the most part. I recently finished a poem sequence of shorter poems (which our sonnet practice influenced for sure) and am in the middle of a long prose poem sequence. And we’ll be sending more sonnets out into the world, I hope.
</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>N: Yes! More sonnets out into the world. And who knows? We may get the itch to write some more together.
</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>J: That could definitely happen.
</i>
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<i><br /></i>
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<strong style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #595959; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
Nancy Chen Long </span></strong>
<span style="color: #595959; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 15.333332061767578px;">
is the author of <i><a href="https://www.diodeeditions.com/product-page/wider-than-the-sky" target="_blank">Wider than the Sky</a></i> (Diode Editions, 2020), which was selected for the Diode Editions Book Award, and <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Light-Into-Bodies-Nancy-Chen/dp/1597321478/" target="_blank">Light into Bodies</a></i> (University of Tampa Press, 2017), winner of the Tampa Review Poetry Prize. She is the grateful recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing fellowship and a writer residency at Ox-Bow School of the Arts. Her work was selected as the winner of the 2019 Poetry Society of America Robert H. Winner Award and featured in <i>Poetry Daily, Verse Daily,</i> and <i>Indiana Humanities</i>. You’ll find her recent work in <i>Copper Nickel, Cincinnati Review, Ninth Letter, Pleiades, Smartish Pace, The Adroit Journal, Tar River Poetry, </i>and elsewhere. She works at Indiana University in the Research Technologies division.
</span>
</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-12086952655058108552019-11-02T08:17:00.001-04:002019-11-02T10:24:10.755-04:00The Sea Was Never Far<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">THE SEA WAS NEVER FAR </span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">A review and interview with poet, Marion Starling Boyer</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> by Barbara Sabol</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">THE SEA WAS NEVER FAR</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">by<span style="font-size: large;"> <a href="https://www.marionstarlingboyer.com/">Marion Starling Boyer</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.mainstreetrag.com/">Main Street Rag Publishing</a></span></div>
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80 pages</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">released May, 2019</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">ISBN: 978-1-59948-737-3</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">$14.00</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">On a personal note</span>: It has been quite the pleasure to meet Marion, a recently transplanted Ohioan, through this year's Literary Festival sponsored by <a href="http://lityoungstown.org/fall-literary-festival">Lit Youngstown</a>, and via readings in our lit-rich Northeast Ohio area. What a delight to review her latest book, THE SEA WAS NEVER FAR.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The English coastal towns of Norfolk and Yarmouth
serve as windswept, textured backdrop for the animated lyric documentary of </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Sea Was Never Far</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">, Marion Boyer's
second poetry book. In both cinematic-like sweep and particular detail, the
poet portrays the lives of those in the two main trades in the North Sea
coastal towns, circa late 1800's to present: the herring fishery and the
millers; this latter the poet's direct ancestors. The reader is privy to
stories and memories of this rough North Sea coastal life via persona poems: we
are charmed by the vignettes of cook deckie, beatster, herring girl, cooper, fisherman;
by the thatchers, marshmen, cutters, mill dressers, and basket weavers, in
speech lines alive with the distinctive dialect of the area.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A central figure in this host of townspeople is the
poet's grandmother, Fanny Starling. The collection serves as a kind of
reclamation project, wherein the poet amends the family tree, and honors her
people, living and gone. The two prelude poems, "A Murmuration" and
"The Investigation of Annie's Account" set the stage for Fanny's
journey, from birth to her young life "given over as foundling:"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>My
grandmother Fanny was raised with a flock<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>of
white pinafore girls, their hair cut like boys,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>in
London's St Pancras Home for Foundlings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>They
rose and retired at six, prayed, studied,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>ate
together, and were trained for service.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What the poet discovers in her journey to Norfolk
and in a trove of archival records was this truth about her grandmother's
identity as an illegitimate babe whose name was changed from Alice to Fanny at
the baptismal font, and who, like her disgraced and disowned mother Annie,
worked as a servant, until she immigrated to Canada. She left England to follow
her love, Davey, sent there by his parents in hopes of separating him from "that
woman―Fanny//. . .Four years older, no people."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The voices in these poems are
wide-ranging and brimming with narrative drama. The reader is drawn into
coastal time and place via voices whose rhythms are audible, whose tales,
couched in cadenced vernacular, credible. Herring girls, who "salt, gut,
sort. . .Make, pack stack the barrels" ("Barrels") figure among
the book's remarkable characters. In "The Herring Girls, Great
Yarmouth" a Red Cross nurse recounts tending to a herring girl in prose
that pulls us <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">right to the scene:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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. .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>.
. .She says nothing but all her body<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>cries
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Quick, and quick! Get it out! </i>The
scale<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>in
her eye is a misery common as salt sores<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>.
. .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>I
sit her down and spread her lids, my face so close<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>on
hers, her eyebrow lends me a mustache.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>With
my tongue I feel for the fish scale in her eye<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>and
flick it out. Up she gets, wipes her face,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>too
impatient for me to rebind her cloots, the cloth<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>strips
unraveling from her fingers. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ta!</i> she
calls<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>.
. .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Likewise, in every poem, the
diction rings true to the telling. In "Thomas, Home Fishing" Thomas
speaks of his friend, Shrimp Watson, "The best-heartedest fellow/I know. .
." says Thomas and shares a story:</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>.
. .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Shrimp
hates the cold. On the boat,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>when
we go below, he'll park his stern<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>on
the fiddley. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I got a warm sit now,<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tom</i>, he'll say, roasting his arse<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>on
the grate above the engine room.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>He's
on that like mustard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Thomas's is but one voice that recurs through the
collection. Our introduction to Thomas in the poem "Thomas Warren"
illustrates the adroit speech line, sonic play and use of diction that fleshes
out the poems' figures:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>THOMAS
WARREN<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Mum
was a rind of a woman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>If
she spoke when Dad flogged me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>he'd
chuck a bucket of water at her<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>and
lock her out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>There
are worse things and better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>I
signed on for the fishing at twelve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>It
was the sea or jail for me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Dad
was a coalie for the steam drifters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Drunk,
he stepped off the pier carrying<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>a
sack from the coal lorry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Hauled
him from the harbor dead as a mitten.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Fitting then that the book's
closing lines should be in the voice of Thomas, out at sea: ". . .there's
nothing on shore seems sizable/enough to worry about."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Apart from the almost chewy
diction, the poet draws on our every sense in very tangible and visual
language, best exemplified by the beautiful poem, "The Basket Maker in
Norfolk Broads." Here, a narrative about Robert, the marshman, in the
voice of his lover. In effectively parsed fragments, we see, feel and
smell "Fens. A great flatness. Old swamped peat pits. Wetland ponds,
water/meadows. Mudflats gleam. Sunlight glances, glares." Then our
auditory sense responds to the long lines and lush sibilants that invoke a
sense of ease, of time standing still in a hushed, sweet quiet: "Wind
hisses through thickets of alder and willow/stirs the rushes. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shh. Shh. . .</i>Water percolates in the
quiet. . .We've come deep/and away from the sedge cutters' notice. Far off we
hear the swish of their scythes." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is a dynamic cohesiveness, voice
to voice, poem to poem, in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sea
Was Never Far</i>, as if the figures were mesh of fishing net or willow reeds
bound in a basket. Yet each unique. The collection is bookended by the figure
of Fanny, opening with her coming into the world as a foundling in "A
Murmuration" and in the penultimate poem, "I'm Stealing a Clutch of
Stones," which figures both poet and her grandmother, Fanny. Here, as in
the first poem, the poet speaks in her own voice, with both authorial distance and
with empathy, the boundary between the two a powerful tension.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The poet recounts both her own and
Fanny's separate but intimately linked journeys. Boyer steps out of persona mode and into her own compelling voice at the end of the collection: ". . .I've flown across
the world/to step inside that house; to walk this shingle where she//must have
come and felt the wind. . ." Fanny's arduous journey to Toronto, to Davey,
in "the Saxonia's steerage" is conveyed in all its imagined awful
detail. The closing couplet ends with an enticing implied ellipsis: ". .
.I think of her trudging to Davey's door,/unprepared for snow, for all that
might follow her knock." And the reader is left wanting the story to go on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">***</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I was entirely captivated by the characters in this book, their voices, the particular vocabulary and idioms of the Norfolk area. Remarkable that you created this dynamic slice of life in an English coastal area. Its people and history come alive through the poems in THE SEA WAS NEVER FAR. Thank you for this stunning collection!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The poems take on an deeper dimension, in that this book is about your family, your ancestry, your people. This personal connection to the poems is where I'd like to begin our conversation.</span></div>
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<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">What was the trigger event that
inspired you to write the book?</span></b></div>
<br />
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I had a “Finding Your Roots” moment when a friend of mine
offered me access to her Ancestry.com account. On a whim, I entered my paternal
father’s name and, surprise! up popped a photo of my grandfather posted by
someone in England. The photo had been taken before he had emigrated to
Canada as a young man. I was able to
contact Peter and Ann, who posted the photo, and discovered Peter’s grandmother
was a sister to my grandfather. That connection opened a doorway for me into learning
why my grandparents didn’t like to speak of England and never returned.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As it unfolded, Peter and Ann helped me discover a secret
that my grandmother had kept her entire life -- that she had been born
illegitimate and was raised in London’s St. Pancras foundling home. </div>
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<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">So, you had no</span></span></b><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> k</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">nowledge about
your grandmother’s history before you started the collection?</span></span></b><br />
<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No! None of us in the
family had any idea! Including her two children,
my father and my aunt who are dead, but it was important to me to find out
about her history as there is a rare blood disorder in our family and I wanted
to know the source, which we knew genetically had to be my grandmother’s
father. Of course, he turned out to be the shadowy man who caused my
grandmother’s illegitimate birth. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Two of my Canadian cousins and I decided to track the story
down first-hand and we flew to London to meet Peter and Ann and to visit the
London Archives and to see the Foundling Home museum. We also connected with
relatives in the Norfolk area where our family has lived for generations back
as far as I could discover. We held in our hands the actual documents which
recorded my great-grandmother’s appeal for her infant to be taken in by the
foundling home. We saw the sparse records describing my grandmother’s life in
the foundling home where she was raised to be a domestic servant. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Peter and Ann took us to Norfolk to see the farmland and
broadlands where my people lived and worked and continue to do so. We ate in
the Nelson Head Pub which our great-grandfather managed in 1908 after the mill
went bankrupt. We visited churchyard graves, spent the night in a mill
converted into a deluxe B & B. I met distant cousins who grow reed for
thatchers, who were fishermen and served in the merchant marine, who continue
to farm in the same area my grandfather knew.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><b>Did you come away from your travels to
Norfolk and writing these poems with a new or altered sense of identity?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The trip affected me deeply.
While in Norfolk I couldn’t get over how some many voices echoed my grandfather’s
particular way of speaking. It was subtle, more cadence and sense of humor than
accent, but it was all around me. And, of course, I came away with such a full
heart knowing that my grandmother had felt such shame. Once Ann asked if it was
too sad knowing her hard life. I told Ann
that somehow my grandmother had been shown kindness, because my grandmother was
kindness itself. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b> </b></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Clearly a great deal of research
went into the writing of this wonderful book. How did you cull and funnel all
of that information to these 47 poems? And on that note, with so much place and
person data to work with, how did you know when to call the book done?<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I began, I decided to simply write a few poems and see
if they could be strong enough narratives to appeal to someone outside the
family. I wrote a few and my critique group affirmed they were interesting, so
I set a goal of doubling their number. And when they jelled, I doubled the
number again hoping for a chapbook. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then, research led to more research and I was flooded with
information about the herring industry’s boom and bust, how rhubarb is grown in
the dark, how the best reed in the world for thatch is grown in Norfolk, how a
mill’s machinery operates. It was all fascinating
information but, finally, it came down to the voices for me. And that meant
persona poems.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I fell in love with the vocabulary of the region. I wrote entire poems to find an opportunity
to use a phrase like “dead as a mitten” or “the sails are asleep.” It took a year and a half of writing. I created an expanding list of ideas, such as
“write about the basket weaver…need one for the herring girls…” and when the
list was exhausted, I decided I was done.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Please talk about your research.
How did you find and gather the great amount of local character information,
lore and all those rich details about the fishing and mill industries in
Norfolk and Yarmouth?</span></b><br />
<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Firstly, I had actual people, <i>my people</i>, to talk with
face to face and I listened carefully. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One was “Toady,” or Brian Rudd, a dear distant relative who
knows all the ins and outs of the herring industry. I had Peter Starling, who
took us through the broads on his boat, walked us around the Starling farm,
sang sea shanties, and shared stories and photos of the farm, the war, the mill
and the family members, like Austic who rode the windmill blades on a
dare. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I collected books on all these subjects. One is a book 157-page
glossary of fishing terms and superstitions.
I wrote to Jonathan Neville who has a website database compiling
information and photographs for over 1,000 miles in Norfolk and their
histories. And I read newspaper accounts
of shipwrecks, and interviews of fishermen and coopers and beatsters. I found a
fine old book written by a miller’s son I poured over his diagrams of mill
machinery.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><b> </b></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When writing about past events,
there is always the issue of historical veracity. How much filling in of the
blanks did the poems need, and how did you balance fact and invention is the
poems?<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The voices in this book are mostly those of real people. I
invented a few to round out the full picture. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My grandmother’s history is important to me, even though it
is spotty. The archival information indicates that even the investigation into
how Fanny’s mother became pregnant is ambiguous. In the book I keep that
ambiguity unresolved. The one thing I know for fact, that my father never knew
about his mother, and Fanny never knew for herself was her birth name, which is
Alice Southgate. The foundling home re-baptized her Fanny.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My grandfather was loath to speak about his life in England,
so after talking with every family member I could, calling upon the sketchy
memories of the elder English relatives and a very few letters, I decided to give
myself some leeway in guesswork. It was my decision to write his story showing his
parents attempt to block his romance with Fanny, who was my grandmother. This
was hinted at in one letter and I believe it created an animosity that kept him
silent about his parents and England. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thomas Warren, Alfie and Nora, Robert and his wife, are
pulled from my imagination but their work and concerns are real. The other
people in the book are all real. Toady, Jello, Duffy, Dumps, Teapot, Mute, Old
Ben, Georgina, Austic, all the others, and of course, Alpheus, my
great-grandfather.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You chose the persona form for the
lion’s share of these poems, and were really able to inhabit the figures in the
book. How did you locate the voice and temperament of each of these very different
characters?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I appreciate that compliment. My biggest challenge was how
to handle the Norfolk dialect as it is distinctive and pronounced. I couldn’t accurately write in the voices of some
of my characters as it would be hard to understand without footnotes but select
phrases and colorful vocabulary words allowed me to establish voice, as long as
I could make the context elucidate meaning.
I wanted to avoid a glossary at the end for words such as “beatster,”and
“cloots” so hopefully the context makes their meaning clear.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The cover is beautiful, and a
perfect complement to the book’s content. Please tell us about the cover art.</span></b><br />
<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thank you so much for mentioning the cover! I am proud of it. The painting on the cover is an encaustic piece
painted by my niece, Sarah Starling, who is an artist living in Denver. Her magnificent work can be seen at
<a href="http://sarahstarlingart.com/">Sarahstarlingart.com</a>. I was grateful Main
Street Rag’s editor, M. Scott Douglass was open to using her work for the cover
and it was especially important for me to have a Starling family member’s art
on the cover of this collection.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></b>
<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Please
talk about your writing habit. Are you a poet with a scheduled writing time, or
write as the muse dictates? Both?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I would like to tell you that I am disciplined and sit each
day routinely tapping away on a schedule but that is not my habit. I find that I write in intense long periods,
by which I mean obsessed months at a time, and then long months will go by and
I want to write but find there is nothing in my brain to write about. I do not
like those months.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have little patience for writers who moan about the work
of writing. I like its challenges, from
getting down the first draft to all the layers and phases of revision. I enjoy
the deep immersion into writing, writing until I forget that I should have
eaten that day and that my dog and husband are wandering forlornly, clearing
their throats hinting that a it would be great to have me present for a while. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I want to write and haven’t an idea, I am cranky. Having a big ongoing project, like <u>The Sea
Was Never Far</u> helps as I can exit and re-enter the work as I imagine a
novelist gets back into the story by writing the next scene.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Can
you tell us about your next writing project?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am exploring an obsession.
I am compelled by the story of the Antarctic explorers who were the
support team for Shackleton’s 1915 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.
Shackleton’s heroic and epic story of survival has been told and retold many,
many times and his incredible story has eclipsed the valiant and equally epic
story of his men on the other side of the continent who were charged with
laying the food depots for the Antarctic crossing. I hope to do justice to their story but also weave
through, as a counterpoint, the voice of Antarctica herself. <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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Marion Starling Boyer, professor emeritus for <a href="https://www.kvcc.edu/">Kalamazoo Valley</a> Community College, has published three poetry books: <em style="border-bottom-color: currentColor; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-image-outset: 0; border-image-repeat: stretch; border-image-slice: 100%; border-image-source: none; border-image-width: 1; border-left-color: currentColor; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: currentColor; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-color: currentColor; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 100%; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Clock of the Long Now</em> (<a href="http://mayapplepress.com/">Mayapple Press</a>, 2009), nominated for a Pushcart and Lenore Marshall Award, and two chapbooks, <em style="border-bottom-color: currentColor; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-image-outset: 0; border-image-repeat: stretch; border-image-slice: 100%; border-image-source: none; border-image-width: 1; border-left-color: currentColor; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: currentColor; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-color: currentColor; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 100%; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Green</em> (Finishing Line Press, 2003) and <em style="border-bottom-color: currentColor; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-image-outset: 0; border-image-repeat: stretch; border-image-slice: 100%; border-image-source: none; border-image-width: 1; border-left-color: currentColor; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: currentColor; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-color: currentColor; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 100%; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Composing the Rain</em> (<a href="http://graysonbooks.com/index.html">Grayson Books</a>, 2014). Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Born in Ontario, Canada, Boyer calls the Great Lakes region home. While she has lived most of her life in Michigan she now resides in a small town near Cleveland.</div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 106%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Barbara Sabol is the
author of the poetry collection, <i>Solitary Spin (</i>Main Street Rag Publishing)<i>,</i> and two chapbooks,<i> The</i>
<i>Distance Between Blues</i> (Finishing Line Press) and <i>Original Ruse</i> (Accents Publishing.) Her work has appeared widely in
journals and anthologies. Barbara’s awards include an Individual Excellence
Award from the Ohio Arts Council and the Mary Jean Irion Poetry Prize. Barbara is a speech therapist who lives
in Akron, OH with her husband and wonder dogs.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br />Barbara Sabolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06723858473052649839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-91292971002956223692019-10-02T18:36:00.001-04:002019-10-02T18:38:04.184-04:00What? Poetry can have a social life? <div style="line-height: 150%;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chris Green</td></tr>
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<i>The Social Life of Poetry: Appalachia, Race and Radical Modernism</i> by Chris Green</h3>
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Chris Green sees his work at the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center, which he has directed since July 2012, as the most important he has yet undertaken. He is a professor, poet, activist, and administrator who love and serves Appalachia with all its many cultures and people, as well as all the many peoples of the United States and the world. He grew up in Lexington, Ky., and attended the University of Kentucky (UK) where Appalachian Studies and creative writing answered his need to write poetry, know the world, and fight for justice. He went on to earn his MA in English from Appalachian State University, and his MFA in Poetry and MS in secondary education at Indiana University, where he studied the wily ways of poetry and post-colonialism.<br />
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After working as a poet in the community, he completed his PhD on multicultural American poetry at UK. He moved to Huntington, W.Va., where for a decade where he professed English, Appalachia, and world change. While there, his monograph, <i>The Social Life of Poetry: Appalachia, Race, and Radical Modernism</i>, won the 2009 Weatherford Award for the best non-fiction book about Appalachia. Chris also co-edited <i>Radicalism in the South Since Reconstruction</i>, a collection of scholarly essays, and edited <i>Coal: A Poetry Anthology</i>, a collection of 98 poets designed for non-academic readers, a book that one reviewer concluded was “significant and lasting contribution to Appalachian literature, and maybe more importantly, to the literature of a world coming to terms with how our resources and the ways we use them transform our lives.”
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His is the author of the book of poetry is called <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rushlight-Poems-Working-Chris-Green/dp/1933964332" target="_blank">Rushlight</a></i>.</div>
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Review and Interview by Melva Sue Priddy</h3>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Social-Life-Poetry-Appalachia-Contemporary/dp/0230610935" target="_blank">THE SOCIAL LIFE OF POETRY: APPALACHIA, RACE AND RADICAL MODERNISM</a> —BY CHRIS GREEN, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.<br />
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The series <i>Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics</i> published Chris Green’s book as one of the first three books published in 2009, and his book became a winner of the 2009 Weatherford Award for Best Non-Fiction Book about Appalachia. <br />
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I’m just now finding this book. Why so late?<br />
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I attended the 42nd annual Appalachian Writers’ Workshop at Hindman Settlement School, which happens in July every summer. A week long residency in Knott County, writers have been gathering at the forks of Troublesome Creek to explore the intricacies of fiction, creative nonfiction, memoir, poetry, song, publishing, and to fellowship. It is a community of supportive writers, without competition. For more info, see <a href="https://www.hindmansettlement.org/programs/cultural-heritage-programs/writers-workshop/" target="_blank">Appalachian Writers Workshop</a>. While the Appalachian Writers Workshop began in 1978, the Hindman Settlement School’s history of supporting Appalachian writers started many decades earlier. This year, Chris Green gave the Appalachian Literature lecture each afternoon. Chris is Berea College’s Director of the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center; Associate Professor of Appalachian Studies; and Department Chair of Appalachian Studies. He brought his passion into each lecture. The fourth lecture, based on his book, covered a lot of ground in a very short time. <br />
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Before listening to the lecture, and then reading this book, I’d never questioned how publishers chose the books they would publish. Call me naive, but I was unaware of the underlying motives of publishers, presses, and the people in the business. I thought one could be a better fit with some presses or journals, but I had no idea really. This was an eye opener for me. <br />
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In <i>The Social Life of Poetry: Appalachia, Race and Radical Modernism</i>, Chris Green looks specifically at the people in the Appalachian areas who became known as “Anglo-Saxons,” the development of presses in New York, and the agendas of the founders of those presses, and then the writing and publishing of four “first books” of poetry: Jesse Stuart’s <i>Man with a Bull-Tongue Plow </i>(E. P. Dutton, 1934); James Still’s <i>Hounds on the Mountain</i> (Viking, 1937); Muriel Rukeyser’s <i>U. S. 1</i> (Covici-Friede, 1938); and Don West’s <i>Clods of Southern Earth</i> (Boni & Gaer, 1946). Heads up: This is a scholarly book, well researched and explained for those delving into it’s pages. I was interested in the book for it’s contents and writers discussed but also because of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Me Too movement, and recent studies in Whiteness and the hidden biases of having grown up white. <br />
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“Part I Appalachia, Race, and Pluralism” looks at the myth of white Anglo-Saxon progenitors, how and why that was cultivated, when in fact many ethic peoples lived in Appalachia. Before coal was discovered by the big mining companies, and wanting that coal was the deciding factor, immigrants from England were just one of many cultures living in the mountains, which included: Native Americans, Jews, Blacks, Southerners, Italians, Irish, Scots and new immigrants. After the Civil War, people where anxious to read about unknown pockets of ethnic groups living all across the United States. While local color tended to stereotype groups of people living in the mountains to better fit into a white middle-class world view, seldom was one race or ethnic group more important or less important than another. Pluralism and equality were more evident in the mountains than local color writing witnessed. <br />
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“Part II The Social Life of Poetry” is divided into four parts, taking one poet at a time, their influences and development as writers, and exploring how each author developed his/her style as they interacted with presses, their points of view, and audiences. Green builds on his discussion as he includes each consecutive poet. For me, the book unfolds as a mystery and the second part is the most interesting, but I could not have understood its significance without reading "Part I.” Before reading <i>The Social Life</i>, I was familiar with all four authors: I studied Stuart in elementary classes, as most Kentucky students did in the 1950s and 1960s; I found Still when I attended Berea Collage, and I taught his poems, short stories and the novel <i>River of Earth</i> to secondary English classes (Still even visited my classrooms one day); Rukeyser showed up in anthologies and feminist writing in college; and West was the one I was least familiar with because his politics had kept him out of most class studies when I was in school. American education has made many mistakes in an effort to melt the pot of pluralism; we are finding our way back to those mistakes, though this isn’t the topic of this review / interview, but it’s worth saying aloud. All four poets are worth reading and studying. <br />
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I learned that all three men, Stuart, Still and West, attended Lincoln Memorial University and then Vanderbilt; they knew each other and kept in contact after college and they championed each other's work. All were from working class white families. Stuart and West had roots in what became known as the Appalachian area, while Still was from Alabama and considered a transplant as he lived his adult life in Knott County, Kentucky. Stuart is considered the first major writer from the mountains to win national acclaim. In contrast, Muriel Rukeyser’s Jewish family was considered middle class; she grew up in New York, attended Vassar for two years, took classes at Columbia University, but she had to drop out when her father’s concrete business went bankrupt. Of the four poets, Rukeyser and West were more politically motivated, attempting social change with their writing. I was unfamiliar with Rukeyser’s and West’s earliest works. <br />
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All four poets had different audiences and approaches to exposing those outside the mountains to Appalachian culture. Stuart wrote about his life experiences to an audience of his own people as well as people interested in mountain culture. His first book of some 700 “sonnets” were accessible, although considered a bit stereotyped today (…“he knew how to spin a tale that his readers were hungry to believe”). Still wrote in a more polished way, geared to educated people outside the mountains about the people he knew in the mountains; few if any people in Knott County read Still’s first book when published. Rukeyser, herself an outsider, used her journalistic background to address an “ideal audience [of] educated urbanites” with poetry of witness about inhumane treatment of people; she wanted her readers to see themselves as complicit and motivate action. She wrote “Book of the Dead,” the first section of U. S. 1, after her investigation of the Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, deaths of over 800 miners (most of whom were African American) from silicosis between 1930 and 1936. West, likewise, wanted his audience to move toward political action; trained as a preacher of Social Gospel, he “mobilized all his skills as a poet (and an activist and organizer) to help create a society where the working and lower classes could join together across categories of work, race, gender, or locality to struggle for political, social, and economic rights.” <br />
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All four poets, liberal leaning in varying degrees, found publication through New York liberal presses run by Jewish men largely educated at Harvard. That presses were in NY didn’t surprise me. What I didn’t know was that the presses all promoted something about American’s citizenry, and Chris Green helped me sort that out: “They were all mobilizing associations with mountain whites, and three were promoting a vision of America with many cultures; Jesse Stuart’s publisher promoted [the popular] Western Europe.” <br />
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There is so much complexity in this work, which happens anytime you stir human beings into the mess we really are. <i>The Social Life of Poetry: Appalachia, Race and Radical Modernism</i> is worth reading and studying. </div>
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—Melva Sue Priddy</div>
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<b>How did you choose these four poets, and how long did you work on <i>The Social Life</i>?</b><br />
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<i><b>CG:</b> I chose them because they were the first poets publishing about Appalachia with truly national presses. I first met & read James Still and discovered Don West when I was an undergraduate at the University of Kentucky around ’88 to ’90. In 2001 (or thereabouts), I wrote an essay about Don West and Muriel Rukeyser, the later of whom I read in graduate school, and compared their books and audiences. When it came time for my dissertation, I expanded and included Still. Near the end (in 2004), I realized I had to include Stuart, but my dissertation chair told me to do that later. I wish I had included one other poet—Louise McNeill—whose first book came out around the same time and was part of yet another readership/perspective, but publishers already wanted me to drastically cut down my word count.</i><br />
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<b>You make note several times in writing <i>The Social Lif</i>e that all along there were people who resisted cultural homogenization, starting with your introduction. You also state that “‘Appalachia’ is a discursive construct.” I find this to be so interesting in light of what is happening in our world today. Obviously, the coal companies wanting cheap access to mine the mountains were a big part of making the mountain folk look dangerous and off balance. What were other influences</b>? <br />
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<i><b>CG:</b> Oh so many! The then coastal elite’s reaction to the “back woods” people who were the pioneers; after the Civil War, people in the deep south felt betrayed by the mountains and people in the North thought of mountains as being southern—a real catch 22; then after the tremendous damage caused by the Civil War and the fight over scarce resources that the country needed for the industrial revolution resulted in feuding, it was the new role of education and the managerial class, which those in central Appalachia had limited access. The list goes on and on and on.</i><br />
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<b>You state that although the popular image most readers held of miners was of a white miner covered in black coal dust, “…in 1931 black miners—mostly from the South—represented 22 percent of all miners in the state, with immigrants constituting another 17 percent.” That’s 39 percent of miners who were not Anglo-Saxon. Why was that perception so different from the actual? </b><br />
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<i><b>CG</b>: Media representations were operating under the pressure of assumptions about who lived in central Appalachia, coming from legends of the feuds and the cultivated, essentialist mythology of Anglo-ancestory, which I [discuss more] in the first chapter.</i><br />
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<b>You comment in <i>The Social Life</i> on the absence of of Appalachians from studies of race history and the role of whiteness until the last twenty years or so. How would inclusion have moved both studies of race and whiteness further along? </b><br />
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<i><b>CG:</b> It would widen the sense of who is on the same side, of who needs to stand together, and of who has been (and often continues to be) the victims of the devilish dynamics of American capitalist ideology. The issue would turn from “Whites vs. All others” into an issues of class and power. </i><br />
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<b>You state several times that poetry wasn’t making money for publishers in the 1930s, that presses took risks in publishing an unknown writer. Has much changed? Can you say something about how national publishers choose poetry to print today? </b><br />
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<i><b>CG</b>: Not much has changed. Presses have to have authors who sell and financial support (from donors, government, and foundations) in order to do worthy work as a press, because anyone can bring out a book, but most small presses are not capable of marketing them, even if they do a good job creating the book (which all too many do not). </i><br />
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<i>National publishers do things for one reason: profit. However, obviously, there is not much profit from most poetry. What poetry adds is cultural capital, which can then be converted to a set of associations lending a press prestige and respect, hence increasing profit. There are some houses with national reputations who serve masters other than profit, but they are few and most of them can’t dare to risk their resources in poetry.</i><br />
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<b>You state of Still: “Through his familiarity with Hindman and the Atlantic, Still reproduced conventions that allowed middle-class readers to recognize his work as authentic then validating those institutions [and that he] became part of a reinforcing circuit of discursive production regarding middle-class Anglo-idenity.” Do you think Still was aware of this at the time of his first publication? How did this influence readers’ awareness of race and class in the minds of non-Appalachian people? </b><br />
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<i><b>CG</b>: Still held the Atlantic as THE model of good literature, and later became aware of venues with different aesthetics and audiences. Was he aware of its specific audience? Perhaps not overtly, but implicitly, reinforced by virtue of his college study. His growing awareness was amplified in comparison with his friends (Don West and Jesse Stuart).</i><br />
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<b>Writing about West and the causes he championed, you state, “The New York Times Book Review demonstrates that the world of readers who valued poetry in the North was not necessarily cognizant of the complex, oppressive political realities in the South. Nor could they hear poetry as Southerners did.” Can you say more about how Southerners heard poetry; and has that changed over time?</b><br />
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<i><b>CG</b>: The Southerners who read West’s books were deeply familiar with the nearly debilitating complexity of race relations, but they also saw, knew, and lived paths forward. They knew there were many parts of the South against which poets from the Fugitives specifically denied and that the Agrarians decontextualized in their moves toward white racial domination. In short, people who read that book knew what the score was: and the people who were reading it were not in colleges. </i><br />
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<i>The way Southerners—and the nation—have heard poetry since was through the deaf and dumb practices of the new criticism which became all the rage in higher education for the next fifty years (and still lives today), but with the generational rise of southern African American poets (such as Margaret Walk, Robert Hayden, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Nikki Finney) as well as with the rise of Appalachian poetry, Southerners are more likely to see themselves. </i><br />
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West published <i>Crab-Grass</i> in 1931, years before <i>Clods</i> was published. Why did West’s publishers promote his second poetry book as his “first” book? </b><br />
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<b>CG</b>: Clods of Southern Earth<i> [1946] was definitely promoted as his first, and it was West’s first publication with a truly national press. Saying it was his first book gained cultural capital in two ways: first, for many, working-class people outside the cultural establishment, that this was a first book made it feel more accessible; second, for some in the cultural establishment, such a long collection might gain credence for seemingly having come out of the blue as it did.</i><br />
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<b>If I’m not mistaken, part of West’s popularity (of <i>Clods</i>) was due to his publishers promoting paper backs and book of the month clubs, and West’s dispersal of his book free, hundreds at a time, plus his image as one of the working class. I was touched by stories of how, long after distribution, sharecroppers and other working class people still had their copies of <i>Clods</i>. What can you say about renewed interest in West’s work, today, long after the FBI considered him and his work dangerous because of his connection to Communism? </b><br />
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<i><b>CG</b>: The core issues that West fought for—the equality of all people’s and their repression for profit is now a view more widely held. The great danger we face now is the rise of white fascism, driven by the destruction of the working classes wealth by the very white capitalists who stand to profit from racial conflict. Thus, my colleague is bringing West’s </i>Clods of Southern Earth<i> out again but now accompanied by a truly multicultural group of contemporary poets. The work of coalition building across ethnic and racial difference is easily fragmented because we rally more quickly to the defense of people we identify with while people, whose seeming difference is rooted in the ground of this nation’s most base, crass, and violent exploitation, is easy to rekindle and amplify. </i><br />
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<b>Rukeyser wrote poetry of witness. What would you say to poetry writers today who are interested in poetry of witness? </b><br />
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<i><b>CG</b>: Go where things to which you are close are happening. Dare to know people and become close; dare to help and to stand in the way of bulldozers. Dare to throw your assumptions aside and listen. Then write. And read those poems to your friends. Publish them on broadsides, in newspapers. Stand with other poets of witness and bring your friends, your issues, your people, your causes together. For if we can’t stand together, if we are forced apart because of a false essentialism and defensiveness, then the game is over. </i><br />
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<b>I learned so much reading this book. Chris, what did you learn, in the process of researching and writing, that most surprised you? </b><br />
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<i><b>CG</b>: That it all made so much sense. That poetry was so deeply a part of the social sphere and that it was so shaped by (and shaped) issues of race and whiteness. That coalitions of blacks and white in the South were fighting together against the evils of racism long before the 1960s. That my work as someone who loves poems let me see the deep beauty and integrity of each poets’ poems.
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Melva Sue Priddy, a native Kentuckian, earned degrees in English/Education from Berea College and The University of Kentucky, before earning an MFA. Her poems witness survivance and growth, bringing to light truths that arise out of felt experience. In addition to poems, she creates gardens, quilts, and some rustic woodwork. Her poetry can be found in <i>ABZ</i>, Accents Publishing’s LexPoMo, <i>Blood Lotus, The Louisville Review, Poet Lore, Motif Anthologies, The Single Hound,</i> and <i>Still</i>. </span>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-72697211576785483352019-08-18T22:03:00.000-04:002019-08-18T22:03:06.426-04:00Who’s Afraid of Insta-Poetry?<br />
by Cole Bellamy<br />
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From time to time, I get a book in the mail and get asked to review it for the local alternative weekly. It’s a fun little side gig, a review pays about enough for a good dinner, and I get to keep the books. Earlier this year, I was sent a copy of Nikita Gill’s <i>Your Heart is The Sea</i> from Thought Catalog Press, I wasn’t really aware of Nikita Gill before, and I was only vaguely aware of the phenomenon of young poets finding fame (and publishing contracts) by appealing directly to readers through social media outlets like Instagram or Twitter. Sure, I had heard of Rupi Kaur, and knew she sold a lot of books, but I didn’t really have much of an opinion of her work one way or the other. <i>Your Heart Is The Sea</i> was my first introduction to made-for-social-media poetry; ultimately, <a href="https://www.cltampa.com/arts-entertainment/words/article/21047313/nikita-gills-your-heart-is-the-sea-is-not-unlike-a-treasure-hunt" target="_blank">I gave the book a mixed review </a>(it contains some good poetry, but should have been edited down into a shorter, better, book), and I was left conflicted.<br />
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On one hand, I am absolutely in favor of anything that gets people reading and writing more poetry. On the other, we’ve already seen what the strange crucible of social media has done to politics, personal relationships, and discourse, what will it do to poetry? While poets have always used the technology of their time to reach readers and express themselves (even Dylan Thomas was a radio star); media platforms like Twitter and Instagram are designed for quick consumption and immediate reaction; perhaps poetry is to be digested slowly. Furthermore, judging the success or failure of creative work through the metric of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ can tempt a creator to pander, to go for the most immediate reaction. Our current political reality shows us how the feedback machine of social media doesn’t exactly reward a person’s best impulses, and I can’t help but be suspicious of poetry born out of a system built for instant gratification.<br />
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Still, new forms of media and communication have the potential to further democratize poetry, allowing for more diverse voices to reach wider audiences. It may also serve as a gateway, for bringing more people in contact with the medium, which I can only see as a good thing. I suppose the risk is that with greater breadth, there may be a loss of depth; that immediacy comes at the cost of complexity. What we may be experiencing are the simple growing pains that come along with any jump in technology, poetry is not immune to the currents of larger culture, further, it has a responsibility to respond to the world as it is now, and to meet reach out to readers wherever they may be.
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Cole Bellamy is a writer and educator from Tampa, Florida. He is the author of three collections of poetry: <i>Lancelot’s Blues, The Mermaid Postcard, and American Museum,</i> and his work has been featured in <i>The Louisville Review, Penumbra, Defenestration,</i> and most recently in <i>Muse/A</i>. He teaches creative writing at the Morean Arts Center, and blogs about Florida history, nature, and culture at <a href="http://www.floridaisaverb.com/">www.FloridaIsAVerb.com</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-32818985548482348962019-07-18T21:57:00.000-04:002020-10-29T11:14:00.464-04:00
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-no-proof: yes;">Passing Through Humansville</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">by Karen
Craigo</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sundress
Publications, 2018</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.sundresspublications.com/">http://www.sundresspublications.com/</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">ISBN:
978-1-939675-78-1</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Karen
Craigo </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">is
the editor and general manager of <i>The Marshfield Mail, </i>a weekly
newspaper in southwestern Missouri. She is author of the collection, <i>No More
Milk</i> (Sundress Publications, 2016), and the chapbooks, <i>Someone Could
Build Something Here</i> (Winged City, 2013), and <i>Stone for an Eye</i> (Kent
State/Wick, 2004). Her poetry, fiction, essays and journalism are widely
published, and she maintains a blog on writing, editing, and creativity, <i>Better
View of the Moon.</i> She is the nonfiction editor and former editor-in-chief
of <i>Mid-American Review </i>and the interviews editor of <i>SmokeLong Quarterly</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I've
never met <span style="color: black;">Karen Craigo in person</span>. We're
friends on Facebook, and I have been a fan of her poetry ever since I read her
chapbook, <i>Escaped Housewife Tries Hard to Blend In, </i>published by<i> </i>Hermeneutic
Chaos in 2016, but now out of print. I reviewed her poetry collection, <i>No
More Milk </i>on this blog in March 2018. —<i>Karen L. George </i></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Review of </span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Karen
Craigo's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Passing Through Humansville</i></span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></u></b></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Karen
Craigo's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Passing Through Humansville </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">explores, celebrates, and at times mourns and
resists what it means to be human through her particular lens of curiosity, honesty,
playfulness, urgency, tenderness and reverence. These poems take us inside a home,
a car, a school, a church, a hospital, a coffeeshop; in the woods, a butterfly
house, a cow pasture, at a concert, an art museum, and within reimagined Biblical
stories. She examines the duality and mysteries of being human—layering images
and scenes of beauty, connection, nurture, creativity, and the holy pinned
against vulnerability, worry, violence, loneliness and loss. The book is dense
with emotion and understanding. I’m going to concentrate on the poem’s ideas
and images surrounding the human need to connect—the give and take of nurturing
and being nurtured. </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The beginning poem, "Meditation With
Cat and Toddler," sets up the recurring dynamics of the complexities these
poems examine:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
here I sit with a body reluctant</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>to
bend, a brain that won’t still, a cat</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">that bumps
me for attention, and a toddler</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">me in the eye for pure love.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We
see a mother trying to nurture herself by meditating, but her toddler and the
cat both want attention. The image of the cat bumping the mother perfectly
mirrors and heightens the image of the toddler punching her “for pure love.” </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
second poem, “Before He Was Born, I Sang Night Songs,” is lush with images of connection
and the sweet, primal, holy intimacy of breastfeeding. She describes it as “the
latch, firm, parasitic, drawing the nectar / down.” The word “parasitic” effectively
echoes the “bump” of the cat, and the “punch” of the toddler. In the first
poem, the “constant rumble / of <i>om”</i> echoes the sounds this mother and her
son make in their connection: “the soft constriction of throat” as the baby
latches onto her breast, and how he “still vibrates with my humming.” In the
center of the poem is the mother’s breathtaking admission: “There is nothing on
this sphere I won’t pull to me, / won’t sing to in the dark.” She speaks of how
she too is nourished by feeding her son: “the last moment I am everything, his sweetness
/ and his sound.” In a later poem, “The Art of Rhetoric,” the mother and son are
described with this beautiful image: “this baby beside me, / curled against my
back like the comma…” The poem ends with the following stunning lines:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>there is nothing more convincing
than</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the whispered swallows I hear behind
me</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>as my son works his bottle in his
sleep.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Each nearly silent gulp makes a claim.
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In
“On His Brother’s Second Birthday” a second, older son is “inconsolable” because
he “misses the baby,” his brother, who is now two years old. The mother reveals
she too misses the baby, and comforts the older son, herself, and us by the reminder,
“our younger selves / don’t go away—they live on, / deeper and deeper within
us.” She goes on, in a kind of dual direct address, including the reader in
this intimate, moving scene:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>…We must believe </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>an infant resides in all of us.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Come. Sniff the hollow of my neck—</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>a scent so soft you’re not</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>even certain it’s there.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In
the playful “Spelling Test Friday” the mother nourishes her son by helping him
to learn: “I spar with words / like a pugilist,” and she in turn is fed by the knowledge
that “he gets it,” understands “he’s going to do fine.” In “Avocado” she talks
about the ripeness and fertility of her body— “the nurturing flesh.” “Good
Night in the Blanket Fort” shows a mother who promises to sleep in a type of
nest her and her son built with pillows and quilts, “walls” to “protect us from
blue night.” </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
There
are repeated images of breath and breathing in this collection, which fit into
this theme of nourishment. When we breath, oxygen is inhaled into the lungs,
moved into our blood that carries it to sustain our bodies, and the carbon
dioxide is expelled through exhaling. In the poem “Tasseomancy,” the mother and
son connect through sharing coffee, and they thirst “to know / what the future
holds,” ending with the image of her son staring into her coffee cup, “close enough
/ to smell the other’s breath.” In poem 5 of the series “Ten Sources of Light,”
a baby under a jaundice lamp is addressed with the following tender lines:</div>
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>You, little loaf,</div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>are almost risen. How</div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>warm you’ll feel </div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in; vertical-align: baseline;">
against me. I can’t wait</div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>to breathe you in.</div>
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
This
collection also celebrates our human need to connect with friends and siblings.
One poem recounts a childhood memory, a circle of girls in the woods, joining
their drops of blood to become “Scab Sisters,”—“it was holy, we were dryads rejoining
the wood.” In “Total Knee Replacement,” the poet refers to the body and the operation
her sister has undergone, but in the following lines, she suggests vital
aspects of love and our connection to others:</div>
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We come to rely on the hinges—</div>
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>how they lift us and let us down,
soft.</div>
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Most love requires collapse.</div>
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We fold and unfold into the other,</div>
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>or wrap the self in the self.</div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There is such essential wisdom in
the above lines, and in the poem’s closing lines, that again express the
healing of her sister’s knee, but at the same time speak of life in general in a
reverent, unforgettable way:</span></div>
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</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>try
to remember:</span></div>
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</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>this
is how we rise, and how</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>we
leave, and how we pray.</span></div>
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</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The poet also explores the nourishment
of love exchanged between spouses. In “When We Find a Hurt Mouse,” the husband “is
kind enough / to bear the injured to the yard, / then with one stomp save it /
from hours of suffering.” What a powerful image of violence as a means to
deliver comfort. She goes on to say “not all gentleness / is conveyed in a caress,”
and to describe watching him “stroke the patchwork squares / of the giraffe’s
neck, receive / a blue tongue the length / of his arm, offer it a bit / of
grain” – such a gentle, compassionate connection, which implies each (the man,
the giraffe, and the wife observing) is enriched. In poem 7 of the series “Ten
Sources of Light,” the husband is portrayed in such a loving manner as he gets
the coffeemaker set up at night for his wife’s morning coffee:</span></div>
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</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>…each
night</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>unfolds
a filter,</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>measures
grounds</span></div>
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</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>with
a wooden spoon,</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>adds
water and comes</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">to
bed.</span></div>
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</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The poem ends with the lovely image
of how the next morning the “green dot” of the coffeepot “is just / enough light
to help / me find my way.”</span></div>
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</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Imagery of light, as in the above
example, is also threaded through these poems. Light as a metaphor for energy, connection,
protection, and hope. In the collection’s center, the ten poems in the series “Ten
Sources of Light” contain different examples of light: the glow of a town seen
on a hill while driving at night; a reporter watching the eclipse and asking
others what they think of the sun; seeing the aurora borealis; flicking on a cigarette
lighter at a Pink Floyd concert; and with her father, viewing fireflies light
up the night sky. There are also contrasting images of life’s dualism, its darkness,
in the poems—instances of when we can’t connect with others, and when we can’t
nourish ourselves or others as much as we’d like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="color: red;"></span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Besides connection between humans,
this collection contains poems in which the author reflects on how we connect with
the natural world. In “Speleology” she refuses to kill the spider above her
pillow, which she describes exquisitely as “eight eyelashes affixed / to a
speck.” The poem “Filibuster” retells the memory of a male teacher that makes
her stand each day during a civics class in the garbage can with her nose pressed
to a chalk mark on the blackboard. The poem ends with a stunning, redemptive
image:</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
start to get</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the
sunflower, whose every</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>instinct
makes it stand</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>with
its tall quorum,</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>who
together turn</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>their
backs on the dark.</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This collection also delves into connection
and nourishment through spirituality. In “I Come to the Garden Alone,” she tells
a friend she terms “a better Christian” that she doesn’t believe in heaven or
hell, but instead feels “a river / of intelligence courses through all things,
/ and we join it when we are lucky // enough to die.” She describes this flow
of connection in the following way:</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We
are paddling through otherness,</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and
the molecules that enter her mouth</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>on
a gasp came from somewhere,</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and
maybe once were in me, in the barista—</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>in
cave people, street preachers, nuns.</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the poem “Mary of Bethany,” during
a church service, a woman rubs the bald spot of the man she loves. The poem
ends with the beautiful observation:</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
isn’t that God, touching us</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>where
we’re most exposed,</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>loving
even our emptiness,</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>those
places soft with down.</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Besides
the hopeful moments portrayed in these poems of connection and nourishment,
there are also moments of unsatisfied hunger, emptiness, discomfort and
disconnection. There is such heartbreak in “For Brenna <3 Ernie” when a
mother recreates the moment her son hands a picture he drew of himself and a
girl named Brenna to that girl:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When he gave it, he broke</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>into grief, racking sobs,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>eyes closed in shame.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He loves her.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
poem reveals with such tenderness the details of the picture he drew:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>…Consider</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>his vision, two, standing,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>so happy and plain</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>in their britches. It is</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>simple. There is nothing</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>easier; the beauty</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>hurts him, each one</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>dignified and glad,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>small arms open</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>to possibility</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>in the twin flags</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>of their rectangle pants.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
poem “Inventory” talks about not having enough money to pay the bills. The narrator
asks the question, “What is the world’s crime / that it should be forced to pay
/ and pay again?” She continues:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>…I know the feeling.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Credit cards, rent, car insurance.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Just going to the mailbox</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">makes me numb. And then</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I look around, see a clearcut</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>where my life ought to be.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The collection’s title poem, “Passing
Through Humansville,” references an actual town in Missouri, in which the
narrator of the poem “slips[s] into and out of …both coming and going.” Besides
the literal journeying in a car through a town called Humansville, the poem
suggests the journey of a human lifetime. The driver passes through fog, which
she depicts as “the layer of white like an old lady’s hair / spread out behind
her in rapture.” This creates such a whimsical picture, and to me, suggests the
idea of the old woman being “raptured” to the hereafter. The poem continues: “Why
not? / The oldest vessel can still hold / / a drink, or else we’d call it a
shard.” This image of the woman’s body as a vessel infers she can still nourish
and be nourished—that there’s still life in her. The ending stanza is so full
of the duality of being human—living and dying:</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
maybe I’ve stepped on the ground</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>where
my ashes will light.</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Maybe,
unknowing, I’ve danced.</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The last two poems of the collection
talk about the nourishment a teacher provides for her students, who appear to
be learning English as a second language. In “Walking Papers” “students are
learning / where to put the stress, what vowels / to flatten or round, how to
hear / the difference in consonants…” It felt to me that this teacher is also
speaking of language as a means to connect and nourish us, similar to song. The
poem ends with the teacher’s compassion for her students, “those stonemasons
and carvers, / painters and metalsmiths, / heading off into the unknown,
everything they own heavy / against their shoulder.” </span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the collection's last poem,
titled "The Movement You Need," the teacher again delves into the
components that make up the English language:</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
key, you know, is emphasis. English</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>is
a stress-toned language, and we listen</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>for
the punch, in a word, in a sentence,</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and
that extra <i>oomph</i>, that little flex,</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>is
all we need to make sense of a thing.</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And then she sings “Hey Jude” with
the students who she says are “visitors here, / people who have been
misunderstood / by cashiers and taxi drivers, / the lilting mismatch of Arabic,
Polish, / Yoruba, Japanese.” The teacher begins singing “Hey Jude” and that has
made all the difference—they are connected and nourished:</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>…but
today in class</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>we
layer vowel over vowel, and we sing,</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>no
hesitation, all voices present and clear</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>from
the first “Hey, Jude.”</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The poem and the book end with such
a note of unity and hope, incorporating some of the words of the Beatles’ song so
beautifully into the poem’s flow of meaning:</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i>Don’t
you know that it’s just you,</i></span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>hey Jude, you’ll do, </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and we do know,</span></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>we
feel it, we punch each key word</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>to
drive it home, into our heart,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>then
we can start to make it better.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The last line is, of course, a line in
the Beatles’ song, but by not having it in italics, it feels as if the teacher
is saying that the sentiment of this song is being “driven home,” into these
students’ and the teacher’s hearts at one and the same time, to become a part
of them, and that this connecting to other human beings through language, through
song, can begin to make this a better world. I believe her.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Karen Craigo’s <i>Passing Through
Humansville</i> is threaded with tenderness and reverence, vulnerability and honesty.
These poems sing with intimacy, and a powerful voice of gratitude and hope
about all the ways we connect in our experiences as human beings. The moments
this poet creates, the ways she speaks to the reader, will nourish you at every
turn. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">__________</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Here are links to some of Karen Craigo’s poems:</span><br />
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://www.escapeintolife.com/poetry/karen-craigo/">Escape Into Life</a></span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://www.connotationpress.com/a-poetry-congeries-with-john-hoppenthaler/january-2014/2166-karen-craigo-poetry">Connotation
Press</a></span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">__________</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk8e7oMevDKoHwsi5NpEeQwpEAwS803GPpRTTnCfia1FozbBQaJ-7iGPFan5RgGeRD50jD6Rs_5eYUy9_rYrjJpd1gwA8NTmUKghGRPWccihTC_iZuFuF-OYuBVUNa3Smhcl3j_PGQ7sYY/s1600/Karen+George+small+author+photo+-+Copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="174" data-original-width="124" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk8e7oMevDKoHwsi5NpEeQwpEAwS803GPpRTTnCfia1FozbBQaJ-7iGPFan5RgGeRD50jD6Rs_5eYUy9_rYrjJpd1gwA8NTmUKghGRPWccihTC_iZuFuF-OYuBVUNa3Smhcl3j_PGQ7sYY/s200/Karen+George+small+author+photo+-+Copy.jpg" width="142" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Karen
George</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> retired
from computer programming to write full-time. She lives in Florence, Kentucky, enjoys
photography and </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">visiting forests, museums, cemeteries, historic
towns, and bodies of water</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">. She is author of five chapbooks, most recently </span><em><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11.0pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">the collaborative ekphrastic <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><a href="https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/frame-and-mount-the-sky-by-donelle-dreese-karen-george-nancy-jentsch-taunja-thomson/"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frame and Mount the Sky</i></a> </u></b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Finishing Line Press, 2017), and </span></em><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">two poetry collections from <span style="color: #222222;">Dos Madres Press: </span><b><i><a href="https://www.dosmadres.com/shop/swim-your-way-back-by-karen-george/">Swim
Your Way Back</a></i></b> <span style="color: #222222;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(2014) and </span><b><i><a href="https://www.dosmadres.com/shop/a-map-and-one-year-by-karen-l-george/">A
Map and One Year</a></i></b> (2018)<span style="color: #222222;">. You can find
her work in </span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/emily-carrs-forest-british-columbia-1931-2-by-karen-l-george">The
Ekphrastic Review</a></span></i></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">, </span><strong><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="https://sliverofstonemagazine.com/dream-brood-by-karen-l-george/"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sliver of Stone</b></a></span></i></strong><strong><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://herontree.com/george5/"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Heron
Tree</b></a></i></span></strong><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">, </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">and </span><b><i><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="https://www.valpo.edu/valparaiso-poetry-review/2019/05/21/karen-george-impression/">Valparaiso
Poetry Review</a></span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">. </span></i></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">She holds an MFA from
Spalding University, and is co-founder and fiction editor of the journal, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.waypointsmag.com/" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Waypoints</i></b></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
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Karen Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06855467849220914349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-41939222850842383982019-06-18T17:31:00.004-04:002019-06-18T17:49:41.320-04:00What We're Reading Now<a href="https://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2019/06/what-were-reading-now.html" id="top">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Commons via Flickr</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We're always reading fine works of poetry. T</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">his month on <i>Poetry Matters,</i> instead of an in-depth review or interview, y</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">ou’ll find three quick posts about what books have captured our attention:</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2019/06/what-were-reading-now.html#karen">Karen George discusses two chapbooks</a></span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2019/06/what-were-reading-now.html#anthony">Anthony Fife touches on Jonathan Fink’s <i>Barbarossa</i></a></span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2019/06/what-were-reading-now.html#rosemary">Rosemary Royston comments on Savannah Sipple’s <i>WWJD and Other Poems</i></a></span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2019/06/what-were-reading-now.html#nancy">Nancy Chen Long is reading Monica Youn’s <i>Blackacre</i></a></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">So take a look—you might find that next great book of poetry or a poet whose work resonates with you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2019/06/what-were-reading-now.html" id="karen">Karen George discusses two chapbooks</a></span></h2>
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I recently finished three intriguing chapbooks: Taunja Thomson’s <i><a href="https://www.planbpress.com/store/p54/Strum_and_Lull_by_Taunja_Thomson.html" target="_blank">Strum and Lull</a></i> (Plan B Press, 2019) and <i>The Profusion</i> (Kelsay Books, 2019), and Sally Rosen Kindred’s <a href="https://porkbellypress.com/poetry/says" target="_blank"><i>Says the Forest to the Girl</i> </a>(Porkbelly Press, 2018).
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I’ll concentrate on Thomson’s first chapbook, <i><a href="https://www.planbpress.com/store/p54/Strum_and_Lull_by_Taunja_Thomson.html" target="_blank">Strum and Lull</a></i>, a celebration of, and a meditation on<br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w_g6xpv-zQI/XQVc4u6ebtI/AAAAAAAACx0/M_L3zzq1UZQvowyEIM5hOqZIOZ5m5RKSwCLcBGAs/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="264" data-original-width="191" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w_g6xpv-zQI/XQVc4u6ebtI/AAAAAAAACx0/M_L3zzq1UZQvowyEIM5hOqZIOZ5m5RKSwCLcBGAs/s1600/download.jpg" /></a>nature, mythology, art, imagination, language, and transformation. It opens with the title poem, in which “A small girl touches what she thinks of / as the tibia of a tree…This she knows: Eden is ravens / flying esses while the sky agape / looks on.”
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These poems contain insects, fish, reptiles, birds, plants, trees, the four elements (earth, water, air, and fire), priestesses, mythological and magical beings. This poet sees beauty and interconnectedness everywhere, whether it’s during a morning run, “On the ground: / piece of gum / flattened into the shape / of a swan” or how, when she’s unable to sleep, she sees a dragon and goldfish on the ceiling above her; in paintings by Klimt and Magritte; and in her riveting attention to the natural world, describing crows as “those black candles of winter,” evening as “unraveling yarn of night,” and wheat in wind as “ecstatic / slanting altars.” She also explores the world of loss and grief as part of the web of life these poems deeply embody. <br />
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The poems of <i>Strum and Lull</i> flood the senses with dreams, visions, and trances full of color and sound, lush with openness and wildness. Thomson ends her chapbook with the rapturous lines: “know the moon…eat the sky / mouthing the clouds.” <br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oOIetWuHSts/XQVdaX_QppI/AAAAAAAACx8/vQSP5gYzwDYb1bHng2LZ8priLAy_BoRSgCLcBGAs/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="245" data-original-width="205" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oOIetWuHSts/XQVdaX_QppI/AAAAAAAACx8/vQSP5gYzwDYb1bHng2LZ8priLAy_BoRSgCLcBGAs/s1600/download.jpg" /></a>The chapbook <i><a href="https://porkbellypress.com/poetry/says" target="_blank">Says the Forest to the Girl</a></i> by Sally Rosen Kindred takes place in the fairy tale world of wolves, crows/ravens, and a talking forest, peopled by Little Red Riding Hood, Sleep Beauty, and Rapunzel, who speak through persona-poems about danger, pain, illness, loss/grief, being lost/finding your way, wildness, escape, memory, and transformation. At its core are these girls/women finding their voice, telling their stories, speaking their truths.<br />
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In the first poem, the <i>you</i>, called <i>Girl</i>, doesn’t seem to have a voice—a choir of crows “cry between towers— // work your mouth can’t do.” The poem “Ravenous” speaks of a terrible hunger “To shriek an open- / ing with a call, a caw, a / carcass / song.” In “Said Rapunzel to the Wolf” Rapunzel tells of sisters who “rise / into song, shared words that curled / on our skin.” She goes on to say in breathtaking imagery, “My story starts in the throat. / The throat is a tower: the story climbs out / of that red cage, personal, burning,” and continues with “My story rides you out of here,” and “My story wants time.” In another poem, Little Red says, “Nobody ever told / me a story / where the woman’s / body, mean and squinting, gets / stronger” and repeats the phrase “Nobody ever told me / a story where…” In the final poem, “I Tell What Kind of Girl,” the I begins “There was a girl, once” and continues with “Her longing sang, soured / through heartwood.” The poem, and the book, end with a white door opening “like mercy, like breath, / when she began to tell,” once again repeating the theme of girls/women telling their story.<br />
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Sally Rosen Kindred’s <i>Say the Forest to the Girl</i> is threaded with images of the body (throat, teeth, blood, bone, breath, womb, belly), and of doors, windows, wings, wind, roots, nest, and the moon. The poems come alive, pulling us into her haunting world, where Little Red ponders “What is it that waits / inside her, a nest / or a knife, a huntsman / or an open door?”<br />
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<a href="https://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2019/06/what-were-reading-now.html" id="anthony"> Anthony Fife touches on Jonathan Fink’s <i>Barbarossa</i></a>
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<i><a href="https://www.dzancbooks.org/our-books/barbarossa-sonnets-by-jonathan-fink" target="_blank">BARBAROSSA: SONNETS</a></i><br />
by Jonathon Fink<br />
Dzanc, 2016 </div>
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ISBN: 978-1-941088-55-5</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uX-DhNAyex8/XQVex2CJTwI/AAAAAAAACyI/AmwO6UXUlE8hQmCX7SxP1_jjiEyMT3YBACEwYBhgL/s1600/9781941088555-frontcover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uX-DhNAyex8/XQVex2CJTwI/AAAAAAAACyI/AmwO6UXUlE8hQmCX7SxP1_jjiEyMT3YBACEwYBhgL/s320/9781941088555-frontcover.jpg" width="205" /></a>Jonathan Fink’s <i>Barbarossa: The German Invasion of the Soviet Union and the Siege of Leningrad: Sonnets</i>, chronicles the beginning and early stages of the Third Reich’s encroachment into the Soviet Union during the Summer of 1941. Instead of a dry, uninspiring retelling of military history, however, Fink populates his sonnets with characters through which the reader can witness the historic events.<br />
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I’m not deep in the book and therefore can’t offer much by way of comprehensive insight but, so far, I really appreciate the care with which Fink treats his subjects, and the fine line he walks between the humanistic, the artistic, and the informative. For every character suffering, there’s a stark image, and for every image there is a title that schools the reader on the historic, military impetus behind the human reaction.<br />
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Fink’s blank verse is mature, it’s articulate, and I wholly look forward to the next page.
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ca0skCEoKqQ/W2b9MiOt5PI/AAAAAAAACf4/YQ10fOqF8f4meXTxGZAToZDWYSkorEMngCLcBGAs/s320/rosemary-royston.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></a><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ca0skCEoKqQ/W2b9MiOt5PI/AAAAAAAACf4/YQ10fOqF8f4meXTxGZAToZDWYSkorEMngCLcBGAs/s1600/rosemary-royston.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="50" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ca0skCEoKqQ/W2b9MiOt5PI/AAAAAAAACf4/YQ10fOqF8f4meXTxGZAToZDWYSkorEMngCLcBGAs/s320/rosemary-royston.jpg" width="50" /></a><a href="https://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2019/06/what-were-reading-now.html" id="rosemary">Rosemary Royston comments on Savannah Sipple's <i>WWJD and Other Poems</i></a></span>
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<i><a href="https://siblingrivalrypress.bigcartel.com/product/wwjd-and-other-poems-by-savannah-sipple" target="_blank">WWJD and Other Poems</a></i><br />
by Savannah Sipple<br />
Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BS-Z0M-8iBg/XQk1L4jGr_I/AAAAAAAACys/z7uKupRB5L8xbWcHYgBzIKy_JP7ajBfFgCLcBGAs/s1600/WWJD%252BFRONT%252BCOVER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BS-Z0M-8iBg/XQk1L4jGr_I/AAAAAAAACys/z7uKupRB5L8xbWcHYgBzIKy_JP7ajBfFgCLcBGAs/s320/WWJD%252BFRONT%252BCOVER.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="212" /></a>Sipple’s collection of poems is one I’ve read multiple times prior to lending it out to my daughter. As a woman raised in the Bible Belt, there are many ways in which I relate to the speaker of these poems, who must leave behind antiquated and prejudicial beliefs. Acceptance of the self, which in this collection is a fat woman <br />
who must embrace her queerness in a community that is not receptive, is a goal all readers seek, so the poems become universal to anyone on the journey to feel loved and accepted. First comes the anger that rightly takes traditional religious language and turns it on its head, [Our anger is a lantern This little light / of mine], to full acceptance of the self, “Yes, love. Yes, you are worthy,” all while sharing a PBR with Jesus (!), who not only gives the speaker the unconditional love we all need, but also shows the young man side-eyeing condoms what to buy. I’m continually intrigued by the form that several of the poems take -- the use of brackets and white space to convey both emotion and information. <br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/httpsSavannah%20Sipple's%20WWJD%20and%20Other%20Poems://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2019/06/what-were-reading-now.html" id="nancy">Nancy Chen Long is reading Monica Youn's <i>Blackacre</i></a></span>
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<i><a href="https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/blackacre" target="_blank">Blackacre</a></i><br />
by Monica Youn</div>
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Graywolf Press, 2016</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">ISBN: 978-1-55597-750-4</span><br />
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<i>Blackacre </i>is Monica Youn’s third book. It was long-listed for the National Book Award in Poetry and is the winner of the William Carlos Williams Award. Youn, who teaches creative writing at Princeton University as well at Warren Wilson College in their low-residency MFA program, is a former lawyer, and so it’s not surprising that legal terminology is peppered throughout the book. ‘Blackacre’ is a legal term used to define hypothetical or unidentified property, similar to the way the term <i>Joe Doe </i>might be used when referencing a hypothetical or unidentified man. Youn offers an example in the NOTES section of the book: “In a legal hypothetical, one might say that John Doe wishes to bequeath his property Blackacre to his sister Jane Doe. Similarly, one could designate other hypothetical properties Whiteacre, Greenacre, Brownacre, etc.” The title <i>Blackacre</i> serves to set the themes, motifs, metaphors, and images of the book: hypotheticals, land and landscapes—seeds, fertility, trees, bareness—what can be created or destroyed, explorations of belonging and ownership, being trapped, impeded, or imprisoned.<br />
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The book is a hybrid of prose and poetry that contains four sections and opens with a prologue poem, “<a href="https://poets.org/poem/palinode" target="_blank">Palinode</a>.” Merrian-Webster tells us that a palinode is “an ode or song recanting or retracting something in an earlier poem” or “a formal retraction.” Starting the book with a backward-looking poem, one that renounces or retracts what came before, surprised me. Obviously, in the book itself, no poem comes before “Palinode,” so I assumed that the poem was alluding to one of Youn’s previous poems or books. That I hadn’t read her previous books did not prevent me from being intrigued by this sparse poem. In the first section of the poem, we are presented with the image of a bird that finds itself falling off of a balcony. Instead of flying safely away as it would naturally do (perhaps having forgotten how to fly), it uses its wings to grasp “fistfuls of / air.” The second section continues with the panic started in the first, the repeated pleas of “please” giving the retraction a sense of desperation tinged with shame. That we, the readers, do not know what the error-mistake is opens the poem up (and by extension, the whole book) to be filled by whatever error-mistake we bring to it.<br />
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The remainder of the book is in four numbered sections. Three of the four sections are poetic sequences:<br />
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<ul>
<li>The
first section is a poetic sequence of unidentified people being hanged, e.g. “<a href="https://poets.org/poem/interrogation-hanged-man" target="_blank">Interrogation of the Hanged Man</a>,” “Portrait of the Hanged Woman,” and “The Hanged Men Reprise.” </li>
<li>The third section is a poetic sequence in which each title follows the pattern ___acre, e.g., “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/614073" target="_blank">Greenacre</a>” and “<a href="https://www.theawl.com/2016/01/a-poem-by-monica-youn/" target="_blank">Redacre</a>.”</li>
<li>The fourth section is a sequence comprised of two poems, both titled “Blackacre.”</li>
</ul>
While reading the sequence in the first section, the ‘hanged man’
that immediately came to my mind was the Hanged Man tarot card, with its meanings of self-sacrifice and surrender,
the halo suggesting enlightenment, wisdom, or learning. Some of those elements can be found in this first section of the book. Youn provides additional insight in the book’s NOTES section, saying that poems in the first section are “loosely based on François
Villon’s 1462 poem “<i>Ballade des pendus</i>” (“Ballad of the Hanged Men”) (aka “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45285/the-epitaph-in-form-of-a-ballad-which-villon-made-for-himself-and-his-comrades-expecting-to-be-hanged-along-with-them" target="_blank">The Epitaph in Form of a Ballad whichVillon Made for Himself and his Comrades, Expecting to be Hanged along withThem</a>”), which some believe Villon wrote while in prison waiting to be hanged. Among
the themes in this section, the one that stuck with me was that of the body and of failure/error, for example, here in the last third of the poem “<a href="https://chloestrix.wordpress.com/2017/04/09/monica-youn-portrait-of-a-hanged-woman/" target="_blank">Portrait of a Hanged Woman</a>”:<br />
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…<br />
The Greeks<br />
were wrong.<br />
<br />
Necessity<br />
is not a weaver,<br />
there is no spindle<br />
<br />
in her hand; <br />
it is a woman<br />
wearing a steel<br />
<br />
collar, wearing<br />
a stiffly pleated<br />
dress, which lifts<br />
<br />
to reveal nothing<br />
but fabric where<br />
her body used to be.<br />
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<br />
In poetic sequence of the third section (poems titled “Greenacre,” “Redacre,” etc.), I experience each poem as a landscape or viewpoint. The subjects of the poems are varied, including white noise/light (“<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=aWrYDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA45#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Whiteacre [TM Soft White Noise Player]</a>”), Twinkies and urban legends (“<a href="https://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/awards/annual/winners/2017/award_9/" target="_blank">Goldacre [snopes.com]</a>”), and a sixty-item list of sounds and actions in one shot of a short film (“<a href="http://www.foldermagazine.com/monica-youn" target="_blank">Blueacre [<i>The Passenger</i>]</a>.”) Trees feature prominently in this collection, even an imagined tree encountered in “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/23/brownacre-by-monica-youn" target="_blank">Brownacre</a>” that speaks to a marriage in distress. “Brownacre” also serves as an example of Youn<span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">’s</span> exquisite imagery: “I wasn’t paying attention: I was watching the thing / you had just said to me still hanging in the air between us, / its surfaces beading up with a shiny liquid like contempt... .” (Side note: She has clever poem in the second section of the book called “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/23/against-imagism" target="_blank">Against Imagism</a>.”)<br />
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The poetic sequence of the fourth section is comprised of two poems, both titled “Blackacre.” I read the first poem titled “<a href="https://poets.org/poem/blackacre" target="_blank">Blackacre</a>” as a poem that considers embodiment, immortality, body-less-ness, and the mistakes and missteps due to being trapped in both time and a body. The second “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/58147/blackacre" target="_blank">Blackacre</a>” is a prose/prose-poem sequence that traces through Milton<span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 16px;">’</span>s <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44750/sonnet-19-when-i-consider-how-my-light-is-spent" target="_blank">Sonnet 19</a></i> (“On His Blindness”). This “Blackacre” poem might be the title poem for the book? In it, Youn ponders the last word of each line of Milton’s sonnet, e.g. “The ‘wide’ is always haunted by surprise. In a dark world, the ‘wide’ is the sudden door that opens on unfurling blackness, the void pooling at the bottom of the unlit stairs. ...” (“2. Wide”).<br />
<br />
I found <i>Blackacre</i> to be a captivating book. The first time I read through it, I needed to look up a number of references and words, for example, some of the legal terminology. After completing it, I promptly started rereading it and am discovering even more to savor in this second pass. If you appreciate careful language, skillful rhyme and word-play, fine imagery, and intellectually-challenging content, this book will not disappoint. I’ll leave you with the eleventh sequence from the poem “Blackacre”:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>11. STATE</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To be scooped out, emptied of need and rinsed clean of its greasy smears, pristine as a petri dish on a stainless lab table. Enucleated, the white of the egg awaiting an unknown yolk.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Yolk” from geolu (Old English: yellow). Not to be confused with “yoke” from geocian (Old English: to be joined together). A yoke is an implement, meant to be used, to fill a need. But where there is no field to be plowed, no wagon to be pulled, why demand a yoke that is useless, needless?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
One day the Romans sent for Cincinnatus to lead the republic against the invading Aequian army. He laid down his plow in the field and went to war. When the Aequians surrendered, Cincinnatus spared their lives but decreed that they must “pass under the yoke.” The Romans fashioned a yoke from three spears, two fixed in the ground, and one tied across the tops of the two verticals. Since the horizontal spear was only a few feet off the ground, the Aequians were made to crouch down like animals in order to complete the surrender. This is thought to be the origin of the word “subjugate,” to be brought under the yoke. To bear a yoke is to be bowed down, oxbowed, cowed.
One day they laid me down on a gurney, my feet strapped in stirrups, my legs bent and splayed like the horns of a white bull.</blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">“11. State” from </span><i style="font-size: 13.3333px;">Blackacre</i><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">. All quotes from poems are from <i>Blackacre</i> by Monica Youn. Copyright © 2016 by Monica Youn.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-60402802664655571732019-05-15T23:13:00.000-04:002019-05-16T10:08:09.229-04:00The Spoken and the Unspoken: Troubled Articulation and Evolving Selfhood in Heather Christle's What Is Amazingby Anthony Fife<br />
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Heather Christle’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What Is </i>Amazing (2012), published by
Wesleyan University Press, reads like a treatise on what it means to be alone
in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Divided both physically
and rhetorically into three equal but distinct, untitled sections, each one
highlights a perspective on interpersonal relationships and selfhood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Buoyed by rich imagery and highly concerned
with form (or lack thereof), the collection is full of characters who, A)
attempt to connect with those around them and, B) come to terms with their own
identity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The former, it turns out, is a
far more daunting task than the latter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The first section is
equal parts whimsy and longing, like little fairy tales that crop up in the
course of daily life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite the
inventive spatial setting, the characters themselves are unmoored, much like
the book itself is unmoored by an overall lack of punctuation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite these ever-present themes, however,
it’s not a depressing read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not
necessarily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The collection is saved
from the darkest of darks by the duality of fanciful but mundane settings and
the tiny glint of hope that so often peeks, small but alive, from between the
lines. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
In “If You Go into the
Woods You Will Find It Has a Technology,” the poem seems to say, “We are not
coming together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I cannot find you from
here.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas the speaker, at first
blush, is more or less competent and comfortable with their place in the world,
the personified tree is not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Flashing
upon its LED sign messages that read, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">grow
stronger</i>” and “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fireworks effect</i>,”
the tree attempts but fails to connect, to convey anything profound or even articulate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christle writes, “The tree is the saddest
prophet in history / but you don’t tell it that.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How could you possibly bring yourself to tell
it that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wants so desperately to
connect. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Saying what we want to
say is sometimes so difficult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if
we can say it, our message often gets lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Somewhere in the ether our words and feelings hang, balancing forever,
and we know that they might not ever find a home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poem ends: the tree “can’t see you and it
starts to cry.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Of course, if the poem’s
speaker can read sadness into words like “grown strong” and “fireworks
display,” maybe they aren’t as secure as they’d have us believe.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The speaker in another
poem in the first section, “Self-portrait with Fire,” is far less able, despite
their best efforts, to don the mask of stoicism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are quite pitiful, in fact, in their
need to explain themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pleading
tone of the poem, of course, isn’t completely due to subject matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rhetorical structure of the poem—it’s
almost a confession—is also responsible for the urgency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The speaker is coming clean after having
feebly sought to deceive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This feature,
when coupled with word repetition, shows the emotional lengths to which they
will go to be understood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The speaker
pleads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “[n]o no no no / no no no”
of the first and second lines and the incessant “I” permeating the entire poem
evidence profound desperation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Whereas these are common
themes, not every poem in the first section is so haplessly vulnerable, though
usually vulnerable nonetheless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Toward
the end of section one, when “I’ll Be Me and You Be Goethe” rolls around, the
speaker is much more assertive, though no more in control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christle writes, “[E]verything I do / I do to
get more beautiful so you will want / to love me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From redecorating a room to redecorating themselves,
the speaker is an active agent curating their own existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not a bad way to be, unless you are doing so
at the expense of the very things that make you such a potentially strong,
unique person in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
almost-selfhood is mirrored, maybe even created, by the poems’ forms.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
A few of the poems in
this book are dyed-in-the-wool sonnets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
bulk of the poems in the first section, however, are sonnet adjacent while
never fully taking the plunge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They fall
in the general vicinity of fourteen lines, have a discernible rhetorical shift
or “turn,” and attempt to plumb the depths of the human experience, but
something holds them back. Maybe it’s the sensibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps the otherworldly nature of the some
of the poems pushes back a little too hard against such old-school
formality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Regardless of the reason,
many of the poems are able to dwell in that sphere without being stifled by it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ever-presence of sonnet-like poems,
however, dissipates when we begin <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What Is
Amazing</i>’s second section.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Section two provides a
paradigm shift.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though not as startling
as the change we see in the third, section two is a bit older and wiser, though
some of the same issues from the first section persist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas in the first section some of the
speakers are quiet and scared, in the second they tend to be much more contemplative
in their articulation, attempting something like control, though not
necessarily any more successful at interpersonal communication.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In short, both sections display a
vulnerability, but the maturity of the vulnerability has somewhat changed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
In “Bash,” the thoughts
are there; the feelings are there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They’ve got <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">it</i> inside them
waiting to escape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The words, however,
or maybe just the will to speak them, evade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whether feeling love or the mundane, the speaker cannot express
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christle writes, “I open my
ordinary mouth as if to speak / but find there is no voice there.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later, the speaker says, “[T]hough I do not
speak it / that I love her in the ordinary way.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The speaker is able to tell us, but unable to
tell <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">her</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Misdirected as it might be, it is, after all,
a mature inarticulation, which is perhaps the greatest tonal shift
differentiating sections one and two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And is not unique to this one poem. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Though “Up Again with the
Night” begins with inarticulation, this time it’s on purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It’s no good trying to talk to a roof,”
writes Christle, “It will only turn away / Better to stand on it / and yell
facts at the stars.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Up Again with the
Night” is a bold, assertive poem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
other words, the speaker is much more mature and autonomous than a majority of
those in section one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With its “I will
be a leaf myself / resolved against sunlight,” and “I’m not sorry / I’m not
sorry,” the poem is far more a declaration of selfhood than a whimper of
solitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
As void of punctuation as
the first section, and as singular in its narrative focus, the second section
shows the other side of sentience: the standing up, for better or worse, and
owning our identity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in some cases,
even trying to change it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This new, mature
speaker, however, does little to prepare us for the third section, with its
deep imagery and overall defiance of being approachable in the mundane
way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Section three is
challenging, requiring a more patient attention and a willingness to leap a bit
further to reconcile certain juxtaposition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But Christle, exercising her poet’s craft, helps us along the way—the
most obvious bit of guidance, aside from the punctuation, being the use of
multiple stanzas.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Just like the new
presence of punctuation, the fact that the poems are now broken up into more
than one piece plays a significant factor in how we are able and allowed to
read them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poems are different
because of punctuation and their physical form, yes, but for the same reasons
we, too, are different as we navigate them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Being given the clearer, more concise roadmap renders us a bit more
competent to make our way through poems that, frankly, are far more
opaque.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Opaque, that is, if our overall
goal is to discern something like concrete or literal meaning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately for us, Christle’s multiple
stanzas, or maybe I ought to say the empty space between the stanzas, provide
us the direction we require to reach a destination.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Couplets are the most
common reoccurring form in section three, so much so that, despite the
outliers, the two-line form comes to define the third and final section of the
book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One such grouping of couplets, “Last Time I Wore This Sweater,” shows just how
beneficial the space between the stanzas can be.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
The
unpunctuated couplets slow us so that each syntactical unit garners our full, thoughtful attention. Christle writes:<span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>That morning when
weather erased the mountain</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and I kept talking into the white
like an American</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and could see nothing I then rubbed
the feeling</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>that all the data I had collected
(the white) (the</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>mountain) (the talking) was draining
away through</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>this vast and new hole with which I
coincided</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
How unsatisfying would the word “America” be with
no blank space trailing behind?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fact
that the stanza ends (we could fall off it like from a cliff) lets the reader
linger on the word; it resonates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
richer for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By taking our time, new,
deeper meanings are gleaned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I won’t
trouble you with my own interpretation of the line; suffice it to say, I’m
allowed to run with my own interpretation because of the void between the first
two stanzas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To quite a different end,
we could similarly discuss the space between the second and third stanzas.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
enjambed, parenthetical line and stanza break between lines four & five is
just plain weird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas the first few
lines read much more smoothly and prose-like, once the parentheses descend upon
us, we must rethink matters drastically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We don’t know quite what to do with it, and perhaps the poem doesn’t
quite know what to do with itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
poem gets strange and so the reading is supposed to get strange.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or at least different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our way of thinking must change if we are to
accommodate the poem’s own change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
to assume it’s all about guiding us would be foolish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes the stanza breaks, especially when
coupled with a lack of punctuation, allow us to make our own decisions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Choices
abound in “What Will Grow Here,” a poem for which couplets serve to provide us
multiple avenues for exploration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Christle writes:</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>another
miracle is</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>to
forget</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>in
the garden to find</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>nothing
with a name</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>to
pass on through the green</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>as
if it were an hour</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>gathered
together by glass</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>as
if to breathe</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>were
to take apart the sky</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>and
why not</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>if
everything is moving</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>and
down in your gut</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>there
is that</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>borrowed
blue</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Where does one syntactical unit end and the other
begin?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are these lines end-stopped or
are they enjambed?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes, like
between the first and second stanzas, we can imply punctuation for ourselves:
“Another miracle is to forget in the garden—to find nothing with a name” or
“Another miracle is to forget—in the garden to find nothing with a name.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the former, the stanzas are knit together
much more tightly, and we must read them as such.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The latter choice, on the other hand, lets
the first two stanzas hang independently, floating in their own orbit, letting
us linger as long as we like before moving on to the next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The importance of that space, or lack thereof,
cannot be overestimated.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We have several such
choices in the poem, each decision tethering us to a different breath pattern
or set of implications.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, the sum of
our experience is a major factor in determining how we’ll receive a poem, but
artistic creation is not passive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
best poet nudges us, often without letting us know that we have been
nudged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Toward what destination does
“What Will Grow Here” nudge?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe the
freedom to go our own way (within the poet’s framework) itself is the nudge. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Poet-craft aside, the two
poems printed above in their entirety dovetail nicely with the theme running
through the rest of the book—namely, inarticulation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the former, the speaker articulates into a
void.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one there to hear it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the latter, the speaker recommends a
letting go of knowledge and communication.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We should all be lucky enough sometimes, the speaker says, to pass
untouched through life, if only for an hour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The urgency of the incessant “I” and the pleading “no, no, no” is
replaced, peacefully and quietly, with “why not?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in reaching this point, the collection
has completed the arc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Three sections, three distinct
sections, make up Heather Christle’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What
Is Amazing</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each, however, despite
their differences, speak toward the same element of human longing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the almost-reality of the cover art, to
the speakers unmoored by their lack of punctuation, the psychic transition is
palpable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Across the three stages—urgent
longing, assertive declaration, recognition and acquiescence—we step slightly
more toward security, though some things won’t be resolved.</div>
Anthony Fifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00101636911609325108noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-48207870060205475832019-04-15T00:30:00.000-04:002019-04-16T10:38:25.178-04:00Interview with Kwoya Fagin Maples about Mend<div style="line-height: 150%;">
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7xe3xtwAzsA/XKK1h9svpCI/AAAAAAAACog/cs8Jn8MCMw0IfmR3mZAWRCFwlNzGvEOqQCLcBGAs/s1600/KwoyaFaginMaples.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="549" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7xe3xtwAzsA/XKK1h9svpCI/AAAAAAAACog/cs8Jn8MCMw0IfmR3mZAWRCFwlNzGvEOqQCLcBGAs/s400/KwoyaFaginMaples.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; text-align: center;">
<i>I am an aching shell but her touch says I am worth tenderness.</i><br />
- from "My Mother Bathes Me after I Give Birth" by Kwoya Fagin Maples</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<a href="https://kwoyafaginmaples.com/" target="_blank">Kwoya Fagin Maples</a> is a writer from Charleston, S.C. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama and is a graduate Cave Canem Fellow. She is the author of <i><a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/live/title_detail.php?titleid=5518#.XGWR1DNKhPa" target="_blank">Mend</a></i> (University Press of Kentucky, 2018). In addition to a chapbook publication by Finishing Line Press entitled <i>Something of Yours</i> (2010), her work is published in several journals and anthologies including <i>Blackbird Literary Journal, Obsidian, Berkeley Poetry Review, The African-American Review, Pluck!, Cave Canem Anthology XIII, The Southern Women’s Review,</i> and <i>Sow’s Ear Poetry Review</i>. Her most recent poetry collection, <i>Mend</i>, was finalist for the AWP Prize. <i>Mend</i> tells the story of the birth of gynecology and the role black enslaved women played in that process. This work received a grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation. Maples teaches Creative Writing at the Alabama School of Fine Arts and directs a three-dimensional poetry exhibit which features poetry and visual art including original paintings, photography, installations and film.</div>
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</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<b>from the University Press of Kentucky</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j6Gg5eU1QnQ/XKK594jrjLI/AAAAAAAACow/YpUjXJl_3QA8PTfSuHYYeambqCFn_GLHgCEwYBhgL/s1600/mend-book-cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="773" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j6Gg5eU1QnQ/XKK594jrjLI/AAAAAAAACow/YpUjXJl_3QA8PTfSuHYYeambqCFn_GLHgCEwYBhgL/s320/mend-book-cover.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
In the 19th century, James Marion Sims performed experimental surgery on enslaved women.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
In <i><a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/live/title_detail.php?titleid=5518#.XGWR1DNKhPa" target="_blank">Mend: Poems</a></i>, Kwoya Fagin Maples gives voice to the enslaved women named in Sims' autobiography: Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy. In poems exploring imagined memories and experiences relayed from hospital beds, the speakers challenge Sims’s lies, mourn their trampled dignity, name their suffering in spirit, and speak of their bodies as “bruised fruit.” At the same time, they are more than his victims, and the poems celebrate their humanity, their feelings, their memories, and their selves. A finalist for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Donald Hall Prize for Poetry, this debut collection illuminates a complex and disturbing chapter of the African American experience.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<b>Reviews of <i>Mend</i>:</b></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
* at <a href="https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwbooks/article/New-Poetry-Collection-Addresses-Historic-Wrongs-20181114" target="_blank">Broadway World Books</a></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
* at <a href="https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/mend-poems" target="_blank">New York Journal of Books</a></div>
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* * * * * * *</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
Kwoya Fagin Maples and I met when we did a reading together, along with Kate B. Gaskin, at Desert Island Supply Co. in Birmingham, AL. She gave a powerful reading from her manuscript <i>Mend</i> before it was published and I am delighted to be able to interview her about now that it has been introduced into the world.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
—Nancy Chen Long</div>
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<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<b><br /></b>
<b>ELEGY FOR A STILLBORN</b> by Kwoya Fagin Maples</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
from <i>Mend</i></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
To the One Who Carries Him Away</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<i>All of my children have died or wandered away</i>.</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
—Molly Ammonds, Alabama Slave Narratives</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
Here are the milk and songs from my breast.</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
Here is his cover sewed from calico scrap</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
and dyed with peachtree.</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
Take it for nights when he is cold.</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
Here is the sheet I stole soap for</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
and washed in secret,</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
to catch him when he came.</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
It was to give him a clean start.</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
Take the old dresser drawer I meant for a cradle.</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
You will need pins from the washwoman</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
and this wrap from my hips—</div>
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You can carry him against your back.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
Take the knife from under my bed</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
that they used to cut the pain.</div>
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I did not make a basket of medicines</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
I did not want to mark him sick.</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
But here is pine-top tea, and elderbrush.</div>
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Here are mullen leaves for when he cuts teeth.</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
Here is his corn husk doll.</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
And take the place I prepared for him near the fire:</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
the quilt folded in half, then again,</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
so he would rest against something soft.</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
Take the room full of times</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
my hand crossed over my belly,</div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
a prayer on my lips.</div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">© Kwoya Fagin Maples, <i>Mend</i> (Univ of Kentucky Press, 2018), used with permission of University Press of Kentucky</span><br />
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* * * * * * *</div>
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<b>Please tell us how you decided on the title for the book.</b></div>
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<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<i>KFM</i>: The title is related to my purpose for the collection. I wrote <i>Mend</i> in tribute to the women who suffered under Sims’ hands. This book is an effort to bring to light this injustice, to elevate and reverence these women’s story, and to continue conversations regarding the current medical treatment of black mothers’ bodies. (Due to persistent medical biases, black mothers are still 3 to 4 more times likely to die after childbirth. In 2019.) This book was written to counter the previous inaccurate and harmful portrayal of this history. It was written to invalidate perceptions that people have of black women and our ability to bear pain. <i>Mend</i> is my attempt as a writer, a child of my ancestors and a mother, to fix something.</div>
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<b>Poems in <i>Mend</i> are written in the voices of Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy, three of the slave women on whom James Marion Sims experimented. In a March 2015 <i>Girls Write Now</i> post “<a href="http://www.girlswritenow.org/2015/03/challenges-rewards-in-persona-poetry-a-mentee-mentor-perspective/" target="_blank">Challenges & Rewards in Persona Poetry: A Mentee-Mentor Perspective,</a>” Cindy Chu, in an interview with Katie Zanecchia, writes: </b></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-size: 14px;">
<b>At its core, persona poetry forces poets to better identify themselves in order to take on another’s perspective. After all, how do you become someone else without defining who you are, in addition to who they are? While poets construct poems from the view of their chosen characters, the resulting poetry is their own. Whether through use of vocabulary, syntax, or punctuation, poets shape others’ voices into wholly unique works of art. Therefore, persona poetry says as much about the poet as it does her subject. The way that personas are presented on paper provides great insight into poets’ sense of self. </b></blockquote>
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<b>Did you find the above true for you? Please tell us a bit about voice and persona in your poems. Have you ever started a persona poem and had the poem take a turn away from persona to the personal? </b></div>
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<i>KFM</i>: I’d certainly agree with Chu. My attempts to purely portray individual voices in persona are sincere, but ultimately the voices I create are influenced by my own. There is no way to cleanly separate the poet from the voice of the speaker. My aim with <i>Mend</i> was to be as accurate as possible based on research. I made an attempt to let go of the writer and editor within me to allow what the women <i>could</i> have said and <i>how</i> they would have said it take the lead. Here’s a small example that was indicative of a greater struggle: there’s a line from the poem, “Prayer Meeting,” wherein the speaker meets a guy she is attracted to. She describes him as having, “the straightest string of pearls for teeth.” It almost makes me laugh to think about how difficult it was for me to not edit that line. All of my training as a writer makes this line uncomfortable because I see it as a pat and expected. However, this description for teeth could have been familiar to the speaker. I was also trying to create the impression of the story being shared during conversation. While writing <i>Mend</i>, word choice, vernacular and syntax were a struggle. Voice was constantly in question. My biggest question: how do I allow these women to speak their story with authenticity without making the writing appear less poetic? How does an enslaved woman—who may have never made it past the end of her captor’s land—speak? What made the final decision was my initial desire—which was to write a book in tribute to the women of this story. To set aside “the editor,” more often than not. I also decided that if the writing was too heavy with vernacular, it could be too big of a distraction to the reader.</div>
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“The Door” was the first poem I wrote for the collection. It is written in my own voice. Without knowing it was the first poem I’d written for <i>Mend</i>, my editor chose it to be the prefatory poem of the book. After that first poem, I decided I would not write towards this collection until after I’d spent time reading about it. A year later, after research, all of the poems came in persona. I’d spent a significant period of time reading slave narratives and those voices significantly impacted <i>Mend</i> and the way the voices of the women were portrayed on the page. After truly considering the story, I knew I’d have to write in the voices of the women if I wanted to convey their humanity. They’d already been portrayed as extras in their own lives by Sims. After the experimentation in Mt. Meigs, Sims wrote an autobiography entitled <i>Story of My Life</i>, and only briefly referenced the women. For contrast, quotes from Sim’s autobiography are included in the book. The voices of <i>Mend</i> serve as a direct refutation of his story.</div>
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<b>The second section of the book contains poems about your research travels to Mt. Meigs, Alabama, where James Marion Sims lived and conducted his experiments. I imagine that was not an easy trip to make. Please tell us a little about your experience there.</b> </div>
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<i>KFM</i>: What made that trip hardest was getting there. At the time I had young twin babies who’d been born premature. They required so much of my energy and time. Becoming a mother while I wrote <i>Mend</i> impacted the book considerably. This impact was rewarding but it also was increasingly difficult for me to get things done. I had to learn to do both things simultaneously— writing and being a mom. Mt. Meigs is about an hour and a half away from Birmingham, but it took me awhile before I was able to get there. Now it seems so funny that I titled a poem, “I Can’t Seem to Get to Mt. Meigs.”</div>
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Once I arrived in Mt. Meigs, I found hardly no one there knew the story. When I went to the library I met a local historian of Mt. Meigs and she told me that she’d heard of Sims. She said that he operated on an African American woman and saved her life. I was startled at how distilled and inaccurate the story had become over the years. From at least eleven women to one. For the operation being essential to save a life. It was hard to believe.</div>
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<b>The sonnet corona “</b><a href="https://blackbird.vcu.edu/v17n1/poetry/maples-k/yields-page.shtml" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">What Yields</a><b>”, in which Anarcha addresses James Marion Sims, is unflinching. Please share a bit about the writing of it and about the sense of harvest or plantation that threads through the sequence, beginning with the title.</b></div>
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KFM</i>: In this section of the book I handled voice differently than anywhere else in the work. “What Yields” is an eleven-sectioned sonnet corona and there is one speaker, Anarcha—the woman who endured the most surgeries (beginning when she was 17 years old.) Sims conducted his first experiment on her and she was also the one he claimed to have “healed” by the end of his experimentation in Mt. Meigs. In every other part of the book the voices are not overtly resistant. However, in “What Yields,” Anarcha confronts Sims. The language, voice, and syntax is markedly different here. Anarcha is assertive and direct in her resistance. She clearly expresses her disgust and anger towards Sims and references the ideologies that allowed him to consider her unworthy of human consideration. </div>
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The title of the poem, “What Yields,” is based on a concept found in Harriet Washington’s book, <i>Medical Apartheid</i>. In her book, Washington uncovers several cases of exploitative medical experimentation on black bodies throughout history. During slavery, Sims was not the only doctor who utilized enslaved bodies for experimentation without their consent. He was one among many doctors who profited and built their family’s wealth on the backs of enslaved people. Washington says that these doctors were usually not plantation owners who oversaw crop production. Instead, they profited from what she terms as “medical plantations.” The medical discoveries they made in the name of scientific advancement contributed to their career advancement and wealth. While writing the poem, I considered the idea of the medical plantation in connection with the story of <i>Mend</i>. Sims is now known as the father of gynecology and obstetrics. He developed the speculum which is still used today. After that four year period in Mt. Meigs, Sims published his findings, moved to New York and became well-known and admired by his peers. He opened a hospital, traveled to Europe where he examined and aided a member of the monarchy, and finally established wealth for his family. Sims’ “medical plantation,” in Mt. Meigs yielded greatly, indeed.</div>
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I wanted the poem to occur in an arc, so the narrative builds towards harvest. Anarcha refers to herself and the women as “rotting fruit yet our bodies yield.” </div>
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<b>What is one of the more crucial poems in the book for you? Why is it important to you? How did it come to be?</b></div>
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<i>KFM</i>: One of my favorite poems in the book is “I’ve Got Life.” In the poem, the speaker considers what she still possesses in spite of what happened to her, and she wields a subtle resistance—by watching. Who’s to say what she’ll do with the details she collects? The poem is celebratory and almost joyful, but then it ends with a threat. I think this kind of dichotomy appears a lot in the collection. The impulse for joy and survival is often combined with darker emotion or imagery. But then that’s life—the human experience is complex, and it would have been no different then. I also like this poem because it serves a break for the reader. It’s also an opportunity to highlight the speaker’s resilience.</div>
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<b>I’ve Got Life</b></div>
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What I've got</div>
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is calves and heels to carry me</div>
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and this heart that only God can stop.</div>
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I've got these fingers</div>
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to snap in time</div>
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I've got this behind for sitting</div>
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so I don't sit on my spine.</div>
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I've got these shoulders only I can shrug,</div>
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breasts that letdown when I get the feeling,</div>
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and a bird neck that carries my head and all my blood—</div>
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These lips only move if <i>I</i> tell them to, if <i>I</i> want them to.</div>
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There is so much my body can still do.</div>
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Plus, I've got these eyes for watching you.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">© Kwoya Fagin Maples, </span><i style="font-size: x-small;">Mend</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Univ of Kentucky Press, 2018), used with permission of University Press of Kentucky</span></div>
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<b>As your first full-length manuscript, when <i>Mend</i> was published, were there things you thought would happen, yet didn’t? unexpected things that did happen?</b></div>
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<i>KFM</i>: Something unexpected that happened during the publication process of <i>Mend</i> that I could never have anticipated: I organized a protest. Sims has statues dedicated to him in New York, S.C., and Alabama. Months following a 2017 NY protest that went viral on social media, Sims’ monument was removed from its Central Park location. Still months later, the mayor of Columbia, S.C. stated that of all the statues at the S.C. statehouse, the Sims monument should be removed. After I read his statement, I immediately began making calls. Finally, I got in touch with a current MFA student at USC, Joy Priest, and she and I planned a protest on the statehouse grounds. It was indeed poetry as protest. All day and throughout the evening USC students and local activists read poems by women writers in protest, directly in front of the Sims’ monument. It gained media coverage and I was proud when a participant shared that it was the most peaceful protest that she’d ever attended. I’d attended protests in the past but I’d never organized one. The story of Anarcha, Betsey, Lucy and the unnamed women has impacted me in ways beyond what I could have ever imagined. </div>
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<b>You, <a href="https://katebgaskin.com/" target="_blank">Kate Gaskin</a>, and I read together at Desert Island Supply Company in Birmingham, and I was so moved by your reading. You’ve given a number of readings since then. What has the audience response been in general? Did you encounter anything you were not expecting?</b></div>
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<i>KFM</i>: The audience response has been varied. Some people have said they feel disturbed and saddened with the reality of the story. <i>Mend</i> has particularly moved mothers in audiences. There are several poems descriptive of nursing or losing children. “My Mother Bathes Me after I Give Birth,” a poem written in my own voice shares my personal experience with childbirth. I suppose if there’s any emotional reaction from audiences that I prefer, it’s to that poem. Childbirth can be emotional traumatic and I suppose it’s validating when I can share my story and know another woman understands completely. Lastly, I have a couple of poems in the collection that are humorous—regarding my trip to Mt. Meigs for research. It’s always nice to feel the audience loosen up and laugh. I let them know it’s intended to be funny and that it’s okay to laugh.</div>
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<b>When do you remember first being interested in poetry? Was there a mentor who encouraged you?</b></div>
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<i>KFM</i>: I became interested in poetry when I was about 14. I’ve always been an avid reader. Maya Angelou was the first contemporary black poet I read. I’d read several of her autobiographies so I felt like I knew her. When I read her poetry it was accessible because I’d began with her prose. I suppose at first I read her poetry like it was a translation of her narratives. I was thrilled to find this mysterious way of writing in what I thought was a secret code within the English language—with ideas hiding in plain sight that had yet to be discovered. The idea of it was intoxicating. I already loved language and I was secretive teenager (laughing here). It was a perfect fit. I began writing poems by mimicking her writing style and using similar themes. After I read all of her books of poetry, I kept going and it took off from there. Later, in undergraduate, Abraham Smith became my mentor. He went above and beyond—did more than he had to. I took my first poetry workshop with him, and even after the workshop was over, he offered to read our poems. Every week I submitted a poem to his box in the main office of the English Department, and every week he’d respond with notes and tiny stars on my poems. He was what Maya Angelou would call my rainbow in the clouds—a person who invested in me and made all the difference. </div>
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<b>Finally, what advice would you give to an aspiring writer?</b></div>
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<i>KFM</i>: Read. Read widely. Spend time thinking about the ways in which the writing you encounter is successful. No literary organization, journal or prize should decide the future of your writing. Seek community. Go to open mics and readings. Participate in local workshops. Be respectful of feedback on your work. Be generously and lavishly patient—with yourself.</div>
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<b>Find Kwoya Fagin Maples online</b></div>
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- Author website: <a href="https://kwoyafaginmaples.com/" target="_blank">https://kwoyafaginmaples.com/</a></div>
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- Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/kwoyafaginmaples/" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/kwoyafaginmaples/</a></div>
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- Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/kwoya_maples" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/kwoya_maples</a></div>
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- Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/kwoyafagin/" target="_blank">https://www.instagram.com/kwoyafagin/</a></div>
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<b>Purchase her book <i>Mend</i></b></div>
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<a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/live/title_detail.php?titleid=5518#.XGWR1DNKhPa" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;" target="_blank">https://www.kentuckypress.com/live/title_detail.php?titleid=5518#.XGWR1DNKhPa</a></div>
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All poems printed or quoted in this post © Kwoya Fagin Maples, <i>Mend</i> (Univ of Kentucky Press, 2018), used with permission of University Press of Kentucky.<br />
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<strong style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #595959; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
Nancy Chen Long </span></strong>
<span style="color: #595959; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 15.333332061767578px;">
is the author of <i><a href="https://www.ut.edu/TampaPress/pressDetail.aspx?id=32212257616" target="_blank">Light into Bodies</a></i> (University of Tampa Press, 2017), winner of the Tampa Review Poetry Prize. She is the grateful recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing fellowship and a writer residency at Ox-Bow School of the Arts. Her work was selected as the winner of the 2019 Poetry Society of America Robert H. Winner Award and featured in <i>Poetry Daily, Verse Daily,</i> and <i>Indiana Humanities</i>. You’ll find her recent work in <i>Ninth Letter, Pleiades, Smartish Pace, The Adroit Journal, Tar River Poetry, Alaska Quarterly Review</i>, and elsewhere. She works at Indiana University in the Research Technologies division.
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-43522330935424152092019-03-15T12:00:00.000-04:002019-03-15T17:20:47.865-04:00Interview with Francesca Bell on her poetry book Bright Stain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://francescabellpoet.com/" target="_blank">Francesca Bell</a> is an American poet and translator. Her work appears widely in journals such as <i>New Ohio Review, North American Review, Massachusetts Review, Mid-American Review</i>, and <i>Prairie Schooner</i>. She lives with her family in Novato, California. Red Hen Press will publish her first collection, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bright-Stain-Francesca-Bell/dp/1597098612" target="_blank">Bright Stain</a></i>, in May, 2019.<br />
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<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bright-Stain-Francesca-Bell/dp/1597098612" target="_blank">Bright Stain</a></i> (Red Hen Press, 2019) is not a book for the faint of heart. In Bell’s debut work, the reader will need to brace herself not only in regard to subject matter, but also to Bell’s deft lines, images, and unexpected narratives. Through her well-crafted poems, the reader hears from a variety of personas, from the prison-worker, the rapist, to the victim of an abusive Catholic priest. However, most predominant is the voice of a female speaker who transforms from puberty into raw, joyful sexual abandon, to a mother who embraces her aging and wonderfully sensual body. <br />
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The body is a living thing in this collection, and both its joys and its ugly parts are on display; nothing is held back. Woven throughout the poems is the packed image of the snake—a snake whose “generous jaw and steady squeeze” free a frozen mouse “into the great, gliding goodness of snake,” to snakes found in a worship service, to the snake shedding its skin, not unlike a woman “who slips from / the stockings between / her and pleasure.” Playing underneath Bell’s poems is a repositioning of what is holy and what is not through the mix of the erotic and the ugly, the reverent and the profane, always asking the reader to look again. I’m both drawn to and in turn wide-eyed at Bell’s poems. The collection is best summed up by the ending of the first stanza in “Woman Singing in Church,” “we are pummeled by it, laid open / on the blade of its loveliness.”<br />
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I had the pleasure of interviewing Francesca Bell after reading <i>Bright Stain</i>, and below are her responses.<br />
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—Rosemary Royston<br />
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<b>RR: I clearly remember the first poem of yours that I read, “<a href="https://www.rattle.com/i-long-to-hold-the-poetry-editors-penis-in-my-hand-by-francesca-bell/" target="_blank">I Long to Hold the Poetry Editor’s Penis in My Hand</a>.” </b>—<b> I related, I laughed aloud, thought how bold then logged onto Facebook to see if you were there so I could friend you. In one of our earlier email exchanges, you shared how you were having trouble finding a press, as your work is, well, bold! Tell me how long it took you to find a home for your collection </b>—<b> how you stayed true and did not dilute your work </b>—<b> and share any advice to other writers on the process.</b><br />
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FB: I’m so glad that you asked this question. It took me a long time to find a home for my collection. I circulated a different version of this book for five years. It had several titles, including this one, and it contained some of the same poems. It was a finalist or semi-finalist several times in some big contests and came very close to being accepted during the open submission period at a top press. Because of these near-successes, I didn’t change the manuscript much for those five years. By the time five years had passed, I had a second manuscript put together, but I was bone-weary from five years of failure and decided to scrap them both and start over. I printed both manuscripts out and literally threw the poems all over the floor until they were completely mixed together, and then I started to pull together something new. Kate Gale at Red Hen Press is the only person I sent this new manuscript, and five months later, she accepted it. That was a little over two years ago. From the time I first submitted a full-length manuscript to the moment when I hold my finished book in my hands, almost eight and half years will have passed. <br />
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On three occasions, I received feedback from presses where I had submitted my manuscript, and all three times two things were criticized (sometimes sharply): my subject matter and my tone. One press suggested that they would like to work with me if I would heavily revise the manuscript to address my subject matter and my tone. These three critiques served to stiffen my resolve immensely. They helped me come to terms with what it is about my poems that makes them my poems. I think that a writer has to beware the danger of revising herself right out of her work. My weird, dark subject matter and my bold, harsh tone are the traces of DNA that I leave in the world when I write. What I bring to the literary table is my willingness to look at and write starkly about things that make other people uncomfortable. Not everyone likes it, but that is my <i>gift</i>.<br />
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My advice to writers on the process of trying to place a book is first of all to manage your expectations. You are playing what for almost everyone is a long game. There are some people who fit very well into the current styles and trends in poetry, and their books are sometimes quickly snapped up. But there are many more people who, like me, need to settle in for a years-long campaign. Second, I advise people to learn to recognize what in your work is inherently yours and to mercilessly stand by it. Third, I wish that I had known, when I was drowning in manuscript rejections, that someday I would be filled with gratitude and relief that no one accepted my book during those five years I submitted it. Because I ended up with exactly the right press and exactly the right editor at what feels like exactly the right time. It may take you several years, as it did me, to find the press and the editor that feel like home, that literally change your life. <br />
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<b>RR: In “In Plain Sight,” the speaker states, “I believe in brazenness,” and while there is always a separation between the speaker and the poet, I believe it would be safe to say that you, too, feel the same way, due to the subject matter and themes within this collection. Talk about what inspired you to write the poems that specifically mix both the erotic and the ugly, the reverent and the profane and/or poems whose speaker is not one with which the reader will feel sympathy toward.</b><br />
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FB: Ever since I was a child, I have been very interested in the concept of opposites like goodness and badness, characteristics we assign to people singularly, as if a person can be wholly one thing or another. I believe that if you are human, you have the capacity for goodness, but you also have the capacity for badness. In spades. One thing I enjoy about writing <a href="https://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/the-many-faces-of-persona-poems" target="_blank">persona poems</a> is that it allows me the opportunity to explore human darkness intimately. I believe that one cannot understand what it is to be human without looking at the darkness and violence and hatred and fear every human carries inside them. <br />
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<b>RR: As I reflected on your poems (i.e. “In Due Time”) and who your literary ancestors are, I immediately thought of Robert Browning, specifically his dramatic monologue, “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46313/porphyrias-lover" target="_blank">Porphyria’s Lover</a>,” where the speaker strangles his lover with her own hair. I also think of Anais Nin (and her no-holds-barred diaries), although not a poet, and the poems on motherhood by Beth Ann Fennelly. You, Nin, Fennelly, all dive deeply through your work into what it is to be a woman in this world, specifically in both sexual and sensual ways. Who would you say your literary ancestors are and why? </b><br />
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FB: I had never read “Porphyria’s Lover.” My God, what an astonishing poem!<br />
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My literary ancestors (most still living) are Anne Sexton, Marguerite Duras, Louise Glück, Sharon Olds, Dorianne Laux, Ellen Bass, and Len Roberts. These are writers I return to again and again, writers whose work has felt like a granting of permission to me. <br />
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<b>RR: I have to ask this, do you have pet snakes? Snakes are a common image in your collection from the opening and closing poems, to being metaphors for much more. Talk about this juxtaposition of the serpent </b>—<b> a harbinger of evil in Christianity, but far from evil in your collection.</b><br />
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FB: I am not currently living with any snakes, but my son, who is grown now, is crazy for reptiles. While he was growing up, we shared our home with too many creatures to list, but here’s a sampling: anacondas, false water cobras, ball pythons, a Dumeril’s boa, beaded lizards, a carpet python, a blue-tongued skink, a 4-foot long Argentinian lizard called a tegu, multiple cockroach colonies, and various kinds of tarantulas. I was a very active and enthusiastic participant in (almost) all of this husbandry. One of the most moving experiences of my life was watching my son’s ball python incubate her clutch of eggs.<br />
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I believe that our human tendency to associate snakes with evil likely stems from a deep-seated, survival-enhancing fear of envenomation. Humans and our ancestors have co-evolved with snakes for millions of years, and those who were vigilant enough to avoid a deadly or maiming bite would have produced more offspring. So, although I have a fascination and fondness for snakes, I can certainly understand people’s almost inherent fear of them. What fascinates me about the Christian notion of snakes being evil is how closely it is tied to the Christian notion of women being evil and particularly of women being the source of sexual evil, whether a woman is herself sexual or whether she is to blame for inspiring sexuality in a man. <br />
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In my poetry, I concern myself often with badness, both real and perceived. Hunger is often feared and perceived as badness, particularly sexual appetite, particularly female sexual appetite. Snakes, with their ability to swallow whole prey of astonishing girth, make a fantastic symbol of great, frightening appetite. But they also make a fantastic symbol of joyous, freeing appetite. <br />
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<b>RR: Concerning form, your poems have no fluff, utilize alliteration and imagery in compelling ways, and are sparse yet full of details, often in narrative form. Tell me about your revision process </b>—<b> how one of your poems looks early on, and how it arrives at its final iteration.</b><br />
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FB: My poems tend to look on the page, early on, similar to how they look when finished. Not that I don’t revise—I revise quite a bit. But I tend to start by thinking about something for a long time, then riffing on it in one or more free writes in my notebook before I ever sit down to make an actual draft of a poem. By the time I am drafting, the form of a poem seems to be already pretty clear. I adjust and alter, but I rarely make a huge formatting change from what takes shape as I finally write my draft. As to content, my revision process and actually my writing process rely heavily on me reading things out loud over and over and then adjusting what seems to snag me. I adjust for clarity and specificity of meaning, for sound, for what I think of as turning the volume up on tension and drama. When I write a poem, I am trying to find a way to craft the poem in order for it to have the greatest and most powerful access possible to readers’ emotions.<br />
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<b>Rosemary R. Royston</b> lives with her family in the foothills of the Southern Appalachian mountains. She holds a AB in English from UGA, and an MFA in Writing from Spalding University. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in <i>Split Rock Review, Southern Poetry Review, Appalachian Heritage, STILL, KUDZU, *82 Review,</i> and other journals. She is the author of the chapbook, <i>Splitting the Soil</i> (Finishing Line Press), and a county representative for the North Carolina Writers’ Network. She teaches poetry courses in both the college setting and in the continuing learning setting. Her review and interviews here focus on poetry that is grounded in nature, the grit of life, and often the experiences of women (with a slight bias towards the narrative). Previous book reviews have been published in P<i>rairie Schooner, Appalachian Heritage, and STILL</i>. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-33350517166824264002019-02-15T09:27:00.000-05:002019-02-15T14:25:53.368-05:00<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Interview with Tom Clausen, Haiku Poet</span></div>
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by Barry George</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Tom Clausen is one of the most original and respected contemporary poets writing haiku in English. The author of numerous books, including </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Growing Late </i><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">and </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Homework </i><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">(Snapshot Press)</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> and most recently </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Laughing to Myself </i><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">(</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Free Food Press), he has long been a regular contributor to the leading English-language haiku journals. His work has appeared in various anthologies; most notably, Norton's </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><i>The Haiku Anthology</i>.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> He is a member of the Route 9 Haiku group, four upstate New York poets who publish the journal </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dim Sum</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">. He is also an accomplished writer of tanka. In addition, he curates the daily online haiku feature of the Mann Library at Cornell University, where he worked for 35 years before retiring in 2013. A life-long resident of Ithaca, New York, Tom, along with his wife, Berta, have two grown children and their two dogs, one cat, and a finch. An avid walker, biker, and photographer, he enjoys "simply going about observing and documenting moments, beauty, and wabi sabi all around us."</span></div>
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I first met Tom at a haiku conference held in Kingston, Ontario, in the late 1990s. Already an established haiku poet at that time, he kindly responded to my subsequent correspondence, and has been most generous with advice and encouragement through the years. Considering his long experience with the form, I was interested in learning his thoughts about haiku today, as he writes it and as it is being written by other poets outside Japan.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>The following are his thoughts in response to the questions I posed. Unless otherwise attributed, all poems and photographs are by Tom Clausen.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>When did you start writing haiku, and what poets—or perhaps other authors or editors—influenced you in becoming a haiku poet?</b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">TC</span></i></b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">: In 1987 I picked up a copy of a local free paper, <i>The Ithaca Times</i>, and read a profile about a local naturalist, Ruth Yarrow. The profile focused on her interest in haiku and included several of her haiku. I can remember reading this feature several times and feeling as if I was having a '"satori" moment each time! I was not feeling enlightened in the sense of a spiritual breakthrough, but actually in a way it was. Ruth's haiku were so entirely direct, succinct, intimate, and resonant to me that I was immediately aware that she was able to say something meaningful with just a few well-chosen words. This really got my attention and impressed me as being a genuinely humble and admirable form of poetry. One of her haiku to this day stands out for me as perhaps the most poignant and powerful little poem I have ever read:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">after the garden party the garden <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Six words, and yet it spoke volumes to me and contained an understanding of humanity that has always felt both haunting and rewarding. What this poem suggests to me is that in a gathering of people in a garden, the garden is not really itself until "after" the party is over. I've also felt that a subtext is how much more of the garden we might observe and receive if we were there, part of the party, but lingered after the party was over and everyone had left. To be in a garden by oneself versus with a whole group of people is such a different experience, and intuitively it is when we are alone with nature that we are most aware and open to the nuances and relationships possible.<br /><br />In a way, my interest in poetry had been gradually moving towards the brevity of haiku for a couple years before I read the article about Ruth. I had taken a poetry class where my submitted poems were routinely returned to me with significant sections of the poem crossed out in red with comments like "redundant," "overly-wordy," "excessive," "unclear," and "repetitive." Others in the class had similar feedback on their poems, and I remember one friend in the class actually commented to me that perhaps we were headed toward writing haiku! I do not imagine that the professor's intent was to steer the class toward haiku, but recall thinking that the snippets of my poems that were left after the cross outs might be like haiku.<br /><br />Within a day of reading about Ruth Yarrow and her haiku, I started seeking out books at our library and bookstores about haiku. I was fortunate to find a copy of Cor van den Heuvel's <i>Haiku Anthology </i>and Bill Higginson's <i>Haiku Handbook</i>. Both proved to be invaluable sources of information with a marvelous variety of inspired haiku that became touchstones for me, and to this day serve as the examples of what is best possible in haiku. Within a week, I had subscribed to several haiku journals, including <i>Modern Haiku</i>, <i>Frogpond</i>, and <i>Wind Chimes</i>. Within a month, I was submitting my first attempts at haiku and soon was receiving my first gentle rejections. I cannot even remember how long it was until I received an acceptance, but it was one haiku selected for <i>Modern Haiku</i>, and Bob Spiess, the editor, sent me a crisp one dollar bill. At the time he paid one dollar per haiku, and when I reached 50 published haiku, I sent him the $50 back as a thank you. The other editors, and the breadth of poets who were published in those days, were all incredibly welcoming, friendly, and best of all, wrote terrific and very memorable haiku. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">There were numerous poets whose haiku in the late '80s and early '90s provided great examples of the brilliance possible in haiku. Reading the haiku of these poets is entirely rewarding and serves to show what is possible in the haiku form. Every one of these poets and the editors I have had the good fortune to interact with at the beginning certainly inspired my interest, and led to my vow to myself that I hoped and planned to try to write haiku for the rest of my life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>In the popular mind, haiku is often thought to be a nature poem of seventeen syllables. Yet most haiku poets in North America, Europe, and elsewhere outside Japan do not observe the strict 5-7-5 sound-syllable count that is better suited to the Japanese language, and they don’t always write about “nature.” What do you see as the defining qualities or most important values of contemporary haiku as you write it?</b></div>
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<b><i>TC</i></b>: Defining haiku has been a somewhat elusive prospect even for those steeped in the history, tradition, and definitions that have been established. The long-held identifying quality of it being a "nature poem" gets complicated when some would include humanity as part of nature, so that human affairs should be included in what is considered "nature."<o:p></o:p></div>
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The growth in popularity of haiku inevitably opens the sense of haiku to more diverse interpretations and definitions. I tend to go back to the definitions that I encountered when I began learning about and trying to write haiku. Some of those defining qualities included: being direct, immediate, concrete, in the now, showing rather than telling, simple straightforward language, a one-breath poem usually written in one, two, or three lines with usually less than 17 syllables, and a little poem of keen observation of relationship and connection.<br />
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A wonderful quality of haiku that I believe is recognizable whenever one begins to read contemporary haiku journals, collections, and anthologies is the great variety of ways in which haiku are written and how different the ways that they work can be. Personally I very much enjoy scouting out haiku that speak to me and that show me something I want to see and feel, whether it be a relationship, a juxtaposition, an intuitive feeling, a message or a hint at something transcendent, even if fleeting in nature. In my opinion, there is no formula or absolute defining quality for what makes a haiku work for everyone or anyone. The best-loved haiku often have qualities that are both unique yet universal. That duality is certainly a desirable quality! There is a long-held association of haiku as being a poem with an "aha" moment of understanding or recognition. When we read a haiku that we like or love, there is usually a strong sense of being able to participate with the writer in the moment they have shared. This act of participation is an important quality of haiku and one that is not always easy to capture.<br />
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There can also be a definition of what qualities are not considered haiku. For instance, haiku are typically not a soapbox for opinion, metaphors, or telling a reader what to think. Haiku generally do not espouse rhyme, nor are they a statement or a sentence. One axiom that I remember reading in several places or hearing poets share is: "Learn the rules and then break them." This in itself suggests there are rules, yet poets who are well-regarded no doubt have written "haiku" that do not fit the rules.<br />
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To summarize, I would say that the values of haiku I most adhere to in my own attempts would be brevity, concision, clarity, directness, and observation that shares something I hope will be of interest and enable the reader to experience something that I witnessed and felt. <o:p></o:p><br />
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<b>I know that you write haiku about the natural world, and you also write about what might be called the domestic world—home, family, pets, work, going about one’s daily rounds. Are there any differences in the way you regard or experience writing about these two realms?</b></div>
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<b><i>TC</i></b>: These two haiku illustrate for me the key dynamic at work in writing haiku about nature: <o:p></o:p></div>
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when I have sat long enough </div>
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the red dragonfly<br />
comes to the wheatgrass <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj868WUyrkvxNTDfZy2L117WRLCBAZFgvWfB0nPZQCpMEkg0Avha-yOwDPQtAXAuYJiHhXhGZ0lD_p7byPiOFiT03VnG9dnezmVuwPqqZ1Q3ta4FUaHm4vJ3uG95ylMtxLHUMJhWzZwbnw/s1600/unnamed+7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a> - Laurie Stoelting</div>
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on a mountain trail<br />
alone—<br />
but never alone <o:p></o:p></div>
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- Margaret Molarsky <o:p></o:p></div>
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When we are out in nature, the ideal way to be out there and able to see and "receive" is to simply stand still and look, listen, and be patient enough to let things reveal themselves to you. It matters less where in nature you are than the reality that almost anywhere will be a place that will have beauty, nuance, and insight available to you if you take time to notice what is there. The near infinity of natural forms, shapes, designs, and inter-relationships is always now and always everywhere. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It is a common human perception that we are alone and that loneliness stems from being without other humans to keep us company. A major part of where haiku arrive from is the recognition and understanding that in this life we are able to have a near infinite range of relationships and feelings for the breadth of life forms, as well as plants and literally everything. Having a haiku heart is to be entirely attentive, aware, and able to develop these myriad relationships, and to let them expand your consciousness and sense of belonging and connection to this incredible world we live in. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Since 1988 I have always carried a small pocket notebook to record notes for little poems and sometimes, when lucky, for when the little poem "writes" itself! I have learned that it is genuine good fortune to be open, ready, and disciplined enough to record things I observe as they happen. When I do not note things right away, it is more likely than not that "they" vanish into some netherland of lost thoughts fairly quickly. I always regret those lost poems, and each time I lose one, it helps me re-establish in my mind the importance of taking the time to write things as soon as possible after experiencing them! My writing habit has consistently been to write from direct personal experiences, whether it be in nature, at home, or on the job during the many years I was working. Rarely do I sit down and try to write a haiku. I need the haiku to reveal itself by virtue of something touching my senses or sensibility in a way that inspires documenting it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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When writing little poems out in the natural world, I find that it is best to be by myself, to be extra-sensory aware of what is going on around me without the distraction of company and conversation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The little poems I write about family, friends, co-workers, strangers, and in social settings usually arrive because something insightful happens. When daily life presents an aspect of humanity that is humorous, insightful, satirical, haunting, truthful, or in some way worth sharing for levity and understanding, I tend to want to capture it if possible. These poems most often jump out in my heart and mind as a moment that deserves recording. When I am bothered by something, that is another way in which I may want to write about it as a form of catharsis and transcendence. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I will close with two of my little poems that illustrate the quality of senryu, which are haiku-like poems that typically touch on human foibles and the irony of the human condition. I have found long ago that there is no one other than myself more deserving of being critically examined and given some self-deprecating attention!<br />
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my wife admits<br />
she is not perfect<br />
but is glad I am<br />
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before sleep<br />
laughing to myself<br />
at myself <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Eastern thought is an inherent aspect of traditional haiku; for example, the haiku masters, especially Basho and Issa, were much influenced by Buddhist as well as Confucian ideas. Are there any particular philosophies or schools of thought that have significantly influenced your haiku?</span></b></div>
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<b><i>TC</i></b>: Personally, the most influential and sustaining aspect of haiku has been the poets that comprise the haiku community and the inspiring haiku that have become my favorites. Since I first began reading and trying to write haiku, I've enjoyed searching the journals and anthologies for those haiku that jump out and illuminate a place, a relationship, a sense, a moment, or a feeling. Going back to the masters, Basho, Buson, Shiki and Issa, and on to those who have created indelible collections of haiku today, I feel genuine gratitude for each and every one of these haiku. They are a lasting source of happiness and celebration that keeps me going! <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">My interest in haiku developed simultaneously with an interest in Zen Buddhism and the writings of Alan Watts, Brother David Steindl, the Dalai Lama, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Mary Oliver, and R. H. Blyth, to name a few. At the time I discovered haiku I was attending a weekly zazen sitting at the Ithaca Zen Center with my wife, Berta. We would go every Sunday and sit silently for three 45-minute sessions, and a brief walking meditation in the woods between each sitting. Sitting there following the breath, listening to the silence, with occasional crows cawing and wind soughing in the trees, made for a great chance to let the "silt" in the mind settle out and begin to see what an empty mind might be....</span></div>
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morning zazen<br />
marriage counseling <o:p></o:p></div>
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ourselves<br />
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There was a natural connection for me between haiku and meditation. I felt haiku was spiritual poetry with a devotional sense that was about just "what is" and is in the "always now." Haiku being poetry of the present tense appealed to me especially at this time in my life when I was drawn to celebrate the myriad "news" stories that were available to find in everyday nature, but not found in the other news that was "fit to print"! It was a great relief to recognize that within this world/universe there are parallel worlds/universes! <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>For more than twenty years you have selected and edited the <a href="https://haiku.mannlib.cornell.edu/" target="_blank">Mann Library's Daily Haiku</a> at Cornell University, which </b><b>showcases the work of a different contemporary haiku poet each month. What has motivated you to initiate and maintain this project, and are there ways in which doing this has affected your own path as a haiku poet?</b></div>
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<b><i>TC</i></b>: The Daily Haiku feature at Mann Library had a very simple beginning when I casually started taping a piece of paper with a haiku on it in our old dingy stacks elevator. It was an attempt to share my new-found joy in haiku, and was also posted in hopes that it provided a space for anyone to write something. When the library underwent a major renovation, the new building had an elevator that was quite upscale and not at all a decor in which a taped piece of paper would have fit. I assumed the daily haiku feature had run its course, and was quite surprised when our director, Janet McCue, informed me that she intended to retain the haiku feature, but have it as part of the online home page! It was her generosity of spirit and belief in my love of haiku that initiated this feature. It has been a great honor and pleasure to be able to share haiku with library staff, patrons, and whoever might discover the site online. <o:p></o:p></div>
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When Janet retired, I was unsure whether the new director, Mary Ochs, would want to retain the haiku feature, and again was surprised when she assured me that, yes, it was still appreciated, and that it would be continued. When they revised the Mann Library home page, I was grateful to see, once again, that the haiku was still included. It has run for such a long time now, almost 20 years online, that I have become quite attached to the feature, but also understand that it could end at any time. In essence, I have viewed this feature as a great gift and chance to celebrate haiku with many who may not be familiar with the form. Although it is called The Mann Library Daily Haiku, I have posted some little poems that do not fit the tradition or definitions that are recognized by most in the haiku community. I have regretted any misconceptions that this may have created for some readers, but have always hoped that each reader will figure out for themselves what is a haiku and what isn't, or just enjoy whatever I post whether it fits their sense of haiku or not. Although I am not an editor, I enjoy making the selections and trying to share poets and their poems that will be of interest to others. Being the curator has truly strengthened my interest in reading haiku and becoming familiar with the range of poets writing haiku today. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><br /></b><b>Over the past few decades we’ve come to realize, with far greater urgency, that the way most humans live poses a threat not only to our own survival but also to the well-being and survival of the rest of life on the planet. I’m interested to know if you think the prospect of global warming and climate change influences your haiku or your thinking about the significance of haiku in today's world.</b></div>
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<b><i>TC</i></b>: Despite the somewhat awful impacts that humanity has on nature, it is also some solace to see the resilience of nature and its ability to heal itself rather miraculously. <o:p></o:p></div>
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bumper sticker<br />
on the car ahead of me:<br />
"Nature bats last" <o:p></o:p></div>
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Global warming and climate change are genuine and very sobering concerns, and I believe haiku will be informed by this reality ever more. I have not written poems that directly touch on climate change, but have generally written about our place in the universe and the sense of wonder that comes with that! <o:p></o:p></div>
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end of the trail...<br />
the world<br />
without humans<br />
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despite<o:p></o:p></div>
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the development<o:p></o:p></div>
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deer path<o:p></o:p></div>
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in a hollow<br />
at the base of the trunk<br />
a seedling <o:p></o:p></div>
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I do think haiku present realities that illuminate the existence of parallel worlds that are all seamlessly connected. The wonderful and myriad microcosms that go on undeterred by the affairs of humans is an incredible testament to the tenacity of life forms and gives me hope that our world will survive despite us. To witness this currency of non-human life and to tune into the layers of living that exist around us is a daily reminder that we have a privileged place in this world, being able to observe, appreciate, and share in haiku, our witness. I can't help but imagine those who read and write haiku are likely to become ever more sensitive to this world that we are all passengers on. We are, in a sense, news reporters from both the heart and the edges of this planet and its human consciousness. It is expected and natural that our precarious and fleeting place on this planet enter into our haiku.<br />
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<b>What do you find yourself writing about mostly right now, and are you working on any particular writing projects or collections?</b></div>
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<b><i>TC</i></b>: My writing continues to be about whatever moves me in a moment and without any conscious gravitation to certain subjects. I have tended to write while out walking or riding my bicycle, and am on the "lookout" for whatever might be worthy of taking a photo or making some notes. At this time I do not have any plans for a new book collection, but am part of the Route 9 Haiku group that publishes a collection of our poems twice a year called <a href="https://upstatedimsum.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Upstate Dim Sum</a>. This is easily my most sustaining connection within the haiku community and truly keeps me inspired and writing. The group meets almost monthly with the expectation that each of the four of us in the group—John Stevenson, Hilary Tann, Yu Chang, and myself —will present sixteen new little poems to each other. I regularly share my photos and poems on Facebook with friends, along with quotes, poems, and photography that I have found and hope others will enjoy.<br />
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<b>What advice would you give to someone who is drawn to haiku and would like to learn and develop as a haiku poet?</b></div>
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<b><i>TC</i></b>: Read widely. Get outdoors. Walk widely. The more you read, the more you will read...the more you write, the more you will write...the more you walk, the more you will walk. So much of life is patience, practice, habit, ritual, routine, and believing in your own being as a miracle, and your experiences as precious and worthy of your writing. Read to find what you love. When you find haiku you love, you will have the beginning sense of what qualities make the poem appealing to you.<br />
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The best antidote to feeling you do not know what to write about or where to start is to pick up any anthology or journal and read the variety of published poems. It is almost a guarantee that it will get you going! Always carry a pocket notebook and pen or pencil, and be prepared to take the time to record notes about what you see for possible later work in shaping them into a little poem. When writing haiku, it is certainly advised to whittle the poem to the fewest and most essential words possible. The ruin of many haiku is excess and trying to say too much.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Before I discovered haiku, I had been trying to write longer poems and remember reading Rainer Maria Rilke's <i>Letters to a Young Poet</i>, which has wonderful advice for anyone aspiring to write or create. I highly recommend reading that collection of letters, any of Mary Oliver's luminous poetry, reading Rumi, Hafiz, and whoever you find who speaks to you and inspires you to keep on keeping on!<br />
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">heavy rain—<br />lilac blooms smush<br />against the window</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">cold autumn wind</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">in all the cracks</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">eyes of barn cats</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">snow filling<br />our tracks into the woods<br />by heart</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">old diary<br />rebuilt memories</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">of who I was</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">stifling a yawn<br />in the company<br />of myself</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">just oatmeal<br />the waitress says:</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">"enjoy"</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">autumn path...</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">my thoughts<br />lose their place</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">on the horizon</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">just enough cloud<br />to hold some sunset</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">night train—</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">part of myself reflected</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">in thought</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">calling</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">for the lost cat...</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 10.5pt;">wind chimes</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Barry George's haiku and tanka have been published in more than 50 journals and twelve languages.His poems appear in such anthologies as <a href="https://www.amazon.com/New-Resonance-Emerging-Voices-English-Language/dp/1893959201">A New Resonance 2: Emerging Voices in English-Lan</a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/New-Resonance-Emerging-Voices-English-Language/dp/1893959201">guage Haiku</a>; <a href="http://www.snapshotpress.co.uk/books/the_new_haiku.htm">The New Haiku</a>; <a href="http://www.modernhaiku.org/mhbooks/Haiku21.html">Haiku 21</a>; <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Streetlights.html?id=4vBiPgAACAAJ">Streetlights: Poetry of Urban Life in Modern English Tanka</a>; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kamesans-Anthology-Violence-Rights-Violation/dp/148413799X">Kamesan's Haiku Anthology on War, Violence, and Human Rights Violation</a>; and <a href="http://accents-publishing.com/biggerthantheyappear.html">Bigger Than They Appear: Anthology of Very Short Poems</a>. An AWP Intro Poets Award recipient and Pushcart nominee, he has won numerous international Japanese short-form competitions, including First Prize in the Haiku Society of America's Gerald R. Brady Contest. He is the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Wrecking-Ball-Other-Urban-Haiku/dp/0984411828">Wrecking Ball and Other Urban Haiku</a> and <a href="https://kattywompuspress.com/shop/books-and-chapbooks/the-one-that-flies-back-by-barry-george/">The One That Flies Back</a>, a chapbook of tanka. His main interests are haiku and tanka, along with other poetry exploring our relationship with nature and the Earth.<br />
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Barry Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00564939607349132454noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-76850251445124079652019-01-15T13:13:00.000-05:002019-01-15T13:13:30.058-05:00Are We Not All Animals?: A Review of Gabrielle Calvocoressi's Rocket Fantastic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><a href="https://www.perseabooks.com/rocketfantastic/" target="_blank">Rocket Fantastic</a></i><br />
by <a href="http://fieldoffice.agency/calvocoressi" target="_blank">Gabrielle Calvocoressi</a><br />
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By the Numbers:</h3>
<a href="https://www.perseabooks.com/" target="_blank">Persea Books</a><br />
Hardback, 2017<br />
Paperback 2018<br />
ISBN 978-0-89255-485-0<br />
92 pages<br />
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<b>(reviewed by Melva Sue Priddy)</b><br />
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In an effort to be braver in my own writing, I’ve been reading poets who have been brave in theirs. One such poet is Gabrielle Calvocoressi. I’ll be honest, <i><a href="https://www.perseabooks.com/rocketfantastic/" target="_blank">Rocket Fantastic</a></i> was my introduction to Calvocoressi’s work. Its 92 pages are peopled by deer, falcon, bobcat, fox, horse, grubs, bandleader, hermit, cowboy, dowager, brother, father, sister, lovers, etc. Sometimes one people/animal becomes another, or it’s difficult to tell them apart. And these people find both pleasure and grief in their world. The poet explores tenderness, violence, eroticism, the lyrical and the mundane to bring us to new understandings about, especially, gender and its possibilities.<br />
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So, how is Calvocoressi brave? For starters her poems are democratic: every one gets to speak. Every one, also, is allowed to express their gender as on a continuum rather than as binary. In order to blur the distinction between genders, Calvocoressi uses a symbol (the musical segno, denoted by intake of breath when reading), for one character, and makes new use of the word “whose” to resist our usual bent to identify gender. I found an interview online in which Calvocoressi addresses this better than I can. Liz von Klemperer, at <a href="http://www.full-stop.net/2017/10/03/interviews/liz-von-klemperer/gabrielle-calvocoressi/" target="_blank">full-stop.net</a>, talks with Calvocoressi: <br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>(LvK) The Bandleader is a complicated figure, as whose is intimate but distant. Whose is compared to a Stag, which is not only a male deer but also a term for someone who comes to a social gathering without a partner. At the same time, whose is the narrator’s lover. How did this character come about? How did whose develop?
</b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(GC) I love that you ask about “whose” because nobody has done that yet! And I think that’s been just as important to me as the symbol. In some ways maybe more. So thank you!</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Whose most approximates my own feeling of identifying my sex and/or my gender. For me (and I do want to always say this only me speaking for myself…I am an enemy to those who force any manner of identification on bodies other than their own) “whose” is a word and idea that is inherently a question. It connotes looking and searching. But looking or searching for a specific person, so the clarity of the individual with the openness of a question.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I was just looking at the definition and saw this:<br />
Old English hwæs, genitive of hwā ‘<b>who</b>’ and hwæt ‘<b>what</b>.’<br />
Yes. And so like the sound I make when I breathe the symbol. And containing the WHO and the WHAT. Which I think is the closest thing to my poetics and my self. [<a href="http://www.full-stop.net/2017/10/03/interviews/liz-von-klemperer/gabrielle-calvocoressi/" target="_blank">See full interview—it’s fascinating</a>.]</blockquote>
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Calvocoressi’s poetry contains some violent lines, and there isn’t a world without violence, nature is often brutal and we see that in Calvocoressi’s book of poems, but I’ll let you explore those poems on your own. She (I’d use a non-gender pronoun but not sure what would be appropriate) also gives us some memorable lines. “She Ties My Bow Tie” is stunning. It begins: “What you thought was the sound of the deer drinking/at the base of the ravine was not their soft tongues/entering the water but my Love tying my bow tie.” And “It’s easy to mistake her wrists/for the necks of deer.” Just lovely. In a prose poem, "[Out here it’s okay to be nothing. Want nothing. You feel]," Calvocoressi’s speaking character says, “Have you ever had a person say <i>It’s okay</i>, softly to you in the darkness? Keep your eyes shut and say it to yourself and imagine. <i>It’s okay</i>.” What wisdom and tenderness. <br />
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It’s striking how Calvocoressi interweaves animal life, nature (malevolent and/or pleasant) and what it means to be human (positive and less positive traits). In “The Sun Got All Over Everything,” Calvocoressi shows how a beautiful day can distract us from our plans, and she touches on truth. Of the sun she writes, “It made a mess of a day/that was supposed to be the worst/and lured me outside so I forgot her [mother’s] death entirely.” The speaker continues: “I wrote: <i>Grieve</i>. Because we are all so busy/aren’t we?” Grief, I believe, is one of the most difficult emotions to hold, deal with and explore, as the character witnesses. <br />
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The poem “Who Holds The Stag’s Head Gets to Speak” is a direct address to God. Calvocoressi’s vivid images allow readers see the death as something we can relate to with humor and irony. A stag has been taken and draped over the top of a car. The speaker states, <br />
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When they take him down in the darkness<br />
he looks like any body. Could you [God] rest the muscle of your breath<br />
against his neck so he won’t sag? So the man thinks he’s alive<br />
and quakes in the awful company of the risen. <br />
<br />
You are the Blue Lord I prayed for when I was hunted.<br />
You came to me through the branches. I could hear you<br />
in the upper room where I had hidden in the cupboard. <br />
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One of many rings of truth in this book is in the middle of “Praise House: The New Economy,” a poem written after <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58762/catalog-of-unabashed-gratitude" target="_blank">Ross Gay’s praise poem</a>. “I admit it:/this body’s not enough for me.” Indeed, most of us desire more life than what this one, often times limited, body can give us. <br />
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After searching the internet for an angle into Calvocoressi’s book that hadn’t been taken, I settled on the poem “The Good Guy’s Got No Chance, It’s Sad” because I relate to one of the subjects in the poem, struggling with seasonal affective disorder. It may be sad to consider, “Got No Chance,” but Calvocoressi uses exaggeration, humor and irony to make fun of our propensity to dislike bad luck and winter’s cold darkness. The poem in full:<br />
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<b>The Good Guy’s Got No Chance, It’s Sad</b><br />
<br />
In the face of the azalea breaking open<br />
or in the case of the face being broken<br />
open. He’s got no chance. None at all. <br />
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Take your average person at the start<br />
of spring. Winter’s gone on forever. <br />
Dear God you’re sick of every patch of ice: <br />
<br />
you fell at the top of the hill and punched<br />
the ground until your knuckles bled<br />
right through your gloves. Who cares<br />
<br />
what kind of child you looked like? <br />
The economy of winter’d worn you down.<br />
You couldn’t stand a single moment more,<br />
<br />
not one. You’d tried: Optimistic as a dachshund <br />
you made your way to work, the clouds<br />
like mashed potatoes on a plate! <br />
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You didn’t let the market get you down. <br />
Let it dip. Let it crash into the gullies (so you said).<br />
In the face of empty bank accounts<br />
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you bought the world a sandwich. <br />
The last apple in the larder. Fool.<br />
What did the fox whisper<br />
<br />
when you walked into the darkness?<br />
<i>They’ll eat your heart for breakfast.</i><br />
Did you think it was a dream.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">"The Good Guy’s Got No Chance, It’s Sad," © Gabrielle Calvocoressi, </span><i style="font-size: small;">Rocket Fantastic</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> (Persea 2018)</span><br />
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I enjoy the leap of one image, the azalea breaking open, to another, the face being broken open, which startles. Isn’t that the way of luck for a person who has no chance. We are all “the average person” and luck is democratic, especially bad luck. Webster’s dictionary defines ‘luck’ as “a force that brings good fortune or adversity.” And we find plenty of both in this book of poems. While it isn’t funny to be the one to fall at the top of the hill and punch “the ground until your knuckles bled / right through your gloves,” it is often slapstick funny to laugh at the other person who falls. Or to laugh at ourselves in a later retelling.<br />
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“Optimistic as a dachshund” is too humorous to overlook. Being optimistic has its rewards, but it often doesn’t get one through something as bleak as the short days and long darknesses of winter. Those of us with SAD know it’s no laughing matter. But we’ll laugh when we can. <br />
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The fox who speaks in the last stanza is one of many who appear in this book. In “Praise House” Calvocoressi praises<br />
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All the animals<br />
that talk to me. That I finally let them<br />
talk to me. The blessing of waking<br />
early enough to watch the fox<br />
bathe itself. <br />
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Foxes with varying temperaments show up in eleven pages of this book. In Native American stories, the symbolism of the fox falls into two camps (similar to ‘luck’): In mainly Northern tribes the fox is a wise, noble messenger, while mainly Plains tribes view the fox as a trickster playing pranks, luring one into trouble. In the last stanza of “The Good Guy’s Got No Chance, It’s Sad,” the fox who speaks brings nature’s brutal inclination into not just the winter but also to the optimist. Nobody cares what you looked like as a child! Good looks, cute looks, they no longer matter and never mattered to bad luck. What did you think, spending money you didn’t have, after the decline in the stock market, on a sandwich to feed the world! <br />
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"What did the fox whisper<br />
<br />
when you walked into the darkness?<br />
They’ll eat your heart for breakfast. <br />
Did you think it was a dream."<br />
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This fox may not have lured us into the darkness, but it knows our fate if we read it as merely a dream. We are so often lured into reading the surreal parts of Calvocoressi’s poems as dreamlike, and they are in the way people and animals morph into and out of each other. But she also shows us how animal-like human beings are, and how intimate and forgiving life/gender/love can be. I read a non-fiction book recently that shed more light on Calvocoressi’s poems. In <i><a href="http://www.sebastianjunger.com/tribe-by-sebastian-junger/" target="_blank">Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging</a></i>, Sebastian Junger proposes that humans are still trying to live in community, as humans did for thousands of years, until modern life separated clans, tribes, and families into single family dwellings. That we are not still living in community as we once did, he is saying, is the very thing that creates much of the grief and hardships we have. Giving Calvocoressi a close reading reveals a world where humans and animals coexist, not in paradise but in a real world with greater understanding of our possibilities and responsibilities if we are to be fully human and open to all our possibilities. This book, <i>Rocket Fantastic</i>, is worth every read you can give it. <br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Melva Sue Priddy, a native Kentuckian, earned degrees in English/Education from Berea College and The University of Kentucky, before earning an MFA. Her poems witness survivance and growth, bringing to light truths that arise out of felt experience. In addition to poems, she creates gardens, quilts, and some rustic woodwork. Her poetry can be found in <i>ABZ</i>, Accents Publishing’s LexPoMo, <i>Blood Lotus, The Louisville Review, Poet Lore, Motif Anthologies, The Single Hound,</i> and <i>Still</i>. </span>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-5432295988859278232018-12-15T20:47:00.000-05:002019-08-18T21:59:02.654-04:00Failing at Poetry: Some notes on Creativity and Risk<br />
by Cole Bellamy<br />
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There is no progress without experimentation, this is true in poetry as well. Poets seek to alter perception and to push the boundaries of possibility, through the skillful manipulation of language. To form new techniques, and explore new possibilities, experimentation is necessary; but of course, most experiments fail. To be experimental, then, is to accept and celebrate the necessity of failure. It’s simple enough to retain and continue a tradition, to adhere to a proven formula for success. All art forms have these formal traditions, and in fact most of the structures in our lives have them: expectations, assumptions, the obvious.<br />
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There is charisma in taking risks, and conversely, something that takes no risks can become a soulless empty product. Still, a failure that happens through taking a risk is more interesting, more passionate, more beautiful, than the successful execution of something that we all knew would succeed. Your home-made moonshine-powered ornithopter shaking itself to pieces the second you try to turn it on is infinitely more interesting than successfully starting your mass-produced car on the first try. The trouble, of course, is that we live in a culture that emphasizes success over all other things, that focuses on goals and outcomes, rather than on processes—in this context the car is superior to the ornithopter, because all that matters is getting where you need to go. In our day-to-day life, of course, failure is punished brutally, and while our culture fetishizes “risk-takers” we often lose sight of the fact that risk taking can be extremely costly practice- only available to the most privileged people. Poetry, however, is a relatively low-cost activity, one that makes experimentation, and failure, more widely available.<br />
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Even in poetry, though, there is still a doctrine of success. Success could mean publication in a prestigious journal, a teaching post, or just thunderous applause, and these things can often be accomplished through using tried techniques, largely through observing what has worked before, and mimicking it- there is an already-blazed trail to follow. This is still be extremely difficult and rewarding work, but there are established steps to follow to get a desired expected outcome. In this way, poetry can become a tool, yet another stick for fishing out termites, another skill to help us survive. We can write poems to impress people, to make them fall in love with us, to grieve, to process trauma—and these are, mostly, perfectly good uses for poetry.<br />
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Still, for those who make poetry their life’s work, the discipline demands we keep going deeper. Poetry is one of the few things that gets more difficult as the practitioner gets better. So, to keep progressing, to keep moving forward, we need to accept, and even celebrate, the inevitable failure that comes with experimentation. Learning to accept failure, however, can be incredibly difficult, especially for those of us who grew up in a culture that regards any failure as shameful.<br />
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A poem is a hand-made thing, and one of the reasons why we may love a poem is that we can see the imperfections in it: the reflections of the failures and the weaknesses of the poem’s creator. In this way, poetry can stand as a counterpoint to the aggressive doctrines of industrial culture- it can challenge the insistence that our creations only exist to perform a task efficiently, and without necessary complication.<br />
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Cole Bellamy is a writer and educator from Tampa, Florida. He is the author of three collections of poetry: <i>Lancelot’s Blues, The Mermaid Postcard, and American Museum,</i> and his work has been featured in <i>The Louisville Review, Penumbra, Defenestration,</i> and most recently in <i>Muse/A</i>. He teaches creative writing at the Morean Arts Center, and blogs about Florida history, nature, and culture at <a href="http://www.floridaisaverb.com/">www.FloridaIsAVerb.com</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-41645190774303136352018-10-29T18:30:00.000-04:002018-10-29T18:30:57.886-04:00Review of Faith Shearin's "Darwin's Daughter" <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Darwin's Daughter</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">by Faith
Shearin</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Stephen
F. Austin State University Press, 2017</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.sfasu.edu/sfapress/">http://www.sfasu.edu/sfapress/</a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">ISBN:
978-1-62288-164-2</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">96
pages</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">__________</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Faith Shearin</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> is the author
of six books of poetry: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Darwin's
Daughter, <i>The Owl Question </i></i><i><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">(May Swenson Award</span></i>), <i>The Empty
House</i>, <i>Moving the Piano</i>, <i>Telling the Bees,</i> and <i>Orpheus
Turning </i><i><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">(Dogfish
Poetry Prize</span></i>). Her work has been read aloud on <i>The Writer's
Almanac</i><i><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> and
included in </span>American Life in Poetry</i>. She has received awards from
The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, The Barbara Deming Memorial Fund,
and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work also appears in <i>The
Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary Poets</i> and <i>Good Poems, American
Places</i>. She lives with her husband and daughter in a cabin on top of a
mountain in West Virginia.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">__________</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Review of </span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Faith
Shearin's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Darwin's Daughter</i></span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></u></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br /></span></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The poems in Faith Shearin's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Darwin's Daughter</i> explore many
variations of love and loss, time and memory, beauty and violence, creativity
and imagination flowing and stifled, hope and despair--so many of the
complexities that thread through our lives as humans. Her work is infused with
an irresistible sense of awe, honesty, kindness, and reverence.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Many
of the poems deal with unpleasant but unavoidable aspects of life:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>illness, aging, death, monsters, wars, and
disasters. In the opening poem, "Driving Home," the narrator comes
across a deer "dying, but not yet dead." She speaks of the horrific
choices we are sometimes forced to make as humans: "I could not / swerve,
but had to drive over...legs that had just // rushed through / trees, beyond
farmhouses, // hooves thumping." The idea of transitions or changing from
one state of being to another, as suggested in the phrase "dying, but not
yet dead," is repeated throughout this collection. The poems often take
place in these in-between places and/or spaces, the edges of things. In
"Snakebite" the family puppy is about to die from a snakebite. The
poem even takes place at dusk (the transition from light to dark), and the
accident happens when a door is opened, an image of transition from inside to
outside. But the poet chooses not to show us the actual moment of death. The
narrator says, "and I have gone / back, many times, to try and close it [the
door]." This sadness and the longing to change the inevitable are also
conveyed in speaking of the puppy's innocence:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>"She was a puppy, so she suspected nothing." This theme of
innocence and untimely death continues in the poem "Death Child With
Flowers," about a "nineteenth century mourning portrait" of a
child's funeral layout "in a formal bedroom beneath / wreaths of
flowers." The narrator chooses to concentrate on images of growth and
beauty:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>...it is as if the tiny body is
becoming a garden</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>of White Irises and Baby's Breath,
as if grief</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>has erupted in blossoms and climbed
the headboard,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>as if the flowers in a nearby meadow</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>blew through a window and took root
in this</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>mattress which is as soft as
earth...</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
poem ends with a haunting image:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>"now the child is becoming the flowers / which are also temporary:
cut, // unable to drink, their petals tender." Again, we are taken inside
a moment of transformation, and reminded of how fleeting life is. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Regret
about the transitory nature of life is repeated in the poem, "In This Photo
of My Father," which speaks of a time when her father was alive, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">captured</i> as it were, not only in the
moment of this poem, but in the photograph. She says, "It is...the month
before / he won his last supreme court case," touching on this idea of
transitions and of looking ahead to the future. The poem ends with a beautiful
image of transformation and of boundaries, the edges of things:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Sometimes, in his office,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>a breeze moved through</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the room, and we were</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the island, and we were the sea. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
idea of living on an island in the sea is explored earlier in the poem with the
lines: "my teacher / explained the difference between submerging / / and
emerging coastlines." This image of edges, doorways, or thresholds repeats
in the poem titled "Liminal States:"</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It is dusk or dawn and we have just
awakened</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>from a deep sleep. I speak of the
edges</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>between water and land, the place
where</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the forest gives way to a meadow, of
the day</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>before my great grandfather died...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
poem is filled with these in-between places, moving back and forth in time,
stopped in the sliver of a second before something momentous happens:
"This is just before the baby is born...my mother / is in the waiting room
but no one has told // her she has cancer; my father's car / is spinning, but
he is still conscious."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Another
poem containing family <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">captured</i> in a
moment in time (a memory) is "Family Movies," which looks back into
the past: "your grandmother walks through // the last years of her life in
Florida," and then, with a stunning image, steps into the present (or the
future, from the point-of-view of the movies): </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>...you step into the light, a hand</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>over your eyes, as if you can see us</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>out here, watching, in the uneaten
cake</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>of the future.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
"He Ate Peaches" the narrator says of her grandfather: "He ate
peaches that last summer in the cabin / by the river." She uses an
exquisite image to describe the memory--a sister "slicing peaches in the
kitchen: / soft, downy swellings gathered in a basket." The poem ends on a
note of love and reverence:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>...I still believe</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I will find him bent over a bowl as
bright</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>as June, his hands shaking as he
lifts</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the fruit to his lips, knowing it is
almost gone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That
last line holds such power, suggesting that the grandfather knows the fruit is
almost gone, as well as his life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Another
poem that explores the importance of memory, and photos that fix memories in
place and time, is "My Grandmother, Swimming." The narrator describes
her grandmother walking down the stair in her bathing suit, implying she's
intending to slip into a swimming pool. Instead she says:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>...For a moment she slips </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>into the photo I keep on my desk</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>where she stands under a tree at the
edge</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>of dusk, her head on my
grandfather's shoulder,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>all her brothers still alive. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">She
goes on to describe her grandmother as living "alone in her house of
memories," and ends the poem with a stunning image that suggests swimming,
but implies so much more:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"In this
blue lane she moves slowly, not wanting to reach the end." This suggestion
that she doesn't want to reach the end of her life echoes so beautifully the
last line of "He Ate Peaches" in which the grandfather knows his life
"is almost gone."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
title poem, "Darwin's Daughter," delves into many of the themes that
thread throughout the collection. The Galapagos Islands are mentioned in the
first line, mirroring an island mentioned in earlier poems, and the idea of
isolation and of being on the edge, the border, of two things (land and water).
The idea of isolation is mirrored in Darwin's grief over his daughter, Annie,
who died at the age of 10. The poem states, "It is said / that he lost his
faith when he lost / his daughter." The poem skips ahead to his later
years when "he went walking / in the forest while his family sat in
church," hinting he never regained his faith after the loss of his
daughter. The poem goes on to speak about how Darwin "had a single //
daguerreotype of his daughter in which she / did not smile," and ends with
these haunting lines about how vital his memories of her remained:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>...He was a scientist and he wrote</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>his memories of Annie, folded </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>them into a labeled box; he
described how</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>she touched his hair, how she sat</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>in his study, comparing two editions</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>of the same book, word by word.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
center of the poem contains an essential idea that repeats throughout the
book:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"He believed that all life
was related, descended // from a common ancestor." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Many
poems in this collection hone in on our connections and relationships with
fellow humans, as well as what I call our connection to the natural world,
celebrating its beauty, wildness, mystery, and adaptability. In "Dressing
the Kittens" she loves "the smell of their fur which was tinged /
with the mystery of forests, sometimes / my father's cologne." In
"Northwest Passage," she speaks of explorers' dreams of finding that
"elusive passage // from Atlantic to Pacific." She describes it as
"desire, / a river running through the imagination." The poem ends
with these beautiful lines:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>...I think of icebergs</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>as tall as night rising from a
violent</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>black sea, and the eerie music</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>they make rubbing against one
another,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>screams and groans: a Siren song.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
"Bamboo Forest" she speaks of the wildness of the bamboo her mother
planted: "At night / I could hear it growing: the music // of
disappearances, of privacy / ripening<span style="text-transform: uppercase;">."
</span>In "Apple Trees in Winter" she says, "I was intoxicated
by the froth of their blossoms: / / as white as a swan's feathers, their beauty
/ too heavy for branches." She admires the "sturdiness and
adaptability" of the "Radioactive Boars" who survived Japan's
nuclear disaster, saying "I want to be more like them, / you understand,
want to rise up / on unlikely hooves." The poem "Wild Animals"
celebrates and envies the freedom of animals:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>...Let the wild dogs rescue us</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>from our cardboard box and teach</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>us how to sniff: our teeth sharp,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>our eyes luminous in the dark.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We'll remember how</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>to eat leaves, and freedom, and
roots.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
"Escapes" she praises the animals in the zoo who figured out how to
escape: "I want to be / the bobcat who leapt out of his //
habitat--man-made wall, / man-made moat--to lie beside // a singing tree."
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
theme of escaping connects to poems about various ways we humans are sometimes
not able to escape our situations at times. In "Houdini's Escapes"
she says, "Surely he would have known how // to get out of unhealthy
relationships / and PTA meetings, how to // cancel a holiday with enemies."
The poem ends with her wishing she "could ask him how he // did it because
every escape requires / its own courage and dexterity; // every escape is also
a show."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
is also a thread that runs through many of these poems exploring and
celebrating imagination, creativity, voice, language, photography and visual art.
In "Southern" she says, "It was the language I loved: / the way
my great grandfather said the word / <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sassafras
</i>to amuse himself / and the aunties, surprised, / said <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I swan </i>instead of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I swear."</i>
In "Mary Shelley, Creating Frankenstein," she says, "Mary
invented // a pale physician kneeling / beside a creature he had stitched
together / from grief," mirroring Mary's creating the tale after all the
deaths she experienced. "Frances Glessner Lee" describes a woman who
"Loved miniatures: made tiny replicas of rooms / that captured her
imagination, recreated / the stiff chairs, the oil paintings of angels, / a
pair of wire-rimmed glasses on a bedside table." <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Besides
poems about family and ancestors that thread together a personal history of
connection, this collection also contains poems about our larger human history and
mythological figures that connects us all. "Lucy, Falling" tells the
story of "three million years ago...our [tree-dwelling] ancestor: /
falling through time." She speaks of "our miniature /ancestors"
in "The Hobbits of Flores." In the imaginative "Eve, Growing
Old," she begins with the idea of Eve depicted in paintings "at the
edge of a blooming paradise" and ends with the image of "Her hair
turned white, then fell out," and the idea that, being the first woman,
she is "unmothered:"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"she
had no picture of her grandmother / on the bedside table to comfort her, / no
ancestors waiting for her in myth, / or memory." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Many
poems are celebrations of famous people who made various types of discoveries (Darwin,
Alexander Fleming, Henry Hudson, Lewis and Clark), well-known authors and their
imaginative works (Emily Dickinson, Thomas Lux, Sylvia Plath, Ann Sexton, Mary
Shelley, Virginia Woolf), famous entertainers (Elvis, Houdini, Marilyn Monroe),
of epic adventurers and mythological figures (Blackbeard, Guinevere and King
Arthur, Penelope and Odysseus), and of historical tragedies such as the 1911
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the sinking of The Titanic, wars, nuclear
disasters, and The End of the World. <span style="color: red;"></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Many
of the poems contain emotional intensity, such as in "Penelope's Bed,"
where the poet delves into imagining what it was like for Penelope to wait
twenty years for her husband Odysseus to return home from adventures, including
times he "slept with women in caves" while she "was expected to
be faithful: weaving // and unweaving her future." The poem ends with a
powerful sense of yearning conveyed in the poet's image of Penelope "rolling
over // in the dappled light, of her hand, / reaching." Time passing,
another motif explored in this collection, is gorgeously depicted in the poem's
beginning image:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Her headboard was also an olive
tree: alive</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>in the bedroom, at the center of the
house,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>where it thickened and grew. The
weather</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>of her marriage was recorded in its
rings--</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Another
poem that explores this idea of waiting and of time passing is "My
Mother's Van," which describes the narrator's mother waiting "outside
the houses / where we failed to get better at piano lessons," "made
digestive sounds / with trumpets, danced badly at recitals." She expresses
a sense of regret about all the waiting her mother did for her and her sisters,
and all the things her mother might have wanted to do with her van:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>in it: camp in its back seat</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and cook on its stove while</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>painting the coast of Nova Scotia,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>or capturing the cold beauty of the
Blue Ridge</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>mountains at dawn...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
poem ends wistfully, with the narrator expressing a sense of regret, yearning
for a way to somehow change the past, at the same time she knows its
impossibility:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I look out a window and believe I
see it,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>see her, waiting for me beside a
curb,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>under a tree, and I think I could
open the door,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>clear off a seat, look at the
drawing in her lap,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>which she began, but never seemed to
finish.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
image of opening a door carries through many of the poems, a symbol of
possibility. Another image of possibility that repeats are of windows being
open. In "One Sometimes Finds What One Is Not Looking For," Fleming
returns to his lab after a vacation, to find "an open window / blew mold
into his petri dishes." The poem continues:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">...One
sometimes finds</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>what one is not looking for </span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Fleming said</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>after he named the mold penicillin...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
above lines touch on the sometimes randomness of life and its accidental
discoveries. The poem ends with whimsy and reverence: "I praise / that
open window, his mess, the mold / drifting in."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
want to end with talking about the poem "The End of the War," one of
my favorite poems in the collection. It's short, so I'll include it in its
entirety:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The End of the War</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In train stations soldiers arrive,
their heads</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>leaned out windows, hands reaching</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>through smoke for the lives they
left behind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Men in uniform kiss women in dresses</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>on city streets, lean them back so
they are like</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>stalks of flowers</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>remembering the wind; in my
grandparents' album </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>one uncle carries his girlfriend
through a garden,</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What
a sense of breathtaking beauty, hope and wonder is expressed in the images of
the women like "stalks of flowers // remembering the wind," and the
girlfriend being carried through a garden "leaves trembling, her skirt
alive." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Faith Shearin's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Darwin's Daughter</i> shimmers with poems engaging fully with life,
paying deep attention to all its duality--its mystery and beauty alongside its
disappointments and losses. These are poems you'll want to read more than once.
They pull you in, resonate deep within you through gorgeous, layered imagery
and genuine emotion, reminding us of our strength and vulnerability, and our complex
connections to each other and the natural world. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">__________</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQAsnRZuIbBgw1v3n7XHG0sVlb1pTSGMrzxIlHylvyw-t4sL5BB-HxGR__fgcs-Ul3uFnGu0jeMiFdoxI5wZBim8SrdHeGRgAZ9y3eDy1599sZvERsOPZWsVnOqS7_Z0fooHWVN5B37zv9/s1600/Karen+George.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="222" data-original-width="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQAsnRZuIbBgw1v3n7XHG0sVlb1pTSGMrzxIlHylvyw-t4sL5BB-HxGR__fgcs-Ul3uFnGu0jeMiFdoxI5wZBim8SrdHeGRgAZ9y3eDy1599sZvERsOPZWsVnOqS7_Z0fooHWVN5B37zv9/s1600/Karen+George.jpg" /></a></div>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;">Karen George</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;"> retired from computer programming to write full-time. She lives in
Florence, Kentucky, and enjoys photography and traveling to gardens, museums, historic
river towns, mountains, and Europe. She is author of </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;">two poetry collections from Dos Madres Press: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.dosmadres.com/shop/swim-your-way-back-by-karen-george/">Swim
Your Way Back</a> </i></b><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(2014), and </span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.dosmadres.com/shop/a-map-and-one-year-by-karen-l-george/">A
Map and One Year</a></span></i></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;"> (2018), and </span><i><span lang="EN" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 115%;">five c</span></i><span class="field-data"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;">hapbooks, most recently</span></span><i><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://bluelyrapress.org/buy/">The Fire Circle</a> </span></i></b><i><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;">(Blue Lyra Press, 2016) and </span><i><span lang="EN" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 115%;">the collaborative <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><a href="https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/frame-and-mount-the-sky-by-donelle-dreese-karen-george-nancy-jentsch-taunja-thomson/"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frame and Mount the Sky</i></a> </u></b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Finishing Line Press, 2017)</span></i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;">. You can find her work in </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/emily-carrs-forest-british-columbia-1931-2-by-karen-l-george">The
Ekphrastic Review</a></span></i></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;">, </span><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://sliverofstonemagazine.com/dream-brood-by-karen-l-george/"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sliver of Stone</b></a></span></i></b><b><span style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;">, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://herontree.com/george5/"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Heron
Tree</b></a></i></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;">, </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;">and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2016/05/12/bearing-witness">America</a>.
</i></b></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;">She holds an MFA from
Spalding University, and is co-founder and fiction editor of the journal, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.waypointsmag.com/" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Waypoints</i></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">. Visit her website: </span><a href="http://karenlgeorge.snack.ws/" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">http://karenlgeorge.snack.ws/</i></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">. </span></span></span></div>
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Karen Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06855467849220914349noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225697328443531361.post-46251315017142280442018-09-28T17:39:00.000-04:002018-09-28T17:43:58.805-04:00What We're Reading Now<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flickr/ Stewart Butterfield. Creative Commons (CC by 2.0.) Some rights reserved.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We're always reading fine works of poetry. T</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">his month on <i>Poetry Matters,</i> instead of an in-depth review or interview, y</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">ou’ll find three quick posts about what books have captured our attention:</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2018/09/what-were-reading-now.html#george">Barry George on Yosa Buson's haiku</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2018/09/what-were-reading-now.html#anthony">Anthony Fife on Rita Dove's <i>American Smooth</i></a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2018/09/what-were-reading-now.html#rosemary">Rosemary Royston on Angela Jackson-Brown's <i>House Repairs</i></a></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">So take a look—you might find that next great book of poetry or a poet whose work resonates with you. And friends, please do share with us what you're reading. We're always looking for good books!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2016/08/what-were-reading-now.html" id="george">Barry George on Steven Carter's Translations of Buson's Haiku</a></span></h2>
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<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Traditional-Japanese-Poetry-Steven-Carter/dp/0804722129" target="_blank">Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology</a></i><br />
trans. Steven D. Carter</div>
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Stanford University Press, (1993)</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Currently I am making my way through Steven D. Carter's ambitious <i>Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology</i> (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1991). Here as elsewhere, one of the poets whose haiku I enjoy seeing in fresh translation is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosa_Buson" target="_blank">Yosa Buson</a> (1716-1783), the second after <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsuo_Bash%C5%8D" target="_blank">Matsuo Bashō</a> in the line of generally acknowledged Japanese haiku masters. Buson's haiku are clear, unified portraits which often pivot on a specific appeal to our senses, as in the following translations by Carter:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A stonecutter</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>stops to cool his chisels</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>in the clear water (393)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A camellia falls,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>spilling out rain water</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">from yesterday. (399)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That Buson was as accomplished a painter as he was a poet is evident in the visual and compositional qualities not only in the above poems but also in this well-known haiku:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Spring rain falling—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>and talking as they walk along,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>a raincloak, and an umbrella. (396)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Buson employs the traditional elements of haiku—a kigo or seasonal reference ("spring rain"), a <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/caesura" target="_blank">caesura</a>, and the effect of karumi or lightness—while using the figures of speech "raincloak" and "umbrella" to add a pleasing subtlety. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Being of a more worldly bent than the spiritual and earthy Basho, Buson ranged more freely about secular topics, such as everyday commerce:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At the house next door,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>he's still talking away—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>an oil salesman. (397)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This humorous sketch, incidentally, might today be considered more of a senryu (haiku-like poem focusing on human nature) than a haiku; however, that distinction had not yet become meaningful in Buson's time. Carter points out that although Buson "disavowed any ambition of becoming a poet of high seriousness," his work nevertheless produces "a tension that makes them much more than paintings in words" (390). Consider, for example,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A bat flits by—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>and the wife from across the street</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>takes a look my way. (392)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In this suggestive and mysterious poem, we experience the kind of "drama hinted at....but never played out" (390) that makes many of Buson's haiku intriguing. Indeed, these translations, as well as the many—1105 to be exact—other literary selections Steven D. Carter renders in this anthology, show both his critical insight into the work of Japan's literary figures and his delight in the evocative power of words</span><br />
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<a href="http://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2016/08/what-were-reading-now.html" id="anthony">Anthony Fife on Rita Dove’s <i>American Smooth</i></a></h2>
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<i><a href="hhttp://books.wwnorton.com/books/American-Smooth/" target="_blank">American Smooth</a></i><br />
by Rita Dove<br />
W. W. Norton </div>
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ISBN: 978-0-393-32744-1</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n2EsnwYKf_4/W6Q1fHaOLLI/AAAAAAAACho/7kb8ioMe9esMIdvFau-Oj7yGFLt2kta0QCLcBGAs/s1600/AmericanSmooth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="299" data-original-width="198" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n2EsnwYKf_4/W6Q1fHaOLLI/AAAAAAAACho/7kb8ioMe9esMIdvFau-Oj7yGFLt2kta0QCLcBGAs/s1600/AmericanSmooth.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’d first read Rita Dove maybe seven years ago. At the time it was her first and second collections, <i>The Yellow House </i>on the Corner (1980) and <i>Museum</i> (1983). Since I started <i>American Smooth</i> (2004) a few days ago, I realized that, though about two decades separate this book from her first two, not much has changed in one very specific, marvelous way: Rita Dove’s poems seem to want to be read in exactly the way I want to read them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When her poem pauses, I pause. When she emphasizes or slurs, I emphasize or slur. When she stops outright, or breaks line, I follow suit. It’s almost as if I’m in control, but I know this cannot be the case. And it not because her breaks are common or predictable, necessarily. It’s just that when I need room to let something linger, swell or die, Rita Dove allows me that space. My readings of her poems are the better for it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is a rare occurrence for me. I can think of no other poet who writes (unwittingly) so completely to my tendencies. It’s bazaar and more than a bit exciting. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anyway, <i>American Smooth</i>. I like this one quite a bit, especially the WWI poems. Be it <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Sissle" target="_blank">Noble Sissle</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Reese_Europe" target="_blank">James Europe</a>, these poems are not only evocative of the era’s music and lingo, but also the cadence of their intellect. Or so it seems to me. Authentic or not, I believe it.</span><br />
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<a href="http://readwritepoetry.blogspot.com/2016/08/what-were-reading-now.html" id="rosemary">Rosemary Royston on Angela Jackson-Brown's <i>House Repairs</i></a></h2>
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<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/House-Repairs-Angela-Jackson-Brown/dp/0942544471" target="_blank">House Repairs</a></i><br />
by Angela Jackson-Brown</div>
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Negative Capability Press, 2018</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">ISBN: 978-0942544473</span><br />
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I first met Jackson-Brown in the <a href="https://spalding.edu/master-of-fine-arts-in-writing/" target="_blank">Spalding University MFA</a> program, where she was studying fiction and I poetry. I have since read Angela’s fiction, <i>Drinking from a Bitter Cup</i>, and have kept up with her through social media, which led me to her book of poems, <i>House Repairs</i>. There’s no mistaking the voice in this collection: it is bold, honest, and leaves nothing unexamined. The poems are arranged thematically by sections: House Condemned, House Demolished, House Salvaged, House Rebuilt, with the house being a metaphor for the Self – a Self that was damaged early in life, that lacked a healthy mother figure, and one that confronts what it is to live in America as a Black woman. Like the phoenix, Jackson-Brown takes the reader up from the flames as the <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/persona" target="_blank">persona</a> in her collection redefines and rebuilds herself. An early poem, “A Midwife’s Lament,” sums up what occurs in this collection: “You gotta know you deserve to be happy. / So come on. Let go of all that you’re holding onto / and push.” Letting go of dead weight (in this case, a stillborn) is the metaphor for not allowing our wounds to “fester” and kill us, but to instead expel what is no longer living and birth a new self.<br />
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Some of the damage done to the persona in this collection stems from incest, and “Hush,”uses <a href="http://www.sheerpoetry.co.uk/junior/literacy-hour/year-6/lineation" target="_blank">lineation</a> and italics to convey dialogue. As a child tries to tell her mother about what her uncle has done, the mother continually shuts down the child, “Hush? / <i><b>Hush</b></i>. / Hush.” Being quiet and compliant is a theme also found in “I Must Not Breathe,” which captures the anxiety and fear when being stopped by the cops as a Black woman. The <a href="https://literarydevices.net/anaphora/" target="_blank">anaphora</a> of “I must” shows the unrealistic expectations thrust upon the woman, and interwoven within the poem are the repeated lines,”I must not breathe” which equates to not even existing, mirroring the line, “I must be prepared to die.” But this voice does not die, nor does it comply to expectations projected by society. Instead, the persona flourishes, becoming her “own Ezekiel” in “Dry Bones,” by resurrecting herself, and clearly asserting how she chooses to exist, “I will not revamp my attitude so your fear / of my power will go away,” in “I Am Not Your Corporate Mammy.” This persona transcends all, “I am Spirit-Woman. / I am wind-storms,” in the celebratory, “Spirit Woman,” who “...cannot be studied / or understood. / I am life.”<br />
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