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This is the latest installment in the "Poet Series," a Thirteen Blackbirds feature which presents contemporary poets, their work and impact on the poetry scene. To view all articles in the "Poet Series," just click on the button in the right column at Thirteen Blackbirds.
Pris Campbell’s new book, Sea Trails, is a visual and evocative account of a four-month adventure down the Atlantic coast in a sailboat retelling in poetry what prose could never accomplish. Published by Lummox Press in 2009 (100pp, perfect bound, glossy color covers), the book counterpoints original sea-logs with verse constructed years later. “This wasn’t a traditional poetry book,” Pris confesses, as she recounts pulling together log notes 30 years after the fact. In the foreword, she recalls the ambivalence and irony of taking to sea with a man referred to as R, in the throes of a failing relationship. The poems found in Sea Trails are every bit a part of this tenuous sway in and out of hope and sorrow as they are a sweeping canvass of sea life and adventure. In “Small Craft Advisories,” a poem that describes the peril of an impending storm, it’s not hard to see this push-pull, especially in the closing two lines: “Our boat peels back her hull, reveals inner scars./ My heart laid open, she already knows mine.”
Sea Trails succeeds in giving the author a rare view of two worlds, coincident, colliding and told through one voice. You get the feeling you’re on the boat in rough waters, or lazily creeping into a harbor at dawn. But you also find commonality in shared experience, the nadir of triumph alongside the growing sense of something coming to an end. It’s this thread of sadness mixed into the experience of being at sea that gives the poems life as well as originality. Nowhere is this more clear than in the tiny poem “Crabbing,” which so aptly portrays in sparse verse and metaphor the dysfunctional relationship of the two mariners:
Crabbing
He still catches me
With the same old line,
The worn bait.
Just as I see light,
He nets me again.
Is Sea Trails to be thought of as a catharsis? Perhaps. There is a dominant theme here of lost love, and the author readily admits to the reader that she wasn’t entirely ‘out of love” at the time of setting sail. Yet, a closer reading of the poems provides ample evidence of personal triumph and overcoming. In “Sea Speak,” we have a poem that openly confesses what the author has learned from the sea: "how to lay down a trot line", "haul hungry crabs"; "that fish gasp" and "sea grass cries," and that "heaven is right here in these blue waters." More importantly, to give credence to her soul’s most important unction, she has learned, “how love of the sea can rush right through you with the wind, until your heart is translucent with joy as intense as pain."
42 poems, log entries, sea notes, technical descriptions, Sea Trails has much to offer, not only for the ruddy sea-farer, but also for landlubbers and poetry neophytes. What is compelling in these poems is the consistency of voice, the sensual and calming verse with easily identifiable themes, descriptive accounts laid down alongside deep-seated emotional stress and an almost real-time resolution poetically shaping in front of the viewer. The net result is something quite beautiful and alluring.
SOME QUESTIONS FOR PRIS
Have you’ve seen a recent upswing in your inspiration to write poetry or would you say that your interest in writing has sustained over many years?
I can’t say I’ve felt a recent upswing. If I were to make a painting of my creative swings, it would be a landscape filled with hills, valleys, mountain peaks, gorges, and deserts mixed in-between. Sometimes I feel as if I’ll never write again. Nothing comes, then suddenly a faucet opens. Images appear. A sentence runs through my mind and I know a poem is trying to be born. I love it when that happens.
Who are your favorite classic poets? Favorite modern poets?
I think I’ll always love Alfred Noyles. I memorized The Highwayman when I was 14 so I could recite it to myself anytime I wanted. Carl Sandburg is another. His language moves me deeply. From "The Backyard"…
Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.
What a beautiful image. Almost haiku in nature. Others are William Carlos Williams, Frank O’Hara, Pablo Neruda, T.S. Elliot. I could go on. Modern poets? Harder since the list is even longer, but I love Sharon Olds, Anne Sexton, Lucile Clifton, Li Young-Lee, Rebecca McClanahan, Maya Angelou, so many of the underground poets. I like honesty tied in with a big dollop of outrageousness in the poets alive today. I like daring poets. Courageous poets. Gentle poets, too. If I start naming contemporary poets I know personally and love, I’m bound to leave someone out.
Who or what inspires you to write your poetry?
The best answer is that I honestly don’t know. Sometimes a chance comment. Other times the fragment of a dream or perhaps a memory. Something that happens during the day. I don’t consciously say ‘Now I’m going to write a poem about that’. The birthing of a poem usually surprises me, so ultimately speaking, from my psychologist’s shoes, I would say that something below my level of conscious awareness begins communicating with me and I take it down. I’m sure you’ve heard novelists comment about their characters taking on a life of their own. It’s much like that with my poems. I try not to control the poem too much in that early stage. Later comes the time for pruning out the excess, rewording to say better what I want to say, working with meter and other poetic devices that may enhance it.
What helps you write poetry?
Patience and courage. My fear of what people would think hampered me in my earlier writing, especially with some of my more sexual poems. When I could let go of that, my poems improved. The patience comes in waiting out the ‘desert’ parts of the landscape and not trying to force a poem for the sake of writing one.
What is your ‘goal’ or aim in your writing?
Ultimately it’s to write my truth. I also like it when my poems resonate with others, when a person can say that he or she can relate or can see something through different eyes because of my poems. One of the most rewarding kinds of feedback I’ve gotten from Sea Trails is when non-poets write to tell me they loved it. Of course I like for my poet peers to like my writing, too, but it’s wonderful to be part of bringing an interest in poetry back to a more general reading population.
PRIS CAMPBELL BIO
Pris Campbell’s first full-length book of poetry, Sea Trails, was published in the fall of 2009 by Lummox Press. Abrasions, a chapbook, was published by Rank Stranger Press now has a limited number of copies left. A chapbook with Tammy Trendle, Interchangeable Goddesses was published by Rose of Sharon, a press run by S.A. Griffin, editorr of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, and David Smith. Pris’ latest chapbook, Hesitant Commitments, was released fall of 2008 by Lummox Press in its prestigious Little Red Book series. Pris has many poems appearing excellent poetry journals such as: Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, The Cliffs: Soundings (print), Boxcar Poetry Review, Empowerment4Women, In The Fray, Blackmail Press, Peshekee River Poetry, Limestone Circle (print), Poems Niederngasse, Erosha, The Smoking Poet, Remark Journal,The Wild Goose Poetry Review, Main Street Rag (print), Thunder Sandwich, The Dead Mule: An Anthology of Southern Literature, Rusty Truck, Short Stuff, International War Vets Poetry Yearly Anthologies (print), Small Potatoes, MiPo Quarterly, MiPo Weekly, OCHO (print) Dakota House, Verse Libre, Tears in the Fence (a U.K. print journal), The Oregon Review, MindFire, Passage Through August, Simply Haiku, Haigaonline. Moonset (print), Sketchbook , Ink, Sweat, and Tears and several other journals. Her poem in the spring 2007 issue of Boxcar won the Peer Award for the issue and has been nominated as one of three by that journal for a 'Best of the Internet' Anthology. A nice surprise at the end of 2008 was a Pushcart Prize Nomination.
IMPORTANT LINKS TO CHECK OUT (active links)
To order Sea Trails, click here: Lummox Press
To view Pris’ popular blog, click here: PoetInspire
Link to Pris reading from Sea Trails click here: Sea Trails Reading (video)
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Monday, November 16, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Grace Cavalieri
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What I Won
by Grace Cavalieri
The sack dress was in style then
with a single strand of pearls.
The sack dress was designed to see
the body move lightly beneath.
That's why I wore it to my first poetry
contest in Philly,
leaving my four-month old at home.
Of course my husband had to
drive, as nervous as I was
so he waited in the car all
day while I sat in the big room, first time out
since I found my mother
dead and then had a baby two weeks later.
My husband stayed all day in that
car in the snow. I won first prize about
wanting my mother but
it was said much better than this,
as you can imagine, to win first.
It even began with notes upon a phantom
lute, although The Poet
said what do we know of lutes now?
But what did he know of
walking into her bedroom and finding
her a pale shade of lilac.
That just goes to prove I guess I was talking
about the wrong thing in the poem,
and The Poet was surely on to something.
I have to say I looked wonderful,
gaunt with grief and colitis, 1956,
hurrying across the street
where my husband was waiting to take me home,
the first wrong victory in my hand.
Explication
by Edward Nudelman
“What I Won,” a poem by Grace Cavilieri, takes us through experience’s strongest gift, memory, to illustrate how something sought (such as a poetry prize) can fade and lessen in importance in the face of sweeping grief or hardship. Grace provides us with a very specific account traveling with her husband to a poetry contest, with fear and trembling, allowing the seamless movement of the poem to inform us, and herself, of what really matters and what is supremely valued.
The title of the poem, as well as the first few lines, draw attention to perhaps a physical object or prize that might be won. The speaker is dressing for an important event and is taking matters very seriously (‘sack dress in style’, ‘pearls’, ‘designed to see the body move lightly beneath’). Her anxiety over having to go to Philly (we are not told from which city of origin, but the assumption is that it was a fairly long trip) is couched in ambivalent terms. We’re told her husband had to drive (‘as nervous as I was’), but we’re not told if her fears were directly related to having to read, or something quite different, such as an emotional issue or even a physical impairment.
Nearly midway through the poem, however, we learn the crux of the speaker’s difficulty in which she exclaims: “first time out since I found my mother dead and then had a baby two weeks later.’ We find several lines addressing her husband’s loyalty and the speaker’s obvious regard for his willingness to come alongside her in her travail. The speaker will return to this important aspect of support and care later in the poem.
The poem seems to turn, midway, on the phrase, “I won first prize about wanting my mother…” said abruptly and perhaps sarcastically, with the qualifier, “but it was said much better than this… to win first.” Here the speaker is organizing thought around the ambivalence of winning something obviously of importance (poets live for this), while at the same time having to deal with a devastating loss. The close proximity of her mother’s death, the birth of her child, and the poetry contest all mix in to add dynamic suspense to this poem.
The second half of the poem deals with a fictitious poet, referred to as simply, The Poet, and interestingly given a male gender (perhaps to distinguish from a metaphor of the speaker interacting with a mirror poet, or self, though this could still be true). The speaker uses this device as a sounding board to discuss with us the poem which she presented at the contest, which began "with notes upon a phantom lute." While this appears to be a reference to her mother’s death, it could also stand alone as a metaphor for the evanescence and changeability of joy or peace (the lute being a reference to that which could supply either). The speaker goes on to tell us that The Poet asked, "what do we know of lutes now?” What can good things do for the grief-stricken? How can nice words, sleep-aids, poetry awards assuage the pain of loss? In addition, one could ask, how can poetry itself help? The Poet wasn’t there, and so he can’t identify with what happened (the speaker implies, 'But what did he know of walking into her bedroom and finding her a pale shade of lilac’).
The conversation heightens near the end as the speaker goes back and forth rehearsing her arguments before the anonymous Poet. In a moment of either self-effacing doubt or monumental clarity, the speaker throws up her hands, saying: "That just goes to prove I guess I was talking about the wrong thing in the poem, and The Poet was surely on to something.”
The ending, comprising an extremely personal and vulnerable introspection, provides the reader with what they need to take this poem into their world of experience. We find a tired, worn-out, ill person, ‘gaunt with grief and colitis,’ ‘hurrying’ back to her husband who will take her home and continue to love her, even if at that moment she holds in her hand the very emblem of the conflict and dissonance expressed in the poem: ‘the first wrong victory.”
“What I won” is a strikingly intimate poem that lets the reader experience along side the speaker revealing aspects of her emotional life, if only from a snapshot event on one day in Philly, in 1956. It is a poem of love and constancy as much as it is self-discovery. We are privy to the evolution of understanding in the speaker’s heart. What becomes of value necessarily diminishes that which never had value. But much remains. Throughout the poem the speaker is careful to remind us that her husband not only accompanied her, but brought her, waited for her, and finally took her home. The speaker doesn’t ask for sympathy in the loss of her mother, presented as fact. The poem could have gone down that road and reproduced a thousand similar themes. Not that the crystallization of what really matters is not vividly presented here. But the power and excellence in this poem lies in the understated values of love and companionship portrayed, hard commodities to find in this world; but once found, sufficient to assuage the worst of grief.
Brief Bio of Grace Cavalieri
Grace Cavalieri is the author of several books of poetry and 21 produced plays; she founded and still produces/hosts public radio’s “The Poet and the Poem,” now in its 32nd year, now from the Library of Congress. Her new book is Anna Nicole: Poems (Goss183:: Casa Menendez, 2008.) She is book review editor for The Montserrat Review and a poetry columnist for MiPOradio. Her play in progress, on Anna Nicole, is “Beverly Hills, Texas.”
.
What I Won
by Grace Cavalieri
The sack dress was in style then
with a single strand of pearls.
The sack dress was designed to see
the body move lightly beneath.
That's why I wore it to my first poetry
contest in Philly,
leaving my four-month old at home.
Of course my husband had to
drive, as nervous as I was
so he waited in the car all
day while I sat in the big room, first time out
since I found my mother
dead and then had a baby two weeks later.
My husband stayed all day in that
car in the snow. I won first prize about
wanting my mother but
it was said much better than this,
as you can imagine, to win first.
It even began with notes upon a phantom
lute, although The Poet
said what do we know of lutes now?
But what did he know of
walking into her bedroom and finding
her a pale shade of lilac.
That just goes to prove I guess I was talking
about the wrong thing in the poem,
and The Poet was surely on to something.
I have to say I looked wonderful,
gaunt with grief and colitis, 1956,
hurrying across the street
where my husband was waiting to take me home,
the first wrong victory in my hand.
Explication
by Edward Nudelman
“What I Won,” a poem by Grace Cavilieri, takes us through experience’s strongest gift, memory, to illustrate how something sought (such as a poetry prize) can fade and lessen in importance in the face of sweeping grief or hardship. Grace provides us with a very specific account traveling with her husband to a poetry contest, with fear and trembling, allowing the seamless movement of the poem to inform us, and herself, of what really matters and what is supremely valued.
The title of the poem, as well as the first few lines, draw attention to perhaps a physical object or prize that might be won. The speaker is dressing for an important event and is taking matters very seriously (‘sack dress in style’, ‘pearls’, ‘designed to see the body move lightly beneath’). Her anxiety over having to go to Philly (we are not told from which city of origin, but the assumption is that it was a fairly long trip) is couched in ambivalent terms. We’re told her husband had to drive (‘as nervous as I was’), but we’re not told if her fears were directly related to having to read, or something quite different, such as an emotional issue or even a physical impairment.
Nearly midway through the poem, however, we learn the crux of the speaker’s difficulty in which she exclaims: “first time out since I found my mother dead and then had a baby two weeks later.’ We find several lines addressing her husband’s loyalty and the speaker’s obvious regard for his willingness to come alongside her in her travail. The speaker will return to this important aspect of support and care later in the poem.
The poem seems to turn, midway, on the phrase, “I won first prize about wanting my mother…” said abruptly and perhaps sarcastically, with the qualifier, “but it was said much better than this… to win first.” Here the speaker is organizing thought around the ambivalence of winning something obviously of importance (poets live for this), while at the same time having to deal with a devastating loss. The close proximity of her mother’s death, the birth of her child, and the poetry contest all mix in to add dynamic suspense to this poem.
The second half of the poem deals with a fictitious poet, referred to as simply, The Poet, and interestingly given a male gender (perhaps to distinguish from a metaphor of the speaker interacting with a mirror poet, or self, though this could still be true). The speaker uses this device as a sounding board to discuss with us the poem which she presented at the contest, which began "with notes upon a phantom lute." While this appears to be a reference to her mother’s death, it could also stand alone as a metaphor for the evanescence and changeability of joy or peace (the lute being a reference to that which could supply either). The speaker goes on to tell us that The Poet asked, "what do we know of lutes now?” What can good things do for the grief-stricken? How can nice words, sleep-aids, poetry awards assuage the pain of loss? In addition, one could ask, how can poetry itself help? The Poet wasn’t there, and so he can’t identify with what happened (the speaker implies, 'But what did he know of walking into her bedroom and finding her a pale shade of lilac’).
The conversation heightens near the end as the speaker goes back and forth rehearsing her arguments before the anonymous Poet. In a moment of either self-effacing doubt or monumental clarity, the speaker throws up her hands, saying: "That just goes to prove I guess I was talking about the wrong thing in the poem, and The Poet was surely on to something.”
The ending, comprising an extremely personal and vulnerable introspection, provides the reader with what they need to take this poem into their world of experience. We find a tired, worn-out, ill person, ‘gaunt with grief and colitis,’ ‘hurrying’ back to her husband who will take her home and continue to love her, even if at that moment she holds in her hand the very emblem of the conflict and dissonance expressed in the poem: ‘the first wrong victory.”
“What I won” is a strikingly intimate poem that lets the reader experience along side the speaker revealing aspects of her emotional life, if only from a snapshot event on one day in Philly, in 1956. It is a poem of love and constancy as much as it is self-discovery. We are privy to the evolution of understanding in the speaker’s heart. What becomes of value necessarily diminishes that which never had value. But much remains. Throughout the poem the speaker is careful to remind us that her husband not only accompanied her, but brought her, waited for her, and finally took her home. The speaker doesn’t ask for sympathy in the loss of her mother, presented as fact. The poem could have gone down that road and reproduced a thousand similar themes. Not that the crystallization of what really matters is not vividly presented here. But the power and excellence in this poem lies in the understated values of love and companionship portrayed, hard commodities to find in this world; but once found, sufficient to assuage the worst of grief.
Brief Bio of Grace Cavalieri
Grace Cavalieri is the author of several books of poetry and 21 produced plays; she founded and still produces/hosts public radio’s “The Poet and the Poem,” now in its 32nd year, now from the Library of Congress. Her new book is Anna Nicole: Poems (Goss183:: Casa Menendez, 2008.) She is book review editor for The Montserrat Review and a poetry columnist for MiPOradio. Her play in progress, on Anna Nicole, is “Beverly Hills, Texas.”
.
Diego Quiros
.
Horse Feather
This is a horse feather,
white, the calm of clouds.
I saw it fall from the sky
a slow dart from antiquity
swirling its habitual pattern.
Its vane gentle across my lips
its sturdy rachis could pen
a poem or two about
the process of kissing or
stammering ecstasies.
I wondered if the mythical animal
would part the evening sky
with its pale steady silence
turn its crimson eyes in my direction
and rapture me on moon-hooves
over the matrix of skyscrapers
wearing nothing but its ribcage
between my legs.
Nothing is impossible.
I once loved like that.
-by Diego Quiros
SUMMARY
In Horse Feather, a mythical horse, undoubtedly Pegasus, is conjured into awareness by a musing speaker who imagines seeing one of its feathers (white, the calm of clouds) fall from the sky. The anatomy of the feather is presented with respect to the speaker’s romantic love (could pen a poem or two about the process of kissing or stammering ecstasies). In S3, the speaker delineates the power and majesty and passion of such a mythical creature that could ‘part the evening sky with its pale steady eye’ (and rapture me on moon-hooves). In the final strophe, the speaker imagines riding the horse over skyscrapers with nothing but ‘its ribcage between my legs,” and suggests that such an adventure is within the realm of possibility. In the last line the speaker divulges his hidden sentiments, revealing he once loved in the same fashion.
COMMENTARY
Horse Feather, by Diego Quiros, is a striking poem about the possibilities and limitless boundaries of love. It is a poem that begs for several readings, as it presents insights in several diverging directions. On the one hand, the poem can be read as a fantasy narrative, where the speaker muses on the passionate image of riding Pegasus over skyscrapers. Another view of the poem reveals a more subtle, perhaps melancholy desire to rise above the limits of human love and experience an altogether unbound (unearthly) love as characterized by riding this mythical creature.
The poem consists of four strophes, each with five lines. The rhythm begins fairly uniform, nearly tetrameter in the first two strophes, then half-way through, defaults to a more drawn out beat, both in sound and length of line. This shift at S3 coincides with a tone shift where the speaker becomes more open, his feelings more vulnerable.
“This is a horse feather, white, the calm of clouds,” opens the poem with a striking visual picture. It is falling from the sky, this tranquil ‘slow dart from antiquity.” Up front, the speaker wants us to know that he is really talking about Pegasus, that winged horse, sired by Poseidon, an emblem of power and grace. The name, Pegasus derives from "spring or well." Whenever the horse strikes a hoof to earth, a beautiful spring bursts forth. The metaphor aptly sets up the reader for S2 which dissects the feather into its component parts and relates them to sensual aspects of love: the vane (soft, wispy) ‘gentle across my lips; and the rachis (the part used in ink pens) ‘sturdy,’ ‘could pen a poem or two about the process of kissing,” etc.
But it is in S3 where we begin to see the inner unction of the speaker with respect to love. As well, the poetics and imagery spring more freely from the idea of the mythical animal as having superhuman abilities, both in power and beauty (part the evening sky with its pale steady silence) and in its natural proclivity to rapture (on moon-hooves across skyscrapers).
In S5 we find the culmination of such an adventure, as the speaker alludes to the naked power (ribcage) churning between his legs, a very striking and erotic metaphor which is effortlessly merged into one image. Finally, and importantly, the speaker exhales and draws back from the vision declaring, ‘nothing is impossible.” If he has loved, and loved well in the bounds of his humanity (I once loved like that), why not in the boundless sky? Why not like Pegasus, riding unbound through the heavens?
The power of this poem lies in its central proposition that love is without limits. What makes it click is that the speaker doesn’t dwell on a litany of past experience. What adds to its cohesiveness and beauty is the speaker’s confidence. The poetic, yet blunt tone. It is sufficient to merely say, “I once loved like that,” and the honesty and forcefulness of such a declaration drives the poem home like a dagger.
BIO
Diego Quiros is a poet, artist, and Electrical Engineer living with his family in South Florida. He was born in 1962 in Havana, Cuba, lived in Spain for several years, and traveled to the United States by himself at age ten.
His poetry, has been published in several issues of Ocho, Mipoesias, and Verse Libre Quarterly. Diego also co-hosted the MipoRadio show “Deconstructions”. Diego’s first collection of poems “Alchetry” (click here); a study on the four elements of writing and their relation to the four basic elements; was recently published by Goss 183 (formerly Menendez Publishing) and it is available at Books and Books and Amazon.
He credits all his work to conversations with a Muse he describes as “a woman with long dark green hair, green eyes, and light green skin”. He claims she walks around his home in South Florida and drops subtle whispers here and there while he writes.
Horse Feather
This is a horse feather,
white, the calm of clouds.
I saw it fall from the sky
a slow dart from antiquity
swirling its habitual pattern.
Its vane gentle across my lips
its sturdy rachis could pen
a poem or two about
the process of kissing or
stammering ecstasies.
I wondered if the mythical animal
would part the evening sky
with its pale steady silence
turn its crimson eyes in my direction
and rapture me on moon-hooves
over the matrix of skyscrapers
wearing nothing but its ribcage
between my legs.
Nothing is impossible.
I once loved like that.
-by Diego Quiros
SUMMARY
In Horse Feather, a mythical horse, undoubtedly Pegasus, is conjured into awareness by a musing speaker who imagines seeing one of its feathers (white, the calm of clouds) fall from the sky. The anatomy of the feather is presented with respect to the speaker’s romantic love (could pen a poem or two about the process of kissing or stammering ecstasies). In S3, the speaker delineates the power and majesty and passion of such a mythical creature that could ‘part the evening sky with its pale steady eye’ (and rapture me on moon-hooves). In the final strophe, the speaker imagines riding the horse over skyscrapers with nothing but ‘its ribcage between my legs,” and suggests that such an adventure is within the realm of possibility. In the last line the speaker divulges his hidden sentiments, revealing he once loved in the same fashion.
COMMENTARY
Horse Feather, by Diego Quiros, is a striking poem about the possibilities and limitless boundaries of love. It is a poem that begs for several readings, as it presents insights in several diverging directions. On the one hand, the poem can be read as a fantasy narrative, where the speaker muses on the passionate image of riding Pegasus over skyscrapers. Another view of the poem reveals a more subtle, perhaps melancholy desire to rise above the limits of human love and experience an altogether unbound (unearthly) love as characterized by riding this mythical creature.
The poem consists of four strophes, each with five lines. The rhythm begins fairly uniform, nearly tetrameter in the first two strophes, then half-way through, defaults to a more drawn out beat, both in sound and length of line. This shift at S3 coincides with a tone shift where the speaker becomes more open, his feelings more vulnerable.
“This is a horse feather, white, the calm of clouds,” opens the poem with a striking visual picture. It is falling from the sky, this tranquil ‘slow dart from antiquity.” Up front, the speaker wants us to know that he is really talking about Pegasus, that winged horse, sired by Poseidon, an emblem of power and grace. The name, Pegasus derives from "spring or well." Whenever the horse strikes a hoof to earth, a beautiful spring bursts forth. The metaphor aptly sets up the reader for S2 which dissects the feather into its component parts and relates them to sensual aspects of love: the vane (soft, wispy) ‘gentle across my lips; and the rachis (the part used in ink pens) ‘sturdy,’ ‘could pen a poem or two about the process of kissing,” etc.
But it is in S3 where we begin to see the inner unction of the speaker with respect to love. As well, the poetics and imagery spring more freely from the idea of the mythical animal as having superhuman abilities, both in power and beauty (part the evening sky with its pale steady silence) and in its natural proclivity to rapture (on moon-hooves across skyscrapers).
In S5 we find the culmination of such an adventure, as the speaker alludes to the naked power (ribcage) churning between his legs, a very striking and erotic metaphor which is effortlessly merged into one image. Finally, and importantly, the speaker exhales and draws back from the vision declaring, ‘nothing is impossible.” If he has loved, and loved well in the bounds of his humanity (I once loved like that), why not in the boundless sky? Why not like Pegasus, riding unbound through the heavens?
The power of this poem lies in its central proposition that love is without limits. What makes it click is that the speaker doesn’t dwell on a litany of past experience. What adds to its cohesiveness and beauty is the speaker’s confidence. The poetic, yet blunt tone. It is sufficient to merely say, “I once loved like that,” and the honesty and forcefulness of such a declaration drives the poem home like a dagger.
BIO
Diego Quiros is a poet, artist, and Electrical Engineer living with his family in South Florida. He was born in 1962 in Havana, Cuba, lived in Spain for several years, and traveled to the United States by himself at age ten.
His poetry, has been published in several issues of Ocho, Mipoesias, and Verse Libre Quarterly. Diego also co-hosted the MipoRadio show “Deconstructions”. Diego’s first collection of poems “Alchetry” (click here); a study on the four elements of writing and their relation to the four basic elements; was recently published by Goss 183 (formerly Menendez Publishing) and it is available at Books and Books and Amazon.
He credits all his work to conversations with a Muse he describes as “a woman with long dark green hair, green eyes, and light green skin”. He claims she walks around his home in South Florida and drops subtle whispers here and there while he writes.
Aaron Belz
.
WHISPERED JOKES
If I’m in such good company, please
explain why I have to keep looking
over my shoulder to see who’s not there:
ghost of the staircase, living
room phantasm—whispered jokes,
unheard and ungotten—or maybe not.
I call them the comedians of chance,
and I have discovered that they’re
completely cornball. Canned.
They’ve written routines
in sharpie on their luminous
hands and keep looking down
to see what comes next. My father
used to laud people who know
“what goes where,” but I swear,
I don’t anymore—it’s all up in the air,
half-visible pins twirling end over
end, and I, their ghastly juggler.
SUMMARY
Whispered Jokes gets your attention in the title and alerts the reader to look for what might be forthcoming: perhaps jokes whispered to self, some kind of cryptic messaging. The opening strophe gives what could pass for a joke: “If I’m in such good company, please/ explain why I have to keep looking/ over my shoulder to see who’s not there.” And who’s ‘not there’ is, namely, a “ghost”, or a “phantasm.” In short, “whispered ghosts,” perhaps unheard or whose punch lines are “ungotten.” The speaker calls the joke-tellers “comedians of chance,” and tells us that they’re “completely cornball.” Further attention is given to how and where they’re written, such as “in sharpie,” and “on their luminous hands.” The processes involved are alluded to as “routines.” There is a tone and content shift in S5 where the speaker speaks of his father who “used to laud people who know ‘what goes where,’” and uses the construct to insert an unsettling sense of ambivalence in personal experience: "I swear,/ I don’t anymore-it’s all up in the air.” The poem ends in a characterization of the problem and consequences of not knowing or understanding something key and fundamental in the evocative image of pins which are “half-visible,” and “twirling end over end,” with the speaker as the “ghastly juggler.
COMMENTARY
This poem, with its seemingly off-handed and light tone, has much to offer in speaking to the fundamental nature of how we learn, how we know, and how we accommodate to things we feel we can’t understand. The poem’s rolls out freely with easy words and syntax. Nothing complex here. And yet, there is a kind of deceptive foil here for an underlying deeper consideration of identity and self-appraisal. Additionally, the formal presentation, though not rhymed (except for 'swear/air' near the end) is nonetheless nicely put together in neat, free-flowing tercets, further directing the reader into the poetics of the speaker.
Some key questions are raised at the beginning of this poem. What is the nature of these “whispered jokes,” who are the people that are saying them… and to whom are they being said? As well, the poem seems to be addressing the issue of how we process what we’ve learned, what we make of past failures, for example. And how do we make order out of what often appears to be a disordered, random world.
We can see by the speaker’s opening interrogative, that there’s some degree of equivocation in his voice. This is not a prescriptive essay or a document on how to solve the world’s problems. It is the speaker sort of talking out loud, remembering his own ghosts and phantasms walking around his house (perhaps as a child), jokes uttered and not heard, or not understood. But the jokes aren't one-liners. These are innuendos, rationale, ways of thinking to ward off other ways of thinking.
The dissonance increases in S3 where the speaker, who has his own expression for these jokesters, “comedians of chance,” makes a decided tone-shift away from self-examination and toward mild invective. Here we find that the speaker has a distaste for the joke-tellers who tell 'corny' jokes; but worse, actually write them down (in indelible ink) and then refer to them as needed. This is perhaps the moment at which the poem turns from inward to outward commentary. The speaker seems to be making an ethical statement regarding meaning. Is it enough to rely on past performance, old jokes or riddles which cannot suffice, in unwrapping the serious issues of life? Indeed, they often return (as ghosts) to haunt, rather than providing any sort of apologetic for living. The speaker references his own father, and relates his (the speaker's) obvious disdain for that kind of philosophy which is blithely self-confident (“people who know what goes where.)” It leaves one wondering what the subtext is here. As with many poets, a father (or mother) theme will pop in and out of poems freely, and the poem gives room and desire to hear more on this subject. Still, it amps up the immediacy of feeling. There is a bewilderment in the voice here, that it should be so easy for these kind of people to be cavalier in their movement through life, that they would have nothing better to do than rehearse old jokes.
This is a direct poem. It tweaks the reader to ask their own questions and assumptions about what makes them sure. Not that we should be fettered with doubt. But the poem speaks to a kind of unguarded optimism that doesn’t examine deeply into meaning. And what is left? “Half-visible pins twirling end over end, and I, their ghastly juggler.” Here we find the result of such thinking: enervating, dangerous, a vacuous pursuit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ABOUT AARON
Aaron Belz writes poetry in Los Angeles. He has a Ph.D. in American Literature from Saint Louis University and an M.A. in Creative Writing from NYU. His first book of poetry,The Bird Hoverer, was published by Buffalo: BlazeVOX Books, in 2007. Aaron’s second book of poems, Direction, is forthcoming from Persea. Some of his poems, essays, biographical history and much more- may be found at these websites (just click):
belz blog
belz poetry on wordpress
.
WHISPERED JOKES
If I’m in such good company, please
explain why I have to keep looking
over my shoulder to see who’s not there:
ghost of the staircase, living
room phantasm—whispered jokes,
unheard and ungotten—or maybe not.
I call them the comedians of chance,
and I have discovered that they’re
completely cornball. Canned.
They’ve written routines
in sharpie on their luminous
hands and keep looking down
to see what comes next. My father
used to laud people who know
“what goes where,” but I swear,
I don’t anymore—it’s all up in the air,
half-visible pins twirling end over
end, and I, their ghastly juggler.
SUMMARY
Whispered Jokes gets your attention in the title and alerts the reader to look for what might be forthcoming: perhaps jokes whispered to self, some kind of cryptic messaging. The opening strophe gives what could pass for a joke: “If I’m in such good company, please/ explain why I have to keep looking/ over my shoulder to see who’s not there.” And who’s ‘not there’ is, namely, a “ghost”, or a “phantasm.” In short, “whispered ghosts,” perhaps unheard or whose punch lines are “ungotten.” The speaker calls the joke-tellers “comedians of chance,” and tells us that they’re “completely cornball.” Further attention is given to how and where they’re written, such as “in sharpie,” and “on their luminous hands.” The processes involved are alluded to as “routines.” There is a tone and content shift in S5 where the speaker speaks of his father who “used to laud people who know ‘what goes where,’” and uses the construct to insert an unsettling sense of ambivalence in personal experience: "I swear,/ I don’t anymore-it’s all up in the air.” The poem ends in a characterization of the problem and consequences of not knowing or understanding something key and fundamental in the evocative image of pins which are “half-visible,” and “twirling end over end,” with the speaker as the “ghastly juggler.
COMMENTARY
This poem, with its seemingly off-handed and light tone, has much to offer in speaking to the fundamental nature of how we learn, how we know, and how we accommodate to things we feel we can’t understand. The poem’s rolls out freely with easy words and syntax. Nothing complex here. And yet, there is a kind of deceptive foil here for an underlying deeper consideration of identity and self-appraisal. Additionally, the formal presentation, though not rhymed (except for 'swear/air' near the end) is nonetheless nicely put together in neat, free-flowing tercets, further directing the reader into the poetics of the speaker.
Some key questions are raised at the beginning of this poem. What is the nature of these “whispered jokes,” who are the people that are saying them… and to whom are they being said? As well, the poem seems to be addressing the issue of how we process what we’ve learned, what we make of past failures, for example. And how do we make order out of what often appears to be a disordered, random world.
We can see by the speaker’s opening interrogative, that there’s some degree of equivocation in his voice. This is not a prescriptive essay or a document on how to solve the world’s problems. It is the speaker sort of talking out loud, remembering his own ghosts and phantasms walking around his house (perhaps as a child), jokes uttered and not heard, or not understood. But the jokes aren't one-liners. These are innuendos, rationale, ways of thinking to ward off other ways of thinking.
The dissonance increases in S3 where the speaker, who has his own expression for these jokesters, “comedians of chance,” makes a decided tone-shift away from self-examination and toward mild invective. Here we find that the speaker has a distaste for the joke-tellers who tell 'corny' jokes; but worse, actually write them down (in indelible ink) and then refer to them as needed. This is perhaps the moment at which the poem turns from inward to outward commentary. The speaker seems to be making an ethical statement regarding meaning. Is it enough to rely on past performance, old jokes or riddles which cannot suffice, in unwrapping the serious issues of life? Indeed, they often return (as ghosts) to haunt, rather than providing any sort of apologetic for living. The speaker references his own father, and relates his (the speaker's) obvious disdain for that kind of philosophy which is blithely self-confident (“people who know what goes where.)” It leaves one wondering what the subtext is here. As with many poets, a father (or mother) theme will pop in and out of poems freely, and the poem gives room and desire to hear more on this subject. Still, it amps up the immediacy of feeling. There is a bewilderment in the voice here, that it should be so easy for these kind of people to be cavalier in their movement through life, that they would have nothing better to do than rehearse old jokes.
This is a direct poem. It tweaks the reader to ask their own questions and assumptions about what makes them sure. Not that we should be fettered with doubt. But the poem speaks to a kind of unguarded optimism that doesn’t examine deeply into meaning. And what is left? “Half-visible pins twirling end over end, and I, their ghastly juggler.” Here we find the result of such thinking: enervating, dangerous, a vacuous pursuit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ABOUT AARON
Aaron Belz writes poetry in Los Angeles. He has a Ph.D. in American Literature from Saint Louis University and an M.A. in Creative Writing from NYU. His first book of poetry,The Bird Hoverer, was published by Buffalo: BlazeVOX Books, in 2007. Aaron’s second book of poems, Direction, is forthcoming from Persea. Some of his poems, essays, biographical history and much more- may be found at these websites (just click):
belz blog
belz poetry on wordpress
.
Amy George
Resurrection, by Amy George
I don’t remember
when you grew wings…
when they flared out
from your back
above the stab wounds
now only scars.
I just remember your eyes,
how they glowed with
Easter morning,
lightning striking
the same place twice,
though years had fallen
in between.
There was beauty
and trembling
past the bruises,
cynical voices
shattered by an empty tomb.
I remembered the basement,
his hands on your small body.
And I wept to see you
lift up the little girl
you held inside,
her tears now only a memory.
Not even the world,
with all its gravity,
could hold you.
Comments, by Edward Nudelman
This taut little narrative poem by Amy George, with its interesting second person point of view, is strongly personal and experiential; so much so, it nearly defaults into first person. That is to say, while the reader can identify with the ‘you’ in the poem as being a very close family member (or a close friend) of the speaker, the frame of reference can easily devolve into the "I/me", where the voice is seen as referring to self. As such, the poem lends itself to heightened immediacy and a certain tension that would not have otherwise materialized in the first person. Second person POV is difficult to pull off. Often the poem sounds didactic or even maudlin. This is not the case with Resurrection.
This is a poem that speaks to how we heal; how scars are removed. There is a transcendency in tone that is not specifically identified. Details are not given, or belabored, thus heightening the reader’s notion of what’s going on. It makes you want to rush on to the ending (a good thing!) We understand in the very first verses that wings ‘flared out’ where there were once stab wounds, a very elegant and visual framing, setting the tone of the poem which is reserved and restrained. As if to say, these things happened, and this is the way they affected you. And that’s that.
So what is happening in the poem? The allusions to sexual abuse ocurr near the end of the poem, “his hands on your small body,” and ties in the earlier reference of stab wounds. “There was beauty and trembling past the bruises,” adds focus to the central theme of the poem, which is overcoming calamity, moving through un-navigable waters. But not just surviving. Coming through with grace, beauty.
There is, alongside this profile of coping, a second theme of resurrection, made central by the title, and also bolstered in the placement of the event on Easter, or at least describing it in the context of Easter ('I just remember your eyes,how they glowed with Easter morning'). The poem heightens and perhaps shifts in tone in, “Lightning striking the same place twice, though years had fallen in between,” an interesting juxtaposition of the terror of the event, and perhaps the path to liberation as seen through the resurrection: of moving from death to life. Further, there is this reference to a tomb, another Christian metaphor, but not necessarily restricted to that meaning. Hence, we can see how the speaker sees her subject moving beyond the tomb, a darkness and repository for death, as the little girl that was “held inside,” somehow finds a way past her tears. This is finally brought home in a powerful way in the closing strophe:
Not even the world,
with all its gravity,
could hold you
Not scars, but wings. Not death, but resurrection. Not trapped in the world, but freedom for flight. What I like about the poem is its closeness. I couldn’t help reading it as a biographical catharsis. Or better, a biographical record. The speaker seems to be telling us that there is a path beyond the dead-end scars of sexual abuse. For her, that crystallization commands the strength and power of the poem. It is a poem for those who struggle. A poem that identifies extreme exposure and need, and offers hope.
Brief bio, in Amy’s own words:
Amy L. George holds an MFA in Creative Writing from National University. Her poetry has been published in various journals including Poesia, The Orange Room Review, The GNU and Word Catalyst Magazine and is forthcoming in Pennsylvania English. She is the general editor of Bird's Eye reView and also on the editorial staff for The GNU, the student literary journal of National University. She lives in South Carolina with her husband and two psychotic cats.
-EDN,10/08
I don’t remember
when you grew wings…
when they flared out
from your back
above the stab wounds
now only scars.
I just remember your eyes,
how they glowed with
Easter morning,
lightning striking
the same place twice,
though years had fallen
in between.
There was beauty
and trembling
past the bruises,
cynical voices
shattered by an empty tomb.
I remembered the basement,
his hands on your small body.
And I wept to see you
lift up the little girl
you held inside,
her tears now only a memory.
Not even the world,
with all its gravity,
could hold you.
Comments, by Edward Nudelman
This taut little narrative poem by Amy George, with its interesting second person point of view, is strongly personal and experiential; so much so, it nearly defaults into first person. That is to say, while the reader can identify with the ‘you’ in the poem as being a very close family member (or a close friend) of the speaker, the frame of reference can easily devolve into the "I/me", where the voice is seen as referring to self. As such, the poem lends itself to heightened immediacy and a certain tension that would not have otherwise materialized in the first person. Second person POV is difficult to pull off. Often the poem sounds didactic or even maudlin. This is not the case with Resurrection.
This is a poem that speaks to how we heal; how scars are removed. There is a transcendency in tone that is not specifically identified. Details are not given, or belabored, thus heightening the reader’s notion of what’s going on. It makes you want to rush on to the ending (a good thing!) We understand in the very first verses that wings ‘flared out’ where there were once stab wounds, a very elegant and visual framing, setting the tone of the poem which is reserved and restrained. As if to say, these things happened, and this is the way they affected you. And that’s that.
So what is happening in the poem? The allusions to sexual abuse ocurr near the end of the poem, “his hands on your small body,” and ties in the earlier reference of stab wounds. “There was beauty and trembling past the bruises,” adds focus to the central theme of the poem, which is overcoming calamity, moving through un-navigable waters. But not just surviving. Coming through with grace, beauty.
There is, alongside this profile of coping, a second theme of resurrection, made central by the title, and also bolstered in the placement of the event on Easter, or at least describing it in the context of Easter ('I just remember your eyes,how they glowed with Easter morning'). The poem heightens and perhaps shifts in tone in, “Lightning striking the same place twice, though years had fallen in between,” an interesting juxtaposition of the terror of the event, and perhaps the path to liberation as seen through the resurrection: of moving from death to life. Further, there is this reference to a tomb, another Christian metaphor, but not necessarily restricted to that meaning. Hence, we can see how the speaker sees her subject moving beyond the tomb, a darkness and repository for death, as the little girl that was “held inside,” somehow finds a way past her tears. This is finally brought home in a powerful way in the closing strophe:
Not even the world,
with all its gravity,
could hold you
Not scars, but wings. Not death, but resurrection. Not trapped in the world, but freedom for flight. What I like about the poem is its closeness. I couldn’t help reading it as a biographical catharsis. Or better, a biographical record. The speaker seems to be telling us that there is a path beyond the dead-end scars of sexual abuse. For her, that crystallization commands the strength and power of the poem. It is a poem for those who struggle. A poem that identifies extreme exposure and need, and offers hope.
Brief bio, in Amy’s own words:
Amy L. George holds an MFA in Creative Writing from National University. Her poetry has been published in various journals including Poesia, The Orange Room Review, The GNU and Word Catalyst Magazine and is forthcoming in Pennsylvania English. She is the general editor of Bird's Eye reView and also on the editorial staff for The GNU, the student literary journal of National University. She lives in South Carolina with her husband and two psychotic cats.
-EDN,10/08
Didi Menendez
.
His Left Eye
He keeps his wife
tucked inside his left eye.
I see her wearing red.
Birds fall on his lap
and he places them inside a box.
He shuts and locks them one by one.
Their fluttering wings are never silent.
They are chirps of locusts in a hot
August evening silenced only by a poem.
He keeps his wife
safe tucked inside his left eye
and not the right.
His wife cares enough about her hair
to part it with a comb.
Her eyes are brown.
She wears green most of the time.
Sometimes she wears plaid.
He says his mother wore peonies scarves.
So did mine. They may have met once at
Sears and Roebuck looking through the
same yards of material on sale
searching for another scarf, another
flower pattern for a blouse.
Stopped at the hosiery department
and fingered the lingerie before
taking my sister and me by the hand
back to her sewing machine
and the little house we rented
on Wilshire Boulevard.
My mother wore her hair long,
light brown wavy long.
When she’d bend down to give me a kiss,
I’d see my father reflected in her right eye.
I’d draw his profile with my school pencils.
I never saw myself reflected in any man’s eye.
I confirm that I saw his wife in his left eye wearing red.
His silence neither denies
nor accepts her there.
His eyes are blue.
I painted them green
and the reflection
is a white box full of feathers.
His Left Eye, a poem by Didi Menendez, is a visually inward look into experience that extrapolates in many directions, but finds its most expressive definition in a moving frame of contemplation, as if the poet were describing extemporaneously her painting into life. In her own words:
“This poem was inspired by a painting I did of Bob Hicok. When you are painting a portrait you get really close to everything on the landscape of the face. In the reflection of his left eye I saw something reflected in red. I imagined it was someone he loved and possibly where he kept love.”
-from American Poet Portraits, by Didi Menendez
A fascinating quality of this poem lies in its fluidity, a shifting perspective which begins with a detailed description of an unnamed man who “keeps his wife tucked inside his left eye,” and moves into aspects of the individual’s wife and then mother. The poem seamlessly transitions into the speaker’s own impressions with a striking image, “He says his mother wore peonies scarves. So did mine,” along with the unlikely notion that their mothers may have met at Sears Roebuck. This all to drive home the abstraction of what lies in the left eye (as opposed to the right?), and the speaker’s ensuing commentary on her own experience, involving both her own mother and father. The poem culminates with the declaration, “I never saw myself reflected in any man’s eye,” pulling the reader back into the framework of the speaker’s identification. What she paints is what she sees in the left eye, how it reflects, what it means.
This is a poem that reads well. You can read it out loud and just enjoy the flow and the tempo changes. The tone is upbeat. Though touching on significant personal reflections connoting regret, or at least a sense of loss, the poem doesn’t give a hint of sentimentality or self-absorption. The effectiveness of the poem is in its detached view. What does the artist see in the eye? She sees his wife, wearing red. She sees a box where he places birds that have fallen in his lap. This conveys sensitivity and affection, but also gives room to wonder. Why are the birds trapped in his eye? “He shuts and locks them one by one.” It’s as if the speaker is reading into her own perception; and, in fact, the unfolding of the poem bears this out, as we are directed away from the individual being painted and into the private thoughts of the painter.
The anaphora in the poem, “He keeps his wife safely tucked inside his left eye,” not only reinforces the notion of security, but also provides a convenient transition as the speaker draws a focus inside the eye. We see his wife who “cares enough about her hair to cut it with a comb.” And more, her eyes are brown, she wears green. This is a painter speaking through her poem, finding a commonality and impact in shared memory (their mothers wore peony scarves), walking through Sears and Roebuck together, stopping at the hosiery department, taking her and her sister back to their house on Wilshire Blvd.
These wonderful, surrealistic and meandering images are falling out of Bob Hicok’s eyes. The reader is pulled into the matrix, without questioning association or needing to have the dots connected. It all works so well within the central metaphor of the poem, which allows us to see anything that the painter paints or wishes to convey in her painting (how like writing poetry).
My Left Eye is a poem about a painter, processing her right brain in a non-linear fashion. Here are impressions, weaving thoughts, interconnected links from childhood. Is it a poem about a woman’s need for masculine love? One could make that argument if too much credence were given to the following couplet, placed delicately before the closing section:
I never saw myself reflected in any man’s eye.
I confirm that I saw his wife in his left eye wearing red.
There’s been an exploding revelation made here, but then the speaker reverts almost simultaneously back to the painting. “I confirm that I saw his wife in his left eye wearing red.” Are we being given the shake? Why does the speaker reinforce and reaffirm that she saw his wife in his left eye (wearing red) at the end of the poem, and further inform us that she painted the eyes green, even though they were blue? And the reflection was a white box full of feathers? Perhaps simply because that's the way she saw it. For the painter, as perhaps for the poet, seeing is one thing; understanding, quite another prospect, and putting the two together, the whole of art.
********
When asked to provide a short bio, Didi provided:
Bio: Didi Menendez is a Cuban-blooded American artist and poet. The best place to find her is on google.com.
So I googled Didi and here's a sneak preview:
Didi Menendez (b1960) is a Cuban-blooded American artist and author. She is the founding editor and publisher of MiPOesias, Oranges & Sardines, OCHO and several full-length books by Grace Cavalieri, Diego Quiros, Ron Androla, Emma Trelles, John Korn and others. You may find her at Facebook, Myspace, Goodreads, and other places on the Wide Wild World of the Internet. Her latest book of poems "When I Said Goodbye" was published in March 2008 by Geoffrey Gatza of BLAZEVOX.
EDN, 09/22/08
.
His Left Eye
He keeps his wife
tucked inside his left eye.
I see her wearing red.
Birds fall on his lap
and he places them inside a box.
He shuts and locks them one by one.
Their fluttering wings are never silent.
They are chirps of locusts in a hot
August evening silenced only by a poem.
He keeps his wife
safe tucked inside his left eye
and not the right.
His wife cares enough about her hair
to part it with a comb.
Her eyes are brown.
She wears green most of the time.
Sometimes she wears plaid.
He says his mother wore peonies scarves.
So did mine. They may have met once at
Sears and Roebuck looking through the
same yards of material on sale
searching for another scarf, another
flower pattern for a blouse.
Stopped at the hosiery department
and fingered the lingerie before
taking my sister and me by the hand
back to her sewing machine
and the little house we rented
on Wilshire Boulevard.
My mother wore her hair long,
light brown wavy long.
When she’d bend down to give me a kiss,
I’d see my father reflected in her right eye.
I’d draw his profile with my school pencils.
I never saw myself reflected in any man’s eye.
I confirm that I saw his wife in his left eye wearing red.
His silence neither denies
nor accepts her there.
His eyes are blue.
I painted them green
and the reflection
is a white box full of feathers.
His Left Eye, a poem by Didi Menendez, is a visually inward look into experience that extrapolates in many directions, but finds its most expressive definition in a moving frame of contemplation, as if the poet were describing extemporaneously her painting into life. In her own words:
“This poem was inspired by a painting I did of Bob Hicok. When you are painting a portrait you get really close to everything on the landscape of the face. In the reflection of his left eye I saw something reflected in red. I imagined it was someone he loved and possibly where he kept love.”
-from American Poet Portraits, by Didi Menendez
A fascinating quality of this poem lies in its fluidity, a shifting perspective which begins with a detailed description of an unnamed man who “keeps his wife tucked inside his left eye,” and moves into aspects of the individual’s wife and then mother. The poem seamlessly transitions into the speaker’s own impressions with a striking image, “He says his mother wore peonies scarves. So did mine,” along with the unlikely notion that their mothers may have met at Sears Roebuck. This all to drive home the abstraction of what lies in the left eye (as opposed to the right?), and the speaker’s ensuing commentary on her own experience, involving both her own mother and father. The poem culminates with the declaration, “I never saw myself reflected in any man’s eye,” pulling the reader back into the framework of the speaker’s identification. What she paints is what she sees in the left eye, how it reflects, what it means.
This is a poem that reads well. You can read it out loud and just enjoy the flow and the tempo changes. The tone is upbeat. Though touching on significant personal reflections connoting regret, or at least a sense of loss, the poem doesn’t give a hint of sentimentality or self-absorption. The effectiveness of the poem is in its detached view. What does the artist see in the eye? She sees his wife, wearing red. She sees a box where he places birds that have fallen in his lap. This conveys sensitivity and affection, but also gives room to wonder. Why are the birds trapped in his eye? “He shuts and locks them one by one.” It’s as if the speaker is reading into her own perception; and, in fact, the unfolding of the poem bears this out, as we are directed away from the individual being painted and into the private thoughts of the painter.
The anaphora in the poem, “He keeps his wife safely tucked inside his left eye,” not only reinforces the notion of security, but also provides a convenient transition as the speaker draws a focus inside the eye. We see his wife who “cares enough about her hair to cut it with a comb.” And more, her eyes are brown, she wears green. This is a painter speaking through her poem, finding a commonality and impact in shared memory (their mothers wore peony scarves), walking through Sears and Roebuck together, stopping at the hosiery department, taking her and her sister back to their house on Wilshire Blvd.
These wonderful, surrealistic and meandering images are falling out of Bob Hicok’s eyes. The reader is pulled into the matrix, without questioning association or needing to have the dots connected. It all works so well within the central metaphor of the poem, which allows us to see anything that the painter paints or wishes to convey in her painting (how like writing poetry).
My Left Eye is a poem about a painter, processing her right brain in a non-linear fashion. Here are impressions, weaving thoughts, interconnected links from childhood. Is it a poem about a woman’s need for masculine love? One could make that argument if too much credence were given to the following couplet, placed delicately before the closing section:
I never saw myself reflected in any man’s eye.
I confirm that I saw his wife in his left eye wearing red.
There’s been an exploding revelation made here, but then the speaker reverts almost simultaneously back to the painting. “I confirm that I saw his wife in his left eye wearing red.” Are we being given the shake? Why does the speaker reinforce and reaffirm that she saw his wife in his left eye (wearing red) at the end of the poem, and further inform us that she painted the eyes green, even though they were blue? And the reflection was a white box full of feathers? Perhaps simply because that's the way she saw it. For the painter, as perhaps for the poet, seeing is one thing; understanding, quite another prospect, and putting the two together, the whole of art.
********
When asked to provide a short bio, Didi provided:
Bio: Didi Menendez is a Cuban-blooded American artist and poet. The best place to find her is on google.com.
So I googled Didi and here's a sneak preview:
Didi Menendez (b1960) is a Cuban-blooded American artist and author. She is the founding editor and publisher of MiPOesias, Oranges & Sardines, OCHO and several full-length books by Grace Cavalieri, Diego Quiros, Ron Androla, Emma Trelles, John Korn and others. You may find her at Facebook, Myspace, Goodreads, and other places on the Wide Wild World of the Internet. Her latest book of poems "When I Said Goodbye" was published in March 2008 by Geoffrey Gatza of BLAZEVOX.
EDN, 09/22/08
.
Rae Pater
.
Song of War
The final wedge is driven
up beneath my breastbone
by my father, from whom I never
thought to look for it.
I seek the red tiger now,
as he bounds through snow -
my arrow, my sword.
Like an ember he burns
my path forward from here
in the wake of the rising sun,
through the cycles of the moon.
I choose not the way of the warrior,
it chooses me.
I make my most perfect bow
and sing to my ancestors
for a good day to die.
Rae Pater’s poem, Song of War, in four tight and varied strophes, expresses in a confident, if not complex voice, the internal struggle to account for the speaker’s deep wounds from a father who has ‘driven up beneath my breastbone,’ a most evocative opening metaphor that arrests the reader up front. The poem is about the speaker’s reaction to this fundamental wound, about a response to an event or a series of events that, ‘like an ember,’ burns her path forward.
The opening strophe is wonderfully geared for sound. You can breathe it out in one short breath, and the three ‘b’s’ in ‘beneath’, ‘breastbone’ and ‘by’ help ease the sudden presentation of the central and most striking metaphor in the poem. The speaker alludes to a wedge which is driven, a forceful act, with intention. Further, it is driven up (the adverbial expression giving even more force) into her breastbone. Here is where we understand, early in the poem, that the injury incurred was great (the breastbone connoting a covering or protection over the heart). It was a good choice not to expand here; we are not given specifics, and thus not tempted to take sides or over-empathize. The tone appears to be softer than what one would imagine with a sexual violation, especially with the qualifier, “from whom I never thought to look for it.” Perhaps this is a divorce, or an unexplained leaving, or a serious falling out. In any event, the tone is set for the central portion of the poem which directs the reader to the speaker’s response.
In the second and third strophe, we’re introduced to the red tiger, a reference to the speaker’s way out of her struggles. Here we see a tone change, and the poem conforms to the central theme (and title) presenting an individual who is not willing to let her wounds accumulate, but rather must take the offensive. She seeks the red tiger, to use its cunning and strength as a means of overcoming ('my arrow, my sword'). And not to mutilate her father, but to cut away the darkness and the personal obstacles in the path of recovery (‘Like an ember he burns/my path forward from here/in the wake of the rising sun,/through the cycles of the moon). The speaker is drawing on some strength that lies outside of herself and marshalling its prowess to attack the demons in her own psyche. The struggle, thus, is focused inward, and keeps the integrity of the poem intact (versus refocusing on the father).
The final strophe adds a twist, and the poem turns, perhaps, on the building realization that the speaker's power to cope does not fully originate from within, but tied to other forces, namely, the innate teaching of ancestral origin. Here we might imagine a mother of native origin, and the speaker finally acknowledging her struggle to cope is inextricably aligned and connected through blood lines.
What’s striking about this poem is that there is so much opportunity for identification, with so little detail given. That’s where the poem shines. It’s not about the injuries, per se, but the struggle to find a battle ground, to find a 'warrior' that will take up the battle; or at least, to acknowledge and understand where that strength comes from.
From Rae:
Rae Pater has been published online and in print. She has three grown children and a cat named Gus. She spends far too much time in front of a computer, and her bio needs some serious work.
Rae edited Verse Libre Quarterly for a year or so, placed first in the NPAC online poetry competition in January 2004, got honourable mention in the IBPC August 2006, and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize by Verse Libra Quarterly in 2003, by Erosha in 2004, and by Sun Rising Press in 2005. Rae has just completed the final year of a B.A in English literature and is currently training as an adult literacy tutor.
My blog link:
http://burning-moon.blogspot.com/
.
Song of War
The final wedge is driven
up beneath my breastbone
by my father, from whom I never
thought to look for it.
I seek the red tiger now,
as he bounds through snow -
my arrow, my sword.
Like an ember he burns
my path forward from here
in the wake of the rising sun,
through the cycles of the moon.
I choose not the way of the warrior,
it chooses me.
I make my most perfect bow
and sing to my ancestors
for a good day to die.
Rae Pater’s poem, Song of War, in four tight and varied strophes, expresses in a confident, if not complex voice, the internal struggle to account for the speaker’s deep wounds from a father who has ‘driven up beneath my breastbone,’ a most evocative opening metaphor that arrests the reader up front. The poem is about the speaker’s reaction to this fundamental wound, about a response to an event or a series of events that, ‘like an ember,’ burns her path forward.
The opening strophe is wonderfully geared for sound. You can breathe it out in one short breath, and the three ‘b’s’ in ‘beneath’, ‘breastbone’ and ‘by’ help ease the sudden presentation of the central and most striking metaphor in the poem. The speaker alludes to a wedge which is driven, a forceful act, with intention. Further, it is driven up (the adverbial expression giving even more force) into her breastbone. Here is where we understand, early in the poem, that the injury incurred was great (the breastbone connoting a covering or protection over the heart). It was a good choice not to expand here; we are not given specifics, and thus not tempted to take sides or over-empathize. The tone appears to be softer than what one would imagine with a sexual violation, especially with the qualifier, “from whom I never thought to look for it.” Perhaps this is a divorce, or an unexplained leaving, or a serious falling out. In any event, the tone is set for the central portion of the poem which directs the reader to the speaker’s response.
In the second and third strophe, we’re introduced to the red tiger, a reference to the speaker’s way out of her struggles. Here we see a tone change, and the poem conforms to the central theme (and title) presenting an individual who is not willing to let her wounds accumulate, but rather must take the offensive. She seeks the red tiger, to use its cunning and strength as a means of overcoming ('my arrow, my sword'). And not to mutilate her father, but to cut away the darkness and the personal obstacles in the path of recovery (‘Like an ember he burns/my path forward from here/in the wake of the rising sun,/through the cycles of the moon). The speaker is drawing on some strength that lies outside of herself and marshalling its prowess to attack the demons in her own psyche. The struggle, thus, is focused inward, and keeps the integrity of the poem intact (versus refocusing on the father).
The final strophe adds a twist, and the poem turns, perhaps, on the building realization that the speaker's power to cope does not fully originate from within, but tied to other forces, namely, the innate teaching of ancestral origin. Here we might imagine a mother of native origin, and the speaker finally acknowledging her struggle to cope is inextricably aligned and connected through blood lines.
What’s striking about this poem is that there is so much opportunity for identification, with so little detail given. That’s where the poem shines. It’s not about the injuries, per se, but the struggle to find a battle ground, to find a 'warrior' that will take up the battle; or at least, to acknowledge and understand where that strength comes from.
From Rae:
Rae Pater has been published online and in print. She has three grown children and a cat named Gus. She spends far too much time in front of a computer, and her bio needs some serious work.
Rae edited Verse Libre Quarterly for a year or so, placed first in the NPAC online poetry competition in January 2004, got honourable mention in the IBPC August 2006, and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize by Verse Libra Quarterly in 2003, by Erosha in 2004, and by Sun Rising Press in 2005. Rae has just completed the final year of a B.A in English literature and is currently training as an adult literacy tutor.
My blog link:
http://burning-moon.blogspot.com/
.
John Walter
.
Freezing In Phantasmal Light, by John F. Walter
Throw away mousepads, wolfman gone to snow! Blood moon glows
with a crispness not envisioned in virtual risings ever displayed.
Nocturnal light was shunned a century ago, yet the lunatic mood
persists in you. Resist that urge back onto neverland's screens.
When did you last to real window steal? Once upon a frozen fall?
Dim subjects swoop into the room: the mind maps a wife, a child--
their own ghost-boards held in hand, happiness' geiger counters.
La luna llena, te espera.... but a report zooms into upper left corner:
news coming in from an iceberg sighting--LIVE ICEBERG CAM--
as a frigid voice like a slur swings by, no longer language.
She's turned on an ambient strobe, the baby wails on the patio;
time to nosh a midnight nano snack cast rudely on the keys.
No "Tranquility Sea" frees your gaze from this fractal flicker. Choose.
Shall love return, the iceman thaw, or baby take chill in our winter?
This visual poem, with its sweeping horizontal lines, expressive tone and chilling admonitory language, serves up an icy warning to the present age of video voodoo, internet idolatry and the ever-pressing urge toward Virtual. Walter presents, in sonnet form, a one-act play where you are the central figure and the setting is under a blood red moon that glows ‘with a crispness not envisioned in virtual risings ever displayed.’ Up close and personal, the narrator cautions the reader to resist the lunatic mood that wants to replace real light in favor of a transmitted image, on ‘neverland’s screens.’ The poem begins to turn on the question posed in S2, “When did you last to real window steal?” and rhetorically answered, “Once upon a frozen fall?” The icy metaphor is adroitly carried throughout the poem (iceberg sighting, iceberg cam, frigid voice, iceman thaw). We are led into a mini-vision where ‘dim subjects swoop into a room,’ and we imagine a wife, a child, with their happiness toys (ghost-boards, Geiger counters), simulating a world in miniature, focusing and displacing attention away from the present and into a phantom zone of flickering larval images and thoughts... into phantasmal light. And yet, there is still a moon that awaits you, written in Spanish, to reinforce the symbol of pristine beauty. Is the moon, an essential icon of reality in the poem, real; and better, is it lovely? The vision is interrupted with news coming from a remote camera on an iceberg; a ‘frigid voice’ communicates something ‘no longer language.’ Here is the full immersion we’ve been waiting for, the slip past surreal into the non-real, with time pixilated by an ambient strobe… inopportunely and rudely interrupted by a glimpse of reality: the baby cries, get a snack, keep it moving. Inevitably, the poem ties its own knot, as do we. There is no exit from this virtual panacea, no beautiful moon photo of a real sea on a real moon. Not in the simulacra we forge. Interestingly, Walter slips in the nudge, ‘CHOOSE’, as a stand-alone entreaty, dangling, as it were, at the very end of the penultimate line. The message is clear: it’s not too late. But change demands decision. Personally, and outwardly, to a culture ramrodding through a virtual hole in the cosmos. In the stunning couplet to end, there is a fascinating tone shift in the question, “Shall love return?” It turns out what the poet is speaking about refers as much to real love and adulation for real things, as it does in perception or consciousness. A brave new notion for a modern world distracted by the ‘fractal flickers’ of the virtual world.
Here is a quintessential ‘pre-Simulationist’ poem that addresses key notions that engage artists and writers today. Even if we think we live in a Platonic Cave, or feel left for dead by Descartes and his little demon, our common sense experience of the natural world still tells us that this amazing cosmos we take in through the senses and map our way through is infinitely superior to any 'copy' or perfectly realized simulacra we can fabricate, invent or google our way towards. While our imagination has genuine intention (it is always about real people and real things in the world), and even when we choose to mediate with symbol, word, icon, or even a 3D virtually rendering between our consciousnesses and that cosmic awareness, we never match or even awkwardly approach the Real. On the other hand, the poem seems to indicate, we more easily fall into serious dysfunctional delusion. A clever semblance, perhaps, but still virtual and fabricated. Do we want an Absolute Fake of a moon that we can grasp with phantom tentacles, or a real moon that we can contemplate in the sky, land upon, and dream our way toward the stars from? Can we hold the moon and its double in our gaze at the same time, and if so, do we remember to love all the ones under the sublunar reflection it returns? And does the apprehension of real things affect our art, our understanding, and our appreciation for the world around us? -EDN
Brief Bio
John Walter is a U.S. citizen writing in beautiful Granada, Spain, where he splits his time with his theatre productions in LA and wandering the subterranean mazes below Granada finding fodder for his novel on Al Qaeda and Sufi mysticism (ANNIHILATION). He is an accomplished poet working on his first book of poems, a noted playwright with plays produced off-Broadway, SOHO, SF and often in LA. Walter co-founded the ‘pre-Simulationist Movement,’ (along with the author of this article and several other artists/writers), an artist’s movement that is finding new ways to surpass the exhausted postmodern epoch and its errant constructions of language and thought.
.
Freezing In Phantasmal Light, by John F. Walter
Throw away mousepads, wolfman gone to snow! Blood moon glows
with a crispness not envisioned in virtual risings ever displayed.
Nocturnal light was shunned a century ago, yet the lunatic mood
persists in you. Resist that urge back onto neverland's screens.
When did you last to real window steal? Once upon a frozen fall?
Dim subjects swoop into the room: the mind maps a wife, a child--
their own ghost-boards held in hand, happiness' geiger counters.
La luna llena, te espera.... but a report zooms into upper left corner:
news coming in from an iceberg sighting--LIVE ICEBERG CAM--
as a frigid voice like a slur swings by, no longer language.
She's turned on an ambient strobe, the baby wails on the patio;
time to nosh a midnight nano snack cast rudely on the keys.
No "Tranquility Sea" frees your gaze from this fractal flicker. Choose.
Shall love return, the iceman thaw, or baby take chill in our winter?
This visual poem, with its sweeping horizontal lines, expressive tone and chilling admonitory language, serves up an icy warning to the present age of video voodoo, internet idolatry and the ever-pressing urge toward Virtual. Walter presents, in sonnet form, a one-act play where you are the central figure and the setting is under a blood red moon that glows ‘with a crispness not envisioned in virtual risings ever displayed.’ Up close and personal, the narrator cautions the reader to resist the lunatic mood that wants to replace real light in favor of a transmitted image, on ‘neverland’s screens.’ The poem begins to turn on the question posed in S2, “When did you last to real window steal?” and rhetorically answered, “Once upon a frozen fall?” The icy metaphor is adroitly carried throughout the poem (iceberg sighting, iceberg cam, frigid voice, iceman thaw). We are led into a mini-vision where ‘dim subjects swoop into a room,’ and we imagine a wife, a child, with their happiness toys (ghost-boards, Geiger counters), simulating a world in miniature, focusing and displacing attention away from the present and into a phantom zone of flickering larval images and thoughts... into phantasmal light. And yet, there is still a moon that awaits you, written in Spanish, to reinforce the symbol of pristine beauty. Is the moon, an essential icon of reality in the poem, real; and better, is it lovely? The vision is interrupted with news coming from a remote camera on an iceberg; a ‘frigid voice’ communicates something ‘no longer language.’ Here is the full immersion we’ve been waiting for, the slip past surreal into the non-real, with time pixilated by an ambient strobe… inopportunely and rudely interrupted by a glimpse of reality: the baby cries, get a snack, keep it moving. Inevitably, the poem ties its own knot, as do we. There is no exit from this virtual panacea, no beautiful moon photo of a real sea on a real moon. Not in the simulacra we forge. Interestingly, Walter slips in the nudge, ‘CHOOSE’, as a stand-alone entreaty, dangling, as it were, at the very end of the penultimate line. The message is clear: it’s not too late. But change demands decision. Personally, and outwardly, to a culture ramrodding through a virtual hole in the cosmos. In the stunning couplet to end, there is a fascinating tone shift in the question, “Shall love return?” It turns out what the poet is speaking about refers as much to real love and adulation for real things, as it does in perception or consciousness. A brave new notion for a modern world distracted by the ‘fractal flickers’ of the virtual world.
Here is a quintessential ‘pre-Simulationist’ poem that addresses key notions that engage artists and writers today. Even if we think we live in a Platonic Cave, or feel left for dead by Descartes and his little demon, our common sense experience of the natural world still tells us that this amazing cosmos we take in through the senses and map our way through is infinitely superior to any 'copy' or perfectly realized simulacra we can fabricate, invent or google our way towards. While our imagination has genuine intention (it is always about real people and real things in the world), and even when we choose to mediate with symbol, word, icon, or even a 3D virtually rendering between our consciousnesses and that cosmic awareness, we never match or even awkwardly approach the Real. On the other hand, the poem seems to indicate, we more easily fall into serious dysfunctional delusion. A clever semblance, perhaps, but still virtual and fabricated. Do we want an Absolute Fake of a moon that we can grasp with phantom tentacles, or a real moon that we can contemplate in the sky, land upon, and dream our way toward the stars from? Can we hold the moon and its double in our gaze at the same time, and if so, do we remember to love all the ones under the sublunar reflection it returns? And does the apprehension of real things affect our art, our understanding, and our appreciation for the world around us? -EDN
Brief Bio
John Walter is a U.S. citizen writing in beautiful Granada, Spain, where he splits his time with his theatre productions in LA and wandering the subterranean mazes below Granada finding fodder for his novel on Al Qaeda and Sufi mysticism (ANNIHILATION). He is an accomplished poet working on his first book of poems, a noted playwright with plays produced off-Broadway, SOHO, SF and often in LA. Walter co-founded the ‘pre-Simulationist Movement,’ (along with the author of this article and several other artists/writers), an artist’s movement that is finding new ways to surpass the exhausted postmodern epoch and its errant constructions of language and thought.
.
Susan Budig
Flying, by Susan Budig
Tu ne seras pas oublié.
You were not ready when you flew from earth,
snatched, like a bird in a storm.
Now I sit at your desk writing the last words in your journal.
I pour out your shampoo, sudsing my hair twice a day
until there is nothing left.
I paint my nails mismatched colors while emptying your chic bottles
of Le Rouge Foncé and Rose Scintillant.
Birds feast on your half-eaten bag of Cheetos that I shake,
salting the wind.
I burn your cinnamon candle down to a nub,
leave on your night-light until the bulb burns out,
open to your bookmark, finishing Baudelaire’s final verses.
Then I lay my head on your pillow,
inhaling your lilac memory,
pull up the yellow cotton sheet,
and dream your last dream.
My aching heart hears you whisper
Allez à Paris.
When I land at Charles de Gaulle
every face I see is yours—
the blue-gray eyes
the chestnut hair
fair face dotted with freckles.
And then I see him:
the Frenchman in your dream.
He smiles at me, steps forward.
His cheeks press mine,
right and left.
I feel the rasp of his peppered beard.
But I know you want more.
Standing on tiptoe, my arms wrapped around his neck,
I look into his brown eyes, pleading
Une fois plus pour Jacqueline?
I hold my breath.
“Avec le plaisir,” he replies.
And we kiss like old lovers,
lingering on
until the taste of his lips cannot be forgotten.
Susan gives the following short bio and addendum to the poem:
I decided when I was eleven years old after winning a Scholastic Writing Contest that I wanted to be a writer. I can't remember when I didn't write poetry, but for the past five years I've written as a journalist and music journalist, freelancing for two newspapers (Mshale and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder). A couple of years ago I was included as a finalist for Minneapolis' Loft Literary Center's poetry mentorship program, but haven't made much more headway into the world of poetry than that. This poem, Flying, began in my head in January, 2003, but wasn't finished, as if that's ever possible, until I actually went to France early in May, 2008. I stood in the airport for over an hour, people streaming by me, and simply envisioned the scene in the dream segment of my poem. I revised that section while flying over the Atlantic ocean.
Explication by Edward Nudelman
This free-verse narrative poem is very nearly two poems melded into one. Seamlessly. Flying is a poem of loss evincing a strong depth of love which the narrator emphasizes in the cataloguing of objects left behind from a very close and recently deceased female friend or relative, named Jacqueline. Using emblems that jog the memory, objects that were shared by both individuals, the narrator reminds herself (and us) what must be lost to lessen the anguish of loss. The narrator affirms her anguish in the untimely passing (‘you were not ready’) by over-stressing what must be jettisoned from sight and sense in order to assuage the grief: shampoo, chic bottles of nail enamel, a half-eaten bag of Cheetos, cinnamon candle, and even her night light. So much of working through grief is taking action; and conversely, so much of love is clinging to every last vestige of love- even when it is physically impossible.
There is a brilliant transition into the second section of the poem in the quartet,
Then I lay my head on your pillow,
inhaling your lilac memory,
pull up the yellow cotton sheet,
and dream your last dream.
which helps build energy and anticipation into the middle and ending sections of the poem. At this point of transition, the poem changes palpably in tone and we are introduced to an intimate and chance meeting as the dream of a dream unfolds: to visit Paris. It is true, the narrator cannot extricate herself from the memory of her loved-one, even after clearing the house of every reminder. ‘Going to Paris’ (perhaps an alternate suggestion for the title), is her dream, and one obviously never realized due to her early death. So the narrator must go there for her; and once there, the delineation between dream and reality become a little fogged. We find a reference to 'the Frenchman in your dream,' a clever construct to further magnify the illusory tone. The two phrases following consecutively, 'I feel the rasp of his peppered beard,' and, 'but I know you want more,' join the displaced lovers together in place and time with only imagination left as the final barrier. Cleverly, though we know the narrator is the stand-in, the scene is evocative of much more, a kind of transference of passion. We understand and see the meeting that could never occur, now fully realized. She melts into his arms, pleading, 'once more, for Jacqueline?' 'With pleasure,' he responds, and they 'kiss like old lovers.' Time has been erased from the equation. Finally, two lovers meet in the body of a poem, that were prevented from meeting by an early passing. The poem is an emotional release, but more than mere catharsis, it creatively describes an illusory representation of love that enacts a service of ultimate value, the resolution of a life-long dream.
Tu ne seras pas oublié.
You were not ready when you flew from earth,
snatched, like a bird in a storm.
Now I sit at your desk writing the last words in your journal.
I pour out your shampoo, sudsing my hair twice a day
until there is nothing left.
I paint my nails mismatched colors while emptying your chic bottles
of Le Rouge Foncé and Rose Scintillant.
Birds feast on your half-eaten bag of Cheetos that I shake,
salting the wind.
I burn your cinnamon candle down to a nub,
leave on your night-light until the bulb burns out,
open to your bookmark, finishing Baudelaire’s final verses.
Then I lay my head on your pillow,
inhaling your lilac memory,
pull up the yellow cotton sheet,
and dream your last dream.
My aching heart hears you whisper
Allez à Paris.
When I land at Charles de Gaulle
every face I see is yours—
the blue-gray eyes
the chestnut hair
fair face dotted with freckles.
And then I see him:
the Frenchman in your dream.
He smiles at me, steps forward.
His cheeks press mine,
right and left.
I feel the rasp of his peppered beard.
But I know you want more.
Standing on tiptoe, my arms wrapped around his neck,
I look into his brown eyes, pleading
Une fois plus pour Jacqueline?
I hold my breath.
“Avec le plaisir,” he replies.
And we kiss like old lovers,
lingering on
until the taste of his lips cannot be forgotten.
Susan gives the following short bio and addendum to the poem:
I decided when I was eleven years old after winning a Scholastic Writing Contest that I wanted to be a writer. I can't remember when I didn't write poetry, but for the past five years I've written as a journalist and music journalist, freelancing for two newspapers (Mshale and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder). A couple of years ago I was included as a finalist for Minneapolis' Loft Literary Center's poetry mentorship program, but haven't made much more headway into the world of poetry than that. This poem, Flying, began in my head in January, 2003, but wasn't finished, as if that's ever possible, until I actually went to France early in May, 2008. I stood in the airport for over an hour, people streaming by me, and simply envisioned the scene in the dream segment of my poem. I revised that section while flying over the Atlantic ocean.
Explication by Edward Nudelman
This free-verse narrative poem is very nearly two poems melded into one. Seamlessly. Flying is a poem of loss evincing a strong depth of love which the narrator emphasizes in the cataloguing of objects left behind from a very close and recently deceased female friend or relative, named Jacqueline. Using emblems that jog the memory, objects that were shared by both individuals, the narrator reminds herself (and us) what must be lost to lessen the anguish of loss. The narrator affirms her anguish in the untimely passing (‘you were not ready’) by over-stressing what must be jettisoned from sight and sense in order to assuage the grief: shampoo, chic bottles of nail enamel, a half-eaten bag of Cheetos, cinnamon candle, and even her night light. So much of working through grief is taking action; and conversely, so much of love is clinging to every last vestige of love- even when it is physically impossible.
There is a brilliant transition into the second section of the poem in the quartet,
Then I lay my head on your pillow,
inhaling your lilac memory,
pull up the yellow cotton sheet,
and dream your last dream.
which helps build energy and anticipation into the middle and ending sections of the poem. At this point of transition, the poem changes palpably in tone and we are introduced to an intimate and chance meeting as the dream of a dream unfolds: to visit Paris. It is true, the narrator cannot extricate herself from the memory of her loved-one, even after clearing the house of every reminder. ‘Going to Paris’ (perhaps an alternate suggestion for the title), is her dream, and one obviously never realized due to her early death. So the narrator must go there for her; and once there, the delineation between dream and reality become a little fogged. We find a reference to 'the Frenchman in your dream,' a clever construct to further magnify the illusory tone. The two phrases following consecutively, 'I feel the rasp of his peppered beard,' and, 'but I know you want more,' join the displaced lovers together in place and time with only imagination left as the final barrier. Cleverly, though we know the narrator is the stand-in, the scene is evocative of much more, a kind of transference of passion. We understand and see the meeting that could never occur, now fully realized. She melts into his arms, pleading, 'once more, for Jacqueline?' 'With pleasure,' he responds, and they 'kiss like old lovers.' Time has been erased from the equation. Finally, two lovers meet in the body of a poem, that were prevented from meeting by an early passing. The poem is an emotional release, but more than mere catharsis, it creatively describes an illusory representation of love that enacts a service of ultimate value, the resolution of a life-long dream.
Laura Tattoo
.
Intrinsic Differences, by Laura Tattoo
You are adamant, you want answers!
You rally reason from wreck, put out inchy
feelers, scrutinize pharmacologic text,
then proffer cures like colored seeds to birds.
I'm intransigent; I swear I've tried it, all of it!
I've spent thousands on gels, mincemeats and frills
and still I'm sexless; I peck among the rhetoric,
swallow limpid jewels, rise a shadow of myself.
Spilling over this thirsty landscape, we're all
dry as dinosaurs and old as hills;
we've got loser libidos and sinewy sloughs,
we've got what we paid for and we're thirsty still.
You are a maestro of bird song with all that hope,
singer of Ode to Joy in the cafe dawn, you thrill:
I'm torn down in the book of Psalms, I sin,
for I can't wait for a god to call me home
And end this senseless race for cure,
another muck-muck run of luck
that seeps into deep caverns of my skin,
absorbed in the big pores of my nihilism.
This poem dramatically contrasts, with an attitude, the salutary and optimistic outlook of an unnamed individual with that of the narrator’s bitter, if not hopeless sense of futility, apparently due to an incurable ailment. Near the middle of the poem, a single stanza serves to universalize (almost parenthetically) this perceived futility in human suffering. The poem then quickly reverts back to its sardonic rant against a person who is characterized as one with hope and joy, and possessing some measure of faith. This contrasting imagery forms the basis for a poem illustrating the depth of suffering, in part, by its contrast to its opposite.
Composed of five fairly uniform quatrains, the poem has an unusual rhyming structure with an emphasis on a repeating end-rhyme: 'frills', 'hills', 'still', 'thrill', in addition to the quirky paired rhyme, 'muck-muck run of luck'. As well, an additional end-rhyme occurs (sin/skin) separated by three unrhymed lines. These uneven rhythms provide an order and otherwise structured tone to a poem which, without them, might have become heavy with its hard tone. Interestingly, the poem ends on a fascinating near rhyme couplet of skin/nihilism.
These rhymes add a lyrical quality to a fairly heavy-handed and deliberate poem. The poem is also lifted out of an otherwise negative tone by some excellent alliteration: ‘rally reason from wreck,’ ‘dry as dinosaurs,’ ‘loser libidos,’ and ‘sinewy sloughs.’
The poem opens declaratively, addressing a person the speaker obviously knows well, in an accusatory tone, “You are adamant, you want answers!” This sets the tone for the poem and ushers in the notion of certainty and the speaker’s frustration with an individual who may not understand or have a basis for empathy in their experience. This person who rallies ‘reason from wreck,’ is obviously aware of the speaker’s problems, which appear to be rooted in some serious physical impairment or disease (reference to 'pharmacologic text', 'proffer cures'). However, the speaker has heard all of this and declares herself intransigent, unable to change (or be changed). It is clear, early on in the poem, that there is a history of suffering and striving, of failing to get better in the face of injurious therapeutic regimes (‘I've spent thousands on gels, mincemeats and frills,; ‘I’m still sexless,’ and, ‘swallow limpid jewels, rise a shadow of myself’).
The third stanza brings the reader into the fray. No more is this is solely an argument between the speaker and another party. “We're all dry as dinosaurs and old as hills/ We've got loser libidos and sinewy sloughs/ We've got what we paid for and we're thirsty still.” This appears to be a reference to possible side-effects of some drugs (i.e., drastically affecting libido). In addition, in declaring we get what we pay for and are still thirsty, the speaker implies there is little comfort in costly protocols whose side effects are worse than the curative benefits.
The fourth and fifth stanzas contrast the speaker's despair with the apparent opposite nature of the subject addressed, whose hope sings like a bird, a ‘singer of Ode to Joy,’ in a café: a reference that lets the reader know there is a history here, and brings attention to perhaps a specific encounter or discussion that may have formed a basis for the inspiration of the poem. Further, the biblical reference to the Psalms serves to illustrate the depth of the speaker’s suffering (‘I'm torn down in the book of Psalms, I sin') and the the phraseology continues the tone of sarcasm here, pointing out a perceived hypocrisy in a person who is a “maestro of bird song.”
The poem ends by drawing the reader back to the central issue at hand: the speaker’s hopelessness in the face of a disease or condition that apparently has no cure (‘end this senseless race for cure’). Although the speaker makes a reference here to a ‘run of bad luck,’ it is clear that there is a subtext here which remains unresolved. In the face of such devastating effects of physical (and no doubt emotional) exhaustion, the speaker finally withdraws away from a tirade and looks inward, avowing a kind of bleak resignation, if not complicity with her own suffering, which becomes ‘absorbed in the big pores of my nihilism.”
This poem dramatizes the speaker’s highly personal, candid and visceral response to an apparently incurable physical ailment showing profound frustration with an unnamed individual who obviously possesses quite divergent views on the subject. Intimate and ‘intrinsic differences’ in ways of thinking (and feeling) between the speaker and another individual are used to juxtapose the universal struggle against the physical realm, against forces which are resistant to change (i.e. for the better). Though sardonic and intentionally dark, the poem amplifies the speaker’s travail by vividly comparing her own plight with the seemingly joyous (though perhaps callous) temperament of an unnamed individual. It is a poem of despair in which the speaker unabashedly amplifies a kind of intractable anguish (and angst) and finally accepts blame, after a fashion, in the personal recognition of nihilistic hopelessness. While this may be a poem easily panned by those without a context for years of suffering, it will, conversely, find resonance for many who find identification in their experience for the bleak harsh realities of human suffering.
Laura Tattoo was inspired, early on, to write poetry by the likes of Dr. Seuss, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Shakespeare, but feels she discovered it much more by simply living it. In her twenties she studied English and French at Portland State University where she won the Nina Mae Kellogg award for best senior student in English. Between then and now, she has written several volumes of poetry in both English and French, and at 51 is seeking to publish and share her work. Originally from New York and Massachusetts, Laura now divides her time between her home in Astoria, Oregon, and long sojourns in Paris, France.
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Intrinsic Differences, by Laura Tattoo
You are adamant, you want answers!
You rally reason from wreck, put out inchy
feelers, scrutinize pharmacologic text,
then proffer cures like colored seeds to birds.
I'm intransigent; I swear I've tried it, all of it!
I've spent thousands on gels, mincemeats and frills
and still I'm sexless; I peck among the rhetoric,
swallow limpid jewels, rise a shadow of myself.
Spilling over this thirsty landscape, we're all
dry as dinosaurs and old as hills;
we've got loser libidos and sinewy sloughs,
we've got what we paid for and we're thirsty still.
You are a maestro of bird song with all that hope,
singer of Ode to Joy in the cafe dawn, you thrill:
I'm torn down in the book of Psalms, I sin,
for I can't wait for a god to call me home
And end this senseless race for cure,
another muck-muck run of luck
that seeps into deep caverns of my skin,
absorbed in the big pores of my nihilism.
This poem dramatically contrasts, with an attitude, the salutary and optimistic outlook of an unnamed individual with that of the narrator’s bitter, if not hopeless sense of futility, apparently due to an incurable ailment. Near the middle of the poem, a single stanza serves to universalize (almost parenthetically) this perceived futility in human suffering. The poem then quickly reverts back to its sardonic rant against a person who is characterized as one with hope and joy, and possessing some measure of faith. This contrasting imagery forms the basis for a poem illustrating the depth of suffering, in part, by its contrast to its opposite.
Composed of five fairly uniform quatrains, the poem has an unusual rhyming structure with an emphasis on a repeating end-rhyme: 'frills', 'hills', 'still', 'thrill', in addition to the quirky paired rhyme, 'muck-muck run of luck'. As well, an additional end-rhyme occurs (sin/skin) separated by three unrhymed lines. These uneven rhythms provide an order and otherwise structured tone to a poem which, without them, might have become heavy with its hard tone. Interestingly, the poem ends on a fascinating near rhyme couplet of skin/nihilism.
These rhymes add a lyrical quality to a fairly heavy-handed and deliberate poem. The poem is also lifted out of an otherwise negative tone by some excellent alliteration: ‘rally reason from wreck,’ ‘dry as dinosaurs,’ ‘loser libidos,’ and ‘sinewy sloughs.’
The poem opens declaratively, addressing a person the speaker obviously knows well, in an accusatory tone, “You are adamant, you want answers!” This sets the tone for the poem and ushers in the notion of certainty and the speaker’s frustration with an individual who may not understand or have a basis for empathy in their experience. This person who rallies ‘reason from wreck,’ is obviously aware of the speaker’s problems, which appear to be rooted in some serious physical impairment or disease (reference to 'pharmacologic text', 'proffer cures'). However, the speaker has heard all of this and declares herself intransigent, unable to change (or be changed). It is clear, early on in the poem, that there is a history of suffering and striving, of failing to get better in the face of injurious therapeutic regimes (‘I've spent thousands on gels, mincemeats and frills,; ‘I’m still sexless,’ and, ‘swallow limpid jewels, rise a shadow of myself’).
The third stanza brings the reader into the fray. No more is this is solely an argument between the speaker and another party. “We're all dry as dinosaurs and old as hills/ We've got loser libidos and sinewy sloughs/ We've got what we paid for and we're thirsty still.” This appears to be a reference to possible side-effects of some drugs (i.e., drastically affecting libido). In addition, in declaring we get what we pay for and are still thirsty, the speaker implies there is little comfort in costly protocols whose side effects are worse than the curative benefits.
The fourth and fifth stanzas contrast the speaker's despair with the apparent opposite nature of the subject addressed, whose hope sings like a bird, a ‘singer of Ode to Joy,’ in a café: a reference that lets the reader know there is a history here, and brings attention to perhaps a specific encounter or discussion that may have formed a basis for the inspiration of the poem. Further, the biblical reference to the Psalms serves to illustrate the depth of the speaker’s suffering (‘I'm torn down in the book of Psalms, I sin') and the the phraseology continues the tone of sarcasm here, pointing out a perceived hypocrisy in a person who is a “maestro of bird song.”
The poem ends by drawing the reader back to the central issue at hand: the speaker’s hopelessness in the face of a disease or condition that apparently has no cure (‘end this senseless race for cure’). Although the speaker makes a reference here to a ‘run of bad luck,’ it is clear that there is a subtext here which remains unresolved. In the face of such devastating effects of physical (and no doubt emotional) exhaustion, the speaker finally withdraws away from a tirade and looks inward, avowing a kind of bleak resignation, if not complicity with her own suffering, which becomes ‘absorbed in the big pores of my nihilism.”
This poem dramatizes the speaker’s highly personal, candid and visceral response to an apparently incurable physical ailment showing profound frustration with an unnamed individual who obviously possesses quite divergent views on the subject. Intimate and ‘intrinsic differences’ in ways of thinking (and feeling) between the speaker and another individual are used to juxtapose the universal struggle against the physical realm, against forces which are resistant to change (i.e. for the better). Though sardonic and intentionally dark, the poem amplifies the speaker’s travail by vividly comparing her own plight with the seemingly joyous (though perhaps callous) temperament of an unnamed individual. It is a poem of despair in which the speaker unabashedly amplifies a kind of intractable anguish (and angst) and finally accepts blame, after a fashion, in the personal recognition of nihilistic hopelessness. While this may be a poem easily panned by those without a context for years of suffering, it will, conversely, find resonance for many who find identification in their experience for the bleak harsh realities of human suffering.
Laura Tattoo was inspired, early on, to write poetry by the likes of Dr. Seuss, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Shakespeare, but feels she discovered it much more by simply living it. In her twenties she studied English and French at Portland State University where she won the Nina Mae Kellogg award for best senior student in English. Between then and now, she has written several volumes of poetry in both English and French, and at 51 is seeking to publish and share her work. Originally from New York and Massachusetts, Laura now divides her time between her home in Astoria, Oregon, and long sojourns in Paris, France.
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