Jersey Girl

The most widely circulated newspaper in New Jersey is the Star-Ledger. Recently the paper initiated a monthly magazine, Inside Jersey, which is distributed to all paper subscribers and is available also by regular subscription. The July issue of the magazine begins what will become a monthly feature, a spotlight on a NJ writer or artist. I was delighted when several months ago I was invited to be the subject of the first such feature. I submitted five poems, two of which were selected. Both "A Murmuration of Starlings" and "Stripping the Lemon" appear in the current issue of Inside Jersey.

One of my missions in life is to widen the audience for poetry. Most publications of my work make me happy, but this one especially pleases me as the magazine will reach many people who might not otherwise read poetry. I hope they'll linger for a while with my poems and perhaps think they might like to try some more poetry.

"A Murmuration of Starlings" makes reference to something that happened recently in a nearby community and received quite a bit of attention in news outlets. Apparently the starlings had become a problem in Franklin Township, so the decision was made to poison their feeding spots. The unwitting birds ate the poisoned seeds, flew away, and then died mid-flight. I read in the paper that the mayor said, "It was raining dead birds." That line, that image, haunted me and shortly thereafter became the poem.

"Stripping the Lemon" I began last summer in an all-day workshop with Dorianne Laux and Joe Millar. Participants were asked to bring along some interesting object. I brought a print-out of a painting by artist Jeff Hayes. "Strip-tease" struck me as a very sexy image of a fruit. It seemed metaphorical. That metaphorical aspect generated the poem, a comparison between peeling the lemon and stripping off one's clothes. I had a really good time shaping the poem. I wanted to capture in my lines the sinuous curves that Hayes captured on his canvas. So once I felt that I had the words right, I labored over the shape. It took me hours to get it just right, but in the end I was pleased with the results.

Excess in Poetry

Like Seinfeld's Kramer, my husband loves the Price Club. And like Kramer, he tends to overbuy when he goes there. Recently I asked him to pick up a box of Ghirardelli brownie mix. He came home with the above pictured box. I have enough brownie mix to last a few years. But maybe not as these are without a doubt the absolute best brownies. I will never again bother to make brownies from scratch (not that I have in recent years) as these are better. The particular mix I have (there are others) contains three different kinds of chips. The brownies are sweet, gooey, fudgy, and loaded with chips.

I have just two problems with the brownies: 1) I can't stop eating them, and 2) I always seem to burn them just a bit around the edges. I know you can't help me with the first problem, but can anyone recommend a pan that eliminates the overdone edges problem?

Anyhow, for some reason this large box of brownies got me thinking about excess in poetry. I remember hearing Mark Doty at a Dodge Festival say that he's a "more is more kind of poet." I know that Doty is sometimes criticized for going on too long, for being too expansive, and yet it seems to me that while his poems are often long they flow seamlessly. Generous and lavish and gorgeous. I recall Doty also saying something about reaching that point where he thinks the poem is over but then instead of stopping, he asks himself what more could be said and he keeps on going.

I tend to blab on too long in my poems, so my revision work is often a matter of trimming off the overdone edges. When I feel that a poem hasn't found its real subject, I write out in the margins, then often import that material into the poem. But then I also cut out some stuff. I seem to focus more on cutting than on expanding. I'm trying to think of some other poets who are expansive without being long-winded and flabby. Any suggestions?

I'd like to offer you some brownies, but here's a delicious poem by Mark Doty instead.

Fish R Us

Clear sac
of coppery eyebrows
suspended in amnion,
not one moving–

A Mars,
composed entirely
of single lips,
each of them gleaming–

this bag of fish
(have they actually
traveled here like this?)
bulges while they

acclimate, presumably,
to the new terms
of the big tank
at Fish R Us. Soon

they’ll swim out
into separate waters,
but for now they’re
shoulder to shoulder

in this clear and
burnished orb, each fry
about the size of this line,
too many lines for any

bronzy antique epic,
a million of them,
a billion incipient citizens
of a goldfish Beijing,

a Sao Paulo,
a Mexico City.
They seem to have sense
not to move but hang

fire, suspended, held
at just a bit of distance
(a bit is all there is), all
facing outward, eyes

(they can’t even blink)
turned toward the skin
of the sac they’re in,
this swollen polyethylene.

And though nothing’s
actually rippling but their gill,
it’s still like looking up
into falling snow,

if all the flakes
were a dull, breathing gold,
as if they were streaming
toward–not us, exactly,

but what they’ll be . . .
Perhaps they’re small enough
–live sparks, for sale
at a nickel apiece–

that one can actually
see them transpiring:
they want to swim
forward, want to

eat, want to take place.
Who’s going to know
or number or even see them all?

They pulse in their golden ball.

More Pasta, More Poems

Food blogger Lisa Morgan has been kind enough to feature my poem Linguini today at her blog, Champaign Taste. Needless to say, I'm delighted to have the poem receiving this nice attention. If you haven't visited Lisa's blog, I suggest that you do, that is, if you like food, and who doesn't? She posts great commentary about food, includes beautiful visuals, and offers recipes. And she likes poems about food, thus her interest in my poem.

Also of interest today is blogger Robert Lee Brewer's announcement of his 30 judges for April's Poem a Day project which Robert will host at his blog. Check out the list. I'm happy to be part of such an illustrious group. Each judge will review the top five poems for one day and select one for inclusion in an anthology of the thirty selected. Be sure to head on over to Poetic Asides as soon as April arrives. If you lose the address, it's on my blogroll. Sharpen your pencils and get ready to write, write, write!

Poets du Jour: Dorianne Laux and Joseph Millar

Since meeting Dorianne and Joe, I've been spending some time with their new books. I had already read Dorianne's Facts About the Moon; I enjoyed the collection even more the second time through.

Here's one of my favorite poems from the collection.

Hummingbird

We buried the hummingbird
in his mantle of light, buried
him deep in the loam, one eye
staring into the earth's fiery
core, the other up through
the door in the sky. His needle
beak pointed east, his curled
feet west, and we each touched
our fingertips to his breast
before lifting them up from
the darkness to kiss. And
from our blessed fists we
rained the powdery dirt
down, erasing the folded
wings, the dream-colored
head, tamping the torn grass
with the heels of our hands,
our bare feet, summer almost
over, swaying together on the great
ship of death as clouds sailed by,
blowing our hair and the wind
walked us back to our room.


I like the simple beauty of this small scene about a small creature. There's a quiet elegance to the diction. Not fancy words but well-chosen ones, words that subtly appeal to the ear. Notice, for example, the rhymes / near rhymes with east, west, darkness, kiss, breast, blessed, and fists. And core, door, torn. Lots of consonance and assonance throughout. I admire this poet's music. She pierces the heart through the ear.

Another poem I really admire is the title poem. This one is available online as an audio. Check it out and listen to Laux read Facts About the Moon.

I also found a terrific collection of audios by Dorianne at the Kelly Writers House site. Eleven more poems including one of my absolute favorites, "Pearl," about Janis Joplin. To hear Dorianne read some of her poems.

Then I moved onto Joe's new book, Fortune. This was my first acquaintance with Joe's work. It's terrific. No wonder he's just won a Pushcart Prize!

Here's one of my favorites:

Throne

The toilet was ancient and wouldn’t stop
running even after the stained tank filled,
its metal valves and rusty ball float

oxidized to an undersea green. The new
bowl was elongated, svelte, eighty-five
pounds of gleaming porcelain muscled

up the narrow back stairs, three separate gouges
in the bathroom wall where I’d suggested,
scattering unguents and salves,

soaps made from oatmeal and apricot,
stoppered rose water, bits of beach glass,
hairpins, aloe vera and blueing.

One enters this kingdom like a guest
careful to remain in one’s own scant preserve,
razor, toothbrush and ragged towel kept apart

from these occult potions, the jar of chalky
pink fluid for the bowels, foot plasters, corn
and bunion removers, gels and lotions, aspirin bottles,

stockings draped casually over the showerhead like
dark mesh for straining opium, lavender powders,
shark oil suppositories wrapped in crinkly foil.

What hubris to imagine a smooth installation.
I managed to donkey the new commode
straight down onto its wax ring seal,

black sleeve wedged in the drain pipe,
its two-inch trapway one hundred percent
glazed white vitreous china, fastened

in place with solid brass bolts. And I never
felt the small collision against my heel in the
half step I’d taken, backward, to admire my labor,

knocking the tank from its resting place
so it fell over the threshold and broke
with a sound like a glacier calving

off the Siberian coast . . .
I stayed on my knees a long time after that
trying to imagine some supplication

to the gods of water and household calm
which might restore my original vision:
to be seated in silence here at last

lost in thought or meditating on the perfectibility
of man, idly perusing a seed catalogue
or “Tintern Abbey,” or the diagram

of a vagina as it appears on a box of tampons,
all the while basking in gratitude
for the roughage in last night’s salad.


Who writes a poem about a toilet? This guy does—and I'm glad he did. What a doozy of a poem! I love the catalog of personal items in this bathroom, the mixture of lovely (lavender, apricot, stoppered rose water, aloe vera) and embarrassing (vagina, tampons, Pepto Bismol, suppositories). I'm charmed by the mixture of serious and frivolous in the poem, particularly the contrast between the speaker's vision for the upgraded toilet and the nightmare of its installation, his Shakespearean hubris and his regal position on his throne. I also appreciate the underlying humor in a formal structure that is so at odds with subject matter. And how about that last line! Worthy of a crown.

High School Reunion

Saturday night my husband and I attended his high school reunion. Old classmates came in from all over the country—somewhere around 150 of them, plus spouses. Although I wasn't in my husband's class, I knew many of his friends, so I had a good time visiting with people we hadn't seen in a long time. Lots of reminiscing and catching up. The woman who ran the whole thing put together an updated yearbook. Each classmate's high school photo is placed next to a more recent photo. Some people are very recognizable, some not at all recognizable. Beneath the pictures is a bio with a number of wonderful stories.

My favorite story is the one about a guy and a girl who went together in high school. In their senior year she became pregnant. Her parents sent her away to some kind of home for unwed mothers. She gave birth to a daughter who was put up for adoption. All adoption papers were permanently sealed. The girl returned home. Eventually, and I suppose inevitably, the couple broke up. Each went off to college, married someone else, had children, got divorced. Several years ago, the girl decided to try to track down her old boyfriend. She found him via the internet and the two began an email correspondence. Neither knew anything about their daughter, but both had been haunted by thoughts of her. They got together, fell back in love, and married. They initiated a search for their daughter. The adoption records were unsealed, and they were put in touch with their daughter, now an adult with children of her own. The children from all three families know the whole story. How wonderful that these two had an opportunity to go back and write the happy ending that such a story doesn't often get.

Other stories did not have happy endings. Beneath 28 of the photos was the word "deceased." A number of the classmates have had serious health problems. Two are right now in the midst of cancer treatment. These were sobering moments. And I started to think about Len Roberts' wonderful poem, "We Sat, So Patient," first published in Boulevard and later anthologized in Best American Poetry 1992. I'm going to include the poem here. It's a grim poem. I offer it not to depress you, but rather to remind you, as the poem does, that our lives are precious and uncertain, a lesson even more forcefully made by Len's untimely death.


We Sat, So Patient

We sat, so patient in that third

grade

class, learning the numbers of days,

weeks, months,

repeating the numbers as they flashed

in the air, forming

the curved 3, the angular 4, the easy 1,

adding them up, subtracting, multiplying

and dividing

as though we owned them, and we did,

then,

counting the rain drops that wriggled down

the gray window,

counting the hearts and cars on our desks,

our crayons,

Ann Harding and Richie Freeman making 2,

10 on each side for the spelling bee,

counting silent

seconds when Sister Ann Zita said 5

of us

would not reach 20, showed the chart

where children dropped off into 0,

the blue zone of No Return

that Jimmy Legasse whispered, making us laugh.

Looking around, I thought Al Aldon, Jackie Foster,

Dorothy Blake

who already coughed blood on her gold glasses

when she spoke,

the thin girl just come over from Germany,

and Ray Martineau who had no lunch, the

zigzagged

white lines of lice forming mazes on his

crewcut head. And

the good Sister herself, number 6, at least

40 years older than us,

her rosary beads clicking as she walked

down the aisle like the Angel of Death,

black

wings spread, brushing our faces, our arms,

wafting blackness

into our eyes, our lungs, our hearts,

reminding us that God was watching and could tell

who knew 9 times 9, 144 divided by 12,

telling us it was God's will that we die,

Jimmy Gleason pulling up his white sock

on a leg he would not have 10 years later,

Barbara Ryan raising her hand with another

correct answer,

the same hand so whitish-blue as she lay

in her eight-grade coffin,

Jimmy Amyot and Donald Wilcox quietly passing

drawings of naked women

back and forth, the car they would die in

revving

unheard in that classroom where we yelled

out 360, 225, 32, 0, 10,

waiting for the split-second flash of red,

yellow and blue cards

beneath the slow, steadily clicking clock.

Share on Facebook

Letters to the World: The Poems

In my last post I mentioned that Letters to the World is a unique anthology for several reasons. It is the first collection to emerge from an internet collaboration and is the largest collection of poems by living women poets, but more than that, it is a collection of wonderful poems. Here you will find poems by American poets such as Judith Barrington, Lynnell Edwards, Mendi Obadike, Kathleen Flenniken, Marilyn Hacker, Judith Johnson, Alicia Ostriker, Katha Pollitt, and Evie Shockley. Since the collection reflects the global nature of the listserv, you will also find such poets as Ren Powell (an American living in Norway), Anny Ballardini (Italy), Farideh Hassanzadeh-Mostafavi (Iran), and Crystal Warren (South Africa).

As I always do when reading a collection. I circled page numbers in the Table of Contents to indicate favorite poems, ones I planned to return to later. Here are two poems that brought me back again and again. The first is by Paula Bohince.

Acrostic: Queen Anne’s Lace

Quietly tatted, silent, they edge the snowball bush—
unlit, without judgment. Theirs is a vision I’ve always wanted:
eiderdown-colored, stained as lace in a cupboard,
emblems of a softer life.
Neglected, they lean neck and neck with each other.
Audit of sixty years: one tablecloth, one draft card, one confession…
No one else to do it: emptying his house of its sorry
nests, cubbyholes filled with flannel and moth-eaten deer heads.
Entropy and decay, he said. A house is a kind of bondage.
Strangled, the weeds have no one to kill them. Difficult to
leave them alive, these last witnesses to his last days, who
act blameless, cowering beneath brambles, who
cannot tell me a fraction of what happened. Who did this? You
ears, you idiot eyes that cannot close.


I appreciate what this poet does with a form that we often think of as belonging to elementary school teachers, a form used to engage young students in word play. Bohince's poem shows that the acrostic can have real substance. I also like how this acrostic plays with the sonnet form. And I admire how the poet begins with a simple wildflower and moves so gracefully into something else. Such a seamless shift.

Good news: This poem will appear in Bohince's first collection, Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods, forthcoming from Sarabande Books this July. Click the cover image to be taken to the website where you can pre-order.

Another of my favorites is by Charlotte Mandel.

Still Life

Transfixed within the scrolled frame of marriage—
Glossy, still as a Flemish nature mort—
You are the basket’s woven lines,

I the overripe purpling grapes. What is marriage
without realism, plain detail, the more
examined the more discretely outlined?

Gleam seizes shadow, motionless. Marriage
of canvas, oil and turpentine. One more
scrape of the palette’s umber and aniline’s

blue thin menace. I animated marriage
cartoons as a child, bright crayon, not a mor-
bid thought in view. Polka dot curtains lined

window frames with daisies: picture marriage
as bungalow tilting, blue skies evermore,
uplifted arms diaper-pinning the line.

Watercolors risk salt: over marriage
tides flow. Initials carved in sycamore
erode the jackknife wriggle of their lines.

A playhouse, yet a serious marriage.
Undeclared we knew the stakes, how much more
asked of us. Anniversaries fall in line—

patina thickens—varnish conceals—marriages
shiver apart—ours strains its well-mixed mor-
tar—surfaces enhanced by spider line.

Who sees us defines us by this marriage.
Hand in hand, smile / click. To viewers, a maud-
lin sentiment. To ourselves, still, life line.


Again, I was initially attracted to the form of the poem, its 3-line stanzas and its repetition of end words, 1-2-3, 1-2-3. I also like how Mandel follows her pattern, yet has some fun with it by altering the words a bit. And I like what she has to say about a long, happy marriage. I asked Mandel about this form. It seems she was trying to write a tritina, which I believe is an invented form, but she couldn't remember the pattern, so she invented one something like it. Her students affectionately named the result a "charlottina."

More good news: This poem will appear in Mandel's collection, Rock Vein Sky, forthcoming soon from Midmarch Arts Press.

Challenge: Try your hand at one or both of these forms. For Bohince's try to come up with a 14 letter combination, a single word or a phrase. Make it something from nature--or maybe something far removed from nature. For Mandel's bring in some opposite idea, eg, write about a brief, miserable marriage or the single life. Or anything else.



Share on Facebook

No Regrets?

Kelli Russell Agodon recently posted the notes she took during Mary Oliver's reading and talk at Pacific Lutheran University. The talk, Mary Oliver and The Writer's Story, consisted of an hour-long Q&A. Many thanks to Kelli for her notes which are full of wonderful thoughts. One question and answer that made me pause and reflect for several days:

Question: As a poet, what's your biggest regret?

Answer "I don't' have any." She said she is very happy with her life as a poet and living with her art. She said, "Art is an essential hallway into a spiritual life."

I kept thinking no regrets? None? Is that possible? Okay, so maybe Oliver just means in her poetry life. But still, even with that limitation—and surely her life as a poet must be a huge part of her life—it seems to me kind of, well, not believable. Poetry is the place I go to for happiness, and my life as a poet is intensely exciting and satisfying, even when I'm writing sad poems. Nevertheless, I have lots of regrets as a poet. Why didn't I start sooner? Why didn't I pursue this or that opportunity more aggressively? Why don't I write everyday? Why do I go weeks or longer without producing?

And don't even get me started on other areas of my life. I don't want to go on a real bummer, but I'm always regretting something. The list could go on and on. These thoughts got me to remembering and thinking about a poem I like by Natasha Saje. It's from her collection, Bend (Tupelo Press).


Regrets

I regret I sleep so much, that my body

makes demands I do not refuse. I regret

my thirties, unreasonable as crabgrass,

and I regret the two vertical lines between

my brows, the manifestation of my anxieties

which of course I also regret. I regret

the Swiss milk pitcher broken by the neighbor’s

cat and I regret my soft teeth. I regret nights

I stayed awake baking or reading novels

that changed me only momentarily. I

regret that capitalism is my religion

and the small red purse I do not use.

I regret lying in the sun as a teenager and

not putting a safety catch on my grandmother’s

brooch. I regret the poisoned dish of lacquered duck

in 1977, and the squirrel that last year

got caught in a rat trap. I regret the Procrustean

bed of my job and having no columbine

seeds from the beds by the old library. I regret

the demise of the streetcar and the perils

of color, and that in my sleep I do not

dismantle silence. O my Great Lake of Regrets,

my body a floating island—

I like the structure of the poem, the repetition and list. I like the mixture of serious and trivial regrets, the resulting feeling of disproportion. I like Saje's word choice: manifestation, crabgrass, capitalism, brooch, lacquered, Procrustean, columbine, demise, perils, dismantled. These words appeal to my ear and my brain. And what an ending with its sudden switch to apostrophe and the metaphor that drifts off to an unfinished thought.

Challenge: Make your own list—regrets, minor infractions, things for which you should apologize, or things for which you refuse to apologize. Turn the list into a poem.



Share on Facebook

A Fruitful Day

This is the cover image of Skirt Magazine, a women's publication, very large 11 x 17 inches, full of lovely graphics and full-page ads for women's products and services, and a number of articles. The magazine circulates in a variety of cities and is distributed six times a year. Each issue also features one poem by a woman poet. A few months ago one of the editors contacted me and asked for permission to reprint my poem, "The Fruitful Woman," which appeared in my first book, Eve's Red Dress. I'm not sure how they came across the poem, but I was happy to say yes. Today's mail brought three copies of the March issue. My poem is beautifully displayed on a single page. The page is pale lime green with a swirly design. Then there's a rectangle in the center of the large page, and my poem is in the middle of that. This format draws the eye right to the poem. Here's the poem.

The Fruitful Woman

Today I dress for you
in scarlet. I am
a tomato, plump
and luscious. I pulsate
with seeds.

Today I clothe myself
in yellow. I am
a peach, succulent
and ripe.

For you, I swathe myself
in gold—all melons, oranges,
tangerines, nectarines.

I am a garden of earthly delights.

I am the red apple
you would fall for
a thousand times.

I am the apricot you would die for.

I am all strawberries,
blueberries, raspberries,
and cherries, all these and more.

Today I am royal for you.
I dress in a gown
of purple plum.

Come, lift me out of my skin.

Teaching Days

I've had two really nifty professional experiences in the last two weeks. If you've read my profile, you know that I'm a former high school English teacher and that I now work part-time (which is so much nicer than full-time!) as a poet-in-the-schools. I do short-term residencies, mostly with elementary school kids. I also do professional development with teachers. Last spring I was invited into Ridge High School in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, to give an after-school reading for the combined middle and high school English departments. That was absolutely delightful. I matched each poem up with a teaching tip, and the teachers seemed to enjoy the whole thing. Plus, their excellent supervisor bought one copy of my new book for all 40 teachers. How nice was that!

As a result of that experience, I was invited to give a six-hour workshop for English teachers at the high school, so I spent three hours with them last week and three more hours yesterday. I was so impressed that these teachers, six of them, would sign up for three hours of anything after a long day in the classroom. But I could not have asked for a nicer, more energetic, enthusiastic group. Nor could I have asked for a more ideal group. They were so smart, so interested in learning more about how to teach poetry, and so willing to try all twelve of the activities I offered them. Yesterday one of the teachers told me that she'd already used one of the previous week's activities and that it was a big success. Can't ask for better than that! Another one of the teachers is doing an independent project on how to teach poetry for a degree she is working on, so of course she was hungry for whatever I offered. Apparently the workshop is going to get an entire chapter in her project. So I'm feeling very good about that entire experience.

The other experience was also the result of last spring's department reading. The supervisor passed my name onto someone who was planning a conference for the NJ Language Arts Leadership Association, aka Lala. I was invited to give the afternoon presentation. My topic was "Poetry: A Natural Bridge to Writing K-6." My argument was that when kids read, listen to, and write poetry they become better writers, not just better poets, but better writers. I talked about the various skills poetry imparts and how those transfer to prose and what can be done to enhance the likelihood of transfer. Then I took everyone through three different poetry prompts. I was worried there might be some resistance, but there wasn't any at all. They just came alive when we started the writing. Initially, there was some reluctance to read drafts aloud, but once we got to the second prompt, the hands were flying in the air. That was an audience of fifty people who can now have some role in bringing more poetry into the classroom. Poetry is magic.

And then this morning I received a surprise email from two former students of mine. Both were in the same AP class, both fabulous kids. The girl is now married, lives in Boston, and works for the NY Times. The boy is making his living as an actor. Apparently, they got to thinking about me and decided to google me which led them to my website. It was great to have them come back into my life, albeit from many miles away. It was great to be reminded that teachers do make a difference.

I ended yesterday's session with a poem by Matthew Thorburn. I'd like to end this post with that same poem.

Blueberry

But it was coming down that hill,
back to the city’s prime-time sprawl
of neon, pink as her garters’ frill
peeking out from her skirt (still all
rucked up in back), and the chill
and shiver of summer giving in to fall
that I found my second, darker thrill.

Isn't that a beauty? I love its music, its brevity, its playfulness, and then that enigmatic last line. Makes me want to get out Fats Domino and dance.

Upcoming Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival

Even though it's almost a year away, plans for the 12th biennial Dodge Poetry Festival are well underway. Mark your calendars: Thursday, September 25 through Sunday, September 28, 2008.

The festival will again be held at the historic Waterloo Village in Stanhope, New Jersey. Those of you who have attended previous Dodge Festivals know that it's in a beautiful setting running along a river. You'll find lots of green grass, gravel pathways, and charming buildings. For as long as you are able to attend, you will feel yourself transported into another world.

The best part, of course, is the poets. The line-up so far includes Chris Abani, Lucille Clifton, Billy Collins, Martín Espada, Ted Kooser, Maxine Kumin, Naomi Shihab Nye, Charles Simic, and Franz Wright. Many other poets will be added in the coming months. (By the way, if you've applied to read at the festival and haven't heard yet, don't panic; invitations go out as late as the spring.) Keep up to date with developments by visiting the website: Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival

Lucille Clifton is always a favorite at the festival and has been the festival's most often featured poet. Here's a poem of hers I admire.

Miss Rosie

when I watch you
wrapped up like garbage
sitting, surrounded by the smell
of too old potato peels
or
when I watch you
in your old man's shoes
with the little toe cut out
sitting, waiting for your mind
like next week's grocery
I say
when I watch you
you wet brown bag of a woman
who used to be the best looking gal in Georgia
used to be called the Georgia Rose
I stand up
through your destruction
I stand up

Word Slinging

Here's a poem I keep tucked in a folder I call "Poems I Like." It's by Rod Jellema.

Because I Never Learned the Names of Flowers

It is moonlight and white where
I slink away from my cat-quiet blue rubber truck
and motion myself to back it up to your ear.
I peel back the doors of the van and begin
to hushload into your sleep
the whole damn botanical cargo of Spring.

Sleeper, I whisk you
Trivia and Illium, Sweet Peristalsis, Flowering Delirium.

Sprigs of Purple Persiflage and Lovers' Leap, slips
of Hysteria stick in my hair. I gather clumps of Timex,
handfuls of Buttertongues, Belly buttons and Bluelets.

I come with Trailing Nebula, I come with Late-Blooming
Paradox, with Creeping Pyromania, Pink Apoplex,
and Climbing Solar Plexus,

whispering: Needlenose,
Juice Cup, Godstem, Nexus, Sex-us, Condominium.


I admire the wordplay in this poem, the sexiness of it. It feels romantic and fanciful. Mostly I love the musicality of it. This is a poem to first just enjoy and then study and learn from. I like the made-up words like cat-quiet and hushload. The beauty of the flower names in line 7. I'm not much of a gardener so am not sure if those are real names or made-up ones, but they are fun to say, to roll around in the mouth. What nice alliteration in Buttertongues, Belly buttons and Bluelets. And the rhyming of Paradox, Apoplex, Plexus, Nexus, Sex-us (surely this is invention!). And the playfulness of that final Condominium which makes no sense but nevertheless enchants and seduces. Wouldn't it be lovely to be that Sleeper and have someone whispering all this in your ear as you nod off?

Prompt idea: Focus on an outdoor scene, something full of nature rather than man-made objects. Brainstorm a quick column list of all you see. To the right of your list, after each word, add some related words, a made-up word, a rhyming word (or alliterative or near rhyming). Imagine an auditor. Then drawing from your word hoard, write a poem delivered very privately to that person. No one else is listening.

Meanness in Poetry

I recently read Tony Hoagland's collection of essays, Real Sofistikashun. I found a great deal to be learned from the book and did a lot of underlining. One of the essays that especially resonated for me is the last one, "Negative Capability: How to Talk Mean and Influence People." I have a soft spot for tough, hard-talking poetry, but don't recall ever hearing or reading anything about meanness as an aspect of craft. Hoagland says, "Meanness, the very thing that is unforgivable in human social life, in poetry is thrilling and valuable...There is truth-telling, and more, in meanness." Yet do we dare?

A number of years ago someone told me that a woman brought my poem, "My Husband Discovers Poetry," to read in a workshop. One of the other women said that the poet--yes, me!--had to be a "mean-spirited" person to have written a poem like that. I had a mixed reaction. One was to cringe a bit. I'd like people to think I'm reasonably nice. The other reaction was delight. I'd been naughty and my little dagger had found the right spot. A third reaction: why was that woman judging the poet rather than the speaker? That, of course, was part of the delight. The voice I'd created must have been convincing.

Created, yes. Hoagland goes on to say, "Meanness is also an aesthetic asset for its flavor of danger. Nothing wakes us up like menace—menace refreshes. When a poem becomes aggressive, it rouses an excitement in us, in part because we see that someone has broken their social shackles." He asserts that it takes some courage to be "thought ill of." To be unwilling to take that risk is to cut yourself off from a large body of subject matter. Poetry suffers from too much "nice-ism." I wonder why this might be more true of poetry than of other art forms such as film and the novel?

Two mean poems that knocked me out when I first read them: Stephen Dobyns' "Bleeder," from Black Dog, Red Dog, and Stephen Dunn's "Tucson," from Loosestrife.

Hoagland gives this example from Anna Akhmatova:

Twenty-First. Night. Monday

Twenty-first. Night. Monday.
Silhouette of the capitol in darkness.
Some good-for-nothing—who knows why—
made up the tale that love exists on earth.

People believe it, maybe from laziness
or boredom, and live accordingly:
they wait eagerly for meetings, fear parting,
and when they sing, they sing about love.

But the secret reveals itself to some,
and on them silence settles down. . .
I found this out by accident
and now it seems I'm sick all the time.


But this isn't entirely mean, is it? I feel a lot of pain in there also. And I think it is that mixture that makes this such a compelling poem.

Try your hand at a mean poem if you haven't already done so. And be sure to read Hoagland's book. I strongly recommend it, for both its content and its example poems.

Is It Hot in Here, or Is It Just Me?

Here's a poem I love by Lisel Mueller:

Magnolia

This year spring and summer decided
to make it quick, roll themselves into one
season of three days
and steam right out of winter.
In the front yard the reluctant
magnolia buds lost control
and suddenly stood wide open.
Two days later their pale pink silks
heaped up around the trunk
like cast-off petticoats.

Remember how long spring used to take?
And how long from the first locking of fingers
to the first real kiss? And after that
the other eternity, endless motion
toward the undoing of a button?


Some of what I admire: the speed with which she gets right down to it, the elegance of the simile that ends stanza 1, the feeling of direct address, and the turn as she enters stanza 2. What an odd leap from the compression of the seasons to the speed with which lovers these days hop into bed before a real courtship. Surprising, yet utterly credible and prepared for. I love her implication that today something is missed, i.e., the exquisiteness of desire that takes its time. Notice, too, that the second stanza consists of just three questions, no statements. For me, that raises the temperature several degrees. This poem grows in intensity with repeated readings.