tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74395732123340832172024-02-18T21:00:38.357-08:00Galatea Resurrects #18 (A Poetry Engagement)Presenting engagements (including reviews) of poetry books & projects. Some issues also offer Featured Poets, a "The Critic Writes Poems" series, and/or Feature Articles.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger110125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-16203785667790626682012-05-30T12:42:00.000-07:002012-08-07T07:50:01.982-07:00Issue No. 18 TABLE OF CONTENTS<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i><span style="color: #474b4e; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">[N.B. You can scroll down on blog or click on highlighted titles or names to go directly to the referenced article.]</span></span></span></i><br />
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<span style="color: #474b4e; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /></span><b><span style="color: #474b4e; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-size: small; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION</span></span></b><span style="color: #474b4e; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><b><span style="color: #dd6599; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/editors-introduction.html"><span id="goog_576557683"></span>Eileen Tabios<span id="goog_576557684"></span></a></span></span></span></b><span style="color: #474b4e; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /><br /><br /><b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-size: small;">NEW <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">REVIEWS</span></span></span></span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-size: small;">T.C. Marshall Reviews <a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/some-math-by-bill-luoma-and-glowball-by.html"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">GLOWBALL</span></span></i></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by Steven Farmer and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">SOME MATH</span></span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Bill Luoma<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></a></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Eileen Tabios<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Engages <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/as-if-it-fell-from-sun-etherdome.html">AS IF IT FELL FROM THE SUN: AN ETHERDOME ANTHOLOGY: TEN YEARS OF WOMEN’S WRITING</a></span></span></i></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">, Edited by Colleen Lookingbill & Elizabeth Robinson</span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">P<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">atrick James Dunagan <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Reviews <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/one-sleeps-other-doesnt-by-jacqueline.html"><strong>O</strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong>NE</strong> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">SLEEPS THE OTHER DOESN’T</span></span></b></span></span></a></span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by Jacqueline Waters<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Peg Duthie<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Engages <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/parrot-on-motorcycle-by-viteszslav.html">PARROT ON A MOTORCYCLE: ON POETIC CRAFT / Papoušek na Motocyklu: O Řemsle Básnickém</a></span></span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Vítězslav Nezval; translated by Jennifer Rogers; designed by Amy Mees <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">and Mark Wagner<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Lucy Biederman Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/rambo-goes-to-idaho-by-scott-abels.html">RAMBO GOES TO IDAHO</a></strong></span></em> by Scott Abels </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">P<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">rem Kumari Srivastava<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poems-come-home-by-sukrita-trans-by.html">POEMS COME HOME</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Sukrita and translated by Gulzar</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">T<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">om Hibbard<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/untitled-by-reed-altemus.html">UNTITLED</a></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Reed Altemus</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">T.C. M<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">arshall<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/planisphere-by-john-ashbery.html">PLANISPHERE</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by John <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Ashbery</span></span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">E<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ileen Tabios<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Engages <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/chinoiserie-by-karen-rigby.html">CHINOISERIE</a></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Karen Rigby</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">P<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">eg Duthie E<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ngages <i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/neighborhoods-of-my-past-sorrow-by.html">THE NEIGHBORHOODS OF MY PAST SORROW</a></strong></span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by Jesse Millner</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">G<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">raham Sutherland<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/long-distance-by-steven-cordova.html">LONG DISTANCE</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Steven Cordova</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Thomas Fink Reviews <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/bigger-world-by-noelle-kocot.html">THE BIGGER WORLD</a></span></span></i></b><i><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Noelle Kocot<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">rob <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">mclennan Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/either-way-im-celebrating-by-sommer.html">EITHER WAY I’M CELEBRATING</a></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Sommer Browning</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Tom Hibbard<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/selected-poems-by-nick-demske.html">SELECTED POEMS</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Nick Demske</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">L<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ucy Biederman<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/rabbits-could-sing-by-amber-flora.html">THE RABBITS COULD<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">SING</span></span></a></span></span></i></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by Amber Flora Thomas<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">T.C. M<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">arshall<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/light-before-dawn-by-drum-hadley.html">THE LIGHT BEFORE DAWN</a></strong></span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by Drum Hadley</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">E<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ileen <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Tabios<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Engages <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/100-poems-by-ss-prasad.html">100 POEMS</a></span></span></i></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by S.S. Prasad</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">rob mclennan Reviews </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/my-darling-nellie-grey-by-george.html">MY DARLING NELLIE GREY</a></span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by George Bowering<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">G<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">erald Schwartz<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/way-we-live-by-burt-kimmelman.html">THE WAY WE LIVE</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Burt Kimmelman</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">T.C. M<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">arshall <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Reviews <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/what-it-is-like-new-and-selected-poems.html">WHAT IT IS LIKE: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS</a></span></span></i></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by Charles North<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">K<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">athleen <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Kirk E<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ngages <i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/she-returns-to-floating-world-by.html"><strong>SHE RETURNS TO THE FLOATING WORLD</strong></a></span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by Jeannine Hall Gailey</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">P<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">atrick James Dunagan R<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">eviews <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/notes-from-irrelevance-by-anselm.html">NOTES FROM IRRELEVANCE</a></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Anselm Berrigan</span></span></span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">L<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ucy Bi<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">e<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">derman<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/say-so-by-dora-malech.html">SAY SO</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Dora Malech</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">T.C. M<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">arshall<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/stranger-in-town-by-cedar-sigo.html">STRANGER IN TOWN</a></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Cedar Sigo</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">E<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ileen <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Tabios<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Engages <strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/draft-96-velocity-by-rachel-blau.html"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">D</span></span></i><em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">RAFT 96: VELOCITY</span></span></em></a></strong><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Rachel Blau DuPlessis</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Tom <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Beckett</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews </span></span><em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/humanimal-by-bhanu-kapil.html">HUMANIMAL: A PROJECT FOR FUTURE CHILDREN</a></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Bhanu Kapil <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">rob mclennan Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/sonnets-louise-labe-by-edward-byrne.html">SONNETS: LOUISE LABE</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Edward Byrne</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eileen Tabios Engages <a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/have-by-marc-gaba-and-catch-light-by.html"><em><strong>HAVE</strong></em> by Marc Gaba and <em><strong>CATCH LIGHT</strong></em> by Sarah O'Brien</a></span><br />
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<em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">E<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ric Wayne Dickey<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews</span></span></span></span></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/wild-place-by-erica-goss.html">WILD PLACE</a></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Erica Goss</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">P<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">eg Duthie <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Engages <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/yes-we-are-still-dancing-by-susan.html">YES, WE ARE STILL DANCING</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by Susan Amstater, Connie Dillman<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">, and Jacquelyn Stroud Spier<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">E<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ileen Tabios<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Engages <a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/two-publications-by-jj-hastain.html"><em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong>WE / CUM ::: COME / IN THE YIELD FIELDS /AMONGST STATUES WITH INTERIOR ARMS</strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>and <em><strong>ASYMPTOTIC LOVER//THERMODYNAMICVENTS</strong></em><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><em><strong>,</strong></em> both <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by j/j hastain</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">P<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">eg Duthie<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Engages <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/enjoy-hot-or-iced-poems-in-conversation.html">ENJOY HOT OR ICED: POEMS IN CONVERSATION AND A<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> CONVERSATION</span></a></span></span></i></b><i><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Denise Duhamel and Amy Lemmon</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">rob mclennan Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/killdeer-by-phil-hall.html">KILLDEER</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Phil Hall</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">E<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ileen <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">T<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">abios<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Engages <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/engine-empire-by-cathy-park-hong.html">ENGINE EMPIRE</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Cathy Park Hong</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Annmarie Lockhart</span></span><i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/mother-earth-by-adam-fieled.html">MOTHER EARTH</a></span></span></b></span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by Adam Fieled</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Emily Geris</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/torch-song-tango-choir-by-julie-sophia.html">TORCH SONG TANGO CHOIR</a></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Julie Sophia Paegle</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Dee Thompson <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/rebirth-of-wonder-poems-of-common-life.html">REBIRTH OF WONDER, POEMS OF THE COMMON LIFE</a></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by David M. Johnson</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Neil Leadbeater<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/ndakinna-our-land-by-joseph-bruchac.html">NDAKINNA: OUR LAND</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Joseph Bruchac</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Lucy Biederman<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/normal-heart-and-how-it-works-by.html">THE NORMAL HEART AND HOW IT WORKS</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Rachael Lyon</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Bev Sandell Greenberg </span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Reviews <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/open-door-in-landscape-by-elisabeth.html">AN OPEN DOOR IN THE LANDSCAPE</a></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Elisabeth Harvor</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Tom Beckett<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/hyperglossia-by-stacy-szymaszek.html">HYPERGLOSSIA</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Stacy Szymaszek</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Therese Halscheid</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/meanwhile-poems-by-kathleen-otoole.html">MEANWHILE: POEMS</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Kathleen O’Toole</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">j/j jastain Engages <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/esp-by-michael-leong.html">E.S.P<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">.</span></span></a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Michael Leong</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Gerald Schwartz</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/carpe-diem-new-and-selected-poems-by.html">CARPE DIEM: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS</a></span></span></i></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by Michael Perkins<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Charles P. Ries<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/unexpected-shiny-things-by-bruce.html">UNEXPECT<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ED SHINY THINGS</span></a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Bruce Dethlefsen</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Tom Beckett <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Reviews <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/coeur-de-lion-by-ariana-reines.html">COEUR DE LION</a></span></span></i></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by Ariana Reines <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Jeff Harrison <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Engages <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/illuminations-by-arthur-rimbaud-trans.html">ILLUMINATIONS</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Arthur Rimbaud, translated by John Ashbery</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Neil Leadbeater<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/if-nothing-else-by-harold-bowes.html">IF NOTHING ELSE</a></strong></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong>by Harold Bowes</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">A. Molotkov<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/angle-of-sharpest-ascending-by-ingrid.html">THE ANGLE OF SHARPEST ASCENDING</a></span></span></i></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by Ingrid Wendt<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">N<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">icholas<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> T. S<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">patafora<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Reviews <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/girl-in-mirror-by-jack-lynch.html">GIRL IN THE MIRROR</a></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Jack Lynch</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Tom Beckett </span></span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Reviews <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/looking-up-harryette-mullen-by-barbara.html"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">LOOKING UP HARRYETTE MULLEN: INTERVIEWS ON </span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">SLEEPING WITH THE DICTIONARY <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">AND OTHER WORKS</span></span></i></span></span></a></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by Barbara Henning <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<u><span style="text-decoration: none underline; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none underline; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">John <span style="text-decoration: none underline; text-line-through: none;">Bloomberg-Rissman reviews </span></span></span></span></u><br />
<u><span style="text-decoration: none underline; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none underline; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="text-decoration: none underline; text-line-through: none;"><em>50 POEMS FROM 50 BOOKS<span style="text-decoration: none underline; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none underline; text-line-through: none;"> IN (ABOUT) 50 DAYS<span style="text-decoration: none underline; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none underline; text-line-through: none;">:</span></span></span></span></em></span></span></span></span></u></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-entrepot-by-mark-mcmorris.html">“the mirror says” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ENTREPOT</span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by<span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Mark McMorris </span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-flower-flower-by-jen-benka.html">“Flower Flower” </a></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-flower-flower-by-jen-benka.html">from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">PINKO</span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by<span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Jen Benka</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-either-way-im-celebrating-by.html">“Either Way I’m Celebrating”<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></a></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-either-way-im-celebrating-by.html">from <span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><em>E<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ITHER </span></span></em></span></span></a><em>WAY I’M CELEBRATING</em><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by<span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Sommer Browning</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-dark-card-by-rebecca-foust.html">“Dark Card” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">D<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ARK CARD</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by<span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Rebecca Foust</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-aaaaaaaaaaaalice-by-jennifer.html">“consider my dear” from </a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-aaaaaaaaaaaalice-by-jennifer.html">AAAAAAAAAAAALICE</a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by<span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Jennifer Karmin</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-kingdom-animalia-by-aracelis.html">"Kingdom Animalia" from KINGDOM ANIMALIA</a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by<span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Aracelis Girmay</span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-dear-prudence-new-and.html"><strong>“Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">D<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">EAR PRUDENCE<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">: N<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">EW AND SELECTED POEMS</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></strong></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by David Trinidad</span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-thirteen-designer-vaginas-by.html">“3. Designer Vagina” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">T<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">HIRTEEN DESIGNER VAGINAS</span></span></span></span></i></a></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Juliet Cook</span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-yingelishi-sinophonic-english.html"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">“[Chinese characters] / Please </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: PMingLiU; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">forgive me</span></span></b></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-yingelishi-sinophonic-english.html">” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">from Y<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">INGLESHI<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">: S<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">INOPHONIC ENGLISH POETRY AND POETICS</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Jonathan Stalling<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-black-seeds-on-white-dish-by.html">“Getting Closer to the Big Bang” from </a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><em><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-black-seeds-on-white-dish-by.html">BLACK SEEDS ON A WHITE DISH</a></em> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Shira Dentz<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-mercury-by-ariana-reines.html">“Permanent Water” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">MERCURY</span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Ariana Reines<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-ligature-strain-poems-by-kim.html">“Ligature Strain” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">L<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">IGATURE STRAIN<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">: P<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">OEMS</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Kim Koga<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-either-she-was-by-karin.html">“Either She Was” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">E<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ITHER SHE WAS</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Karin Randolph<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-and-if-you-dont-go-crazy-ill.html">“Live From The Kaukasus” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">A<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ND IF YOU DON’T GO CRAZY I’LL MEET YOU HERE <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">TOMORROW</span></span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Filip Marinovich<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-your-ox-head-mask-as-proof-by.html">“Affirmation” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Y<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">OUR OX-HEAD MASK AS PROOF</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by George Kalamaras<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-network-by-jena-osman.html"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">“Network 1: The Knot” from </span></span><em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">T<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">HE NETWORK</span></span></span></span></em></a></strong><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Jena Osman</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-and-i-would-open-by-jill.html">“Self-Stalked” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">SHOT</span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Christine Hume<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><em><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-and-i-would-open-by-jill.html">"flash of mask" from AND I WOULD OPEN</a></em><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Jill Stengel<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-stupid-birds-by-logan-ryan.html"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">“Narcissus 2000” from </span></span><em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">S<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">TUPID BIRDS</span></span></span></span></em></a></strong><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Logan Ryan Smith</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-mr-magoo-by-steve-tills.html">“Between” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">M<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">R. MAGOO</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Steve Tills<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-ruins-by-margaret-randall.html">“Survivor” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">RUINS</span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Margaret Randall<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-bounty-four-addresses-by-kate.html">“You’re my sister” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">T<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">HE BOUNTY: FOUR ADDRESSES</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Kate Schapira<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><em><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-mystery-of-hidden-driveway-by.html">"The Earth Is Flat and So's My Ass" from THE MYSTERY OF THE HIDDEN DRIVEWAY</a> </span></span></span></span></em></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Jennifer L Knox<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-hold-tight-truck-darling.html">“Paxil” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">H<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">OLD TIGHT: THE TRUCK DARLING POEMS</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Jeni Olin<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-vast-practical-engine-by-eric.html">T<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">HE VAST PRACTICAL ENGINE</span></span></a></strong></span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Eric Hoffman</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-o-bon-by-brandon-shimoda.html">“[Wake me from sleep]” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">O B<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ON</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Brandon Shimoda<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-latrogenic-their-testimonies.html">“Wherein Proliferation is Explained to the Surrogates” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">I<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ATROGENIC<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">: <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">THEIR TESTIMONIES</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Danielle Pafunda<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-magdalene-mermaids-by.html">“Magdalene’s Prayer” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">M<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">AGDALENE & THE MERMAIDS</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Elizabeth Kate Switaj</span></span></span></div>
<strong><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-sedna-by-michael-helsem.html">"0% APR" in <em>SEDNA</em></a></span></span></strong><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Michael Helsem</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-personationskin-by-karl.html">"Warm All the Time Now" in PERSONATIONSKIN</a> </span></em></span></strong><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by Karl Parker</span></strong> <br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-sard-by-philip-byron-oakes.html">“XXX” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">S<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ARD</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Philip Byron Oakes<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-palm-to-pine-by-sunnylyn.html">“’is it true your father was a swan’” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">P<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ALM TO PINE</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Sunnylyn Thibodeaux<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-she-returns-to-floating-world.html">“The Fox-Wife Dreams” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">S<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">HE RETURNS TO THE FLOATING WORLD</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Jeannine Hall Gailey<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-guestbook-by-rick-snyder.html">“Deep in Snow” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">G<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">UEST<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">BOOK</span></span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Rick Snyder<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-dispatch-by-marci-nelligan.html">“#5” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">D<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ISPATCH</span></span></span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></a></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Marci Nelligan / Nicole Mauro<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-hitlers-mustache-by-peter.html"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">“Hitler’s Mustache: The Mustache Is a Riddle: Except It Can’t Be Answered” in </span></span><em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">H<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ITLER’S MUSTACHE</span></span></span></span></em></a></strong><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong> </strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Peter Davis</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-when-you-bit-by-adam-fieled.html">“Three Sets of Teeth” in WHEN YOU BIT</a> …</strong> by Adam Fieled </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></strong></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-testify-by-joseph-lease.html">“Enjoy Your Symptom” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">T<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ESTIFY</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Joseph Lease<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-secret-weapon-selected-late.html">“Secret Weapon” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">S<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ECRET WEAPON: SELECTED LATE POEMS BY EUGEN JEBELEANU</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">(translated from the Romanian by Matthew Zapruder and Ralph Ioanid</span></span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-millenial-harvest-life.html">"Confession of a Corpuscle: Cancer-Parable of Plutocracy (For the Bush Money Boys)" in</a></span><em><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-millenial-harvest-life.html"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MILLENIAL HARVEST: THE LIFE <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>& COLLECTED POEMS</span></a> </em></strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>OF CHARLES GREENLEAF BELL</em> </span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-driving-montana-alone-by.html">“Explanation” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">D<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">RIVING MONTANA ALONE</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Katie Phillips<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-blood-dazzler-by-patricia.html">“Voodoo VIII: Spiritual Cleansing and Blessing” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">B<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">LOOD DAZZLER</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Patricia Smith<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-part-short-life-housing-by.html">“Ranges” in </a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-part-short-life-housing-by.html">PART<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">: <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">SHORT LIFE HOUSING</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by cris cheek<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-from-idylls-rushes-by-susana.html">“(one) Alone in that cage” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">F<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ROM IDYLLS &RUSHES</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Susana Gardner<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-steel-veil-by-jack-marshall.html">“Apologies to the Spider” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">T<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">HE STEEL VEIL</span></span></span></span></i></a></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Jack Marshall<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-tontos-revenge-by-adam-aitken.html">“The Double Rainbow (Mānoa Valley)” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">T<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ONTO’S REVENGE</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Adam Aitken<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-city-by-cj-martin.html">CITY</a></span></span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">C.J. Martin<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-in-ways-impossible-to-fold-by.html">“(metal work)” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">I<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">N WAYS IMPOSSIBLE TO FOLD</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Michael Rerick<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-princess-of-world-in-love-by.html">“Elders” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">P<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">RINCESS OF THE WORLD IN LOVE</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Stan Apps<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/poem-from-key-bridge-by-ken-rumble.html">“8.october.2002” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">K<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">EY BRIDGE</span></span></span></span></i></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Ken Rumble<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></b><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/afterword-to-50-poems-in-50-books-in-50.html">AFTERWORD</a></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> to 50 POEMS IN 50 BOOKS IN 50 DAYS<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>FEATURED POET</strong></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="color: #474b4e; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/featured-poet-sandy-mcintosh.html">Sandy </a></strong></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/featured-poet-sandy-mcintosh.html">McIntosh</a></strong></span><span style="color: #474b4e; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">INTERVIEW</span></span></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/thomas-fink-interviews-sawako-nakayasu.html">Thomas Fink Inteviews Sawako Nakayasu</a></strong><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /><strong><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"></span></strong></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #474b4e; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">THE CRITIC<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">S<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> WRITE POEMS</span></span></span></span></span></span></strong><span style="color: #474b4e; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/critic-writes-poems_07.html">John Bloomberg-Rissman</a></strong><br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/critic-writes-poems.html">Peg Duthie</a></strong><br /><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #474b4e; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /><strong><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">FROM OFFLINE TO ONLINE</span></span></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Dana Wilde Reviews <i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/vanishing-act-poems-by-bruce-holsapple.html">VANISHING ACT: POEMS</a></strong></span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by Bruce Holsapple</span></span><span style="color: #474b4e; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">Alan Ramon Clinton Reviews <em><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/feeling-is-actual-by-paolo-javier.html">THE </a></strong></em></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black;"><em><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/feeling-is-actual-by-paolo-javier.html">FEELING IS ACTUAL</a></strong></em> by Paolo Javier<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT</strong></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /></span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Invitation to</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong> "<a href="http://angelicpoker.blogspot.com/2012/05/introducing-balloon-poem.html">The Balloon Poem</a>"</strong> (with Free Books Offer)</span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="color: #474b4e; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /></span><span style="color: black;"><strong>BACK COVER</strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /></span></span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong><a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/04/thanks-for-your-interest.html">Driven to Poetry!</a></strong></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-84974304238854633142012-05-18T14:15:00.000-07:002012-05-30T12:35:59.522-07:00EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: #474b4e; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Thanks as ever to <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">GR</span></span></em><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">'s numerous, generous volunteer staff of reviewers. In addition to some wonderful feature articles, we have <strong>104</strong> <strong><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">NEW POETRY REVIEWS </span></span></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">this issue! </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #474b4e; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Such reviews include "50 POEMS IN 50 BOOKS IN 50 DAYS," by John Bloomberg-Rissman -- a fabulous section featuring a review of a poem from<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> 50 books written over, mas o menos, fifty days. While each review can be read on a stand-alone basis, I actually think there's another layer that surfaces from reading all 50 poem-engagements in one sitting (as regards subjectivity, always relevant to criticism) -- try it, why not! Then ther<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">e's an <strong><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">"<a href="http://galatearesurrection18.blogspot.com/2012/05/afterword-to-50-poems-in-50-books-in-50.html">Afterword</a>"</span></span></strong><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> where John presents an essay from his notes during his reading process -- a process perhaps made possible only by his retirement from being a SUPER-LIBRARIAN! (Perhaps the process was possible partly because he was a librarian!) Thanks to<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> John for his generosity, and Happy Retirement! </span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #474b4e; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Poetry has enhanced my love of lists so here are <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">GR</span></span></em><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">'s latest poetry-lovin' stats! </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #474b4e; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 1: 27 new reviews </span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 2: 39 new reviews (one project was reviewed twice by different reviewers)</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 3: 49 new reviews (two projects were each reviewed twice)</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 4: 61 new reviews (one proje<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ct was reviewed thrice, and three projects were each reviewed twice)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 5: 56 new reviews (four projects were each reviewed twice) </span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 6: 56 new reviews (one project was reviewed twice)</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 7: 51 new reviews </span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 8: 64 new reviews (3 projects wer<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">e each reviewed twice)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 9: 65 new reviews</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 10: 68 new reviews (1 project was reviewed thrice and 1 project was reviewed twice)</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 11: 72 new reviews (1 project was reviewed thrice)</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 12: 87 new reviews (1 project was reviewed twice)</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">13: 55 new reviews (1 project was reviewed twice)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 14: 64 new reviews (3 projects were reviewed twice)</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 15: 72 new reviews (1 project was reviewed thrice and 4 projects were reviewed twice)</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 16: 73 new reviews (2 projects were reviewed <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">twice)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 17: 108 new reviews (3 projects were reviewed twice)</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 18: 104 new reviews (3 projects were reviewed twice)</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">******<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">A<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">s of Issue No. 18, we are pleased to report that <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">GR </span></span></em><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">has provided 1,133 publications with new reviews (covering 437 publish<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ers in 17 countries so far) and 72 reprinted reviews (to bring online reviews previously available only viz print or first published in now-defunct online sites). With this issue, we increased our coverage of poetry publishers by 25 to 437 publishers. <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">This is important as I feel that much of the ground-breaking poetry work is being published by independent and/or relatively small presses who (by the nature of their work) are not always as well-known as they deserve to be.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">I continue to encourage authors/<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">publishers to send in your projects for potential review -- note that because we believe in Poetry's immortality, <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">GR</span></span></em><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> does not limit reviews to just "recent" poetry publications. And, obviously, people are following up with your submissions! Information for<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> submissions and available review copies <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://grarchives.blogspot.com/"><strong><span style="color: #dd6599; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">HERE</span></span></strong></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">. Future reviewers also should note that the next review submission deadline is Nov. 11, 2012.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Of revie<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">wed publications, the following were generated from review copies sent to <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">GR</span></span></em><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">:</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 1: 9 out of 27 new reviews </span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 2: 25 out of 39 new reviews</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 3: 27 out of 49 new reviews</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">4: 41 out of 61 new reviews</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 5: 34 out of 56 new reviews</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 6: 35 out of 56 new reviews</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 7: 41 out of 51 new reviews </span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 8: 35 out of 64 new reviews</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 9: 42 out of 65 new reviews</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 10: 46 out of 68 new reviews</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 11: 46 out of 72<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> new reviews</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 12: 35 out of 87 new reviews</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 13: 38 out of 55 new reviews</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 14: 40 out of 64 new reviews</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 15: 43 out of 72 new reviews</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 16: 49 out of 73 new reviews</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 17: 73 out of 108 new reviews</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Issue 18: 84 out of 104 new revie<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ws</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-size: small;">*****</span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-size: small;">Among this issue's offerings is "By Way of Introduction: W.H. Auden vs. the M.F.A." from a forthcoming memoir by this issue's Featured Poet Sandy McIntosh. Entitled<span style="color: #474b4e; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span><em><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">A Hole In the Ocean: A Writer's Apprenticeship in the Hamptons,"</span></span></em><em><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> the memoir looks to be a good read and </span></span></em><em><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">GR</span></span></em><em><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> is pleased to provi<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">de a supportive boost in spreading the word about it. Sandy will be blogging-the-writing of his memoir at his new blog at </span></span></span></em><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="http://hamptonsapprenticeship.blogspot.com/" title="http://hamptonsapprenticeship.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: purple; text-decoration: none underline; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none underline; text-line-through: none;">http://hamptonsapprenticeship.blogspot.com/</span></span></a><em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">.</span></span></em><em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span></em></span></span><span style="color: #474b4e; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #474b4e; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">*****</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Among the reviews in this issue is one first written as a college class assignment.<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Emily Geris is a sophomore <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">studying Creative Writing and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. Her review of <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">torch song tango choir </span></span></em><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">by Julie Sophia Paegle is her first poetry review, completed as a final project for poet-professor Kristin Naca<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">'s Latina/o Poetics class. This isn't the first time <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">GR</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> has published a review by a young writer -- we also have a review by college junior Graham Sutherland on <span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Long Distance</span></em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"> by Steven Cordova</span></span>; part of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">GR's</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> vision is to encourage the rise of more writers interested enough to engage with poetry. If you are a teacher, feel free to email me <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">at <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><a href="mailto:GalateaTEN@aol.com"><span style="text-decoration: none underline; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none underline; text-line-through: none;">GalateaTEN@aol.com</span></span></a><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">if you see <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">a possibility of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">GR</span></span></i><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> offering encouragement-through-publication of <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">your students' critical writings. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">*****</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><br /><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-size: small;">As I've said before, your Editor is blind, so if there are typos/errors in</span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"> the issue, just email Moi at </span><a href="mailto:GalateaTEN@aol.com"><span style="font-size: small;">GalateaTEN@aol.com</span></a><span style="font-size: small;"> or put in the comments sections and I will swiftly correct said mistakes (since such is allowed by Blogger).<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">*****</span></span><br /><br />All of us at Galatea hope you enjoy the issue!</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDg6dK_9_DGJsxlrLlBJCzWK4UHqFh_8u8g9dpKCIa0J8PRvJXSBTgrsE7PxTqdK6OBuiW7u7E5US7r28TEGw2dQv0DnKqj3Vqj-HWZ2h9FFh9QixB_ikI5pfrkyC3bwWUU9u4w6vy0GU/s1600/dogs+by+pavilion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" qba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDg6dK_9_DGJsxlrLlBJCzWK4UHqFh_8u8g9dpKCIa0J8PRvJXSBTgrsE7PxTqdK6OBuiW7u7E5US7r28TEGw2dQv0DnKqj3Vqj-HWZ2h9FFh9QixB_ikI5pfrkyC3bwWUU9u4w6vy0GU/s320/dogs+by+pavilion.jpg" width="240" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">With much love, poetry, vino and fur, </span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Eileen Tabios</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">St. Helena, CA<br /><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">May 30, 2012</span></span></span></span><br /></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-15558326096213299602012-05-15T23:55:00.000-07:002012-05-30T12:14:44.442-07:00SOME MATH by BILL LUOMA and GLOWBALL by STEVEN FARMER<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">T.C. MARSHALL Reviews</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Glowball</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> by Steven Farmer </span></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(theenk, Palmyra, New York, 2010)</span></i></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Some Math</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> by Bill Luoma</span></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(Kenning Editions, 2011)</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Both of these books had me thinking of the wit and wisdom of my 4-yr-old grandson Brendan. That’s a compliment from Grampa Tom, a high one with happy laughter sprinkled all over it. B-Boy likes to shift contexts by adding words to word strings and sometimes non-words too. He says, “Cookie batter” for instance. I say “Cookie batter Orestes ‘Minnie’ Minoso,” and he says “Cookie batter Minnie Mouse Minoso flopgully”; so I add “in today’s trading,” and we collapse together in laughter because even he has heard that phrase from the TV. It’s a way of getting to know each other and sharing a little joke on the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Steve Farmer and Bill Luoma have known each other since at least those days at UCSD when Ron Silliman came to town and shifted quite a few perspectives. Steve Farmer was the first poet I ever heard to claim “post language” status. Luoma was off and running already in that direction. These two most recent books of theirs show many directions post-Language concerns can take or make to share a little serious joking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Substitution of nouns is one old move they use, but here it has a new focus of social critique in a metaphoric humor: e.g. on page 18 of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Some Math</i>, “the panel snake is working its way through the insulation of the enterprise.” That book has, in poems like “The Concept of Mass,” another level of substitutions or switching out. The languages/dictions/vocabularies of science, baseball, sports-talk, politics, parenting, and sex are flipped into and out of one another. This is not merely for amusement, though it is funny; they actually reveal something about each other and the personhood we think of as “voice.” Its relation to frames of reference as realities conferring a reality upon that personhood become both the joke of this switcheroo and its point. Mixing and crossing frameworks is the calculated move here. On page 36, is a poem of Time with both a scientific and a baseball meaning. In the next bit on pages 37-38, there’s a baseball scene to be imaged from an announcer’s voice asking us to see an impossibility that is almost science fiction: a player passes through the fence, but knowing as we do that fences in today’s multipurpose stadiums are often flimsy walls artificially placed inside the harder ones we know it could happen. Shifts of person in announcer play-by-play are common, and Luoma uses that too to play with and investigate person and voice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The poem “Alystyre Julian Certified Orient Minimal Clothing” has another kind of fun. Words get made up, and words get a new make-up from having to create their own context with our help. My favorite bits are the words that pop up among what seems just made up and so they seem made up, but then you see they’re real—real words, I mean. Part of the trick here too is about voice because to really read this poem you have to let go and just see the letters. Atop page 47, we have “and standing to probe domain walls of shiny dog he spoke forth / thereby increasing the glittering coercivity of mortal free layer / / ram horn upsidedown cat meaty shorthair cherry barb / avis blimpie hepcat come and eat moe tiny size” and make sense of it by supplying references word by word and by grammar. Chomsky’s other side told us about that back in the 70s. One context for the string is that it is in this poem, another that it “come from” the world of objects and coerced commodifications around us. Both work here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Bill’s got a knack for that, always has had. These poems trump non-referentiality with the pluri-referentiality of everything. As Freud proved in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Der Witz</i>, jokes help as a way of staying fun and funny while letting something serious poke through the veil of all the ways being serious as we get it. There’s a little problem with that, though. What Kerouac called “goofing” leaves a great portion of the audience who might not be focused on the same questions just laughing. Just as jokes don’t always liberate the listener but may bind her to a desire to repeat, these poems could become monster replicant DNA in the movie called the poetry scene. “How fuck with that?,” asks our philosophy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Well, I’d say “Seuss it.” The poem “nogo” takes the makey-up aspect on into a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>1</u></i>, 2, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>3</u></i>, 4, / <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>5</u></i>, 6, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>7</u></i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>kid’s-rhyme rhythm and into rhyme. “Swoon Rocket” continues this with the seven syllables across one line:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>(79)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The tones of all those dictions listed above are in that stanza still. And the sexy bits fit the poem’s title in making a love tone too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">There are many poets of the love poem, but Luoma has the corner on the “of” poem; it’s called “When the Pathogenic Wind Comes” when it appears twice in this book. Steinian in its diction, perhaps, its quintessential bit appears on page 60 with an opening line of “Pouring itself of Of” that is concluded with </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>of the contiguous one for one half</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of the three navel of of</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">That’s pretty whacky but it does sound great. The serious side of this effort peeks through on page 54 with “They of evils of head of diseases of eye of the traditional ones of the side and the midline / of of indications of of.” Zukofsky said it was all about prepositions, and taking one in turns as the noun for itself shows another kind of laugh mastery here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The title poem deserves some particular attention not only because it’s the title poem but because it folds in some “foreign language” as a chatter domain. The game of chatter domain slippage is that one I learned from my grandson; I strongly suspect Bill has received such teachings too. They are full of silly truths. Here “Some Math” demonstrates the conscious and unconscious manipulations party to this game. The energy of syntax creates a sense of composition while surprise words and wanna-be words are thrown in: “the meep of that of that the used one of bent ramificarsi” says it all except what the next line adds in “outside of elasticity comes the question” (92).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">That is the outside angle we are involved with here. It shows off the elastic qualities of paying attention to language while following the urge to pay attention <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">through</i> language. As much as we wanna get it, we are gonna get it. And like little Brendan, we share a joke along the way. A poem may be threaded around references that hang together like the one on page 99, where “Fourier” and “UN” and “Torrance” and “retarded argument of the delay” and “unilateral withdrawal from stolen land” all say something about political history; however, the urge to think stops in the face of</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Começ of fa socket</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>(107)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">“Fa” is “do” in Italian; “fa” is also the fourth of “do” in the harmonic scale. “Fa” is what we make of it, among other things. The other things here are words or the things Brendan might make up as words, the way we all did historically in making these “fa”-king languages. You can’t help but notice and maybe even feel all that in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Some Math</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">A little further out along those lines and pushing the outside further out is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Glowball</i>’s piece called “PARTS/DIN.” There we have fragments of words that come through either with the enough hint of the word’s whole look or as sound patterns of a choked diction:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>ga<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>tewa<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ay</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>l<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>st<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>th</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">We make sense of them with our eye’s leaps and our parsimonious principles of reading (see Silliman’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Sentence</i> 115). These are words that were </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>po<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>si</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>on<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>c<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>tion</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>(<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Glowball </i>44)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And then a poem like “Saturate” seems over-saturated with sense as we “come back” to sentence units like “These elements unaware of their relationship to the module, governed by a diction they can’t know” (59) make more sense than ever. The dictions here include a hardboiled one we recognize as an import from maybe Chandler: “I said the chronicle of a fall from grace with limited wardrobe options will suit me fine” (68). As we put that together with lines like “flowering kale / bank cabbage, cinderblocks of a dentist’s life” (68) portraying the substrate of suburban homes and gardens, we get the haunting quality of “the properties file in the source code tree contains the correct connect string” (69) and its place in a mystery with a smoothed over surface on which everything is programmed properly. The sad ending of “I fell asleep in a slow wind that held suspicion and misplaced need, telling myself the automated generation of reports feature made things seem more palatable” (72) mockingly echoes Marlowe working in a “dentist’s” world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">“Metacity” closes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Glowball</i> in a fiercer mix of dictions. It doesn’t take long for two domains to intersect sharply here: “bases of operation” is probably the first phrase, at line 6 in the poem, to reflect both the spheres of war and business. This mix has been in the air since the cover showing “US bombing, Iraq Invasion, 2003” led us on toward the epigraph from Secretary Rumsfeld saying “Test ideas in the marketplace” (7). When we get to the third portion of “Metacity,”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>how vested<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>possible to</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>know in an</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a Radisson cell)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>(77),</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the image of that hotel business world is clearly embodied with words like “cell” layering in multiple domains at once It means something in terms of body, imprisonment, communication, monasticism, and more. On the next page, one phrase presents the image from the cover: “firing into a cloud, & down to havoc upon a city” right along with the ostensible innocence of lines like “the desktop must be ubiquitous as if it had always existed” (78).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">In a few more sparse pages, we get “if not that, then virgins etc sitting at the right hand of no sacrifice too great” along with “businessman, straight in the eye and can be done in a deal” (81). There are other such references in the lines of this poem parsed out widespread on its slowly building pages, but the interweaving of business calculation and war meet in a sense of danger hovering like that in Philip Marlowe’s L.A. As the elements here move forward, they cross and mix and get mixed up: “Its pop surge bypassed his district how science did, a once vessel powerful in the globe suburban vehicle” (82). That reads like a bad Google translator translation or a kid trying to say what he can’t get his words around. The poems pushes the diction domains closer together to get patches like “highway target / storm hanging methane vents, Delilah” (89). There we are in the midst of war, oil extraction, the Bible, and pop culture—perhaps even hearing the great Tom Jones sing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Then “Metacity” seems to actually use bad Google translation in a penultimate stretch where stanzas are given in English and then poor Latin. The churchy sound and look of this confirms the sense thast the poem is working with belief and the unbelievable results of what we give our credence to and what it gives back.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>even joy</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>atque spectare</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Joey quod Joey</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>est post bellum</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>(94)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">You could say “Cano bellum perenne” with Pound off Vergil. A line like “accessories really matter” (93) now can’t help but present to us our own guilt as accessories to war or at least the sense that all our accessories helping us to access the life we let ourselves believe in are not just a fashion but an apparatus. The translation reads “apparatus est moneti” or “the apparatus is of the moment”—a bad translation that reveals the greater truth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The apparatuses of this poem, of this book, are of our moment. They deliver, without preaching, a clear revelation of complicities. That is the metastasis,\ in the metacity where everything has gone <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Glo(w)bal(l</i>). Thank theenk for this book.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">***** </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">T.C. Marshall is busy occupying his life, seriously supporting movement actions on the Cabrillo College campus where he teaches and in the S.F. and Monterey Bay areas where he lives. He has been writing and publishing poetry since first grade, literary criticism since his college days in the U.S. and Canada, and nature writing here and there. His latest publications include online essays and reviews as well as poems online and on paper in magazines. His next project is a set of poems incorporating photos to be published on a blog, all of which were originally posted on FaceBook. They are called <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Post Language</span></em>. </span><br />
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-86755657387825694622012-05-15T23:50:00.000-07:002012-06-01T15:05:44.022-07:00AS IF IT FELL FROM THE SUN: AN ETHERDOME ANTHOLOGY, Co-Eds. COLLEEN LOOKINGBILL & ELIZABETH ROBINSON<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">EILEEN TABIOS Engages</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">AS IF IT FELL FROM THE SUN: An Etherdome Anthology: Ten Years of Women's Writing</span></span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">, Edited by Colleen Lookingbill & Elizabeth Robinson</span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></b></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">(EtherDome Chapbooks/Instance, San Francisco & Boulder, 2012)</span></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">AS IF IT FELL FROM THE SUN</span></span></i><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> is an an<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">thology that presents a group of poems from poets previously published through an EtherDome chapbook -- each grouping is generous, making each illuminating about each individual poet. EtherDome, started in 2000 by co-editors Colleen Lookingbill & Elizabet<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">h Robinson, was intended to present a chap by a female poet without a previously published chap or book. What this means, in part, is that the anthology does not just offer poems but also a manifestation of Lookingbill's and Robinson<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">'s vision in creating the EtherDome project -- a vision purely (as "pure" as is possible) based on the two editor's aesthetics with little mediation by poets' prior reputations.</span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">This notion of presenting a publisher's vision is importa<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">nt but difficult to accomplish; I know it as a publisher moiself of a small press which I founded in 2001. I know how difficult it is -- and particularly as a small press with numerous constraints -- to be able to enact sufficiently what one intended to do through publ<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ishing. In fact, I would say that, to date, I have failed with my press in sufficiently presenting my underlying publishing vision even as each individual book project has been, if I may say so, <a href="http://meritagepress.blogspot.com/">stellar</a>. But such stellarness has more to do with the individua<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">l poet's prowess rather than with my stellar activities as publisher. This makes all the more admirable the achievement of these two editor-publishers in offering such a strong sense of what they wanted to achieve with Etherdome, a feat even more lauda<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ble when their searching process through the years was fluid enough to remain open to possibilities and, yes, even disagreements on (initial) choices by the other.</span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">And such can be proven, indeed, by this EtherDome anthology. Its two co-editors' Introduc<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">tion is useful in presenting what they intended when they began the project; in summary, they wished to expand publishing activities for women poets who, they felt, as a group were not aggressive in promoting their work into the publishing realm. Their int<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">roductory essay addresses the role of the chapbook as a response to limited funds as well as a promoter of intimacy, the difficulty of representation (as they note, most of their poets are white, middle class and heterosexual), among other </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">factors</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">. As a r<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">esult of this usefully honest introduction, one then can look at the poem-samples and reach certain conclusions about the two editors' visions. The poets presented in this volume are Merle Bachman, Faith Barrett, Margaret Butterfield, Erica Carpenter, Val<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">erie Coulton, Caroline Crumpacker, Susanne Dyckman, Kelly Everding, Renata Ewing, Amanda Field, Kate Greenstreet, Anne Heide, Brydie MPherson Kuchi, Erica Lewis, Susan Manchester, Linda Norton, Roberta Olson, Megan Pruiett, Lisa Rappoport, Sarah Suzor, and<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Stacy Szymaszek. Most were unknown and several since have reached visible success as measured by publications of subsequent books, e.g. Greenstreet, Lewis, Szymaszek, Coulton, Norton and Dyckman </span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">–</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> which</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">, if one is inclined along those lines,</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> one can certainly read as a validatio<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">n of the merit of the editors' choices. </span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">The overwhelming impression I glean from reading this anthology</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">--</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">in terms of what the poems seem to share -- is the clear evidence of pleasure. The poems not only effect pleasure in the reader but it seems that <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">there was much pleasure in their making, both of individual poems and their subsequent groupings into chap collections. It's interesting to me how there is so much social-ness in Lookingbill</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">’s</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> and Robinson's cons</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">iderations on</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> their role</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">s</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> as publishers, bu<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">t then the chosen poems themselves end up (to this reader anyway) mostly effecting a pleasurable admiration. One senses the balance between authorial (and a publisher can be an author, too) social concerns and the requirements of the poem was maintained su<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ch as to effect harmony. The anthology's opening poem, "Women's Pictures" by Merle Bachman, is a wise (partly viz lack of didacticism)</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> and inviting</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> example. The poem begins</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> --the way things fold-up inside her.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">a velvet pocket, a locket,<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> a poodle skirt, a flirt</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">the quality of April light,</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">a delicate abatement of worries.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">the figure of a woman rises, her skin-so-soft, her </span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">hair-so-fresh</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">light trapped in</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">the slats.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">a well-scrubbed infant a pot boiling a plain apron, a cigarette</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">burnin<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">g out.</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">inside the woman's body, furrows, pockets, a new idea sprouting</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">bud</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">s of arms and legs--</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">and ends with</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">A gown burns</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">it </span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">m</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ust, her flesh</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">incandescent on a darkened deck</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">imagine a body designed</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">for love, the smoke of it</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">a sacrifice to keep us content</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Just from the above excerpts you can </span></span><i><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">feel</span></span></i><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> the resonant lucid acknowledgment of life's vicissitudes but also how bitterness need not be the result -- I think this effect<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> surfaces because of the poet's/poem persona's intelligent self-awareness as well as unblinking gaze at the world.</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">With that prior paragraph, I feel myself tipping into inarticulateness. That's so because, really, the poems here need to spe<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ak for themselves. While I can share that I am intensely moved by t</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">hem,</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> anything I say would be insufficient. What can I say about -- here I open the anthology at random for a sample poem -- the last page of Linda Norton's "Miscellaneous Opalescence"</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">--</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">I walked among the Cabots and the Lodges and stopped at the grave of the botanist Asa Gray, and the yellow leaves fell upon my shoulders as if I were an heir to something. An arboretum, a library, a porch, a problem. A trellis covered with vines of Concord<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> grape. "She does not leave another to baptize her but baptizes herself."</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Tombstones are the covers of books, and there is no rare air, just blood and smoke and a library of bodies and souls. "Genius is the activity which repairs the decay of things."</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">And I am like the apple I picked and ate there at Mount Auburn that October when the leaves were falling, divinity my compost.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">--<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">when there is so much intelligence and elegy (?) within it? Ah, but this sample does remind me to note two other character<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">istics -- besides pleasure -- that the poems seem to share. Intelligence, of course. The other would be, how to put it?, a certain weight from history. Yes, these poets have done their research prior to putting down the first words on the page. The<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">y, as the sun might look down upon all of the planet, have sought to see--to understand as much as they can about humanity in order to better write for and about it.</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Self-awareness. Perhaps self-consciousness, too? If only because the presence of consc<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">iousness from the idea of the poet projected by a grouping of poems seems so strong. What I'm fumbling to say is that there is evident thinking and deep engagement here by the poets of their concerns. And it enervates the poetic lines, making the spaces <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">between lines, words, letters just brim with a fulsome intensity. Here's another example which I offer from, again, just opening the anthology at random:</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">You never know who you will meet: landscape</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">previously as windowscrap goes and</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">grows until the <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">noblemen standing by that</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">square have disappeared, been forced out</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">of the painting by hills and cypresses and whatever</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">else. Outside the frame they pace in soft pointed</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">shoes, displaced, complaining, looking for the way</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">back in</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">--from "Small Bed Diary" by <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Valerie Coulton</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Not beauty, but the </span></span><i><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">intensity</span></span></i><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> of beauty, in the anthology's pages is why I feel the anthology is so aptly titled, by the way. "As If It Fell From the Sun" hearkens to me such loveliness, lucidity and luminosity and much of the poems are <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">just wonderful this way.</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Okay, but what's "women" or "woman" about these poems? Perhaps it's the delicacy that imbues so many of these lines? Is it the ever-present hint of "sweet"-ness (a la "The sun makes sweet poets" from Kelly Everding's "THE WEATH<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ER IN SPACE")? Perhaps it's the stepping-lightness of the words in many of the poems which often create enchantment? For such things as delicacy, sweetness and stepping light are not (well, with certain exceptions) factors I associate with "man" though tha<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">t may bespeak the limits of my imagination or knowledge. There is no definitive answer except what lies in the existence of the poems and their publication. Even then, such an answer is "imprecise" (to paraphrase</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">—and recontextualize—</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">the</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">title of</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> Carol<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ine Crumpacker’s poem, “WE EMBRACE IMPRECISION A SIDE-EFFECT OF DISTANCE”). </span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">But impreciseness inherently means existence. So these poems exist and, for now, that may suffice in the way one can read </span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">a judiciously-excised excerpt from Crumpacker’s poem:</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Th<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ere being no such thing as silence<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">only racket</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">and no known calibration<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">for the elements needed</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">to make<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">it<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">disappear</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">we contrive<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">silence<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">as lack of attention<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">lack of speaking</span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">We want<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">assurance</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">I was going to end there. But, for the heck of it,<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> I'm going to open the anthology at random again and present what I see. Without knowing ahead of time which poem or excerpt of poem I'll be presenting, I will make a bet that the following will move you to admiration, and while I know not at the moment w<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">hat you will admire, I bet it </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">will be</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> a quality that will be </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">intense</span></span></i><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">:</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">THE WEATHER IN SPACE</span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">By Kelly Everding</span></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">We were speaking when the stars began:</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">a realist, you said, would consider them dead.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">I wondered aloud what nebula</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">would call his a home--</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">children inching closer with sticks and shovels,</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">flagrant in their disregard of luminosity.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">You said we inhabit a minor planet, and I thought</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">you meant music my god you got the chord right.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Perplexed you spread your arms and said</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">The sun makes swee<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">t poets,</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">despite the many suns snuffed tonight. Blink.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">I mentioned an eminent meteor, or was it imminent?</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">It's nice by the fence, and I pose</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">for the satellite's camera, pinpoint light passing</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">through the Pleiades. You are on another</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">subject already, <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">treason, and the wind</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">picks up, a treasonous wind relocating your words.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Select a chair, you said, when there were no chairs.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">A dangerous transference, words thrown </span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">from the mailbox--all stamped dangerous.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Do you believe in osmosis? you asked inchin<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">g</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">closer, a coliseum blinking.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">You say you're cold. In space meteors are mostly ice,</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">and you touch me your hands like ice.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">I begin to see a pattern.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Look, the Big Dipper. We've seen it all our lives--</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">traveled that ancient path since we were amoebas.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Everyone has daughters bent to a loom,</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">weaving and unweaving, their stories a delay,</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">fortunes or doors. Don't change the subject.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">It is nearly dawn and we wait for shadows.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Solar plumes lick the stratosphere, curl and blacken.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">How synchronistic tha<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">t this anthology entitled </span></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Perhaps It Fell From The Sun</span></span></i><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> opened to the poem that bears the line: "The sun makes sweet poets"-- a metaphor for this anthology that makes from the publishers' vision a radiance so matured even darkness becomes luminous.</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Deeply</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">intensely</span></span></i><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> satisfying and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">***** </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eileen Tabios does not let her books be reviewed by <em>Galatea Resurrects</em> because she's its editor. But she is pleased to point you elsewhere to recent reviews of her books. </span><a href="http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios5.html"><strong><i><span style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the relational elations of ORPHANED ALGEBRA</span></span></i></strong></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, a collaboration with j/j hastain, is reviewed by Susan Schultz at <em>Jacket2</em> <strong><a href="https://jacket2.org/commentary/new-thresholds-new-anatomies">HERE</a></strong>, and by Amazon.com Hall of Fame reviewer Grady Harp <strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/review/R2MYQH80AIG4WG/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm">HERE</a></strong>. Another book </span><a href="http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2011/tabios.html"><em><b><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">SILK EGG: Collected Novels </span></b></em></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">is reviewed by Thomas Fink in </span><a href="http://www.leafscape.org/press1/v5n3/fink-review.html"><em><b><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Press 1 </span></b></em></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and by Nicholas Spatafora in </span><a href="http://www.oovrag.com/essays/essay2011b-3.shtml"><em><b><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">OurOwnVoice</span></b></em></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span><br />
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-80364408856562674222012-05-15T23:45:00.001-07:002012-05-30T07:23:54.068-07:00ONE SLEEPS THE OTHER DOESN'T by JACQUELINE WATERS<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">PATRICK JAMES DUNAGAN Reviews</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">One Sleeps the Other Doesn’t</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"> by Jacqueline Waters</span></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">(Ugly Duckling Presse, Brooklyn, 2011)</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The speaker in Jacqueline Waters’ poem “The Tax” declares: “it was anxiety that led me to love.” Rather dramatic, but this statement nonetheless possesses the feeling of being true: The risk of loving met by the risk of not. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">This is anxious writing. A delicate balance is sought between getting down what needs be said and withholding what must not be yielded to. Waters isn’t one to glad hand matters any, however, she’d rather let the business fend for itself. And as she is all-poet matters of form come first. Poetry is no sloppy or lackadaisical pursuit of hers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">If these’re the new habits let them split</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">like hands on the arms of a chair</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">making room</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">to grow familiar, letting the head</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">fall forward in drowsiness</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">as leaves, blossoms, etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">bend inward and sway</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">(from “Aptecon”)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Form locates its own form. Like to like: each to each. In romantic relationships we’re too often haunted most by what is left unsaid. It’s no different for poets than it is for business professionals. Everybody’s just a plain silly acting mammal when it comes down to it. Waters is looking for the limits of our shared behavior traits, how far is far enough (and also, who is pushing who, anyway?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">A poet is a clown</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">In a good way</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The purpose</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Is to entertain people</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">You can be more smart than funny</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Perhaps not even</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Funny at all</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">(from “The Tax”)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">There’s no obligation to be anything other than what you are. Poems best represent both themselves and the poet behind them when they understand this. Best live it, be in the moment—more immediate the better, or as Waters puts it here: “I don’t have moments I have instants” (“The Garden of Eden a College”). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The risks of living are never measured better than by a healthy awareness of one’s existence. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Forever the cost of being human / will be an affront to the means of being better” (“Young Nohejl at Naples”). Don’t doubt there’s no escaping paying your due. Be on guard or get counted out. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Waters is searching. If she’s lucky she’ll never find any answers. Lying in bed sleep not coming on your partner resting easy in dream is a charmed life. Rare does it last. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">no sleep at first, dream</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">about a patch of bog</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">paved over by the broad margin</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Thoreau loves to his life:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">“I love a broad margin to my life”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>-Thoreau</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">it</i> was lovely to say</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">it</i> was raining</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>and to mean</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">part of you</i> was low: half the pleasure</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>was suspecting yourself</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>on to something, the rest</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>fell from following</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>the first pleasure’s lead:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>opening a book on the bar</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>in front of each empty chair</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>setting yourself</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>at the bar’s far end</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>till night, your own cloud of it</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>ran right to the orbs of your eyes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">This is from “A Ploy” the opening poem. Markedly crisp and clear, the images are a setting in which actions occur solo voce. The voice is heard. A mood set. It’s not to be beat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">*****</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">Patrick James Dunagan lives in San Francisco and works in Gleeson library at the University of San Francisco. His most recent book is <i>"There Are People Who Think That Painters Shouldn't Talk": A GUSTONBOOK </i>(Post Apollo, 2011), other writing includes a plethora of book reviews and assisting Iranian poet Ava Koohbor with translating her poems from Farsi. Some things are also likely to be appearing in issues of the Lightning'd Press house mag, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">1913 Journal of Forms, Shampoo</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">House Organ</i>. </span><br />
<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-7992019427399253022012-05-15T23:45:00.000-07:002012-05-30T07:21:22.589-07:00PARROT ON A MOTORCYCLE by VITESZSLAV NEZVAL<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PEG DUTHIE Engages</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Parrot on a Motorcycle: On Poetic Craft / Papoušek na Motocyklu: O </i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Ř</span>emsle Básnickém </i>by Vítězslav Nezval; translated by Jennifer Rogers; designed by Amy Mees and Mark Wagner<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></b></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Ugly Duckling Presse, Brooklyn, N.Y., 2010)</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a dual-language edition of a manifesto written in 1924 by a founder of the Czech Surrealist Movement. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was produced in a limited run of 500. The volume consists of two signatures hand-stitched together, with the Czech text forming one half of the book and the English translation forming the other half. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The exterior of the book consists of two front covers (one Czech, one English) that form a single wheel when viewed together. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBeB6g20j9hUBbcMr-1cgMaRweWMa9Z8L116KuoNPOt8wqG6K75jPMdLKsL-JM6F1SXCKseTJ7d-iQWB_MbRItTVfpLckNR0wjBERZGoM9h7JIJ222xSS6Yo6Mr1MRLpknIUNI2pz_KTg/s1600/IMG_3675.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBeB6g20j9hUBbcMr-1cgMaRweWMa9Z8L116KuoNPOt8wqG6K75jPMdLKsL-JM6F1SXCKseTJ7d-iQWB_MbRItTVfpLckNR0wjBERZGoM9h7JIJ222xSS6Yo6Mr1MRLpknIUNI2pz_KTg/s320/IMG_3675.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The manifesto begins with an introduction titled “Poetics” -- a preliminary blast from Nezval’s circus of thoughts, in which he announces himself with goals such as “A picture that starts a fire!” and “To have charlatan elegance! / On vaudeville knowingly revise boring stanzas / and behave with careless cordiality.” The main body of the text is presented as a series of declarations in boldface on the lefthand pages; on the righthand pages, a procession of plain, academic-sounding notes appear to annotate or clarify the text to the left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, in one spot, the text on the left issues this definition: “Metaphor: gallant exalted playboy”; the text on the right meets it with “Metaphor, the tool of poetic transfiguration.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is a slim book (11 pages of English text, each page the size of a 4”x 8” business envelope), but it’s crowded with images and ideas. It’s the kind of book to sit with on a porch swing with a bottle of Staropramen, alternating sips at the text and swigs of beer. It’s the kind of book I would find maddening were I ordered to interpret Nezval’s thoughts to an ivory tower inquisition, but it’s a fun book just to hang out with. It’s like hanging out at a New Orleans bar with a flamboyant pal cheerfully tugging at one’s sleeve, insisting that one pay attention to his taller-by-the-minute tales: “Fruitless, I was waiting in vain for the arrival of the clairvoyant typist, when fever escaped from the medical encyclopedia, it reached fireworks and is dancing.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Are parrots even mentioned at all in the book? Indeed, they are invoked four times:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Collection of ideas, these parrots with magical names.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Fiery parrot or Japanese lantern.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The poem: miraculous bird, a parrot on a motorcycle. Ridiculous, sly and miraculous.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I enhanced the world by 2 or 3 new parrots.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s not a ride for everybody, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Parrot on a Motorcycle</i> can be fun for readers in the mood for a wild little spin around town. Just like riding on a bike, spending time with it can shake fresh colors onto your radar and heighten how you perceive the everyday (yet so extraordinary) mayhem around you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*****</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Peg Duthie is the author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Measured Extravagance</i> (Upper Rubber Boot Books, 2012). She is married to a motorcycle mechanic and has traveled across the U.S. perched on a Kaw.</span><br />
<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-87858802015899775342012-05-15T23:40:00.000-07:002012-05-30T07:18:04.406-07:00RAMBO GOES TO IDAHO by SCOTT ABELS<span style="font-family: Cambria;">LUCY BIEDERMAN Reviews</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;"><strong><em>Rambo Goes to Idaho</em> by Scott Abels</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria;"><em>(BlazeVOX, Buffalo, N.Y., 2011)</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">I wish I had a less Herbal Essences way to say this, but it is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">invigorating</i> to read Scott Abels’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rambo Goes to Idaho</i> (BlazeVOX, 2011). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rambo</i> is so truly strange, strange to its very core, that it reminds me what multitudes one book, and one person, can contain. This is not the only way in which <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rambo</i> brings to my mind <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leaves of Grass</i>: both are rooted in power and possibility, but shot through with gentleness and specificity. Many of Abels’s poems are in couplets, often end-stopped and sometimes seemingly unrelated to each other. Those couplets can feel like words streaming across a ticker tape display—context-less blips of information, coming in over the transom. But in the unexpected movement between stanzas, the variety of tones and voices, and surprising bursts of lush lyricism, Abels creates strange and beautiful new contexts. From the book’s first poem, “Screenplay”: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Pan to:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Rambo’s matching panties.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Pan to:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Never anything in his Inbox. …</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Releasing the grip from his neck:</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">I<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">am<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">not <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> m</span></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">y<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">conflict.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Nearly every couplet in the poem consists of one of these micro-scenes, an image culled from the collective cultural consciousness, conveyed with familiar wording. What makes it new is the relentless build-up of these scenes across the poem, and Rambo being their star. Abels takes language and sentiments other poets would leave for dead—“matching panties,” “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I am not my conflict</i>”—and rather than trashing them, he repurposes them. In the space between stanzas, before Rambo plunges headfirst into another cliché, I read passivity—there is something pathetic in Rambo’s alacrity, his extra’s willingness to appear at, say, “the key party.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">As these bits of “Screenplay” suggest, Abels has a brilliant ear for the tones and sounds of American life and popular culture. For example, in the poem “Time to decide. What don’t we know,” he writes, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">It was time to write about action</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">and adventure, hazards and traps,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">one solid word</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">for something the body registers</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">as poison, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">frickin’</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">wasn’t in the dictionary.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">It is kind of exciting to see <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">frickin’</i> standing boldly the end of the line here, appearing right before the verb just as it might in casual speech. And that effect is amped up by the other tones Abels conveys in the tiny space of these three stanzas—the Hardy Boys-ish tone of the first stanza and the more poetical tone of the second stanza. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">The book has a pleasantly messy feeling that contributes to its sense of strangeness; after “Screenplay” there is another poem in which Rambo is a character, then we are presented with Rambo’s MFA thesis, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Angel vs. Ghost</i>, which is split into several sections with titles like “Karl Rove Will Be Your Graduating Speaker” and “SEXUALLY DEPRIVED FOR YOUR FREEDOM.” None of the poems in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Angel vs. Ghost </i>are titled; rather, individual poems are identified on the table of contents by their first lines. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">My favorite poems in the book are labeled “Obituaries/Erasures: from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Idaho Statesman</i>,” and despite being erasures, Abels has kept them generally obituary-like and character-driven. They filled with gorgeous lines, among them my favorite in the entire book, and my favorite thing I have read in a long time, “There will never be enough words / to describe this.” Also in the “Karl Rove” section but on their own page are the birth and death dates of Robin Bush (George W.’s sister, who died as a child) and Reba Rove (Karl’s mother, who committed suicide). Though there were moments throughout <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rambo</i> where I was unable to parse tone or meaning, this was the only moment where my inability to understand intention detracted from my overall reading. I felt directed toward a specific conclusion, but I did not know why, or what that conclusion was. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Several lines stood out for me as potentially metapoetical. Toward the beginning of Rambo’s thesis, Abels writes (quite arrestingly, to my ear), “Fuck the intersection of anything” and, later, “Fuck metaphors for depth forever.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These statements feel connected both because of their similar construction and because of how they seem to instruct or inform our reading. Their tone, and the unique tone of much of this book, seems like that of a child narrowing her eyes when she is playing at being evil or angry—it is Nerf-gun fierce, comic but not entirely harmless. At other times, the tone is one of more direct critique, and Abels has a way of intensifying and reviving this more familiar type of tone: he is critical and political without seeming angry. I find an example of that type of tone in the poem “I am a limo.” Abels writes, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">I am here waiting</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">to receive</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">a historical fax</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">from my cold dead pants</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">(it’s like throwing </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">an orange at an orange)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">from a cult of Corn.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">I have come from </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">American Christmas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">This poem, from the section “Victory Punch,” critiques the kind of jingoistic language and sentiment Rambo would probably unabashedly accept—but alongside that critique, I think, is a genuine interest in and even admiration for that language and mindset. “I am a limo,” like other poems throughout the book, recalls for me Rae Armantrout’s work in its clipped couplets and the mishmash of American cultural signifiers through which a speaker must navigate. But while Armantrout’s speaker often exists to critique this wasteland, Abels’s speaker is heroically, perhaps slightly tragically, planting hot dog seeds in it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Abels achieves moments of deep beauty and pathos in the midst of the ridiculous. For example, in the poem “Be sober, but have some beer for after,” the three-line stanza, “Your donut made you smile, / mumbling how we suffer. / Your cheeseburger made you tired.” Wedged between a donut and cheeseburger (as actual suffering so often is), the middle line anchors the stanza and the poem—for me, it becomes like a beating heart around which the haphazard essaying of the rest of the poem moves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rambo</i> is nearly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">suspenseful</i> for me, because of Abels’ ability to, in an instant, part the tide of the familiar and deliver a gorgeous line seemingly out of nowhere. As American as their hero is, reading Scott Abels’s poems feels like being driven by a good driver through a foreign countryside: you have no idea where you’re going, or what the rules are, but you trust him entirely. What could be better?</span></div>
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Lucy Biederman is the author of a chapbook, <em>The Other World </em>(Dancing Girl Press), and many poems, some of which are forthcoming or have appeared recently in <em>The Portland Review, Gargoyle, Many Mountains Moving</em>, and <em>Shampoo</em>.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-48024429022988832122012-05-15T23:35:00.001-07:002012-05-30T07:17:03.393-07:00POEMS COME HOME by SUKRITA, Trans. by GULZARPREM KUMARI SRIVASTAVA Reviews <br />
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<strong><em>Poems Come Home</em> by Sukrita and translated by Gulzar</strong> <br />
<em>(HarperCollins Publishers Ltd India, 2011)</em> <br />
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<center><strong>Doubly Glossed</strong></center><br />
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As a collection of poems, <em>Poems Come Home</em> is a curio shelf of a show-window that displays some of the finest poems from the past and present of Sukrita, the poet. When this curio shelf lightens up in a rainbow of colors: multivalent and multi-nuanced by translation in Urdu-Hindi by none other than one of the finest lyricist-poet, Oscar award winner Gulzar, then its kaleidoscopic gloss is blindingly captivating. The dedication: ‘<em>Hindustani Ke Naam’</em>, followed by the introduction by Sukrita and Gulzar prods the mind towards a certain kind of readership. Sukrita raises some fundamentally important issues related to translation: the concept of distortion in translation; loss and gain in translation; translation as a bridge between linguistic cultures and the concept of the ‘original’. “Is this really the ‘original’ that lurked somewhere in the English poems, now acquiring a fresh breath of life in the very process of recreation?” she asks. Or is it ‘two ways of seeing’ as Bluestone would have said in his critical notings on adaptation theory? It is true that ‘original’ as a word and a metaphor rests on the fulcrum of ‘gone by’. Probably yes, these poems were in a rented abode nurtured by the English language. Now they have truly come home: in Hindustani! <br />
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The mélange of poems presented in this anthology, with multiple valences, irresistible gracility, resonances and power, besides evocative imagery, pan out some newer concerns of Sukrita, juxtaposed cozily alongside some of her seminal and early concerns: the world of everyday tumult, the indigent destitutes that have always crowded her poetry; the inchoate communities and emotions, and well-staked out arguments about life and death. (“Compromise” deals with the bargain that Sukrita makes with life and death.) As a register of statements of personal poetry (confessional to an extent), it admits Sukrita’s long and deep engagement with ‘home’ as the ‘self’, as ‘identity’, as the ‘I’ coalescing towards a common identity; attempts to confront that identity; the pain of relationships, natural calamities; and the transience of memory spread on a sheet of white and innocent beauty of the mountains or even the Chestnut or Oak tree on the Shimla Hills! <br />
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Unlike her earlier anthologies, particularly the bilingual one, <em>Rowing Together</em>, the poems of this collection are not consciously arranged in thematic sections. The poems just come by. But on a closer read I did identify certain thematic clusters. The first cluster of 5 poems is about the “Homeless and the Dispossessed”. The second cluster of 3 poems under the section “Possessed” deals with obsessions of various kinds’ about hearing the call ‘to take a step forward’ (I) or an idea flowing from the mind (II) or possessed with the idea of keeping hope alive (III) . The four poems in “Space Contacts” dwell upon the larger theme of evolution of life; Shadow and Sun (I) Root, Flower, Rain (II) Metaphysical Stirrings (III) Emerging from/Longing for someone (IV). The fourth cluster is a set of 4 poems titled “Tsunami Snapshots”. These 16 poems still leave out 24 poems with themes of a varied nature. Broadly, under “Mountain Experiences” (my category) is, “Massey’s Tales”, one of the longest poems in this collection. Set amidst the Himalayan Oaks, the Chinars, it deals with the guard at the Viceregal Lodge recounting his strange fascination for the cold blue eyes of his former master. “The Chosen One”, a nature poem is again about Summer Hill, Shimla Monkeys and Chestnut tress. Closely associated to these experiences is the poem “To You, Whoever”, addressed to a snake. In fact snakes and reptiles do abound in Sukrita’s poetry. “Alone” and “How to Begin” as sister poems have to be read together. <br />
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In Gulzar’s hands the poetic nuances of Sukrita’s verse come alive! An experienced master craftsman of words, his eyes and ears catch and feel the minutest stirrings of the soul and mind in her poems. Every word that he has used seems inevitable: In her poem, “We the Homeless IV” ‘…<em>reptiles/gnawing/at his insides’ </em>has been translated such: ‘<em>andar hi andar usko, kutarte, raingte keereh</em>.’’ The word <em>Keereh </em>and none other could convey the true import of these lines; and ‘<em>faithlessness’ </em>becomes ‘<em>kam imaani’ </em>in “We the Homeless V”. This can only be the work of a seasoned poet like Gulzar. Consider the following examples of an astute translator at work with a mastery of language that is unparalleled: ‘<em>vacant’ </em>as ‘<em>kore’ </em>and ‘<em>filling me/fiercely/with motherhood’ </em>as ‘<em>mere andar mamta ka/sailabh umarh aaya’</em>. This way “We the Homeless I” becomes a new poem in his hands, the meaning of the poem has so beautifully been captured. “Parting Again”, the first poem in this anthology, is a fine example to understand the process of transcreation. Read the following: <em>Sadness sits like/a snake in my belly/turning and twisting/giving me hysterics</em>. Let us look at Gulzar’s creation:<em> Udasi saap si, naabhi par kundli maar ke baithi huyi hai/palat ti, karvatein leti mujhe tarpa rahi hai</em>. ‘Hysterics’ as a word has simply been understood and contextualized, thus, transcreated such that it appears cozy and apt in the re-creation. <br />
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One almost finds a rapprochement of sorts happening between English and Hindustani! Sukrita calls this dialoguing as ‘Tight rope walking’ in her introduction, where the original and the translation do not impinge upon each other, where beauty and fidelity are creatively transfused and the translations come out as breathing in an autonomous space. More than a technical transfer, this avatar acquires a life of its own. Examples of English and Hindustani dialoguing with each other abound (e.g. <em>wealthy sinners</em> as <em>vasseele vale </em>in “We the Homeless II”; ‘words’ as ‘alphaaz’ in “Ageing in America”) and capturing the Hindustani lurking in Sukrita’s poetry, for example, <em>salt on old wounds </em>(“My Lost Diary”) as <em>Zakhmon pe namak chirkaate rehna</em>; the contexts of <em>Azaan, Namaaz </em>and reference to the fourteenth night of the lunar month when the moon is only a slender curve, in “Above the Ground”, linking it up ably with prayers in Hindustani, is truly remarkable. It is at such instances that one ignores meaning - shifts in translation such as this one: <em>Dark-Grey/Clouds half-sitting/on folded legs/for Namaaz/In the skies </em>as do <em>janoo huye baadal/parhne ko namaz apni </em>(“Above the Ground”). This poem with cadences of Sufi thought, when read in translation is incomplete. Same is the case with “Many a Moment”, a poem about keeping dreams alive. By not translating certain lines of these poems, in a sense pollarding them, has Gulzar infused them with a new life? Tellingly, both the author and the translator choose to ignore this lack of completeness and do not mention this even in their introductions. <br />
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Stylistically, with a gentle use of paradoxical expressions (“We the Homeless IV”), the pages of her poetry are sparsely populated with words. (“We the Homeless III” is a fine example of the author’s minimal use of words and brevity of expressions): “Madamji, / Can you get me/My mai?/ My home./ Slapping the dust off himself/ The little boy/queried, his eyes rolling in hope. . . .(8)” This brevity is further nuanced in the translation too: “Gard jhaar ke/aankhon mein ummeed ghuma ke/poochha chhote chhokrey ne. . . .(9).”Ridden by almost a manic precision in utterance, Sukrita confesses that she is, ‘as sensitive to shedding words as using them.’ “Just a Little One” is one such example that captures the innocence of the child in short pithy lines. Feminine sensitivities are sufficiently evoked with impulses of motherhood (“We the Homeless I”) and sisterhood (“Ageing in America”), and of compassion for the old woman, (“The Mad Woman in the Avenue of Stars”), though apparently, the poet herself is most unconscious of this fact. Feminine sensitivities are sufficiently evoked with impulses of motherhood (“We the Homeless I”) and sisterhood (“Ageing in America”), and of compassion for the old woman (“The Mad Woman in the Avenue of Stars”). From a vantage point of a confessional poet, “My Lost Diary” is a personal poem about a painful memory of certain important relationships in life. Far from being mawkish, these poems are quite overtly feminist. <br />
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Sukrita is a poet of reality. In applying this phrase to her, I wish to call attention to the fact that in her poetry; the residue of the fundamental and the essential nature of life come out as experiential truths. Her poetry reflects inner dilemmas and tensions and often an attempt to, ‘perhaps sort them out for myself’. This also explains rather obliquely, the unconscious purpose behind placing the index at the end. It almost prompts a backward reading all over again. It would be unfair to compare her poetry with any of the contemporary poets, even women poets writing in English because her poetry displays a rootedness and a kind of bilingualism not found aplenty. A typical Sukrita poem ends rather than concludes and irresolution is offered as a very natural conundrum. “Cold Storage” translated as “<em>Khat Ek</em>” (literally implying “A Letter”) is a poignant page, imaginatively read out from India’s most sensitive past, the Partition, and its imprints on Punjab, the land of five rivers. Starting off with a semi-diasporic longing, replete with feelings of nostalgia and displacement, its protagonist, <em>Vaddi Ma </em>yearns to go back to <em>Bhatinde, meri rano ke pas/…meri jarurat hogi usko/itne mahine ho jaye toh/gaye ‘okhi’ho jati hai</em>. Poems rooted in real life like the “Corpses” or the four poems in “Tsunami Snapshots” have the broad theme of triumph over adversity such as the snakes creating “<em>a lap of poison to keep death out of boundaries</em>” (“Tsunami Snapshots I”) or the little head “<em>hanging like a coconut</em>…”(“Tsunami Snapshots II”) or a sense of awe and bewilderment at the passage of time, nature’s fury and ‘life itself’ (“Tsunami Snapshots III”), showcasing the other humanist concerns of Sukrita. <br />
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Translations also often lend themselves to comparisons. Since two of her collections have been translated, I cannot refrain from drawing a comparison between the two translations of “We the Homeless V” in order to only home in the point that mastery in the language in which the original finds a new home is so important. Let’s read this: <em>With feline alacrity/My hand moved to cover/my bandaged finger/marking my faithlessness</em>. Gulzar translates: <em>Phurti se maine/patti-bandhi apni ungli ko chhupa liya,/aur apni kam-imaani ko-bhi. </em>The other translation reads like this: <em>billivaali phurti ke saath/mera haath meri patti bandhi unguliyon ko/dhankne ke liye barha/meri anaastha ko darshaate huye. </em>Sukrita was unwittingly self-revelatory when she told an interviewer recently that Gulzar’s translations ‘brought the poems not just to an appropriate language but also captured the inner rhythm of the English poems that he rendered in meter in translation.’ <br />
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The one poem that I consider as the very ne plus ultra of this collection is also one of the finest translated poems, “Insight” as “<em>Roshni ke Daayare ke</em>”. It reads like this: ‘<em>In the centre of/that circle of light/Rising slowly/over the river of experience/panting and huffing/ Lies the truth of my life/so white/I cannot see it/ All colours merged,/Lives absorbed/the white becomes whiter/And I/More blind. </em>Gulzar’s pen does the following to this poem: <em>Roshani ke daayare ke/aen markaz mein/Tajurbe ke saare dariyaon se/dheere dheere uthti/haaphti aur kaampti/meri poori zindagi ki ek sadakat rakhi hai/safed itni/dhekh bhi sakti nahin mein/saare rangon ko samete/safed bhi ab safedtar hai/aur mein…/kuch aur andhi. </em>In all, it is the nuanced use of Urdu words that has earned Gulzar critical cachet and this also remains the hallmark of the collection. “Voyaging at Ten” is an old poem of Sukrita’s, which finds its way in most of her anthologies. The poem displays a unique rootedness in an experience which in itself is no less than ordinary. As an example of two conscious craftsmen, sonorously blended together, both are faithful to the desire for brevity of expression and precision at its best. Read the following: ‘<em>Between awesome expanses/of deep Blue oceans/and the graying sky’ </em>as ‘<em>bekarain neele samander </em>(a fine example of brevity) <em>/kanpati se safed hote aasmaan ke darmiyan’</em>. Only Gulzar can transfuse such a poem with such exquisite metaphoric translation of the ‘shores’ as ‘support’: <em>The shores are not/in sight</em>…as <em>saahil vo nazar aata nahin</em>. The translation is truly beautiful in its use of urdu words: <em>speck </em>as <em>nukhte</em>; <em>God’s creation </em>as <em>kaayenaat</em>; <em>Blue death </em>as <em>aabi kabrh</em>. <br />
<br />
Whose collection is it anyway! This is the quandary that you may find yourself in after having finished savouring this Hindustani delight! <br />
<br />
***** <br />
<br />
An academic and a translator, Prem Kumari Srivastava is an Associate Professor of English at Maharaja Agrasen College, University of Delhi. A Visiting Shastri Fellow at University of British Columbia, Vancouver in 2010, she has several research presentations (national and international) and publications in books and eminent journals such as <em>South Asian Diaspora</em>, Routledge, <em>Indian Literature</em>, Sahitya Akademi, <em>Literary Paritantra</em>, DEI and <em>Creative Forum</em>, Bahri to her credit. Co-Guest Editor of the journal <em>Fortell </em>(Forum for Teachers of English Language and Literature), New Delhi for four issues in 2010-2011, she has been appointed the Guest Editor again for its forthcoming Silver Anniversary Issue no. 25, Sep 2012. Her research interests are Cultural Studies (indigenous and the popular) American Studies, Religion of Saints and e learning: with an overarching focus on Gender. Her poems have been showcased in journals such as <em>Kritya, Families: a Journal of Representations</em>, and Your Space: <em>Muse India</em>. Adrienne Rich, Yeats, Jayant Mahapatra and Tagore are some of the poets who inspire her poetry. She is on the Editorial Board of <em>Fortell </em>and <em>Literaria</em>. Her Bionote can be viewed at: <a href="http://fortell.org/fortell/MEMBERS/EditorialBoard/PremSrivastava.aspx">http://fortell.org/fortell/MEMBERS/EditorialBoard/PremSrivastava.aspx</a> <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-53379821338600796592012-05-15T23:30:00.000-07:002012-05-30T07:15:36.352-07:00UNTITLED by REED ALTEMUSTOM HIBBARD Reviews <br />
<br />
<strong><em>Untitled </em>by Reed Altemus</strong> <br />
<br />
<br />
<center><strong>ALTEMUS, PLANCK AND THE PICTURESQUE LOGOS OF TRANSFORMATION</strong></center><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmVZ84hZT55biX-z6VMPxLct7u5kDaO5-uMKTH-BkBWYEhIIfAsB1fK11BchjVcSxP3-vG3LkxluWONO3VSI3BMUiwQ2KHBJR59AaPPJXGHEWt6y-UHUzlJqpf3WkCcXsYFKRm6MBI0CU/s1600/emailaltemus.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5711394686826503970" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmVZ84hZT55biX-z6VMPxLct7u5kDaO5-uMKTH-BkBWYEhIIfAsB1fK11BchjVcSxP3-vG3LkxluWONO3VSI3BMUiwQ2KHBJR59AaPPJXGHEWt6y-UHUzlJqpf3WkCcXsYFKRm6MBI0CU/s400/emailaltemus.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 303px;" /></a> <br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<em>Every action, every art work for me, every physical scene, drawing on the blackboard, performance, brings a new element in the whole, an unknown area, an unknown world.</em> <br />
- Joseph Beuys</blockquote>
<br />
In the thought of Max Planck everything is objectified, made into an entity, using measurement and quantification but in a way that does not preclude other measurements, other quantities from appearing at any moment. Self-sufficient systems, whatever the phenomenon or matter being considered, are presented in their entirety and what might be called their visibility. Equations are worked out that define the phenomenon or matter in its fullness. But Planck himself asserts that these stable systems and bodies in suspension are likely to reveal themselves as incomplete. Invisible and uncomprehended aspects characteristically transform what we take as actuality into something in the end conceptual. <br />
<blockquote>
Mankind is making every endeavor to press beyond the present boundaries of its capacity, and we hope that later on many things will be attained which, perhaps, many regard at present as impossible of accomplishment.(1)</blockquote>
<br />
In Planck’s methodology, a problem is solved the moment that its aspects become quantities. <br />
<blockquote>
Can it not happen that a process which up to the present has been regarded as irreversible, may be proved through a new discovery or invention to be reversible?(2)</blockquote>
<br />
Visual writing, visual poetry are similar to Planck in that, despite containing or being derived from language, they are offered as a representation and picture. They stand quite separate and apart from the prominent textual discontinuities of language-use itself, as an indefinite, substantive Other, a “compositional ideal” unknowing of statements being made, diction, complaint, scholarship. Visual writing offers an abstract technical and formal commentary that brings to life basic anthropological evolutionary themes latent in the nature and fabric of language itself. Visual art pieces together the unarticulated evidence of lost voices and dialects as yet unheard as part of the ongoing endeavor of transcendent creativity—either ones that are suppressed in the present or ones that are still unformed in the future. <br />
<br />
Reed Altemus’ visual work above, consisting of a background of a bright, cherry shade of red, on which are initial white and black hand-scrawled script-like drawing and print-designs, portrays an exciting and picturesque time-filled open space simultaneously antagonistic and harmonious, . It is a work that applauds both individuality and participation. It puts the viewer in mind of society rather than community, nature rather than structure, freedom rather than organization. In this particular Altemus universe, a reality is sought that is closely felt rather than nonreferential. It is a metaphysical war-zone inscribed with direction and intent. <br />
<br />
Though the black and the white might be symbolic, it also might be the case that this work has in it a factor that combines reassurance with failure, an uncertainty and inability that cannot ever be entirely eliminated. Its geometric borders hold an ellusive world of the known—our U.S.A.—except that the patriotic red-white-and-blue has missed its mark, becoming rather a connotative red-white-and-black. As its creator, Altemus offers a generous contemporary but, to a degree, linear landscape that has as its focus a refreshingly uninhabited, incoherent rather than normative, surface. <br />
<br />
Stubbornly the work is ever-moving, ever-changing, ever-awake and attentive searching the isolated fragments of its semi-existence. In this way, Altemus argues that in its end state, in its totality and total visibility, identity, homeland, planet retain what might be considered in some sense “blemishes.” <br />
<br />
Whereas Planck and Altemus ingeniously and actively produce works that multiply the realms of recognizability, the world of immunity and falseness, the world incorporated against liability—the conceptual world that remains hidden—does just the opposite. Picking a quote from Marx basically at random: <br />
<blockquote>
Land, so long as it is not exploited as a means of production, is not capital.(3)</blockquote>
<br />
The message is that all things and phenomena that are “exploited as a means of production,” taking the form of an unshared commodity outside or exempt from the discourse, whether for a means of production or unused as a special possession, give rise to extraneous laws and structure that constitute the obstructive barriers effectively building a divided world of imbalance. Art and science create abundance from lack. The world creates lack from abundance. Materialism is perhaps unjust outcomes in an unstable state. In Altemus’ portrait of transformation—and Planck’s—with their advancing letters and sanctified numbers, their typographies and equations of human possibility, there is no sign of “exploitation as a means of production” or general economies predicated on impoverishment. Only capital’s absence appears as an identifiable quantity. <br />
<br />
<br />
<small><em>Notes <br /><br />1. Max Planck, </em>Eight Lectures on Theoretical Physics<em>, Dover, 1998, p.42 <br />2. Ibid., p. 42 <br />3. Karl Marx, </em>Poverty of Philosophy<em>, International, New York, 1993. p.119</em></small> <br />
<br />
***** <br />
<br />
Tom Hibbard has had recent work published in the last Australian issue of <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/40/r-rolfe-rb-hibbard.shtml"><em><strong><span style="color: #dd6599;">Jacket</span></strong></em></a>, and the current issue of <a href="http://www.moriapoetry.com/hibbard888.html"><em><strong><span style="color: #dd6599;">Moria</span></strong></em></a>. He also has a new collection of poetry, <a href="http://www.moonwillowpress.com/category/titles/the-sacred-river-of-consciousness/"><em><strong><span style="color: #dd6599;">Sacred River of Consciousness</span></strong></em></a>, from Moon Willow press. He is currently involved in the political struggles in the U.S. and world against mindless far-right extremism. <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-88052550394034736362012-05-15T23:25:00.000-07:002012-05-29T22:22:56.688-07:00PLANISPHERE by JOHN ASHBERYT.C. MARSHALL Reviews <br />
<br />
<strong><em>Planisphere</em> by John Ashbery</strong> <br />
<em>(Ecco, New York, 2009)</em> <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<strong>JUDGMENTS OF TIMING</strong> </div>
<br />
Harold Bloom says “the severe judgments of time” are gonna like Ashbery best. Who they are he doesn’t say, but I’ll bet the they is him and Helen Vendler, so maybe we don’t need to care. Those judgments are delivered, after being shaped and packaged, by “revered literary critics” like Helen and our pal Hal. Time itself is something else, but they seem to get the right to usurp its right to its own judgment and to put their reasoning behind it. That’s where we go wrong. A revered poet like John Ashbery is almost taunting them in books like <em>Planisphere</em>. Word by word, phrase by phrase, enigma by enigma, this book teases the faculties of critics as if it were written for them when it is actually probably most likely written against them. <br />
<br />
Each poem in the book is an anti-poem in ways that might have befuddled Nicamor Parra because they are anti- by going too far into rather than by trying to stand aside from poetic approaches. This book uses conversational tone with a mixed diction of grand and quotidian wording to evoke the aura of the poetic without falling into it. It is camp that way. To get a sense of this, take the book in hand and try randomly dropping into its flow of its 100 poems ordered alphabetically by their odd titles. If you land where I did, we see poetic techniques openly mocked in the appropriately named “FX,” while the next two poems flash novelistic diction and a sense of story at us. The next two after that mock line-break innovations like strokes of the word-brush, all differently shaped and placed next to each other all over the page. RS, eat your heart out. “Is it just me or” evokes the full mixture of dictions in one lyric. “The Later Me” fucks with logic. “The Logistics” uses the word “fucking” itself. “Lost Sonnet” is like a lost casting where found diction gets filled in. “I wasn’t pretending to say much,” a sentence in “Magnetic Flowers,” is the ironic motto of this book (55). <br />
<br />
There’s a funny aura of obscurity that shows up in poems and titles here, all the while working with phrases as familiar as old movies. We can see it in image-phrases like “fun the day we took our gun out” and “it plops the question just like that.” There are also things that may seem unfamiliar but play into our familiarities. I didn’t get the title “Pernilla” until I googled that name and got the New Yorker publication of the Ashbery poem itself along with a few references to actresses and models from Sweden with some very sexy pictures. I thought it was from Li’l Abner or something. Titles, Ashbery once told Dick Cavett, sit in a drawer at home waiting because he thinks of them faster than he can write poems. <em>Planisphere </em>just might be the catch-up plan. Its poems gather and join the kind of fragments that might seem to be slips of paper in a drawer drawn together rather randomly, though they make some kind of sense through our urge to have them do so. This is Lakoff & Johnson’s “parsimony principle” at work in poems that are far from parsimonious. <br />
<br />
These poems act as antidotal opposite to their year’s Pulitzer Prize winner Rae Armantrout’s <em>Versed</em>. They are anti-laconic; their “economy” of phrasing is profligate. They spill. The titles of these books tell their difference. “Versed” is a benzodiazapine used to keep kids from remembering the traumatic experience of surgeries anyway. A “planisphere” is “a star chart analog computing instrument in the form of two adjustable disks that rotate on a common pivot,” according to Wikipedia. The two-sidedness of Ashbery’s work is its function. Armantrout also keeps simple reading at bay but by terseness. <em>Planisphere </em>makes sure to say too much most of the time. The title poem says of a train ride, “it had meant to be sublime, but hell was / what it more specifically resembled.” With new images popping up and being tacked on, the poems often resembled train rides through a spook house. That poem goes on: <br />
<blockquote>
Remember <br />
to hold the course and take two of everything. That way <br />
if we make journey’s end before the tracks expire <br />
we’ll have been found living in it—the deep magenta <br />
sunset I mean. <br />
(75)</blockquote>
<br />
We give ourselves into a “we” with a poet easily enough, but Ashbery here takes his old indefinite pronoun move further out than ever before, even far enough to get baffling here. In a short ostensibly terse poem called “Poem,” the holes are so big that great wholes get let in. Who is the “us” when this poem says “Let us use your shoes / as they have almost demonstrated”? And that “they”? Each line in this “Poem” shifts the whole weight onward, and the poem is short enough that we can see the whole bag of tricks at once. It starts : <br />
<blockquote>
The sun travels all day, <br />
and then falls down</blockquote>
<br />
and ends: <br />
<blockquote>
All these people are running around. <br />
I wonder what they do in real time.</blockquote>
<br />
In between come the lines about the demonstrating shoes and these: <br />
<blockquote>
From its inscrutable lap <br />
a chicken with a wooden leg issues. <br />
(79)</blockquote>
<br />
I have purposely put the couplets out of order to show how even within two lines, surprising shifts come. It’s a cartoonland of images but even more forceful in mocking what we might expect from our sense of grammar. If you enter a “we” with this guy, watch out. Ashbery will not give you the satisfaction of standing in some perception with him. <br />
<br />
The poems go on turning tricks of the mind. “River of the Canoefish” makes sense if you let the fish be canoes and the whole scene be about riverside picnics and how they turn nature into something else. The poem simply sketches one of those places from an oblique angle and then ends with an appropriate thought: “Shall we gather at the river? On second thought, let’s not” (85). That one’s easy to read, laugh about, and move on from. But the next sneaks some heavy shit in at you. It starts with the title. I read it wrong, and got the sense that I was supposed to. It’s called “The Salve Merchant.” It could be just a small “joke’s on me” sort of thing if the play between “Salve” and “Slave” weren’t so telling. Some of the poems turn a little creepy, worse than the old Saturday afternoon horror flicks, really actually mixing sentimentalisms in a monstrous way. “Sons of the Desert” does this in at least two of its lines: “It was my first 3/4 length child (Fumed oak.)” takes a phrase from fashion and one from decorating and puts the sentimentalization of children dead center between them; the next line plays out a deictic that isn’t funny—“Look how funny her little arm is.” It’s “kind of gross” as we might have said when we junior high kids were watching those horror flicks, but it’s really more than that as it points to a cultural stance packed with creepiness like some John Zorn CD covers and Beattie’s novel <em>The Children’s Book</em> have in recent years. That poem ends with a bit out of a movie script about a lake that hides a crime or something “not fully understood” (98). <br />
<br />
The next poem, “Spooks Run Wild,” clearly uses TV and filmic reference points, narrative bits recognizable in their sentimental cliché, to compose what verges on a collage but also a narrative of its own owing to small recurrent elements. This book might be seen through that poem as having an overall technique of such collagisme, but the glue here is the tendencies of our minds to work in this way. The note at the end of the book tells us that “They Knew What They Wanted” is actually “a collage of movie titles,” which appeared in the catalog of a show of Ashbery’s visual collages at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery. <br />
<br />
Dictions is what this book’s about. The poem “Sticker Shock” belies its title with a dreamy ending that is just how we think, delivered in everyday discursiveness. In other poems, there are orientalizing uses of haiku diction or that of fortune cookies. There anglicized accounts of high-class syntactical inversions. There are mythifying references to classic history or culture, too. It’s all American, though, modern as frozen pie and mixed up as television. Recognizable bits make this world just as they make collage. What makes this a great book is the apparent amusement with it all, all the while enacting a critique. “To lop off part of it is to look at it” says “This Listener” before going on to ask “Isn’t the truth always cheesy?” (117). These poems are, as good poems will be, loaded with our little truths and that must be what Bloom takes for the big T time will hold dear; bless his pointed little heart. Near the end of the book, “Uptick” gives us what the book has readied us for: <br />
<blockquote>
Therefore poetry dissolves in <br />
brilliant moisture and reads us <br />
to us. <br />
A faint notion. Too many words, <br />
but precious. <br />
(128)</blockquote>
<br />
It is the timing of these lines, their phrases in the poem timed to get the thought across and the poem within the book likewise, that has its effect on the patient and amusable reader. “Variation in the Key of C” says “poetry is seriously out of joint” (129). “Voice-Over” says “Thank you so much for letting me listen today” (132). Poetry usually seeks to be a voice that gets inside your head; here Ashbery gives us the many voices that are already in our cultured heads and slowly persistently brings them to bear on poetry itself. But that was there all along; its timing is a set-up like in any good film. If we circle back to the very first poem, “Alcove,” we can read it as an exercise in the great poetic tradition of odes to Spring. Except its attitude, its diction, its wordiness, its odd similes, and its ominous conclusion, all point to a clatter-trap world of thinking things over rather than an objectified beauty or truth. The epiphany here is in all the little attempts at insight that our phrasings of the world glimpse for us; <em>Planisphere </em>seems to pat us on our bottoms and say, Nice try.” That is all you know, and all you need to know. <br />
<br />
***** <br />
<br />
T.C. Marshall is busy occupying his life, seriously supporting movement actions on the Cabrillo College campus where he teaches and in the S.F. and Monterey Bay areas where he lives. He has been writing and publishing poetry since first grade, literary criticism since his college days in the U.S. and Canada, and nature writing here and there. His latest publications include online essays and reviews as well as poems online and on paper in magazines. His next project is a set of poems incorporating photos to be published on a blog, all of which were originally posted on FaceBook. They are called <em>Post Language</em>. <br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-22617208823616392912012-05-15T23:20:00.001-07:002012-05-29T22:21:42.445-07:00CHINOISERIE by KAREN RIGBYEILEEN TABIOS Engages <br />
<br />
<strong><em>CHINOISERIE </em>by Karen Rigby</strong> <br />
<em>(Ahsahta Press, Boise, ID, 2012)</em> <br />
<br />
It's possible to write poems that will move some people without there being a freshness in its language. But for the poets who’ve taken the time to attend to vocabulary for vocabulary's sake, they can create poems more radiant as the text benefits from the devotion they’ve given their raw material of words. <br />
<br />
I consider Karen Rigby, with her new book <em>CHINOISERIE</em>, to be among these devoted, painstaking poet-taskmasters. In <em>CHINOISERIE’s </em>poems there are meanings, there are narratives, there are fictions (both true and imagined), there are significances… But ultimately, for me, the poems are about what words reveal instead of what an author intended to say through them. These poems are about the wondrous marvels made available through words. Marvels, yes, for it is obvious the poet not only loves but is in love with her raw material. She relishes these words, finds them delectable, and fortuitously for her readers is able to sculpt (or stitch, given the book’s title) them into poems a reader not only experiences but savors. For example, “PHOENIX NOCTURNE” which begins <br />
<blockquote>
The skull was never a tomb <br />
or curio. A cage <br />
<br />
picked clean <br />
<br />
as if bone foretold lessons in turbulence <br />
<br />
Sockets drew you in a masquerade. <br />
The jaw, which was hinged <br />
and slack, <br />
<br />
which was packed cavity, <br />
the cow’s head staked to the garden— <br />
<br />
Your voice, when it left. <br />
Your voice in the desert <br />
circling pink xeriscapes <br />
radiation lantanas.</blockquote>
<br />
I could go on quoting from the poem but what I want to draw attention to is the insertion of the words “xeriscapes” and (the combination of) “radiation lantanas.” These word choices bespeak a kind of vocabulary widened through love. This doesn’t result in just the presentation of unexpected words. It surfaces through unexpected juxtapositions—this is significant, too, because Rigby says (in a print-out of an author interview that arrived with the review copy), <br />
<blockquote>
“When I write poems, it is often based on trust in the language—the belief that one line will hold the key for the next. I’m never certain where the poem will lead.”</blockquote>
<br />
Allowing uncertainty as to where the poem goes is to show trust in words—that words can be trusted instead of being disrupted. As an observation, that can be meaningless except when, as in Rigby's case, it becomes effective as shown by this excerpt from the above: “A cage // picked clean // as if bone foretold lessons in turbulence.” Here, you can see the logic of traveling from (perhaps the thin or bone-like material that forms a) “cage” to “bone” before it takes the unexpected but pleasing <em>leap </em>to “as if bone foretold lessons in turbulence.” This is refreshingly resonant language. <br />
The poetics practice Rigby describes is also most effective when the poet has done her research ahead of time of beginning any individual poem—in this case, by having done what it takes to expand her vocabulary (whether through reading, research, etc). Were these poems to be tapestries, they’d be about as much about the quality of the stitches as the embroidered scenes. Here are a few examples chosen simply by opening the book at random a few times: <br />
<blockquote>
“the double-timed insouciance” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
—from “The Lover” </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Death comes in the guise <br />
of a robot migration <br />
the color of wolves turned inside out </blockquote>
<blockquote>
—from “LELOUCH LAMPEROUGE PILOTS THE KNIGHTMARE” </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Think of the calligrapher <br />
<br />
gesso lamp-black oak gall mineral pigments <br />
<br />
the book revealing what bereft means <br />
<br />
field whelmed with salt <br />
<br />
crows echoing their brothers the songbirds <br />
<br />
city of exiles given to powdered iron. <br />
<br />
—from “THE STORY OF ADAM AND EVE” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
A dress opens like the field <br />
<br />
—from “AFTER THE BELL HAS CALLED THE WOMEN FROM THE FIELDS” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Of bindweed or flourishes, nothing to say about the hand’s elaboration. <br />
Of creamware, only stacked and brittle confusion. <br />
<br />
We bargain daylight out of black bread. <br />
<br />
—from “RED TRANSFERWARE”</blockquote>
<br />
A reliable test for good writing is if it compels a reader (who happens to be a writer, too) to write in response to what’s being read. When I began to read <em>CHINOISERIE</em>, I had no intention of writing a review. But as I read it, the words seduced me into engaging with them. The seduction was so strong that I couldn’t wait to turn on my computer; I had to pick up a pen and just start writing an engagement on the nearest piece of paper available which happened to be from desk calendar, to wit: <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYwo4EJf8F4DVHxNsI5ZKAstOqqgbUtAukfhF4_c70grg2WwyeTNlMG5xns0NP4cTqXtyq-PzidQSdO8PebeMkalrtHQE9O0RBx-5GcT5d3WrXPYwtbr4OJLC18ycUHA-04af6jujrypo/s1600/Rigby.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707704924365013602" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYwo4EJf8F4DVHxNsI5ZKAstOqqgbUtAukfhF4_c70grg2WwyeTNlMG5xns0NP4cTqXtyq-PzidQSdO8PebeMkalrtHQE9O0RBx-5GcT5d3WrXPYwtbr4OJLC18ycUHA-04af6jujrypo/s400/Rigby.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a> <br />
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Ah, but let me not ignore the (inevitable) narratives for the words, the tapestries for the stitches. Here’s an example that manifests what’s wondrous about the lyric (and that reminds me of Eric Gamalinda’s early poems wherein I found much purity in his lyricism): <br />
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About the beginning <br />
I could tell you the garden bloomed <br />
multiple bells, I could say <br />
everything I learned about beauty I learned <br />
from the body’s ruin: <br />
the rib drawn <br />
through his quartered skin, <br />
the skin sewn and the woman born, <br />
a dark homunculus. <br />
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—from “THE STORY OF ADAM AND EVE”</blockquote>
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“Homunculus”—I rarely see that word in poems, which is to make my point again about the depth of this poet’s vocabulary. <br />
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<em>CHINOISERIE </em>presents an urgent beauty: it is such an opulent textual feast I feel as if each letter on its pages should be rimmed in gold. <br />
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***** <br />
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Eileen Tabios does not let her books be reviewed by <em>Galatea Resurrects</em> because she's its editor. But she is pleased to point you elsewhere to recent reviews of her books. <a href="http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios5.html"><em><strong>the relational elations of ORPHANED ALGEBRA</strong></em></a>, a collaboration with j/j hastain, is reviewed by Susan Schultz at <em>Jacket2</em> <strong><a href="https://jacket2.org/commentary/new-thresholds-new-anatomies">HERE</a></strong>, and by Amazon.com Hall of Fame reviewer Grady Harp <strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/review/R2MYQH80AIG4WG/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm">HERE</a></strong>. Another book <a href="http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2011/tabios.html"><strong><em>SILK EGG: Collected Novels </em></strong></a>is reviewed by Thomas Fink in <a href="http://www.leafscape.org/press1/v5n3/fink-review.html"><strong><em>Press 1 </em></strong></a>and by Nicholas Spatafora in <a href="http://www.oovrag.com/essays/essay2011b-3.shtml"><strong><em>OurOwnVoice</em></strong></a>.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-64251853411748441372012-05-15T23:15:00.000-07:002012-05-29T22:05:15.785-07:00THE NEIGHBORHOODS OF MY PAST SORROW by JESSE MILLNER<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">PEG DUTHIE engages with</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong><i>The Neighborhoods of My Past Sorrow</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>by Jesse Millner</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Kitsune Books, Crawfordville, FL, 2009; </span><a href="http://www.kitsunebooks.com/"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">www.kitsunebooks.com</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This may not have been the most appropriate book to bring with me to church on Easter morning. As a non-Christian, I do not personally celebrate Easter, but I was asked to help add volume to the choir, and I thought Millner's poems might complement my need for quiet time between the two services. Millner grew up in Southern Baptist territory, as did I, and he spent part of his young adulthood in Chicago, as did I, so part of my enjoyment of the collection has been in encountering the names of familiar streets (such as Versailles Road in Lexington, Kentucky, and Addison in Chicago) in the course of becoming acquainted with the preoccupations of a stranger. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Millner's poems tangle with his family's fundamentalist worship of God, his past worship of alcohol, and the permutations of wondering and wandering that seem very much present in his current incarnation as a writing instructor in Florida. (The collection is autobiographical in tone and presentation, so I will not attempt to discuss Millner and the "I" of the poems as separate entities.) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The piece in the collection that made me squirm the most was "How Many Fat Baptist Asses Will Our Pied Piper Savior Pick?", which begins:</span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I want to apologize to anyone I've offended</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">by making fun of the sacred, but the god</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I believe in has a cosmic sense of humor</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">as big as the Milky Way</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">or at least as large as a middle-aged Baptist's ass.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The poem is placed in the final third of the 185-page collection, amid other poems about religious complacency. It's clear within the context of the overall book that Millner is primarily taking aim at Baptist culture, albeit with nostalgic fork in hand: both "How Many…" and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"What If Jesus Had Spent Forty Days in the Dessert?" dive into loving detail about the fried meats and sides and pies (oh, the <i>pies</i>) characteristic of southern feasts), and he speaks in an earlier poem ("The Neighborhoods of My Past Sorrow") about how "when I finally stop drinking, I tip the scales at 232 lbs, and the men in the treatment center nickname me 'Little Buddha.'"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can't help squinting at "How Many…" by itself, though, and wondering how many readers -- specifically those of us sensitive about weight issues, Baptist or not -- would find it more mean than meaningful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Am I being humor-impaired? Quite possibly. I laughed when I first read that opening stanza, and quoted it to at least two friends. But on rereading, the poem comes across to me more as an extended cheap shot (it takes up three pages) -- I think of friends who are still taking round-trips to and from hell because of how overweight people are depicted and treated, I picture them getting ambushed by this poem, and I wince at the sound of the book getting thrown to the floor and the silence of it being abandoned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Which would be a shame, because the very next poem, "Holy Numbers," is my favorite of the lot. It likewise starts out with intentionally shocking diction -- "I wrote a poem the other day that included a hearty 'Fuck Jesus'" -- but then proceeds from a sixth-grader's universalism ("even then, especially then / I knew a righteous god would not send my friends to hell") to take on a famous evangelist's challenge:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Billy Graham, in one of his crusades,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">said that if there was only a 20 percent chance that hell</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">existed, why would you risk it? <i></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A Christian friend asked me that same question in a lab in Danville, Kentucky, around twenty-five years ago. I don't recall if I managed more than a shrug at the time, but Millner's impassioned reply to Graham would have made a fine rejoinder, invoking "trains and humans and trees and streams and moons" in detail -- "if the wind sighs with the breathing / of cottonwoods down by the narrow creek, / the one that follows the tracks for miles" -- en route to his ultimate question:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Billy, isn't there at least a 20 percent chance<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">that the tangible is more real and beautiful</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">than any paradise with angels and gospel pie? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Food and faith are inextricably intertwined from the first poem to the last, sharing the pages with descriptions of excessive thirst and its consequences. In "Holy Tortilla!", the opening poem, "The woman who saw Jesus in the tortilla finally ate it, / thinking it was some kind of communion. Many of the pilgrims / at Lourdes drink too much of the water and their insides / glow at night…"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In "Wild Wreckage," the prose poem that closes the collection, the author calls up "blackberries in a dented steel pot" and shotguns making soda-cans dance as his sentences drive toward one last visit to his memories of Chicago:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the end stick a fork in me and watch the images roll out of my mouth…the day after I stopped drinking in 1986, how my world shook as sunshine flooded the north window of the treatment center and I looked out through bloodshot eyes and saw everything I had not seen before. <b></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In between, Millner vividly spins and spills out memories of his relatives, his relationships, and his roamings-around, from the Chicago neighborhoods of the title. It's a chatty, confessional poetry that reminds me of John Brehm's latest<i>, Help is on the Way</i> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(University of Wisconsin, 2012) -- both books feature middle-aged male writers who unhesitatingly and unsparingly catalog their flaws, limitations, and losses at length, trusting that their honesty and humor will keep reader on their wavelength; it helps that they both also articulate an awareness of being alive as an astounding gift, and demonstrate an eagerness to testify to that. In Millner's case, it includes documenting a lifelong fascination with matters of the flesh, ranging from an adolescent crush on Lesley Gore ("All-Stars of the Bible") to a party in present-day Miami:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I consider the waitress's</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">bare and beautiful shoulders,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">the way the long black hair</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I think I'll bring more sex into my poems,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">a naked person here, a naked person there,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">here a naked person, there a naked person,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">everywhere a naked person,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">until my poem is nothing but breasts and penises,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>vaginas and groans, until the bare bodies beg</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in a rainbow of languages, until they come</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in universals that truly reveal the human condition. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Visiting with the poems in <i>The Neighborhoods of My Past Sorrow</i> has ultimately been a mixed bag for me. There are stretches where I find myself admiring Millner's heightened awareness of how everyday language speaks volumes, such as in the poem "In that world," where "the women <i>cooked</i> supper / because only our Lord could <i>make</i> anything." I am charmed by "On the Saturday after the Rapture," in which news of a hurricane prompts the narrator to declare, "The dog and I don't want the world to end," and enumerate the pleasures said dog and man find in said world. But there are also pieces that could have used a more ruthless editor. "On South Beach, I Eat Meatloaf and Consider the Conquest of Mexico" tries to wink at its reader by starting its seventh paragraph with, "You're probably wondering how I could confuse meatloaf and the subjugation of an entire continent, how I could mention mashed potatoes and enslavement of millions in the same breath …" Well, no, what I'm thinking is that paragraph 4 was the keeper --</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">the memory of meatloaf at Manny's Pancake House on Cornelia in Chicago; even greasier than my mother's, the fat saturated plate would reflect back rainbows in the weak fluorescent light. And then was my first sober meatloaf at the Rainbow Diner in Evanston, Illinois. After an AA meeting on Main Street, I walked around the corner to the diner to drown my uneasiness in gravy and burger meat. To every season, there is a meatloaf.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">--<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and, damnation, man, even <i>that </i>paragraph went on a sentence too long. The rest of the poem should have been chucked. By the time it concludes with "I taste meatloaf and remember the sadness of my<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>own life, inconsequential to the conquest of New Spain, but, nonetheless, it's my own," I've become the girl at the party trying to get away from the guy trying to impress me with how much he's in touch with his emotions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But in this year of godawful rhetoric -- of popes attempting to muzzle nuns and Billy Graham's disciples striving to amend constitutions -- how heartening it is to read of a child stubborn enough to resist his Sunday school teacher's insistence that he accept Jesus as his savior, and of the man getting far enough past his demons to speak of "A Gospel Truth":</span></div>
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Genesis argues for our dominion</div>
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over the birds and fishes, I argue</div>
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for the small mercies of box turtles</div>
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on the black lake where water lilies</div>
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bloom their purple flowers</div>
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toward the blue</div>
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sky of late November.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i>That</i> makes me want to pat the spot next to me in the social hall and say, "Hey, sit here. Tell me more, after I bring to you a cup of coffee and a slice of Mrs. Sara's heavenly triple-layer cake."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*****</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Peg Duthie is the author of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.upperrubberboot.com/measured-extravagance/">MEASURED EXTRAVAGANCE</a></i> (Upper Rubber Boot Books, 2012). </span></div>
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-42900692123875620692012-05-15T23:10:00.000-07:002012-05-29T22:03:21.796-07:00LONG DISTANCE by STEVEN CORDOVAGRAHAM SUTHERLAND Reviews <br />
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<strong><em>Long Distance</em> by Steven Cordova</strong> <br />
<em>(Bilingual Review Press / Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 2009)</em> <br />
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Not all poetry needs to be written. It can and is written, and occasionally written quite well, but not all poetry is vital or pressing, written with a driving purpose. Steven Cordova’s collection <em>Long Distance </em>is a collection with a commanding urgency on a subject that is talked about too infrequently. Cordova’s poems chronicle the life of young, HIV-positive gay man, dealing with issues of life and death. The collection alters its angle, using realistic, dark and often humorous language to show the struggle and importance of experiencing what life has to offer. <br />
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Cordova deals with the trials of both his homosexuality and being HIV-positive with an ironic humor that at first seems to betray the gravity of the subject matter. The poem “13 Things to Do Once I’m Dead” is less sobering at first glance than the title would suggest, amounting to a numbered list of slightly morbid puns, such as “4. Bill myself as an underground artist” and “5. Claim I stand just under 6’.” Cordova uses humor for its greatest purpose. First you laugh, then you reflect, then it takes your breath away. After that, you think. Most young adults do not need to ponder death, but it is a somber but necessary subject for those who are HIV-positive. Other lines hold less humor, but a biting realistic view; “9. Die as many deaths as I died in life.” and the powerful beginning of the list – “1. Stop thinking about death.” This first declaration shows the poem’s need to be written. Cordova writes these poems to cope and survive the inevitability of some aspects of his life. <br />
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Cordova frequently addresses the existence and importance of an intimate community for HIV-positive adults. <em>Long Distance </em>includes two poems entitled “Across a Table,” both recounting conversations between the narrator and another HIV-postive man. The first chronicles the two men exchanging lists of medications they are taking, that which brings them “here together / across a table.” The second poem of the same title begins by addressing the unavoidable situation but there is vitality that is shared. <br />
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“I’m glad you’re positive.” <br />
“I’m glad you’re positive, <br />
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too, though, of course, I wish <br />
you weren’t.” <em>I wish you weren’t <br /><br />either </em>is the response I expect. <br />
But you say nothing.</blockquote>
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The mirror within each stanza is used to demonstrate a common sentiment, the two men as one mind, followed by the gap before the change hits; enjambment giving a pause before the knockout punch. Each stanza changes and reveals, scratching away each surface layer until you find yourself at the bottom. Cordova draws you in, regardless of your experiences and background, and gives you the surface of living HIV-positive. These poems are not about HIV, but about living. <br />
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Despite the dark, harsh truths of being HIV-positive, Cordova’s overwhelming message is to live for experiences. “Club St. Vitus Male Dancer” begins with the lines “I dance because so many can’t / I dance because so many can.” The end of the poem reiterates Cordova’s point: <br />
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Disease can’t stop me. I dance. <br />
Some would love to hurt me; I dance. <br />
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Dance to forget <br />
what my sweet angel daddies told me to remember. <br />
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Dance to remember <br />
what they told me to forget.</blockquote>
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The anaphora cascades down the page, the repetition hitting the reader with every stanza—Dance, Can, Can’t, Remember, Forget. The dance becomes display of an individual entrenched in the culture of a community. Cordova does not deny the reality of his situation or any others, but instead offers an alternate mentality: life remains, so enjoy it while it’s there. Cordova shows us experiences, not metaphorical situations, that ground this collection in a truth impossible to escape. <br />
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Some of the best advice to accompany Cordova’s collection is found in the foreword by Alberto Ríos: “Don’t look for self-pity in these poems, though you will find some. Don’t look for answers, though the book is full of them, unsatisfying as they may sometimes be. Don’t look for sadness, though you will walk on its sovereign ground. Look for the man. Look for the life.” <em>Long Distance</em> looks forward, for that’s the only direction Steven Cordova is planning on moving. <br />
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***** <br />
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Originally from Seattle, Graham Sutherland is a junior at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. He studies Creative Writing and Latin American Studies, specifically Chicano Literature and Indigenous Studies. <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-30054902089038252412012-05-15T23:05:00.000-07:002012-05-29T22:02:01.793-07:00THE BIGGER WORLD by NOELLE KOCOT<h3 style="margin: auto 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: small;">THOMAS FINK Reviews </span></h3>
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<strong><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The Bigger World<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">by Noelle Kocot</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">(Wave Books, Seattle, WA, 2011)</span><br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The Bigger World</span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">, Noelle Kocot’s fifth collection of poetry, is subtitled “Character Poems,” and indeed, the poems focus on the revelation of characters and the dynamics of their interactions. This was a much smaller factor in such previous books as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poems for the End of Time and Other Poems</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sunny Wednesday</i>, partly because the range of “characters” seemed considerably smaller, and narrative was one of a number of strategies employed rather than the dominant one. In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Bigger World</i>, the poems, all narrated in the past tense, lack stanza breaks, promoting narrative flow, and line-lengths are relatively consistent. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">In a significant number of pieces, the narrative results in a character’s working out or through a psychological dilemma or at least reaching acceptable equilibrium. In the opening poem, “God Bless the Child,” Horatia at first was far from blessing kids (whether they had “their own” or not); even her eventual pregnancy did not change this, as she “gave birth to a full-/ grown man” (1). In old age, at an instant of crisis, she recognized the arbitrariness of the phobia when she encountered “a sea of children” who were surprisingly decent smelling and seemingly “happy,” and she also gained insight from her son: “’Mother, I do believe that you never/ Once allowed me to be a child,/ But I forgive you, seeing as how you/ Were never really a child yourself’” (2). How he knew this about a history that was inaccessible to him is not revealed, but one imagines that his intuition was correct. Despite reaching “peace,” Horatia has not removed herself from the danger of potent emotions, as Kocot’s tantalizingly askew closing sentence reveals: “She and her son walked/ Silently on, not out of the flames/ Or anything, but just walked on.” Could this character be in a Dantesque purgatory-on-earth, where she needs to roast more to be purified for a better life or afterlife?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The psychopathologies of these characters and the actions that stem from them exercise the imaginative faculties. In “The <stockticker w:st="on">IRS</stockticker>” Stanley “loved. . . actual wars/ where men, women and children/ Got blown to smithereens, and for five successful years, he “cheated on his. . ./ Tax return” in order to give the government <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">more </i>(not less) money to “start more wars” (54). Further, Stanley tried a bizarre imperialist, war-generating venture on “a distant shore” which failed because of the language barrier, but he rebounds by sublimating his lust for military destruction into a successful “dentistry practice on the island.” Hmm, aggression and denistry?! Yet Stanley pays for the consequences of his former hawkishness and his oddly altruistic cheating—first, when he is eaten by a tiger and second, in “Purgatory,” when he is forced to do penance by filling “out a million 1040 forms,/ Minus one rotation of a drill” (56). For some of Kocot’s characters, the world’s annoyances follow them into the afterlife. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Other poems are closer to direct expression of a discernible moral, like Aesop’s fables; for example, one can notice particular cognitions enabling characters to surmount existential angst. The moral may not be embraced by the author but only the character. The unnamed woman in “Fugue” finds comfort (“a flash of sudden joy/ From the solar plexus/ Where fear usually resides”) in the idea that “there is no other life/ apart from this one” (15), a point which contradicts the liberal use of the afterlife as a device in the book. For Bruno in “On Becoming a Person,” the epiphany “that he could live/ Without his self”—one that, at first, he found appealing, then irksome—produced a sense of “indescribable happiness” that launched him on a crusade “to save/ The World from its self.” Kocot, however, adds a twist, echoing Robert Frost’s most famous chestnut poem: Bruno was “sad for the miles he had/ To go before he slept and slept again” (29). This closure’s uneasy commingling of happiness and sadness raises the question of whether one “becomes a person” by relinquishing the ego, the stylized picture drawn for the world’s approval, and by focusing on contact with other persons and other authentic desires, or whether personhood involves a balance of ego and outer-directedness, as well as activity and rest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Though most of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Bigger World</i> cannot be described as particularly political, “Pandora” strikes a potent feminist note. Kocot describes the victimized “gift”-recipient’s “life” as seeming “a terrible/ Nightmare, from which/ She was only now waking/ Up” (18), and now she is becoming fearless. This sense of empowerment is derived from an ability to resist control “by anyone or anything,” and the poet twice calls her “dangerous,” which I take to refer to how her example underscores the vulnerability of patriarchal institutions to women’s exercise of freedom. Although, “when she looked in/ The mirror, her eyes sparked/ With I’ll kill you,” Kocot stresses her “soft heart” due to the fact that “people”—probably empathic women—“along the way loved/ her.” The aspect of the story that stresses Pandora’s isolation is transcended in the revision. The implication is that feminist solidarity enabled her to weather the “many years” of “ugly spirits” that flew out of the box “when she lifted the lid,” so that she could find “love at the bottom/ in the faces of her truest friends” and, after hesitation, join “her light with theirs” (19). If the original myth was supposed to entail a caution against “dangerous” curiosity, Kocot’s version indicates that the release of repressed energy is important because it permits the most salubrious, valuable elements to emerge <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">after </i>negativity has been unleashed and hence confronted. The pattern is not dissimilar to the Freudian theory of the unconscious, but its feminist dimension is most crucial.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">While I have been emphasizing narrative and thematic components in Kocot’s book, the poems’ defamiliarizing vigor not only comes from odd situations and plot developments but also from striking surreal or otherwise disjunctive lines or sentences. In “The West Village,” for instance, a couple who have overcome various obstacles “lived together” in precarious balance, and the closing clause exemplifies the frailty of their current peace: “. . . while their building/ Flapped in the wind like a lung” (4). In “Nonetheless,” Seymour “met a naked/ Nun, and said, ‘Hey, what kind of/ Dominoes are you slicing?” (7). The colliding evocations of probability, nuns’ habits, and dominoes, and violent dislocation create outrageous overdetermination. In “Persepolis,” Janice’s attainment of self-communion is figured as spiritual contact with another: “Her soul-body slammed/ Another soul, as if to say,/ I am alive, I’ve missed myself sincerely” (22). Has spiritual action ever been depicted before in terms of a contact sport like hockey? And in “Kind Regards,” when psychopathic Rex “turned on the television,” he saw a weird onanistic gesture: “The mayor licked his balls like a dog” (71).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">If “the big world” might make each of Kocot’s characters seem small, the comparative “bigger” in the book’s title may suggest that characters’ strivings, difficulties, and triumphs recorded therein enlarge individual possibilities and capacities in the world, or else their struggles are microcosmic events that point to and are included in macrocosmic ones. In “Life on the Mountain,” “Todd promised Francine,/ ‘I will make you very happy.’/ But Francine didn’t want happiness,/ She wanted truth, which was savage/ and dangerous” (5). Later on, we learn, “Now that she could see truth,/ Happiness also came her way” (5-6). Those characters in Kocot’s book who seek “the bigger world” of “truth” sometimes endanger their chances of what they might define as happiness and sometimes remove their own sufferings, whereas other characters seek a specific version of happiness by ignoring the quest for truth and either fail in their aims or reach a truth anyway and/or, at times, a different basis for happiness. In other words, the differing realizations or ultimate perplexities involving the interplay of truth/happiness in these narrative poems makes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Bigger World </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>instructive as well as absorbing.<br /><br />*****</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Thomas Fink has authored seven books of poetry, including <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Peace Conference</span></em> (Marsh Hawk, 2011) and <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Autopsy Turvy</span></em> (Meritage Press, 2010), a collaboration with Maya Diablo Mason. <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">A Different Sense of Power</span></em> (Fairleigh Dickinson, 2001) is his most recent book of criticism. In 2007, he co-edited <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">“Burning Interiors”: David Shapiro’s Poetry and Poetics</span></em>. </span><br />
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-48849160391570224862012-05-15T23:00:00.000-07:002012-05-29T21:59:32.229-07:00EITHER WAY I'M CELEBRATING by SOMMER BROWNINGrob mclennan Reviews <br />
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<strong><em>Either Way I’m Celebrating </em>by Sommer Browning</strong> <br />
<em>(Birds, LLC, Austin, Minneapolis, New York, Raleigh, 2011)</em> <br />
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<center><strong>Sommer Browning, Either Way I’m Celebrating</strong></center><br />
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<strong>Sideshow</strong> <br />
<br />
We only shelled out a buck, <br />
knew The Snake Man <br />
<br />
was a sham and Electra, <br />
someone’s mother. We were promised <br />
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The Smallest Woman in the World, <br />
but expected some specimen in a jar. <br />
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Instead, The Smallest Woman in the World <br />
asked for money to buy a wheelchair, said <br />
<br />
she was from Trinidad. <br />
We’d never heard of it.</blockquote>
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Denver, Colorado poet and artist Sommer Browning’s first trade collection, <em>Either Way I’m Celebrating </em>(Austin, Minneapolis, New York, Raleigh: Birds, LLC, 2011), subtitled “Poems & Comics,” is a charming collection of funny, odd and brilliant poems interspersed with comics that exist like poems themselves, as opposed to illustrations between poems. After years of numerous chapbooks, Browning’s first collection seems concentrated around a trio of suites, from the first thirty or so pages of single-page poems loosely constructed as a single unit to the extended lyric-prose sequences “Vale Tudo” and “To the Housesitter.” The mix is striking, and so very well packaged, from the shorter individual poems at the offset, and the mix of comics that both bookend the entire collection, and are slipped in between sections. As much as the comics write like poems, they also feel like what Terry Gilliam spent years creating as “links” between sketches during episodes of <em>Monty Python’s Flying Circus</em>, those stand-alone animated sketches that took us from what came before to what followed. <br />
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The short, sharp lyrics that open the collection write small, philosophical and witty distances, moving from the lyric line to prose poem, a section of poems that cohere, in part, for the blend of styles, all of which revel in her odd humour and dark moments, interspersed with surreal light. Still, for the strength of her shorter poems, it’s in the longer sequences where Browning’s poems really shine, allowing herself the room to stretch out her meditative and oddball directions, as in the opening to the poem “Vale Tudo,” that reads: <br />
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Never believe the concierge. <br />
<br />
MK and I drove all over hell, Long Island, to find a hotel, motel, that provided pay-per-view so we could watch the Liddel-Sobral fight. Griffin and Bonnar were fighting again, as well. Last time they fought, they both won. MK and I asked the concierge if the hotel had pay-per-view. We wrote down the name of the event, and he went to check. The lobby was the lobby of a plush planet of businessmen and servants. There was a bar. When a beer bottle scuttled across a table, a silk tie squeaked loose. The concierge came back; the news was grim. A child with a buoyant noodle walked by in her underpants; I noticed the staff using fake British accents.</blockquote>
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As Browning herself writes, “Vale Tudo, a Portugese phrase meaning ‘anything goes,’ is a Brazilian mixed-martial arts combat fighting style. There are few rules, Fighters are unarmed and incorporated any form of martial art, such as Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, or traditional boxing techniques, to submit or knock out their opponents.” Who else could possibly imagine composing a poem-sequence blending hotels with mixed-martial arts with the Walt Whitman Birthplace Historic Site, and do it so well? Closer to the end of the twenty-two-page sequence, the poem reads: <br />
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Historic Sites are usually a crock of shit. <br />
<br />
The building is boring. The parking lot is boring. The wet birds are boring. The rain is boring. The vines disguised as telephone wires are boring. The cars are boring. The red fence around the place is boring. The low clouds are boring, the way the threaten rain is boring. Walt Whitman, we are sorry we missed UFC: 62.</blockquote>
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There is just something about the longer sequence that seems entirely built for the mind of poet Summer Browning; something about the space that allows her thoughts and lines to freely, openly roam. It’s as though the shorter poems are nearly too small to contain her, as in this section from the twenty page “To the Housesitter,” that reads: <br />
<blockquote>
The House <br />
<br />
is shaped like candy. And the candy inside its dribbling refrigerator is shaped like mouths. And the house. It sits on a hill shaped like a hill. It’s shaping, its flat parts peak, its inside furrows, then opens to grab you. Then, you are shaped. Now, you are then shaped, and your then shape punctures the house. Something nuclear. Something west-end and beachy. You are still at work. Like the men.</blockquote>
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***** <br />
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Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa. The author of more than twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles are the poetry collections <em>Songs for little sleep</em>, (Obvious Epiphanies, 2012), <em>grief notes: </em>(BlazeVOX [books], 2012),<em> A (short) history of l. </em>(BuschekBooks, 2011), <em>Glengarry </em>(Talonbooks, 2011) and <em>kate street </em>(Moira, 2011), and a second novel, <em>missing persons </em>(2009). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan), <em>The Garneau Review </em>(ottawater.com/garneaureview), <em>seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics </em>(ottawater.com/seventeenseconds) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual <em>ottawater </em>(ottawater.com). He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at <a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/">robmclennan.blogspot.com</a> <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-74123542191907659492012-05-15T22:55:00.000-07:002012-05-29T21:53:41.701-07:00SELECTED POEMS by NICK DEMSKE<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #474b4e; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">TOM HIBBARD Reviews<br /><br /><em><b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">SELECTED POEMS</span></b></em><strong><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"> by Nick Demske</span></strong><br /><em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">(Fence Books, Albany, N.Y., 2010)</span></em></span><span style="color: #2672e2; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">NICK DEMSKE</span></i></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="color: black;">THE </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="color: black;">EXOTIC FRUITS OF THE TREE OF LIFE:</span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">FINISHING THE VISIBLE</span></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<span style="mso-font-kerning: 14.0pt;">the sea of unnumberable torches raises for us a new splendour”</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-St. John Perse</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">In these tumultuous times, it’s difficult to know where one is going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Horrendous eventualities appear as apparitions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What tumultuous times you say?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tumultuous times that the static established news media are incapable of seeing or talking about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tumultuous times that bear witness every day to our society’s crumbling infrastructure—of which the mindless hysteria of the “conservative movement” is a symptom as much as a cause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These tumultuous times are the result of abandonment, in a wide number of different ways, of transcribed beliefs and virtues, beliefs and virtues to which we pay lip service but which in fact hold little prominence concerning our motives and actions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But these tumultuous times are also a sign and an assurance of hidden change—of a new infrastructure, of new understanding and adherence to beliefs and virtues of which our learning is ongoing, of new sensitivity and compactness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">This seems to be the message of Nick Demske’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>highly original 2010 poetry collection, selected for publication in the Fence Modern Poets Series by Joyelle McSweeney.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Partly we know that this is the message of the collection because it is titled with only the poet’s name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wars and terrors reflected in its lines of psychic scream and misery from the lower depths of human reality are most aptly summed up, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the author seems to conclude, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in the ever-pressing prospect of his implausible being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The subject of Nick Demske’s poetry collection is Nick Demske, that is, the self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">Of course, “the way down is the way up.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of the poems are dedicated to various people, people dear to the author, and the regret and angst in the poems are so clearly and forthrightly delineated, so heroically documented that, as with Burroughs <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Naked Lunch</i>, we are willing to award a positivity to their authorship, even nobility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poems are Christ-like in that Demske is taking society’s ills and sufferings upon himself. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We follow Demske, with no resolution in sight, with no means of escape from the concrete walls of dread and torment, as he wades through the ontological filth and irrelevance with unwavering hope and love. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is writing the poems <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for</i> others, with the vivid memory of long-lost life, a once “nice neighborhood,” attempting <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to rise from the abyss of apprehension and falseness to a secure sweet freedom of home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dandelion Park.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Muskego Beach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The neighborhood kids catching fireflies while all the moms and dads are busy cooking dinner outside on barbecues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">“Blues Sonnet,” written “For Peggy,” and with the epigraph from the Gospel of Matthew, “for they shall be comforted,” begins</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">We rent our trousers, but that’s the fashion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">We smote our goat, but you’re a vegetarian.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">We masqueraded in fecal cosmetics,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Snarled and growled in canine rhetoric.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">We caked on the crematoria and still! Our name</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Brand sackcloth is so last year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We maim</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Our temples, kneel on marbles, we drag</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Nails through cheeks, we bum rush body bags.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">Though this is the first poem in “Section VIII,” past half way in the book, in terms of the illnesses, fetishes, phobias, atrocities, man’s inhumanity to man, things you don’t want to know about, Demske is just getting warmed up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it out of spite that he delves so unrelentingly into the complex defense mechanism of our easily manipulated super-egos?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or is he, like the great Marquis himself, conversing in a language we must learn to speak—with no forbidden subject?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No matter how absolutely crime must be condemned, our actions never fall very far from the Tree of Life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who doubts their ridiculousness and folly?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything else is meaningless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything else is deception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What can a meaning beyond my condition mean to me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can comprehend only in human terms?”(1) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The unreal distortions caused by suppressing reality are undeniably a part of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Demske says, “I’m faking it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For real.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We recognize the unthinkable when we look inside our minds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is about more than what is hidden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is about our most obvious desires.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">I want a raise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want a divorce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want You.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">I want to be free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want you to keep this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">I want to be good in bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to be black.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It want to</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Win.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want the biggest one you’ve got.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want justice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(from “Dying Words”)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">Obvious or hidden, clumsy or dishonest, what difference does it make?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Andre Gide said he didn’t like miracles because he considered them impious.(2)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What he meant was that it’s more important to appreciate the miraculous as it is part of the nature of daily life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>True miracles don’t stand in the way of discovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Within the framework of these irreproachable goals and wants, these necessities, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the absence of a “higher fidelity” is at work changing them into such circuitous protocols and status symbols, in my opinion, such tell-tale misleading frippery as “Voter I-Ds” and “Patriot Acts.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The more we experience, the easier it is to place the comic with the tragic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as the wrenching storm of Demske’s scandalous<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>subject matter rages within one of the most inoffensive and innocent of poetic forms, the fourteen-line rhyming sonnet, our wants give rise to our most shocking wantonness, our most symptomatic and astonishing feats of self-destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">I took off my make-up:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a slug drenched in Lot’s </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Wife’s ashes</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(“Rhetorical Prayer”)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Like poetry too complex to be beautiful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(“Put Your Face In My Tongue”)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><strong>PRISM BREAK</strong></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">for Frank</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">There is no zen in history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just a pronoun and a simile</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">For parable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before the workday is over, I will have permanently</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Altered this skyline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This just in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Run don’t walk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These beer goggles rearrange my reflection</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Into a sexy protagonist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Incessantly positive</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Test results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>High-rises wildly embr</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Acing like dominoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s gotta be way out of here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Causative</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">And effect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shackles and chains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“No centering Om,”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fr.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Time tells the monk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nick Demske, you are the most beautiful girl in the World</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Trade Center, when refracted through adequate spectrums.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I for</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Got to eat today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am incapable of justifying my love for</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">You.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is the best offering we have to burn, which disproves the old</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Truth<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it’s the thought that counts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I shatter the glass only</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">To mend it reordered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That I might yet transcend this old mantra<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Forgive me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">I think the phrase “this old man” masked in the last line of this poem is the poet referring to himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One thing about Demske’s poetry is it is extremely well written.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wit as it presents its insights, again and again in a single poem, is finely blended, turned neatly and unobtrusively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Peasants dan / Cing in gutters, commoners singing like so many / Semi-trucks braking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the ultra-vulgarity to they who make / The definitions.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wit builds into meter and rhythm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does anyone say to Demske “What are you talking about?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does anyone ask him—as they asked Kerouac before him in Washington Square—why are you talking about death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Why are you so tragic & gloomy?”(3)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps someday they will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do they notice that mixed with the accepting wit, mingled with the quiet, forgiving irony, is indignation and disbelief at the disregard and neglect?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do they take seriously the words?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do they notice the heavy burdens that the poet carries, the burdens of unattended problems, unanswered cries, scorned responsibilities, unremembered pasts?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Demske seems to consider himself one of the “ninety-nine percent,” one of those uninvited to Wall Street’s sumptuous banquet but crashed the party anyway—the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“wall” part of it especially.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He seems to ally himself with those unequally treated, on whose backs the budgets of the disconnected, inaccessible non-taxpaying corporate power structure are “balanced.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does anyone hear in Demske’s murk and mist the echoes of Ginsberg’s prophecy about “the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving </span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">hysterical naked,/ dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,…”? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wrought imagery itself is prey, though it definitely remains preferable to the bowdlerized Expressionism of Mitt Romney talking about “class warfare” or Newt Gingrich <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>pompously “uncovering” President Obama’s “socialist” agenda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How can a society thrive as a whole under such dire constraints?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The purity it touts is the very agent of its poisoning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the downfall of tyranny.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Demske’s poetry is just the opposite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Demske isn’t talking about death; he’s talking about life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What his writing defiles it cleanses; what it gives up it retains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s methodology extends beyond itself alone, into a super-symmetry of sparse eroticism and consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its writing is based on the expectation of discovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One line inspires and unfolds into the next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It draws breath from diversity and division.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It “dances” and “sings” and loves “to say I told you so.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a form of greeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It “moves independent.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It jumps off roofs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“This is the most beautiful stool sample I have ever see / N.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A stool sampler could search her whole life for a specimen half this perfect.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>Like the true slave of the genuine infinite that he is, Demske searches all that is arbitrary and substantive to know and become familiar with the paths of this generation’s reconciliation, the intimate paths of freedom down which he has walked for so long and so many times before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Demske seeks a new more tranparent system, a new depth of action, a reordering of illness and health, of what matters and what has no importance, of flight and invisibility—perhaps beyond even economies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He seeks the void that illuminates the world, Hemingway’s laconic reflections of perfect order, a separateness, an intense moment “flawless and self-contained.”(4)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He seeks his own bright star on the Wisconsin beer drinkers anti-fascist Walk of Fame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He seeks an escape from a divine destiny. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">On the back of Demske’s collection is a letter he received from conservative 1<sup>st</sup> Dist. Congressman Paul Ryan congratulating Demske for his “dedication” and “great achievement.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul Ryan interested in poetry?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The image is eerily reminiscent of Herod or Pontius Pilate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But perhaps I’m mistaken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Partly the heroic depiction of Demske in his poetry collection is derived from the beautiful philosophy of Existentialism that has Mankind facing negation with a joyful sense of unlimited freedom, the freedom to “choose himself.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the exalted consciousness and creativity that we extol. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Wisconsinites might find this rendition somewhat exaggerated and impractical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gloom is a part of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What about Wordsworth’s “Intimations of Immortality”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though death <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> I suppose inescapable, the hazy monotony of isolation, catching Muskies and camping out adding up to “nothingness”—perhaps this is the effect not of our human condition but of our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in</i>human condition—the cheap scary Cold War degraded account of the human condition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps this is the effect of appearance or fraudulence strongly put in the place of or completely blocking out our view of reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Demske’s poetry hints at this also.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something makes us unsatisfied with life, some lie, some act of concealment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We feel sick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We find refuge in darkness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We accept less than what is ours; we endure more than what is necessary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet in either case, human or inhuman, the message is that the future is worth fighting for.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><strong>Footnotes</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">1. Albert Camus, quoted in Sartre’s original review of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Stranger.</i></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">2. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Andre Gide<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, Journals.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">3. Jack Kerouac, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Heaven and Other Poems</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">4. Jean-Paul Sartre, original review of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Stranger</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">*****</span></div>
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Tom Hibbard has had recent work published in the last Australian issue of <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/40/r-rolfe-rb-hibbard.shtml"><em><strong><span style="color: #dd6599;">Jacket</span></strong></em></a>, and the current issue of <a href="http://www.moriapoetry.com/hibbard888.html"><em><strong><span style="color: #dd6599;">Moria</span></strong></em></a>. He also has a new collection of poetry, <a href="http://www.moonwillowpress.com/category/titles/the-sacred-river-of-consciousness/"><em><strong><span style="color: #dd6599;">Sacred River of Consciousness</span></strong></em></a>, from Moon Willow press. He is currently involved in the political struggles in the U.S. and world against mindless far-right extremism.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-12920889599999386522012-05-15T22:50:00.000-07:002012-05-29T21:45:00.922-07:00THE RABBITS COULD SING by AMBER FLORA THOMAS<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">LUCY BIEDERMAN Reviews</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The Rabbits Could Sing</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"> by Amber Flora Thomas</span></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">(University of Alaska Press, 2012)</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Reading and re-reading Amber Flora Thomas’s beautiful and multifaceted second book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Rabbits Could Sing</i> (University of Alaska Press, 2012) is like monitoring Lake Michigan; you do not know what to expect on any given day. However it looked yesterday, or the way you remember it, is no guide—it could be icy or warm or clear or muddled or choppy or smooth as a blue silk scarf: there’s just no telling. The more I return to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Rabbits Could Sing</i>, the more elusive I find its meanings and morals and moments. It is a magic trick of a book, a mirage. I find it difficult to place within the contemporary poetry landscape; while individual poems are composed of clear, detailed, narrative sentences, those sentences, when combined, create jagged, prismatic poems. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Thomas writes in long lines that feel like big, deep breaths. A Thomas line often has two <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">things</i> in it—two descriptions, say, or two actions. Relatedly, Thomas often employs caesurae, usually marked by strong punctuation like a period. In reading individual poems I was often aware of points at which another writer might end a line, either because the expected four beats had passed, or because of a natural pause in breath; Thomas pushes the line past this point. For example, these lines open “Dear Reader”:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">I, too, begin with one hundred judgments on the gravel roads</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">through childhood. I think I am my own absence</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">and go on confessing the vacancy. I fall asleep in a field</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">and become the weather over the field. I go everywhere with you</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">in mind. At Muir Beach, I watch dogs chase sticks into the surf</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">and the surf chasing the thin legs of dogs onto the beach.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Beginning the poem with the heavily punctuated “I, too,” has the effect, for me, of clearing out space—making room to say what needs to be said, no matter how many words or how much punctuation, or how long a line, it takes to say it. Thomas’s enjambments lead into the “absence” of the blank page, push our attention onto the next line, and finally, into a period. Then, instead of ending the line, Thomas continues it—into something new, like “I fell asleep in a field” or “I go everywhere with you.” By doing this, she creates new possibilities for association across the line. For example, the line “through childhood. I think I am my own absence” carries the slight hint of a childhood during which the speaker thought so. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">I read “Dear Reader” as a response to Mark Strand’s “Keeping Things Whole” (“In a field / I am the absence / of a field. / … Wherever I am / I am what is missing.”). Where Strand’s poem becomes an assertion of presence, Thomas’s is a “confession of vacancy.” Strand carefully absents his poem of proper nouns or detail of any sort; Thomas fills the poem with descriptions of inner and outer “weather,” and places us at Muir Beach. And as Strand underscores his singularity, a sense of two-ness pervades “Dear Reader”—the poem begins, “I, too,” and continues to Thomas’s extended couplets enact a sense of weaving together—perhaps joining the Poet and Reader, or Absence and Presence. And in directly addressing the Reader, Thomas turns the poem’s attention to perhaps the ultimate Absence/Presence. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Thomas’s exploration of absence feels to me like a close cousin to Keats’s Negative Capability. For Keats what distinguishes the mind of a writer like Shakespeare “is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.” Thomas traffics in uncertainties, mysteries, and doubts, but, apart from or in addition to the actual content of her poems, she creates a sense of a shadow-poem or cloud-poem—another poem (or life, or world) that could have been instead. Her final lines often perform this, as a kind of opening-up of possibility that also casts doubt on the reality of the poem we have just read. For example, in the beautiful and unsettling final stanza of “Here”: “And later, silence is a trophy / in every room, owning the days / with its crumpled sheets and / many, many questions.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">In the five stanzas preceding this one, Thomas has built a sense of desirous anticipation, and, buzzing underneath that, a sourness that mounts jerkily through words like “thief” and “terror.” With the harsh enjambment of the penultimate line, Thomas dumps us right into the “questioning” final line and its un-happy ending. That final line doesn’t feel crushing because it is sad—I think Thomas is too open-eyed about the way life really feels to give us anything as simple as a sad ending. This ending refuses to transport us into some other realm of being, whether sad or happy. We are only “Here,” where we began, facing the same reality with which we began, uncertainty—the poem’s flitting between terrified anxiety and something like love—and the “many, many questions.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Another poem that beautifully plays with the notion of absence is “In the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.” In its first stanza, rather than establishing where we are, Thomas establishes where we are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i>: “My gaze slides over ten unnamed cities. / So many people not to think about, / so many country of thought / where I cannot take refuge.” Right at the beginning of the poem, we are un-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">placed</i>, unmoored from a social or even literal landscape. Only two lines in the poem are about a painting: “I lean toward gold-framed petals / and wade into red cannas.” By the next stanza, the speaker’s mind has wandered from toward a beloved. In the final stanza, “I’m undoing your sashes again, lowering / your skirt. Into the rushes, up against / the veins and dew, I press my mouth; / horses canter into the red wake.” The one place the poem’s title leads us to expect to go—a painting of a flower—we only briefly touch. That the last stanza’s imagined wake is red suggests to me that the speaker is standing looking at the painting, seeing those sashes, her own mouth, the horses, through their red lens. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">At times, Thomas, with her genius for conveying bright, nearly grotesque description with a nearly ostentatiously flat affect, recalls Plath. In “Meditation on Four West,” “Bird Leaving a Branch,” and “Cavity in the Rubenesque Façade,” Thomas’s tone feels especially close to the Plath of poems like “Tulips” and “Waking in Winter.” In “Cavity in the Rubenesque Façade,” Thomas writes, “I dream I have a wound, big as / Aphrodite’s shell. I have so many tongues / I can’t keep them all!” That exclamation point—the excitement at having described something well, the satisfaction of description standing in for experience itself, is so <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plath</i> that it makes me nearly homesick for Plath herself. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Plath and Thomas also have in common an attention to minute moments that, for most writers, would be beyond the reach of words. For Plath these moments become possibilities for psychological terror; Thomas renders them ambiguous, complex. These are moments that one does not include when telling the story of one’s life, but they are important somehow, remaining in memory for decades. In “Sunbathing,” for instance, the speaker lies in the sun then kills an ant, but Thomas conveys the unsettled and unsettling sense that something deeper and more persistent is at play here. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">And setting aside issues of content and theme, Thomas, like Plath, simply writes gorgeous lines, sentences—even titles. In fact, some of the titles of Thomas’s poems are so beautiful, they are sort of miniature scenes, or stories, or poems all their own, like, “When You Rise You Do Not Drown,” or “More Light Because Her Shadow Shook,” “or “Then You Fled the Room.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">One of the most interesting and beautiful things to me about this excellent book is how fully Thomas resists resolution—in individual lines, in poems, in the book at large—and how Thomas involves the reader in this resistance. While the poem “Killing the Rabbit” is subtitled “Ars Poetica,” I found the book’s rabbit theme slightly forced; I read “The Chipped Bowl” as a more fitting ars poetica. In it, Thomas, describing the image of a woman painted on a bowl, has one of my favorite lines in the book: “She will always be on the verge of her life.” And, then, later:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">You have grown accustomed</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">to the shattered image of her tranquil</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">ascent into your day, and the falseness</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">of her story, no matter how you end it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">You eat of this longing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">*****</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lucy Biederman (<a href="http://lucybiederman.blogspot.com/">http://lucybiederman.blogspot.com/</a>) lives in Chicago. She has an MFA in poetry from George Mason University. Her chapbook <i>The Other World</i> is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in <i>ILK</i>, <i>Shampoo</i>, <i>Ping Pong</i>, <i>Many Mountains Moving</i>, and <i>The Tusculum Review</i>. She will be a doctoral student in English Literature at the University of Louisiana in the fall. </span></div>
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-55542887323817699772012-05-15T22:45:00.000-07:002012-05-29T21:43:47.433-07:00THE LIGHT BEFORE DAWN by DRUM HADLEYT.C. MARSHALL Reviews<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><strong><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Light Before Dawn</i> <span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">by Drum Hadley</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><em>(Tucson: Chax Press, 2010)</em></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">TO THE OTHER SIDE</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Whether you know the long life of Drummond Hadley the poet, or just some of it or none at all, this book will move you. It may well be the last we get from him. He is quietly and quieteningly slipping in the direction that these poems indicate. I have known him only a little and for a few short years, but his books have been with me all my poet’s life. His <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strands of Rawhide</i> was there on my father’s bookshelf for me to inherit back when my dad died; it had been my gift to him many years before. It is a book of the cowboy life on the borders at the corner of Arizona, New Mexico, and Sonora; one prominent much-crossed border in that book was the one between this life and the life of the poet. Hadley’s masterwork, put out on the page and on CD too late for my father to enjoy it but certainly a full joy to me, is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Voice of the Borderlands</i>. This book told the stories of a number of people whose voices collected in Drum’s head over the years down in that corner of the world and in that life of land and plants and cattle and horses and water.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The light too was always a focus in those works. The light in that land and that life with its early and late hours is primary. And now we have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Light Before Dawn</i>. This is another smaller, quieter masterwork. It joins a longtime tradition not just among poets but among meditation masters and even public servants; it is the reflection book of someone entering the twilight of life that casts a new kind of shadow illuminating things and thoughts. There is a kind of narrative here, in the best sense of story-telling; it is a flow toward knowing. These poems find their illumination in the landscape, in an imagery that feels experienced by the time the reader has reached the last one of them:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Because of the circling</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Of the earth circling the sun,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Each dawn lit light is there for us forever</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">In that last of the first morning’s light.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">So we come then into that forever,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Again and again and again and again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>(93)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Drum’s “Preface” tells us that these poems stemmed from the experience of a prognosis of rapid decline toward death and a choice of a wellness regimen with which to face that. This makes the poems engagingly both poems of recovery and poems of dying. Each one makes sense in both of those ways. There is an almost unique middle ground that is created out of that. Even quoting Dante as he came to his hinge point, Drum Hadley puts one of those experiences into terms of the other all at once in terms of the landscape he has lived:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Through the canyons</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Of the desert country of Guadalupe,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>And the lives of the desert,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>For better or for worse,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Here,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>In the middle of the journey of our lives,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>We find ourselves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>(15)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">There are poems and images in the poems that comment on this meaningful blurring together of contexts usually kept separate by our feeble logic. One poem begins with a huge metaphor:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>As if reality seen through changing mists</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Like the nebula of a story</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Were the only true reality.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">And it ends with his own morning practice of a swim:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>And so I greet another morning</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>By the edge of the pond.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>(21)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">This kind of grounding is present throughout the book; it comes from his life, of course, grounded in a place and a practice—a way of life. That practice has been one of attention. The attention has been at times that of the working cowboy, that of the storyteller listening, that of the lover, or that of the writer. We see it and feel it in poems like this one:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Whoever you are who wrote this poem</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Waiting to open inside of my hand</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>I know you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>I will come here to meet with you tomorrow</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>When the wind blows by the sycamore tree</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>By my hand, along the lingering dust.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>(23)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">That tree is real. It stands above a creek near the house. It could be anywhere too in that landscape, and it is a symbol—as my high school English teacher Betty Ellis would have insisted. There is another poem that incorporates it:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>The landscape of conversation,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>The bridge,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>What is coming towards,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>And what is leaving,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Let’s talk till we get to that tree.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>The landscape forms the conversation</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Once you’ve talked under a certain tree</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>(29)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">This is a central poem for my reading of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Light Before Dawn</i>. I see significance in every feature of it, down to the lack of a final period end stop. Line by line it tells something simple that has occurred to the poet, and each line opens out to something more. The first, for example, says here we have a landscape and here we have a conversation. The “of” implies that one is made of the other, and that is the simple point of the poem. But which is made of which? The “of” allows us to have it both ways and more, as does the poem. There is a conversation that is shaped by and in some way about the landscape outside it, and there is a metaphorical land shape made of conversation through which the talkers roam. The we have “The bridge,” which also contributes to the sense of that first line. The conversation is a landscape that is a bridge as well; we all know that about good talk. The next two lines tell more about the bridge and take up the book’s two threads of coming into something new and going away, the two directions suggested by a bridge. These delicately play back and forth too. Is death “coming towards” and life “leaving,” or is a new way of life arriving and old life habits being dropped? Yes, both, and more. “Let’s talk till we get to that tree,” might be said by a walker or a rider in company, based on the understanding that there must be a parting of ways. This tree stands like the “message” rocks or big trees around the southwest where trails have long met and parted, a shady spot to stop awhile and maybe take a bite together before one turns back and one goes on or where a sign or word might be left for another who would pass that way. The last two lines are both literal to that kind of scene and, in the larger context of the book, symbolic of a certain point in the journey of life. That there is no end stop speaks for itself, but I’ll say I don’t care if it’s only one mistake Charles Alexander might have made in setting the type; it allows the poem to go round again and again. The last line is the kind of phrase we open a thought with, not an ending.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">This theme of conversation is in other poems throughout this cycle. It is the style of this book to be talking to you. From what I have heard, these poems were said by Drum before becoming writing. Some are talk, and some are song. They are addressed to “you men and women / Who I have loved” (40). The enigma of goodbyes is in this talk:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Each time I say goodbye to you,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Each time you say goodbye to me,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>So then, is the last:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>The last one that we will ever say again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">This poem takes up the old sentiment that goodbyes should be said with the sincerity of knowing the possibility that they may be the last exchange between loving people. And this becomes a poetics:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>So tell carefully then, what you will call,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>As each word then is a call to you and to me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The seriousness in each word choice comes from that other call:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>… the earth called to us to come and to go away</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">and shows up in one word on the next two pages:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>He knew who he was</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>And then he was gone</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">and then a poem/song made only of the word “gone” repeated at intervals with intervals of silent space around them that seem to slow its pace and echo its meaning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Mid-book, nel mezzo del cammin di questo livro, is a poem of leaving that emphasizes the facet of the book that is about dying. One could also read recovery into it by making it be about the dying away of difficult habits. But I would be in pretending denial if I didn’t admit that to my ear it echoes the end of the Prajnaparamitra sutra used in Japanese Buddhist memorial ceremonies. That text is also one for daily meditation, though, on letting go. It reads that way, and it brings this all home to the landscape of Drummond Hadley’s life:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Gone from the wind,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Gone from the leaves,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Gone from the rocks,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Gone from your hands,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Gone, gone, gone,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Down the arroyo flows</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>From your horse’s shod hooves</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>(41)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">*****</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">T.C. Marshall is busy occupying his life, seriously supporting movement actions on the Cabrillo College campus where he teaches and in the S.F. and Monterey Bay areas where he lives. He has been writing and publishing poetry since first grade, literary criticism since his college days in the U.S. and Canada, and nature writing here and there. His latest publications include online essays and reviews as well as poems online and on paper in magazines. His next project is a set of poems incorporating photos to be published on a blog, all of which were originally posted on FaceBook. They are called <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Post Language</span></em>. </span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-55374628668860320982012-05-15T22:44:00.000-07:002012-06-10T23:15:55.851-07:00100 POEMS by S.S. PRASAD<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">EILEEN TABIOS Engages</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">100 Poems</span></span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> by S.S. Prasad</span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><em>(STD Publications, Chennai-100, 2008) </em></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">S.S. Prasad is an engineer with Cypress Semiconductor Technology in <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Bangalore, India. He inscribes what he calls "nanopoems" onto the unused spaces of microchips. You can see an example of what it looks like <strong><a href="http://durjani.tumblr.com/post/7841149013/nanopoems-from-the-book-100-poems-by-ss-prasad">HERE</a></strong> which features the poem "Game" on a chip. Prasad offers an interesting concept for making his poems</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">; here<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">’<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">s what</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> the back cover partly says</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">:</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">"[Prasad]</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> integrates his designs into preexisting industrial prototypes, whic<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">h sidesteps the prohibitive cost of nanolithography and gives each poem a "print run" of millions.</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Prasad was inspired by research engineer Ghim Wei Ho, who creates silicon nanostructures tha tshe calls nanobouquets. Prasad often uses binary language in <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">his silicon compositions. The poems, invisible to the naked eye, spring into the view of any engineer who might later examine the chip under a microscope. "Game" ... is only 75 micros in height and 40 microns in width (each micron is one thousandth of a mi<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">llimeter in size).</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">So these poems have print runs of millions even as they are invisible to the naked eye -- I like that! And that the poem becomes <span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">visible only under a microscope is, to me, a wonderful metaphor for a poem's requirement for (deep) att<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ention. For those who want to see examples of these otherwise invisible wonders, </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">we<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> have</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> his book </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">100 Poems</span></span></i><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">. What's admirable is how the concept, with its many variations of "1"s and "0"s fitted within nanospace, doesn't get tiresome. Here's a<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"> charming one-liner:</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-size: small; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">100 Poems</span></span></i><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"> is a worthwhile read because there are enough mischievous and/or humorous examples to make one chuckle or grin. </span><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="font-size: small;">Here's one example from conflating two letters</span> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(apologies for poor image quality; the paper is white but thin so some of the text on verso pages are visible)</span>:</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7AVj44-TdgDjGZZ3czk_vTz7tfsBXbVcGPGAYO3ewyPoz7By8x6BwM8AWAmXuEulfOUk9TWCdOgExsLinuM6rI5Y0iD3JiC_dRpxXuJIm3fmxsATp-vsgjlGSHQpG5AVsc275ZTIMtto/s1600/in+the+wind.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" dba="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7AVj44-TdgDjGZZ3czk_vTz7tfsBXbVcGPGAYO3ewyPoz7By8x6BwM8AWAmXuEulfOUk9TWCdOgExsLinuM6rI5Y0iD3JiC_dRpxXuJIm3fmxsATp-vsgjlGSHQpG5AVsc275ZTIMtto/s320/in+the+wind.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">My favorite, though, is "The Butterfly" which moves across three pages. If you consider the use of two "O"s as the body and the surrounding "1<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">"s as what comprises the flutter of wings, you could interpret the movement of the two "O"s across the first two pages and the single "O" across the third page as indicating a butterfly's flight:</span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">These "nanopoems" show how much imagination Prasad bears to (what are mostly) "1"s and "0"s in a limited space. He makes us admire his poems because his poems enchant with so little. It's worth quoting this from the back cover:</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Prasad's work responds t<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">o the poetry of Raul Zurita, a Chilean writer who in 1982 hired five airplanes to inscribe 15 verses, in five-mile tall letters, across the sky over New York City. In a poem that has not yet been nanoed, Prasad declares: "Zurita, / you're a gigapoet. / Fo<span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">r you, the sky is a page. // I'll be a nanopoet, / write nanopoems."</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">Prasad's contribution to visual poetry is not just more ecopoet</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">h</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">ical but quite enlivening!</span></span><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-line-through: none;">***** <br /><br />Eileen Tabios does not let her books be reviewed by <em>Galatea Resurrects</em> because she's its editor. But she is pleased to point you elsewhere to recent reviews of her books. <a href="http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios5.html"><em><strong>the relational elations of ORPHANED ALGEBRA</strong></em></a>, a collaboration with j/j hastain, is reviewed by Susan Schultz at <em>Jacket2</em> <strong><a href="https://jacket2.org/commentary/new-thresholds-new-anatomies">HERE</a></strong>, and by Amazon.com Hall of Fame reviewer Grady Harp <strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/review/R2MYQH80AIG4WG/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm">HERE</a></strong>. Another book <a href="http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2011/tabios.html"><strong><em>SILK EGG: Collected Novels </em></strong></a>is reviewed by Thomas Fink in <a href="http://www.leafscape.org/press1/v5n3/fink-review.html"><strong><em>Press 1 </em></strong></a>and by Nicholas Spatafora in <a href="http://www.oovrag.com/essays/essay2011b-3.shtml"><strong><em>OurOwnVoice</em></strong></a>.</span></span></span><br />
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-88790722264160543272012-05-15T22:43:00.000-07:002012-05-29T21:39:12.853-07:00MY DARLING NELLIE GREY by GEORGE BOWERING<h3 style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">My Darling Nellie Grey</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"> by George Bowering</span></b></span></h3>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">(Talonbooks, Vancouver BC, 2010)</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Whether you are aware of it or not, all through 2006, Vancouver writer George Bowering made it his goal to write a sequence a month, a poem a day, with each monthly project using a different construction (or, as he’s called it before, “baffle”). Each monthly sequence was then meant to appear self-contained by different chapbook publishers, with all twelve having finally made their way in print, including <i>Crows in the Wind</i> (Toronto ON: BookThug, 2006), <i>A Knot of Light</i> (Calgary AB: No Press, 2006), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Some Answers</i> (Mt. Pleasant ON: Laurel Reed Books, 2007), <i>U.S. Sonnets</i> (Vancouver BC: Pooka Press, 2007), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eggs In There</i> (Edmonton AB: Rubicon Press, 2007), <i>Monenegro 1966</i> (Calgary AB: No Press, 2006), <i>There Then</i> (Prince George BC: Gorse Press, 2007), <i>Tocking Heads</i> (Ottawa ON/Edmonton AB: above/ground press, 2007) and<i> Fulgencio</i> (Vancouver BC: Nomados, 2008). Now, after months of anticipation, the sequence of twelve has finally appeared as a whole unit as <i>My Darling Nellie Grey</i> (Vancouver BC: Talonbooks, 2010); who else but Bowering, Canada’s first Parliamentary Poet Laureate, could convince a publisher to take on a collection of some four-hundred-plus pages?</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">6.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The mother murmurs a quick prayer,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">the children too terrified to scream</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">crowd her, the foreigners in shock costumes,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">oily rifles in their hands,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>smash everything with huge heels,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>shout in an unknown language,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>looking for boys to kill,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>leave blood and filth behind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">They must have come from those high</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As a bird hasteth to the snare,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and knoweth not that it is for his life,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">so these disguised youth</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end the day washing oil from their bodies. (January, “Crows in the Wind”)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">As Bowering wrote in the email press release for the chapbook <i>Shall I Compare</i> (Vancouver BC: Beaver Kosmos, 2008):</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In late December of 2005, for various reasons, I decided to make a New Year’s resolution to write a poetry book that would require writing every day of 2006. That is, I would write a page a day for 265 days. I thought that I had better not do a single 365pp stream, so I determined to make the book out of 12 shorter books, one each month. (This sounds like the idea of a whack, eh? But it worked, and I liked the result a whole lot.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Further, each 30pp (or 31pp, or 28pp) book would have its own structure or restraints differentiating it from the others, though there would be allusions across the borders, so to speak. (You may know the way I work.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">One, for example, is an “I Remember” book, the form invented by Joe Brainard, and which I used in my book about Greg Curnoe, <i>The Moustache</i>. One is made of poems written in response to famous paintings in the style of William Carlos Williams’s Brueghel paintings. One details my first trip around Europe exactly forty years earlier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In <i>My Darling Nellie Grey</i>, Bowering has turned what was once a press release into a much longer introduction, on writing Oulipo before he’d even heard of it, his history of writing through constraint (what he, over the years, has called “baffles”) and how the project of a poem a day, a chapbook a month for a full calendar year came out of the frustration of becoming stalled while writing a novel. As he writes to open this new collection:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">So when January 1, 2006 came around, what could I do? I opened a notebook and wrote: “When this idea/ found a way to reach me/ it was worn.” As the poem progressed, it seemed to be about someone with the habit of seeing the world through poetry, and the world this third-person figure sees includes beauty and reality, the two words whose top halves resemble each other, even while he wonders whether he is entering the old age of a wise man or a fool. That January poem fills up with another USAmerican war and whatever else comes his way, including the death of Irving Layton, the other mortality called the news, the necessity of being long in the world headed for the earth. It became another elegy, <i>Crows in the Wind</i>, and I heard it after thirty-one days, familiar music, the way I made poetry when I could do it the way I like to read.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">One thread that seems to be recurring in Bowering’s recent poetry, including the sequences that make up his previous trade collection, <i>Vermeer's Light: Poems 1996-2006</i> (Vancouver BC: Talonbooks, 2006), is how he seems to be returning his poetry to its original, basic points, with this suite of a dozen sequences working poems from Williams, another sequence (<i>Shall I Compare</i>) from the Shakespearian sonnet, and so on. Certainly, the last decade or so have seen some of Bowering’s most compelling poetic works appear in print, including his Governor-General’s Award nominated <i>His Life</i> (Toronto ON: ECW Press, 2000) that came out of his own journals during thirty years worth of equinox and solstice entries, and his self-investigative <i>Rewriting My Grandfather</i> (Vancouver BC: Nomados, 2005), both of which were compelling and interesting new directions for Bowering’s own poetry to go into. A poem a day worked through as monthly baffles is a worthy experiment, and there are echoes here that resonate throughout Bowering’s previous poetry. When John Newlove published <i>THE TASMANIAN DEVIL and other poems</i> (Ottawa ON: above/ground press, 1999), there was something of each of the fourteen poems that spoke to an earlier thread of Newlove’s own poetry, from the historical poem, the poem on death, the hitchhiking poem; it was as though he had boiled the entire ouvre of his writing life into a series of boiled-down lyrics, closing up shop. Bowering’s considerations through these chapbooks come more like familiar touchstones, returning to certain threads, certain ideas when required, when needed, and trying to find something new from a ground previously covered.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: small; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Calgary</span></h5>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In the Calgary International Airport</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">throngs of German Alberta peasants,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">men wearing blue straw fedoras,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">women broad as pantry doors</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">joined Tony and Lorna and me. I blew a kiss</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">from the dramatic screen actor hero</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">entrance to the DC6, what a safe</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">plane, full of German words and baby screams.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I took off my boots over the pack ice</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">and the stewardess could see holes in my socks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I could see a stick of gum in her breast</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">pocket—Juicy Fruit, it said. So went my wit</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">in 1966.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a swimsuit in my suitcase</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">and the Mediterranean up ahead, but we’re</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">on the ground at Keflavik. Iceland smells</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">like fish and there are U.S. sailors</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Later in Düsseldorf I stood</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">across the street from my first Cinzano sign,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">watching fluffy dogs on expensive leashes. (May, “Montenegro 1966”)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">There are sections here that echo whole reams of Bowering’s previous work, from April’s “U.S. Sonnets” echoing <i>At War With The U.S</i>. (Vancouver BC: Talonbooks, 1974), May’s “Montenegro 1966,” a piece written out of diary entries from that period, echoing his Mexican periods, from <i>The Man in Yellow Boots / El hombre de las amarillas</i> (Mexico City: el corno emplumado, 1965) and <i>Sitting in Mexico</i> (Montreal QC: Imago / Beaver Kosmos Folio, 1970), to December’s “There Then” showing trace echo of a particular thread that exists in, among others, his <i>Urban Snow</i> (Vancouver BC: Talonbooks, 1992). There are cadences that echo <i>Kerrisdale Elegies</i> (Toronto ON: Coach House Press, 1984; Vancouver BC: Pooka Press, 2008; Vancouver BC: Talonbooks, 2008) and <i>Do Sink</i> (Vancouver BC: Pomflit, 1992), for example. And how can the June section, “Some Answers,” be seen as anything but a continuation of <i>Delayed Mercy and Other Poems </i>(1985), moving from responding to lines from other poets to outright answering them? Or is it from Robert Kroetsch, who originally wrote in <i>Field Notes</i> (Toronto ON: General Publishing, 1983) his “Four Questions for George Bowering”?</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What soul</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>is without fault?”</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I once aimed for that, to be </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">blameless, monstrously,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>some will have it,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">purely, I thought why not, given</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">one whole life?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This before</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">they introduced the notion of</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">inherited sin, or sinfulness, or</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">maybe after.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I never made it, though</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I gave myself a chance, the chance</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">to say</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>in any case.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The thing I like best about the August section, “According to Brueghel” is the fact that Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525-1569), a Flemish painter famous for depicting peasant life in his work, doesn’t actually get mentioned, and the Williams book that Bowering refers to is <i>Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems</i>, published in 1962 and posthumous winner of the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, a book that opens with a cycle of ten poems each based on a painting by Brueghel. The strength of the poems that make up “According to Brueghel” is in Bowering’s usual deft hand, the quick turn and line break, and the quickness that comes from a sequence of poems moving through and around visual art, much in the way Vancouver poet Fred Wah has been working his “artknot” poems over the years as an extension to his own ongoing “Music at the Heart of Thinking” sequence, or American poet Robert Creeley did through a number of his own works. Where does Bowering fall into all of this? This is not even close to the tenth work of Bowering’s composed as a series of direct responses over the past five decades of his publishing history, from his long poem <i>Genève</i> that worked out of a tarot deck (Toronto ON: Coach House Press, 1971), to his recently reissued <i>Kerrisdale Elegies</i> and his magnificent <i>Delayed Mercy and Other Poems</i> (Toronto ON: Coach House Press, 1987), but why does it feel as though Bowering, through these new poems, is simply re-working the same ground as before? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">A poet/critic friend a few years ago commented that some of the frustration of the <i>TISH </i>poets is how none of them have really done anything “new” over the past twenty-plus years, simply repeating old exploits, old faults and old victories. The question becomes, where does all of this go, where is all of this headed? Just what has Bowering learned in the intervening years? Just what has he accomplished? Writing not just for writing’s sake, but a deeper appreciation for the cadences themselves; a kind of Zen attitude to writing poems, writing poetry, as he writes in his introduction:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Texts, I now understand, are not there to replicate life, but to generate something else, including further texts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">*****</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa. The author of more than twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles are the poetry collections <i>Songs for little sleep, </i>(Obvious Epiphanies, 2012), <i>grief notes:</i> (BlazeVOX [books], 2012), <i>A (short) history of l.</i> (BuschekBooks, 2011), <i>Glengarry</i> (Talonbooks, 2011) and <i>kate street</i> (Moira, 2011), and a second novel, <i>missing persons</i> (2009). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan), <i>The Garneau Review</i> (<i>ottawater.com/garneaureview</i>), <i>seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics</i> (<i>ottawater.com/seventeenseconds</i>) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual <i>ottawater</i> (<i>ottawater.com</i>). He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at <i><a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/">robmclennan.blogspot.com</a></i></span><br />
<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-12832355392114508192012-05-15T22:35:00.000-07:002012-05-31T07:38:17.862-07:00THE WAY WE LIVE by BURT KIMMELMAN<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">GERALD SCHWARTZ Reviews</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><strong><em>The Way We Live</em> by Burt Kimmelman</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><em>(Dos Madres Press, Loveland, OH, 2011)</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The author of numerous collections of poetry and criticism, Burt Kimmelman has for years been an active presence in contemporary poetry. In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Way We Live</i> he shows us again he is a writer in motion, whether across a yard or across the planet, he is expansive in his portrayal of days, present and past. He holds a mirror up to ordinary events in an effort to reveal their innate poetry, as if to ask <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Does the world belong to us or do we instead belong to it?</i> Frequently on the lookout for deepened connections, he realizes they may remain at bay but encourages his poems to emit slight signals of hope to us through the interplay of words on the page. Hints of emotion, particularly expressed as admiration for our natural surroundings, further point Kimmelman’s poetry toward the lyrical according to a poetic compass of here and now, as in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cicadas, Mid July</i>:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">the cicadas do their work—no more</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">twitters of birds, our regret spun in</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">the din and the waning of the light.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #474b4e;"><span style="background: white; color: #474b4e; font-family: Arial;">These poems leave one listening to the world’s “secret business,</span></span><span style="color: #474b4e;"><span style="color: #474b4e; font-family: Arial;"> / unseen no matter where we look<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; orphans: 2; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">,” raised up from routine and better able to admire the beauty in the everyday.</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Combining his sharp eye for the exact nature of all he observes with a thinker’s soul (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and a lover’s heart</i>), Kimmelman is attuned to how people and things interact, as in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alhambra Steps</i>, quoted in entirety:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Leaving the palace</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">we descend the steep</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">stone stairs arm in arm—</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">you pulling me down,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">me holding you up.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The Way We Live</span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"> does what it implies—it shows how our others and our surrounds soothe, reassure, suggest forgiveness, appease. Whether quietly whispered or marked by a certain warmth, it uplifts and entrances, as much through its thoughtful seeking and questioning as through its striking, yet in its images so recognizable, we-wish-we-had-said-that lines.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">*****</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Born in Pottsville, Pa. in 1958, Gerald Schwartz is the author of <em>ONLY OTHERS ARE: Poems, WORLD</em> and <em>SPKNGinTONGUES</em>.</span><br />
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-36328347234738961062012-05-15T22:30:00.000-07:002012-05-29T21:36:19.281-07:00WHAT IT IS LIKE: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by CHARLES NORTH<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">T.C. MARSHALL Reviews</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">What It Is Like: New and Selected Poems</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"> by Charles North</span></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">(Turtle Point & Hanging Loose, Brooklyn, N.Y., 2011)</span></i></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Mind and Body</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>7</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">I like to think of still-lifes as “absent mind”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">but of course every curling lemon peel is “a thought in readiness”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">and the theory that this is not only the world but its best face,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">the aspect that joins us most closely to what we feel,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">falls headfirst into an empty white ceramic vase,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">shoelaces flopping over the rim.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">That sentence-long section from one of Charles North’s new poems holds for me the keys to the best aspects of newness in the old poems too. He is a writerly writer but not in a way that keeps anybody at arm’s length. His mind is armed with sentences, phrases, words, often images but always thoughts, things that have occurred to him or at least to his writing. These include such non-thingly things as the reflections here on art and worldly philosophy, but also the very thingly images we can see in our mind’s eye. Often in North’s works, these lead us into humorous or startling image conjunctions, cartoon like, but also into realizations. Section 7 is one of the nine sections in the poem “Mind and Body” (259-261). Only a couple are made with one elegant sentence, but the form of each is a set of linked thoughts. That is the form North works best. He seems to delight in taking us with him into a perception and then giving it a twist, as with a knife or something. He makes thinking new by naturalizing it in what could be called still lifes of thought clusters sometimes; other times, his constructions are more on the scale of landscapes or even Asian landscape scrolls in their scope. Their focus, though, is the mind-and-body work we can get hold of in words. In his poems “what we feel” is the vertiginous physicality of getting a thought.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Those poems of longer scope include some wildly turning ones, but I found myself reading another kind with great interest this time through his works. “Aug-Dec for Jimmy Schuyler” from a 1999 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New and Selected Poems</i> was one of two diaristic looking long pieces in this <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New and Selected</i>. It proceeds rather simply with entries that show passing thoughts on the weather, the landscape, some relations to painting, animals, buildings, all very much what Schuyler made his poems present. The slight advance here is what gets me nodding in that poetry reading “yes” kind of way. North makes leaps and stabs that Schuyler hardly allowed himself. In “Summer of Living Dangerously” (240-253), the Aug 5 entry reads: “Ceci n’est pas un diary.” In that sentence, North has made pretty much all the moves he made in the long sentence of “Mind and Body 7.” Mind awareness, philosophical attitude, art reference, object image, and pointed humor, all are present. I can’t help but see Magritte’s pipe not a pipe, and reflect that this diary is not a diary but an artful composition. And yet it opened very diaristically: “June 16. Sun then no sun then sun then no sun for the foreseeable future.” And on “June 25. Rainy and esoteric.” It is, of course, the last bits of those weather notes that go beyond the language of weather reportage and into that with which we think and feel about other things more within the human range of life. And there are wilder bits quite human like the following:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">July 6. Dark again, wet, a little screwy in the topgallants, meaning … not very.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">This is how the schedule is shaping up:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Uglification</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Writing off</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Gladly Yearning (& gladly leaching)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Hegemony</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Pseudopoetics</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Breast period</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Abscess</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Colonization</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Higher<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>myth</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">It isn’t written in stone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">We get the joke about schooling. We may get clouds as sails. But in the long run of the poem and the longer run of the work too, we get some abiding concerns. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">One of them is “Pseudopoetics” and its relation to “Hegemony.” This 13-page poem ends with “a stammered reference, the non-referential aspect becoming clearer as well as increasingly poignant as time passes.” This seems to mock the imposition of referentialities in our arts by a world of “realistic” values. There are bits like that throughout the book. There is something somewhere about being reborn a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bad</i> poet or a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bad</i> painter. There is a passage about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">babooneries</i> and the image of imposter painters doing a kind of hokey pokey dance of spatter painting. In an early poem, “Villa Capra’s Sestina” from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Elizabethan & Nova Scotian Music</i> (1974), there is an extended meditation on how the “fact that an artist has created the illusion of depth” pushes “food, hunger and sex” and “the distribution of wealth” out of the picture for us. Through the repetitious form and its recirculation, attention is drawn both to the achievements of still life painting and how what “seems to originate in a real / Interest in describing what is immediately before us” becomes a “polished vagueness” (23).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If there is a politics here, it is a self-examination of art by poetry. This may seem just the work of an aesthete, bound within the considerations of an artist for his artfulness, but the inter-questioning of those stances shakes something else loose in this book. Its very attention to aesthetics gives it its distance from the merely aesthetic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">When North asks “isn’t there a rhetorical term for loosening a word from its proper object and letting it drift to something that’s merely in the vicinity?”, his example is how Ginsberg “does it in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Howl</i>” with “looking for an angry fix” (250). That “drift” is one move North uses in both little and bigger ways. To emphasize his concern with the tone of wording, he actually takes some of his own works and “translates” them into other words in our same language. A fine set of poems from that 1999 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New and Selected</i> is called “Building Sixteens.” It consists of sixteen poems of sixteen lines each, each with buildings in them and all interlinked by grammatically continuing the one before. The first of the bunch is re-presented in 2007’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cadenza</i> under the title “Translation” with lines like “The windowed construction is the rusted color of a cruller” (235) in place of “The building is donut-colored light” (143). No big deal. Just a laugh, a lark, a goof, we might say. Well, yes and no, and the goofiness is exactly part of the point. What you see is not all that you get. The idea of this translation exercise is to make the rhetoric what we see, not just imagery. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">In that long diaristic piece for Jimmy Schuyler, there is this: “If you’re a lousy poet you’ll be a lousy poet if you write in forms and a lousy poet if you write without forms. If you’re an interesting poet you’ll be an interesting poet whether you use forms or don’t use them!” (136) There is a form all through this book that seems to have been invented by Charles North, the sixteen-liner used in that series on buildings. He uses it often over the years and often with content focused on his art and craft and its relation to the world:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">What Is Said to the Poet</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">concerning the impieties of obscurity</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">and the dark flurry</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">to the left of the water tower</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">providing the state with a pre-emptive sea</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>cantilevered over what you</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the grain elevator of all I see</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>but the last slice of sea</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>outlining the observatory</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>has cleared up the cooperative</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>conversion process, windows</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>fighting a rear-guard</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">action to sort out clarity</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">from its numerous self-styled conservators.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">And architects hoist space underneath</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">timber roofs, producing the clerestory.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>(115)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Obscurity impiously opposed to the clarities imposed by their “self-styled conservators” could be out to give us the clear storey above. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">“Lousy” versus “interesting” is an old story. This is not just about goodness or badness but about interest in art and where the state and its conservators are at. The forms and concepts used in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What It Is Like</i> have a quality of critical goodness of their own, with a subtle social edge, and seem to have come from a mind that is good enough to think of them. That’s the same place where those shoelaces came from; remember them flopping over the white ceramic vase’s rim and presenting a shoe we don’t even see but we do? Thanks to Charles North’s writing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">***** </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">T.C. Marshall is busy occupying his life, seriously supporting movement actions on the Cabrillo College campus where he teaches and in the S.F. and Monterey Bay areas where he lives. He has been writing and publishing poetry since first grade, literary criticism since his college days in the U.S. and Canada, and nature writing here and there. His latest publications include online essays and reviews as well as poems online and on paper in magazines. His next project is a set of poems incorporating photos to be published on a blog, all of which were originally posted on FaceBook. They are called <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Post Language</span></em>. </span><br />
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-54258323574490928402012-05-15T22:25:00.000-07:002012-05-29T21:34:46.010-07:00SHE RETURNS TO THE FLOATING WORLD by JEANNINIE HALL GAILEYKATHLEEN KIRK engages<br />
<i><br /><strong>She Returns to the Floating World</strong></i><strong> by Jeannine Hall Gailey</strong><br />
<em>(Kitsune Books, Crawfordville, FL, 2011)</em><br />
<br />
I love learning things in poems, and in <i>She Returns to the Floating World</i>, by Jeannine Hall Gailey, I get to learn about Japanese fairy tales, animé, and DNA. I get to learn the meaning of the Japanese word “kitsune” (*ki-tsu-ne*), which is “come, love, sleep” and to wonder about the relationship between the content of the book and its publisher’s name, Kitsune Books. “Kitsune” is also the name of the fox-wife, a main character in the Japanese mythology winding through the book, a vixen/human transformation. <br />
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It’s an engaging book of poems, but I am most engaged by the real life connections, the intersections of fantasy and reality, the hints of how and why fantasy might rescue us from various versions of an unsustainable real life.<br />
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For instance, in “My Little Brother Learns Japanese,” simply stating the truth sounds ominous:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
He learns to conjugate<br />
verbs with no future,<br />
and reads poetry that does not<br />
begin with “I.”</blockquote>
I get the irony that I am engaged by the almost “I” poems in a book that celebrates a culture without them! But doesn’t this stanza hint at important auto/biography?:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
He learns in Japanese fairy tales<br />
that siblings, not spouses,<br />
are often saviors;<br />
the older sister brings the dead brother<br />
back to life<br />
over and over again.</blockquote>
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Just as this poem promises, that theme of sister-brother salvation recurs. In “The Taste of Rust in August,” the brother is hit by lightning but survives. That poem establishes a connection between brother and sister in terms of taste and body chemistry; she’s drawn to tasting rust and metal from iron deficiency and he’s got “a funny taste in his mouth” from the lightning.<br />
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In “Code,” brother and sister are linked again, by vulnerability and a love of Miyazaki’s animé: “My brother and I were sickly, pale kids, apt to bleed easily at a scratch from a dog’s claw or tree branch, vomiting and hives from too much grass and sunlight.” It’s a haibun, this poem, a Japanese form that begins as prose poem and ends with haiku. Sickened by the real world, these children are drawn quite naturally to magic and the superpowers of animated characters: “<i>This</i> made sense, our pixilated metaphor, the girl in the pictures saves everyone.” Physical illness and the title—“Code” (and there are other “Code” poems)—suggest dangerous mutations, and these come up again in “Chaos Theory,” which begins:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Elbow-deep in the guts of tomatoes,<br />
I hunted genes, pulling strand from strand.<br />
DNA patterns bloomed like frost.</blockquote>
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The speaker’s father, who hates chaos and loves order, tells her about “the garden of the janitor / at the Fernald Superfund site,” where “mutations burgeoned in fractal branchings,” a secret he has to keep from his children and perhaps from the janitor, himself, so proud of his giant dahlias, roses, and tomatoes.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In his mind he watched the man’s DNA<br />
unraveling, patching itself together again<br />
with wobbling sentry enzymes.<br />
<br />
When my father brought his story home,<br />
he never mentioned the janitor’s radiation poisoning,<br />
only those roses, those tomatoes.</blockquote>
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This book resonates sadly with Hiroshima, of course, but also with military and industrial pollution and now with the nuclear meltdown post-tsunami in Japan. The shared social disaster of “DNA unraveling” parallels a personal narrative of damage. “So many aberrations in the code,” begins the poem called “Aberrant Code I.” It continues, “I watch a show about mutant heroes, evolution.” Again, quite naturally, anyone might hope for aberration to result in fantastic, heroic, extraordinary powers. “My doctor asked if I had powers like the X-Men.” Unfortunately, most of our aberrations do not lead to superpowers, not in the real world.<br />
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In “Aberrant Code II,” the speaker reveals:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
…I was already<br />
blessed with DNA so sampled, broken<br />
that no one would could relay its message.</blockquote>
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Perhaps the only way to relay this kind of message is through poetry, and perhaps that <i>is</i> a superpower. In “Aberrant Code III,” the speaker is “[I]ncreasingly alienated. Alien.” She addresses a lover or husband whose “hair is golden, / just like the fairy tales” and who should have known better than to mate with her: “Your blood plus mine a disaster, / our offspring sinking ships.” This is a sad, sad story and resembles many an origin myth, including the sister/brother/spouse tale of Izanami and Izanagi, whose first set of children died and whose second set became the islands of Japan.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
So is this some interspecies love song,<br />
you, grown tree-like; me, a fox in the dust,<br />
some hybrid of woman and mythical beast?</blockquote>
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The answer seems to be yes. To make sense of a life that won’t make sense, to give order to chaos, to redeem personal or social tragedy, we enter fantasy, we write stories, we make poems or aberrant codes sometimes unrecognizable on a medical chart.<br />
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There is much joy in this book, side by side with much sorrow. Making out in a closet, watching a husband make dinner, laughing, singing. And much transformation. Since transformation into fairy tale and animé are the main offerings, it would be wrong to read too much autobiography into these poems. And the poems “Autobiography I” and Autobiography II” warn the reader about that! “No, last time you read me / wrong. I’m not the main character,” begins “Autobiography I.” “Stop imagining I was waiting / for your permission. / I started this before you even knew me.” And every time the woman “vanishes” or “disappears” or transforms in these poems, she may well come back, as something altogether different.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Don’t be surprised;<br />
the woman reappears<br />
and this time she will be a stranger to you;<br />
this time, she will keep more to herself.</blockquote>
<br />
I wouldn’t want to scare her away. I wouldn’t want to misread her. I want her to keep telling me things.<br />
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*****<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Kathleen Kirk is the poetry editor for <i>Escape Into Life</i> and the author of four poetry chapbooks, most recently <i>Nocturnes</i> (Hyacinth Girl Press). Her work appears in a number of print and online journals and anthologies, including <i>Confrontation, Lake Effect, Greensboro Review, Poems & Plays</i>, and <i>Umbrella</i>, and she reviews for <i>Fiddler Crab Review</i> and <i>Prick of the Spindle</i>. She blogs at Wait! I Have a Blog?! </span> <a href="http://kathleenkirkpoetry.blogspot.com/" title="http://kathleenkirkpoetry.blogspot.com/">http://kathleenkirkpoetry.blogspot.com/</a> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-74095764551460865642012-05-15T22:20:00.000-07:002012-05-29T21:33:48.300-07:00NOTES FROM IRRELEVANCE by ANSELM BERRIGAN<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">PATRICK JAMES DUNAGAN Reviews</span></div>
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<strong><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Notes from Irrelevance </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">by<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>Anselm Berrigan</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><em>(Wave Books, Seattle, WA, 2011)</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">A commentator recently noted how with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Notes from Irrelevance </i>Anselm Berrigan constructs a poem out of disparate parts of everything that usually gets removed from out a poem—or something like that anyway. Cast offs and asides are here taken to be the meaty girders along which the poem rides. There’s clearly something a bit different going on with the workings of a long poem here. Just when you think there’ll be a break or indication of pause in the oncoming deluge, none such is to be found. The lines of the poem just keep on rolling. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Berrigan tweaks a bit what the nature of the long poem is and how it works. Rather friendly, with assured charm, Berrigan’s poem embraces his life: pulling from his daily affairs all matters with which it decides concern itself with delineating upon. It’s like a journal, but not. Berrigan for his own part appears rather more nearly disinterested than anything. With a growing family to care for and work matters to avoid, or entertain and thereby avoid, along with a host of other lively interests no doubt with which to occupy his time, he’s rather too busy to be so much bothered. Writing poetry is among the last of things on his to-do list and so the poem itself needs to take care of its own; which it does indeed do with matter-of-fact aplomb. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">I sat down on a recent Saturday and read the poem straight through while sipping a little whiskey before heading out to the San Francisco Symphony for a performance of John Cage’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Songbooks</i>. Almost immediately upon finishing I rose and walked to my desk in the bedroom and wrote the following response.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">TO ANSELM BERRIGAN</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Irreverent</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">don’t last</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">won’t it</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">break useless</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">always</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to be so</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">doing this</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">thing</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to thing</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">again</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">at it like</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">couple of</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">cubs</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">so what</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">who thinks</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">others recognize better</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">go here</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>3/10/12</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">I’ve met Berrigan twice: Once briefly @ Vesuvio’s after a reading at City Lights and one evening later on for a longer stretch at the house of some friends. He’s a tremendously generous conversationalist. Active socializing is an art and it’s rare to find those comfortable in such craft who are likewise of a truly sensitive nature—confortable enough in their own skin to exist just fine without all the buzz of activity found when constantly seeking to be among friends and acquaintances—unable not to feel always aware of their own self’s suffering through others: the conversation not one of mutual mindless escape rehashing the standard score but rather likewise commiseration of one’s ever-varying role in existence. Not how get out of it but rather just dig in with being in it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">This doesn’t make for easy living. In the poem, Berrigan describes himself as “being a poet and/ generally oversensitive/ sonuvabitch prone to/ cathartic self-retaliation/ at perceived slights while/ maintaining a surface of/ competent if protean/ functionality” which assuredly isn’t a simple frame of mind to exist in. Yet my ideal reading of Berrigan believes he would do just fine on a deserted island, although he’d undoubtedly prefer that island not be Manhattan, where he was born and currently resides. He enjoys his birthplace as it is—alongside with memories of it as it was—far too much to ever witness it so drastically changed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And as difficultly hectic as Manhattan continues to be at times, he’s quite aware of the luck life has brought him to enjoy it as his central locale for so many of his years. He knows the streets and various settings well, eyeing the changes passing time brings to them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Reading the Times by</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">delusive transisting,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">decker tour buses and</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">their radio-voiced waves</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">designed to make a</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">museum out of the dug</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">streets. I love the view</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">up first ave on a clear</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">day, a straight line north,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a wiped-out horizon</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">stood on its side to</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">appear climbable above</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the ordinary hum of</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">death that is traffic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Gregarious and ever expanding, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Notes from Irrelevance</i> greets readers with an exuberance of personal warmth and spontaneity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">I’m going to make a list</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of all the people who’ve</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">influenced me in any way,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">with a brief explanation</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">as to how. Reality’s frail</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">blooming is of no concern,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">being only there. One</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">mirrors the dynamics of</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">massing without reason,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">lies an honest, productive </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">lie, awaits questions. I got</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">my first real six-string to</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">play a flamenco version</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of kibbles ‘n bits. I was</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">taking the 12 or 20</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">questions seriously then</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">saw some potes of qualitay</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">taking them less seriously.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Berrigan doesn’t waste his time although he may allow time to waste him—having to go through routines of living—after all, that part of life is rather inescapable. Nonetheless, “what is most/ordinary every day is/ defeating the desire to/ harden into respectable/ indifference.” Not that Berrigan is any kind of hero. In fact, he rarely believes in them, at least not in any universal sense these days. (The pun is there because it’s elemental, given the facts, fantastical as much as not, as are they.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Going out the door into the frenetic world of unavoidable interactions and delays and speedups and takedowns and always being caught up by the inevitable, is how life goes. Best get on with it. Grow with it. Move through it. Berrigan’s well on his way. This poem, in particular, evidences his avid willingness to share and discover what any of it all means as he goes along. It’s not as easy as it seems, don’t be fooled and don’t attempt fool around; be attendant to your affairs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">***** </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Patrick James Dunagan lives in San Francisco and works in Gleeson library at the University of San Francisco. His most recent book is <i>"There Are People Who Think That Painters Shouldn't Talk": A GUSTONBOOK </i>(Post Apollo, 2011), other writing includes a plethora of book reviews and assisting Iranian poet Ava Koohbor with translating her poems from Farsi. Some things are also likely to be appearing in issues of the Lightning'd Press house mag, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">1913 Journal of Forms, Shampoo</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">House Organ</i>. </span></div>
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7439573212334083217.post-64468461504608627832012-05-15T22:15:00.000-07:002012-05-29T21:32:39.972-07:00SAY SO by DORA MALECHLUCY BIEDERMAN Reviews <br />
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<strong><em>Say So</em> by Dora Malech</strong> <br />
<em>(Cleveland State University Poetry Center, Cleveland, OH, 2011)</em> <br />
<br />
Turn off your iPod while you’re reading Dora Malech’s <em>Say So</em> (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2011). Seriously, turn it off. Malech is a pro at using prosodic, grammatical, and rhetorical tools to get as much musicality as possible out of every line and phrase. Her poems play in both senses of the word; they play like a pops orchestra on top volume, they play like a child knocking over a painstakingly constructed house of cards. <br />
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Though this is Malech’s second book, she has established a clear, distinctive poetics; there is such a thing as a <em>Dora Malech poem</em>. Malech’s singular voice and set of approaches make themselves known across a variety of forms and subjects. I was interested in detailing the characteristics of the <em>Dora Malech poem</em>—what makes Malech’s poems feel so uniquely her own? Here are my un-scientific findings, gleaned from looking kinda closely at <em>Say So</em>: <br />
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-- <strong>Un-peopling</strong>. Malech often elides subject words like “he” and “I,” leaving owner-less objects and ghostly vectors of force. Malech’s poems can feel like dioramas of Western life; arrangements; announcements. “Flight and in-flight meals, condiments, commitment— / slather mustard and muster courage for descent,” she writes in “Can’t Get There from Here.” <br />
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When an “I” does enter the poem, it is often several lines in, later than we might have expected. The effect can feel like someone walking into a ghost town, a ravaged room. And the “I” arriving late can come to feel canny, chary, hedging her bets, as in “Love Poem”: “If by <em>truth </em>you mean <em>hand </em>then yes / I hold to be self-evident and hold you in the highest—” Here Malech’s “I” only enters the poem having determined the “rules” of the game. <br />
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-- <strong>Reworking cliché</strong>, or, more specifically, setting us up to expect to hear something we recognize, and then delivering something different, as in “Respects”: “Woe is what, again?” (This is a kind of un-peopling, too, maybe: in place of the expecting “me,” we get “what”). <br />
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This working against the grain of the familiar dovetails with Malech’s interest in riddles, as she tells us herself in “Cold Weather”: “Meanwhile, riddles—<em>what is the sound of one hand pinned behind your back</em>.” <br />
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-- <strong>Punning</strong>. While Malech does take advantage of the joke-y, cheese-y tone that puns can convey, her puns often point below the surface, toward a more emotionally resonant place. For example, in “Commitment,” Malech writes, “The stranger tries critique, calls my gun <em>too loaded</em>. / Later, party tricks. He plucks <em>carnation </em>from <em>incarnation</em>.” Through the “stranger’s” punning, Malech gestures toward a “loaded” romantic relationship between the speaker and the stranger. At this register, the notion of “party tricks” with language, becomes loaded, too; every surface, even the surface of language, becomes a jumble of gendered expectations. <br />
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-- <strong>Repetition and sound as formal devices</strong>. Malech’s use of specificity is another hallmark, but it tied is so closely to her use of sound; a surprising noun will show up, pleasing in it strangeness, but it will often fit right in phonically. Her use of internal rhyme is masterly, imposing a sense of internal, secret order on each poem. The poem “Director’s Cut” begins, “Opening shot: morning. Mid-May. Mid-maybe, / misgiving, mistake, mid-take your time repeating after me / so long, so longing so lost and short of breath.” Here one sound yields so readily to the next that it gives the poem a sense of improvisation, as if the sounds themselves were prompting the poem into existence, creating a form for the poem. <br />
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-- <strong>Flattened syntax</strong>. Malech chooses an ungrammatically correct sentence, often at the start of a poem, which can have the effect of a cold-water plunge into the poem’s lively and unexpected rhythms. At the start of “Flight, Fight Or,” Malech writes, “Every rearview a lovescape of ex-towns.” Though the meaning would be the same if Malech had said, “Every rearview is a lovescape of ex-towns,” our sense of the speaker and of the “rules” of the poem would be different. With the verb elided, Malech creates a sense of hurry. This tendency to leave out the “to be” verb makes many of her clauses and sentences feel like hurried brush strokes, decorative parts of a larger whole. <br />
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-- Perhaps the most resonant or characteristic quality of Malech’s poetics is the <strong>all-at-once-ness </strong>of it; encountering a Malech poem, or even one of Malech’s lines, often means encountering a fat handful of many of the above techniques, fighting each other for attention. Take the first few lines of “Commitment”: <br />
<blockquote>
I should shut up. Crescendo <br />
to one raised eyebrow, <br />
stranger saying <em>better to end with apology <br />than to begin with permission</em>. <br />
I claim these months alone <br />
to be Semester at Sea, <em>largesse</em>, <br />
excessive gifting, <em>large ice</em>, a looming <br />
at the prow…</blockquote>
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Here Malech deftly depopulates the poem, not only through its witty first sentence, “I should shut up” (thus threatening to leave us entirely), but in introducing the poem’s apparent main character as “stranger.” Even in a poem like this one that contains characters, Malech finds ingenuous ways to make it feel empty of actual human presence. She also plays with our syntactical expectations, e.g., “Crescendo / to one raised eyebrow,” one of her signature ways to give a poem an early jolt of adrenaline. Her rewording of cliché is also evident here, in “<em>better to end with apology / than to begin with permission</em>.” Her use of sound to propel the poem forward, as well as her skillful punning, come into play in “<em>largesse</em>, / excessive gifting, <em>large ice</em>.” The packed, dense quality of Malech’s poems might what sets them apart most—all that is unique about them is often all going on at once. <br />
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Ultimately, though, favorite poems in <em>Say So</em> are those that in some way disappoint the expectations Malech has set up about what a <em>Dora Malech poem </em>will do. “Open Letter” surprised me when it escaped from its tight leash of sound-play into two sentence-long finals stanzas that felt motivated more by emotion and persona than by craft: <br />
<blockquote>
I’m tired of wasting <br />
my best lies on strangers. <br />
<br />
Believe me <br />
when I tell you I’m kept <br />
awake by the light <br />
from my body, splayed star.</blockquote>
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The put-on cockiness of the penultimate stanza collapses into a more plaintive tone in the final stanza, allowing for the gorgeous, economically conveyed image of the speaker’s body as a “splayed star.” Where matters of sound drew our focus earlier in the poem, a more emotionally resonant register now takes central stage. Other poems that pack similarly bold emotional punches are “Forever Hold Your Peace, Speak Now Or,” “Speech! Speech!”, “The End,” and the wonderful ten-line “Flight, Fight Or,” with its achingly gorgeous final lines “Here lies the sigh begun nine lines ago. / I miss your wingspan miss your hollow bones.” <br />
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Where the book felt too long, or where my interest waned, I had the sense that Malech was operating only on the register of language play, and after several such poems in a row, that kind of play doesn’t feel very fun. <br />
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But some of this is a matter of taste. After all, Malech’s poems are so confidently and expertly voiced, and their sound so tight, that our attention usually is directed to their surfaces rather than to, say, the identity, perspective, or emotion of the speaker(s). And even when my attention or patience waned, I admired and was moved by Malech’s use of style, sound, and wit to convey things like unsaid-nesses between men and women, and a pervasive sense of unease. In the poems I find most successful, those in which a sense of vulnerability shows through the surface like bone through a cut hand, I read a wonderfully necessary new voice. <br />
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***** <br />
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Lucy Biederman is the author of a chapbook, <em>The Other World </em>(Dancing Girl Press), and many poems, some of which are forthcoming or have appeared recently in <em>The Portland Review, Gargoyle, Many Mountains Moving</em>, and <em>Shampoo</em>. <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1