Clarity

For a long time even before I began trying to write poetry again, I have been dismayed at poets who seem to be trying to outsmart their readers, playing a kind of puzzle one-up-manship. Then I bumped into a market called Lucidity Poetry Journal, and immediately figured it might be a place I could send some of my not-too-profound versifying.

I didn't win a prize, but I did garner an honorable mention (I had sent the limit of five poems). There was also a list of honorable mentions for titles--a first in my experience. I got one of those too. So, just for the fun of it, here is the poem with the title the editors liked:

Bottom Line

Where is what is lost?

Is it absent forever?

When the blossom shatters,

when the snow melts,

when a dropped earring

can’t be found, the space

on the museum wall

now bare of the image

that haunts the lover

of art—

is there some

ledger that tells us

which lacks are less or greater?

Who would bewail the loss

of a child’s first tooth?

How long will the mournful

cow keep lowing for her absent calf?

A soldier son, an aged mother,

an elder statesman, a teenaged

driver, a deer in the headlights…

are they of equal weight in

some cosmic balance,

once they’re lost?

If at last there is no finding,

how do we achieve

the full height of our being?

Only the faithful and the brave

know the courage to deny

the mortality of what is unseen.

http://lucidityjournal.00books.com/index.html

The latest issue of Wild Goose Poetry Review is online as of today. This is the real thing--not just poetry closely judged and well chosen, but graced with trenchant reviews as well. Scott Owens, the editor, was kind enough to print a couple of my offerings there. 

Today was a good day in other ways: I got the first royalty check from Bookstogonow.com. It wouldn't buy a cup of coffee, but it proved someone bothered to download my story. And I came in second at a bridge club in which I was invited to substitute. 

Maybe another day, I won't be the perennial also-ran? 

Buy Poetry

Had a mild jolt yesterday when a friend reminded me about my promise to do a program for her book club. Needless to say, I'd spent time on it already, nervous about how and what to say. I had the date on my two calendars: Friday, the 18th. The jolt came when she said, "Wednesday, ten o'clock." Wednesday? If we hadn't met at the salad bar, would I have missed the whole meeting? She admitted she'd said the 18th. I'm not a member of this group, though once before I did a program for them. I didn't remember what day of the week they meet.

So what's the big deal? I hadn't yet arrived at the true stage-fright phase. (I'm pretty close to it now.) I had a feeling there was still plenty of time to decide which of the two fully written-out talks I'd try to give. I'd already marked the pages of the books from which I intended to read. It wasn't as if I'd waited till the last minute...but now that date seems to loom. I've fretted about trying to "give a program." In days gone by, I got used to knowing where I wanted a lesson to end up, but found much greater success winging it and taking advantage of spontaneous reactions in the classroom. Now I have to decide whether elderly ladies in a beautiful living room with porcelain cups in their hands want to be talked at, or might be expected to contribute. I really prefer letting the chips fall where they may. Well, I've done this before, but the truth is, this time I'm on a bit of a crusade.

With thousands (probably a conservative estimate) of people writing poetry all over this country, and scores writing really good stuff just in the state where I live, I'm wondering whether anybody over college age is reading it. There will be 15 or 16 people to hear this, and I want so much to make them think about leaving prose for at least a little time and buying poetry. Yes, BUYING poetry. I'm astonished that it's still possible to purchase nicely bound and produced books of poetry from even the mega presses, in paper and hard cover. Long live the poets! and they won't, unless someone buys what they write. So I want to shake these ladies up enough to hope one of them might go out and buy a book of poems. Who knows, even add one to next year's book list for the club!

Accessible Poetry

Recently I have had the pleasure of reading Glenda Council Beall's new collection of poems, Now Might as Well Be Then. I want to praise it in the most heartfelt way. If you aren't accustomed to the slower pace required for the appreciation of poetry, here is the place to begin to learn how.

These poems are sensuous and rhythmic and graced by lovely diction. Word choices are evocative. The poems are in no way difficult or obscure, and in no way are they simple. Loss, sorrow, humor, regret, joy and more reveal themselves in every one. We recognize and share emotion instantly and understand how the author was feeling about her subject while it was new, and while she was writing about it later.

Academic students of poetry will recognize certain techniques, but thankfully without the need to notice them. From "Summer Ballet in the Piney Woods:" We dressed, and left our innocence in the glade/ of the quiet forest. Metaphor and allegory are available if you like them.

From "My Father's Horse:" ...The horse/ is all we ever share. For he has sons/ and I am just a daughter. The beginning of this poem saves the lines quoted from giving the impression of a hard man. We know it is, as they say today, "what it is," and see the author knew this.

The book's title is the poignant last line in a condensed story of love and nostalgia that contains a whole life as a loved wife. Her loss is implied in a way few readers and no widows will miss.

Read this small book and read it again, unless you're afraid to commit to Poetry with a capital P. Even if you are, this will be just what you need to get over it!

http://www.finishinglinepress.com.

Haiku

Not all traditional, but they're so much fun to write!

Birches

Sleek triplets white
in scattered flashes, adorn
winter's sleeping woods.


Weeds

Brash rustics, crowd in
among fine grass, thornéd rose –
brave the slashing hoe.

Friendship

The hand's clasp unfelt
and sweet voiced words unspoken
love's gifts accepted.


Housemate

Why not alone taste
first savor of the day? Boor,
the bacon's burning.

Different Muses?

Two Artists

I.

Inspiration gusting from infinity ignites him into blue flame:

Dionysus and archangels cry in the echoing vaults of his mind,

And he speaks with tongues and sails before those thrilling winds

Fair to fame and the Furies.

II.

He searches blazing beaches for the shards of crystal thoughts,

And drops four chips for each one saved.

Summer’s waning as the stiff mosaic

Forms in curveless patchwork,

and early cold congeals the image—

Angular and gap-toothed, as the mortar freezes.