Bociany (Storks) — Jonathan Garfinkel (knife|fork|book)

Today's book of poetry:
Bociany (Storks).  Jonathan Garfinkel.  knife|fork|book.  Toronto, Ontario.  2017.

(Two things about this photo - our apologies to Jonathan Garfinkel,

this was the best we could do and it is a sorry attempt.  Milo, our 

head tech, was on holiday today.  Secondly, Bociany (Storks), 

is a smart and tidy looking book, contrary to our photo.

Bociany - Przylecialy  "the storks have arrived" Polish folklore.

Jonathan Garfinkel has that thing, we all want to see it in a poem, magic.  And I bet he has it in his plays as well.  This type of certainty isn't random.

One of the short gems from this golden jewel is titled "Ornithology."  Ornithology is the study of birds and Garfinkel flights his poems with plenty of aviators.  But Today's book of poetry couldn't help but think of the Charlie Parker song/anthem/call to prayer "Ornithology" and all of the flying it has inspired.  Garfinkel's study is a poem that takes the same imaginative leaps of faith as Charlie Parker, he gives these poems wings.

Ornithology

I light a fire. Put on the coffee.
The radio struggles.
Wearing only a white towel,
'Molting,' you promise.

See no change. remember
your father beat you
to the punch. He wanted
to drive out the birds
from beneath.

We make love in the corridor
The station clearer.

A grey jay studies its reflection
moments before hitting the window.

💫💫💫

The storks are a good omen in Polish folklore and Garfinkel uses them and others flights of fancy as he is looking for silver linings when he looks to the cloudy sky.  Today's book of poetry sees little but gold in Bociany (Storks).  Jonathan Garfinkel takes us all over the world with his traveller's knowledge, with his knowing he reaches for the sky, every bird wants to eventually soar, but Garfinkel remains grounded every time out.  This is fancy cooking.

Just to be clear, Today's book of poetry is convinced Bociany (Storks) is a remarkable publication.  These poems are built of strong, solid stuff.  This is a kitchen that burns.

Border

The taut-faced crowd waits to board.
Too little food, too much prayer. One line
becomes four, a sniper takes aim.
Then the trampling and the panic.
I think of Forest Hill, tree-lined streets.
the multitudes of Mercedes
docked at the synagogue.
Rich women kvetch over lattes
too much foam, not enough heat.
Somewhere in their grief, a prayer.
Calling us: All aboard. The captain
whittles the air with his bamboo stick.
'Back,' he screams. We press forward,
teeter toward India.
The clouds full of hidden maps.
The White Nuclear Night.
Women in black burqas dart
to and fro, children
yelp in terror or delight.
The ferry swings towards the lights.

💫💫💫

Today's book of poetry came away from Bociany (Storks) full of admiration for Jonathan Garfinkel.  We think in another life he may have been a watchmaker.  His poems are finely crafted, wheels inside wheels, all in perfect motion, one concentrated motion, every elaboration fitted precisely, every essential puzzle piece dropping into place as though nature intended it.

It's Sunday morning and the Today's book of poetry offices are a tad quieter than usual.  Everyone is here, except Milo, but few are vocal.  The morning reading was followed by several orders for jet-black coffee as the peons scurried back to their poetry-hidey-holes.

All humour aside, Today's book of poetry is a new convert, we're in for every word Garfinkel cares to utter.  We loved Bociany (Storks), what can we say?  The only fault was its brevity, we wanted more and more and more.

Watch

The soul is not a stone
to carve into.
But we take care of the world.
Bridges, gardens, mending.

Of all his jewelry I loved it most.
Light, elegant, a square face
with gold hands.
The watch repairman pried

the case back to show me
dust and moisture seeped into the crown.
Microscopic footprints,
a corroded mechanics, lunar.

When I was a child
I curled into his body.
Seconds that made so much noise.
Time, like love, wanting.

💫💫💫

Today's book of poetry apologizes for our recent absence from the scene, we were filling up our tanks in Quebec.  We visited the Abbaye De Saint-Beniot-Du-Lac where a cluster of Benedictine monks live in silence but sing during their services.  We were lucky enough to hear some of this beautiful chanting.  Nothing like a little perspective to help set the mind straight.

We also bought some cider and cheese, those Benedictine's are industrious.

Jonathan Garfinkel's Bociany (Storks) went down like untapped spring water directly from the source.  Today's book of poetry could not get enough of it.

Jonathan Garfinkel

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jonathan is an award-winning poet, playwright and prose writer. His genre-bending work bridges the personal and the political, and is often inspired by his travels to far-flung, dangerous places, with an eye toward the humourous and absurd. He is the author of the book of poetry Glass Psalms. His plays have been produced across Canada and Germany and include The Trials of John Demjanjuk: A Holocaust Cabaret, and the 2011 Governor General's nominated House of Many Tongues. His award winning non-fiction has appeared in Walrus, Tablet, PEN International, 18 Bridges and the Globe and Mail, as well as Cabin Fever: An Anthology of the Best New Canadian Non-Fiction. His memoir Ambivalence: Crossing the Israel/Palestine Divide, was published to critical acclaim in five countries. In March 2016 his theatrical adaptation of the novel Cockroach by Rawi Hage will premiere in Calgary at Alberta Theatre Projects. Jonathan teaches creative writing at the National Theatre School of Canada.

knifeforkbook.com 

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some"cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration

Sinners Dance — Darrell Epp (Mosaic Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Sinners Dance.  Darrell Epp.  Mosaic Press.  Oakville, Ontario.  2017.

Today's book of poetry is willing to go down any road Darrell Epp chooses to take us.  Sinners Dance continues the hard driving standard we've come to expect from Mr. Epp.

Sinners Dance is the third title by Darrell Epp that Today's book of poetry has explored.  You can find links to Today's book of poetry and After Hours (Mosaic Press, 2016) and Imaginary Maps (Signature Editions) right here:

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2017/06/after-hours-darrell-epp-mosaic-press.html

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2017/11/imaginary-maps-darrell-epp-signature.html 

The only thing that has changed with Darrell Epp's new poetry, Sinners Dance, is that the beautiful bastard is getting better.  He's upped his game.  Sinners Dance brims with lovely movies and astonishing novels, all sorts of entertainments, disguised as tight, brief and illuminating poems.

Left Lung

the fuzzy black spot on the x-ray reminded

him of a dark star which reminded him of a

movie but this was no movie, the specialist

was very sorry, left lung he said but meant

right lung, the image was reversed, how odd

to be alive, standing in the hub of the world's

sweaty churning in a miami dolphins jersey

not knowing what to say, where to aim. he

thought of that end-times prophet preaching

in front of jackson square; the beast rising

from the sea, the woman with MYSTERY

tattooed on her forehead. he wished he'd

listened, he wished he'd hugged him, why

hadn't he hugged him, he thought of being

a kid, racing his bike up the ramp, catching

air, defying gravity, moments so pregnant

they were building blocks for every other

moment, like fighting against rush hour

traffic, the endless throbbing of it all, he

headed down main west toward james st.,

he'd find that guy waving his homemade

signs, he'd touch him, and as the stock

exchange wound down, as tanks moved

across the desert, confess everything.

💫💫💫

Darrell Epp's poetry often leads to fits of jealousy for Today' book of poetry, when what I really want is to share how fine I find these poems.  One of Epp's excellent tricks is to allow the reader instant access.  Epp doesn't put anything between the story he wants to tell and the reader.  The reader digests these poems on contact.

Another thing about Sinners Dance, Epp is getting wiser.  So many of these poems wrap up the frayed edges of our thinking.  Today's book of poetry isn't suggesting that Darrell Epp suddenly has the answer to everything, instead his poetry leads us, without impediment, to the right questions.

Winter Dream

'talking about shopping is not really talking,'

she said, that's why she didn't answer

jill's texts anymore, that's why she blocked

her on facebook. i said, 'there's an

alternative world where i'm an mvp,

a vip, with dozens of grandkids.'

she said, 'that's cool,' and carved

obscenities with her thumb into

the frost caked on the window.

that winter the world was our

idea, our boozy chauffeur, our

hunchbacked prankmonkey

somersaulting on command.

the spell lasted until the cat

got sick, the vet's disdainful

looks made us feel like guilty

truants, she gave him the finger

as i paid the pharmacist, then

the pipes froze on us and nine

months later she was teaching

english on the island of kyoto.

💫💫💫

Today's book of poetry has Pharoah Saunders on the box this morning and that should come as no surprise.  Our morning read was led, with brisk enthusiasm, by Milo, our head tech.  Milo suggested we come up with a name, a title, a designation of some respect, per se, for the poets we've visited at least three times.

Off the top of my snowy-white head memory would suggest that list include Nelson Ball, Sue Goyette, Stuart Ross and now Darrell Epp.  We will have to look a little closer to confirm our list.

Today's book of poetry is open to suggestion.  We threw Milo's idea around the room and liked it, then we agreed we'd wait until we heard what you readers thought.  We can't wait to hear what you think.

Once we started reading Darrell Epp's Sinners Dance, everyone on our staff entered Epp world and did our best to hammer these fine poems home.

Halo of Flies

i'm patrolling my turf, counting the windows without

glass, the bakeries and shoe stores turned into squats.

this is where ifrah hitched a ride on the handlebars of

my mountain bike, this is where lily informed me we

had nothing in common, she made it sound like she

was imparting the secret of the universe and i could

barely stifle a yawn. that's the first escape where we

looked for mars the war god through your brother's

telescope, had chin-up contests off the ladder. i give

it a tug and the metal groans and shakes, oxidation

takes no prisoners. rust always wins but he doesn't

have to be so smug about it. i'll come back with a

camera, i'll record all the fading signage before

the demolition crews make way for gentrification.

i'm in the dog house because i forgot valentine's

day, my wife says i seem distracted, my head's

an empty bag, my heart's a corroded cog, my

left brain trips up my right brain like a saboteur,

i see consciousness as a halo of flies, as the

900-pound gorilla on the other end of the

seesaw. i step on a crack, say a prayer, give

thanks for the men who poured the concrete,

laid the bricks and pipes we take for granted,

recall there's grace enough for everybody.

💫💫💫

"recall there's grace enough for everybody."  That is a great line and a fine end.

Today's book of poetry has always liked lists.  Darrell Epp is going on our list, the list we keep close for ready referral.  Sinners Dance will reel you around the floor, make you guilty-dizzy in parts, happy-dizzy in others.

That's some good dancing.

Darrell Epp

ABOUT THE POET

Darrell Epp’s poetry has appeared in dozens of magazines including Maisonneuve, Poetry Ireland, Sub-Terrain, and The Saranac Review. His previous poetry collection include Imaginary Maps (Signature Editions, 2009) and After Hours (Mosaic Press, 2016). Darrell lives in Hamilton, Ontario.

BLURBS

“Sinners Dance places the reader in a pre-apocalyptic world, clearly recognizable as our own …There is wit in Epp’s writing, but the overall view of life is bleak, the guardians of our civilization blind, the maps deceiving.”
     – Bernadette Rule, Hamilton Review of Books


“Epp’s poems have a distinct Hamilton flavour, he also says there are certain truths and experiences everyone can identify with, no matter where they live.”
     – Emma Reilly, Interview & Feature in the Hamilton Spectator

Darrell Epp

reads

Pregnant Fly Dead on my Windshield

Video:  Darrell Epp

mosaic-press.com

707

DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some"cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration

Burning the Evidence — Todd Cirillo (Epic Rites Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Burning the Evidence.  Todd Cirillo.  Epic Rites Press.  Woodbridge, Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada.  2017.

Todd Cirillo, like Heath Ledger's Joker, is quite prepared to watch it all burn.  These poems evoke an anti-establishment ethos from the first hard line Cirillo pounds down.  And all the poems that follow are similarly crafted, hammer to anvil.

No one likes the Bukowski reference these days but Today's book of poetry is too old to know who the new age Buk might be, so there you go.  But we'll settle for any hard-drinking, hard-living, hard writing, truth teller who can make us laugh and make us cry.  Burning the evidence is our huckleberry today.

Perspective

It was the last time

you would stay over,

ever,

and I wasn't sad

about it.

We agreed to say

it was not you

and it was not me.

But really,

we know,

deep down

that the next time

we are at the bar

telling our story,

we will say

it was definitely

you.

💫💫💫

Todd Cirillo brings his own take on things to the game.  Cirillo leads with his heart more often than the traditional tough guy but nothing comes easy when your girlfriend owns a .357.

The heart and soul of the matter is that Today's book of poetry simply likes the way Cirillo talks.  We like the way he gets from A to B, and what he has to say along the way.  Burning the Evidence bristles with anecdotes and love songs, accusations and admissions, and Cirillo makes them all feel true.

These poems feel as though they could happen to you, or may, in another place and time.

Everybody's a Critic

I had been drinking Moscow Mules

for half the day,

trying to work on poems,

attempting to get the words right,

elicit the correct emotion,

break the perfect hearts,

I drank,

I wrote,

I drank,

I wrote.

At 6:30 pm

my girlfriend

joined me.

When she arrived

I got up to go to the bathroom

grabbed my poems

and stated,

"I'll take the poems with me

so no one steals them."

She quickly responded,

"I think there's enough toilet paper in there."

💫💫💫

Burning the Evidence isn't all love's battlefield and hungover mornings.  Todd Cirillo is also able to play the love poem, sweet like a cooing dove, without cloying and only a minimal threat of violence.  Cirillo knows he is always holding the trump card, joker that he is.

The morning read at the Today's book of poetry offices was led by Milo, our head tech.  Milo was convinced early on that just like some other Epic Rites Press poets, Cirillo could really burn.

If Burning the Evidence were a Tom Waits album it would be Blue Valentines, Rickie Lee Jones on the back cover, bent over backwards or a Thunderbird, her blonde hair falling like a dangerous rainbow over the back of the car, like a summer shower with lightning in the offing, the blue neon green of the night all ambient and tender and frightening.

If Burning the Evidence were a meal, it would be the special at a diner, but the gravy is made in the kitchen, the fries are homecut, and the apple pie was made by Mom.

If Burning the Evidence were a car, the body might need a little work, some bondo, but it would cover ground like a cheetah and run like a top.  Maybe some grumble in the idle.

You get the picture.

Memory Never Lies

I won't lie—

it has gotten incredibly difficult

to recall

who I wrote which

poem for.

the names and moments,

even the years

have begun to blue together

in a kaleidoscope

of inspirational moments.

Luckily—

after reading my poems

when a girl asks,

"Who was THAT one about?"

I always remember

to tell the truth:

"That one was

for you baby."

💫💫💫

Burning the Evidence by Todd Cirillo runs a little hot, pick it up with care.  But pick it up.

Todd Cirillo

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Todd Cirillo is co-founder of Six Ft. Swells Press and one of the originators of the After-Hours Poetry movement. He is sought after as an editor and performer and has worked on numerous collections for poets and writers. Todd is widely recognized for his performances. He has read from Jack Kerouac's On the Road to the accompaniment of famed musician, David Amram, performed at the infamous Bukowski Festival in Long Beach, CA, been featured in Portland, San Francisco, Sacramento, New York City, New Orleans, Paris, beaches, barrooms and back alleys.
His books include; Burning the Evidence; Sucker’s Paradise; ROXY; Sexy Devils; Everybody Knows the Dice are Loaded; This Troubled Heart; Still a Party; Tonight, You’re Coming Home with Us, and his poems have appeared in numerous national and international literary journals, magazines such as The New Laurel Review, Trumpet, The Poetry Box, Verse on the Vine, Lummox Press, Sacramento Voices, Red Fez, and on cocktail napkins everywhere.
www.toddcirillo.com

Todd Cirillo

reads "Good Strategy"

at Deep Vellum Bookstore, 

Dallas, Texas

Video: cannibaldrake

epicrites.org

706

DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration

Sick and I — Katie Fewster-Yan (Desert Pet Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Sick and I.  Katie Fewster-Yan.  Desert Pets Press.  Toronto, Ontario.  2017.

Katie Fewster-Yan's Sick and I is some slick stuff.  Fewster-Yan has more happening in one poem than many poets have happen in a book.  Sick and I reads like some hyper-stream-of-consciousness, from a very richly textured and well-informed stream.

Today's book of poetry is scrambling for the right deferential phrasing because Katie Fewster-Yan brings a great game right out of the gate.  Not since reading Suzannah Showler's Sucks To Be You - and other true taunts (Odourless Press, 2013) has Today's book of poetry been quite so impressed by a chapbook.  Make no mistake, you will see more of Katie Fewster-Yan.

Medicate

On Tuesday, you extract the capsules

from the second compartment,

bend back its cap like a flap

on an advent calendar.

From the fridge, you'll draw

the same waning cheese block,

remove the last two slices

from the bread loaf that has let itself go

without protest. Empty, its bag

bloats like a ghoul, counter-beached.

The triumphant bread clip

by its side holds its arms raised

like an amnesiac wrestler lost

in the glory of its last remembered

match. What is to be done with them,

as with your days, is up to you.

Of what use is the gravy boat,

or the milk carafe decalled

with jubilant cows? Cold utensils,

packed like factory-bred animals

spoon belly up in drawers, sparkling

at the underside of the counter

while each morning rises

like a mouthless child.

How instinctively we decide

how long to chew before we swallow!

As if we were made to. As if each day

were scrupulously portioned,

wrapped like a tiny prize, counting up

or down to what you longed for.

💫💫💫

Fewster-Yan literally took our breath away with her poem "A Moment on the Lips."  These poems come at the reader with velocity, no passive speculation, Fewster is on target and fierce.  And funny.

Sick and I is a slim volume but once you've read it you'll start to feel its weight.  Today's book of poetry has read through it several times and now the damned thing is so heavy we can barely lift it.

Ha.

Today's book of poetry has one of the best jobs in the world on days like this, when I get to share poetry this fine.  It's all part of larger scheme of world domination by Today's book of poetry and our staff.  "First we take Manhattan..."

Today's book of poetry is convinced Sick and I will be a calling-card to much bigger things.  Katie Fewster-Yan is ready.

A Moment on the Lips

My boyfriend holds me by my ex-lover's

genitals. The waistband of my leggings

makes my mother's nipples itch.

When I kissed its insides, curious,

the freezer split my lip, but I will bury

it with me some day in my grave.

Who needs tattoos? I'm hip-swathed

with chip packets and gum wrappers,

evangelical pamphlets and sandwich

coupons. The liver spots that dotted

my late grandfather's IV-pierced hand

ink my midriff like a galaxy. On the subway,

the ladies I'm crammed next to look

less impressed than they should be,

dipping their hips in the Pacific I once

kissed so you might taste the sound

of whales when I returned. When I dance,

a skirt of plankton swirls around me

in a balm millennia sediment-packed

to keep my lips slick. Thanks to history,

to my best decisions cinched around me

like a child's leash. Thank you grandma

for that eight-shaped, candy-studded cake

with all those gilded chocolate dollars

on the top that I sucked clean. Now I am

spangled and frosted at the waistline.

I'm the nucleus in a probability storm

of all my charged encounters.

Go ahead. Just try to shower me.

💫💫💫

The morning read at the Today's book of poetry offices was splendid.  The weather finally broke here in Ottawa and we have the windows open and the air is fresh and cool and good.  Kathryn, our Jr. Editor, lined us all up and assigned the poems.  Katie Fewster-Yan's poems rolled out and around the office like some splendid music, full of charm, wit and the razor.

Fewster-Yan has the knowledge.  If she were a London Cabbie she'd know it all blind-folded.  Her poems are fierce and fiercely intelligent.

Coming Through

I hold a ring of dried pineapple in one hand,

two thumb tacks in the other. Focus

is a shifty faculty. I drop a spoon

into the trash can and cart a cantaloupe rind

back to the sink. You watch your input

vie for my regard on the multichannel system

my attention's splitting into.

Take your hand and put it on my

volume dial. I want to hold you arrested

and so close to the chest

there's no room for playing cards.

I'm at the edge of a crater

trying to recall what I came here

to pull from it. Someone's hole-punched

the record. You put your car keys

in the freezer, and a shut door

in your memory erases them for weeks.

I'm keeping one eye on you peeling

off your nylons while the other's in the kitchen

shucking peas. You're at your core cleaving

more necks than a hydra. Bring your heads

toward us. I want to hold me in your teeth.

💫💫💫

"I want to hold me in your teeth."  Perfect.  Hilarious.  Dark.

Our morning read over, Milo, our head tech, has the Troggs blaring over our sound system, and now he's followed them up with Nick Cage singing an old Jimi Hendrix song, "Hey Joe."  And now Milo and Kathryn are dancing across the office floor like happy hippies.

Katie Fewster-Yan's Sick and I has left the Today's book of poetry offices in a groovy mood.  Great poetry will do that to you every time.

Katie Fewster-Yan

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Katie Fewster-Yan is currently living in Newfoundland and Labrador.

desertpetspress.com

705

DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration

The Price of Scarlet — Brianna Noll (University Press of Kentucky)

Today's book of poetry:
The Price of Scarlet.  Brianna Noll.  University Press of Kentucky.  Lexington, Kentucky.  2017.

Sometimes, and today is one of those times, Today's book of poetry can tell if someone can and will, burn.  Instantly.

Brianna Noll is in robust and refined territory with Today's book of poetry.  We're lucky to have a front row seat.

Today's book of poetry discovered early on that it didn't matter what Noll was writing about, we were in, hooked, ready to read every word and follow her wherever she cared to go.  We were never disappointed.  The Price of Scarlet doesn't sneak up on the reader as much as it swallows the reader whole, pushes us out at the other end, more erudite than upon entrance.

What poems!  Today's book of poetry is reluctant to use the much overused exclamation mark, but Noll demands it!  Why on earth would Today's book of poetry ever care about the lives of fighting crickets?  Why, because if Noll cares, I care.  And so on.

Flavor Is the Price of Scarlet

Color pours from the life

of things—scarlet dripping

from the skins of apples;

a field of lavender, seeping.

When we talk of a color's

richness, what we mean

is its worth. Capital

has always been a figment

with value, and in this we see

its excess. We are told:

everything is made.

Taste, like color, is something

we cultivate. We prune trees

before they're matured

because this stunting

produces the best fruit.

When they're full-grown,

they're no longer trying

to prove themselves, to reach

the source of light.

You cannot make optimism

work for you—nothing

perfect comes of chance.

These are the instructions

we were given. We abide

the best we can, making

value, making demand.

Then we watch the skies.

When the persimmons glow

wildly on moonless nights,

you know they're ripe—

worth the price of their hue,

a carefully cultivated bronze.

💫💫💫

One of the very good things about Brianna Noll's The Price of Scarlet is that Noll has no doubt.  There's a certainty in every poem, whether she is investigating the nature of the wind or invoking the Kraken from the deep.

This is a remarkable first book of poems.  From the first poem to the last these solid poems feel polished to a fine gloss.  

Noll is an observational poet much of the time.  She takes it in, dismantles where needed and then reforms the story of what we believed to be true.

Noll's pursuits are esoteric, to be sure, but the resulting poems are universal.  Noll is visceral without stooping to the grandstand.

On Social Graces

When I say

you're laced

with bitterness,

I mean it

as a compliment,

your distaste

for formality

some ruggedness

to temper what

might otherwise

cloy. This is why

we salt icing.

There's some good

in a hint of rain—

the metallic

smell, the sky

threaded with gray.

💫💫💫

Our morning read here at Blast Furnace Boulevard and Centre of the Sun Crescent, formerly known as the Today's book of poetry offices was tempered by the clinking of glasses.  Our newest intern, Maggie, who has been good for at least one shocking moment a day, did just that when she arrived this morning with labelled thermoses.  One for each of us.

It was only eleven a.m. in the third circle of hell of our inferno like habitat but we all knew it was noon somewhere else.  My thermos, bless Maggie's industrious and well-researched intentions, was filled with Pink Lemonade and a healthy portion of Beefeater Gin.  Max came bustling out of his office the instant he heard ice hitting the side of a glass, he's honed into the network of the clink.  He wouldn't say what Maggie put in his thermos but he damned sure liked it, he was quite clear about the odds of his sharing.  Clearly Maggie is Max's new best friend.

Don't know what how Maggie got it out of Kathryn, our Jr. Editor, but I'm pretty sure her thermos is filled with Southern Comfort and Amaretto, in equal measure.  With ice.  Where I come from it is called a Sicilian Kiss.

So, the start of our morning read was rather splendid, if not a little animated.  Brianna Noll's excellent The Price of Scarlet gave each of us beautiful ammunition.  But by the time we got to the second round of the reading a few of my office compatriots seemed to be nearing that early afternoon nap phase.  Milo, our head tech, stretched out on the office couch like some Hobbesian stuffed tiger, and at that point we called it a day.  Not sure what Milo had in his thermos but when he nodded off I took a look.  Not a drop of evidence left.

The Price of Scarlet had elevated all our moods with a mixture of humour, intelligence and grace.  It was our wicked intern Maggie who hijacked today's show.  She'll be dealt with in the proper fashion soonish, anon, later.

Sometimes, We Think of Our Place in the World

Sweet machine, you

electrify the night—

the planets whir

with the noise

of your churning.

And when volcanoes

erupt on the West

Coast of America or

into the Sea of Japan,

you beautify them

with magma thunder-

storms, which make us

think of Mars, the god

and the planet—an electric,

unified whole. We are

drawn to your charge—

and, I think, we are

your charge. If we

were to write palm-

of-the-hand stories across

our palmist's lines and

thatches, we'd say,

The secret machine thrills

the air like the blades

of a helicopter, or 

In the end, we'll think 

of snow drifting, little

helium balloons.

We imagine whole

galaxies radiate

from our chests and

extremities, and we'll

write what we believe

to be true. This

is your influence—

we want to be gorgeous

little moments, too.

💫💫💫

Today's book of poetry apologizes for going off the rails instead of summarizing Brianna Noll's powerful book of poems.  We can tell you that Today's book of poetry found these poems invigorating and bountiful.  

Read The Price of Scarlet, it will intoxicate you.

Brianna Noll

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brianna Noll is a postdoctoral fellow in teaching and mentoring in the Honors College at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2013, she helped found the literary magazine, The Account: A Journal of Poetry, Prose, and Thought, for which she serves as poetry editor. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including the Georgia Review, 32 Poems, the Kenyon Review Online, Passages North, Puerto del Sol, and Salt Hill.

BLURBS

Brianna Noll’s vivid, haunting collection contains poetry wide-ranging and deep, with a brilliance reminiscent of Marianne Moore, and a similar interest in creation.

     -- Lisa Williams, author of Women Reading to the Sea and Gazelle in the House

Brianna Noll is on the find-out committee. Like an Emily Dickinson for the twenty-first century, she rules out nothing. These quiet, powerful poems tells us that the world is connected, that all we need to see those connections is what Noll has in abundance: openness, patience, and an eye for beauty. 

-- David Kirby, author of Get Up, Please

Brianna Noll

 reading for the Women Write Resistance anthology

 at the Book Cellar in Chicago on March 7, 2014.

kentuckypress.com

704

DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration

Particles - New & Selected Poems — Dan Gerber (Copper Canyon Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Particles - New & Selected Poems.  Dan Gerber.  Copper Canyon Press.  Port Townsend, Washington.  2017.

Dan Gerber's Particles - New & Selected Poems covers the years 1971 to the present and the first thing that Today's book of poetry noticed was the consistency.  Gerber is writing with the same careful authority now as he did almost fifty years ago.  Another way to approach this would be to say that Gerber's older poems do not feel dated, they remain fresh as daisies.

It's no mean feat to carry a voice through the decades.  Even the Rolling Stones have changed their sound over the years, Dylan went electric.  Gerber, strong out of the gate,  and has still never wavered.

Spring Creek

Standing at ease in the current,

watching my thoughts stream by,

seventeen thousand thoughts in a day.

If I grasp one the river stops flowing.

Those horses on the walls of the Chauvet cave,

twenty thousand years before the pharoahs—

unsurpassed and thoroughly modern—

before Homer, Heraclitus, or Pollock.

Do we think of pigeons as lowly

because they crowd our trees and the empty spring day?

I saw one torn apart by a hawk — one bird —

and at that moment I grieved.

My grief is here with my joy now,

wingtip to talon, they circle,

one closer at first, then the other.

...

Dan Gerber reminds Today's book of poetry of Robert Bly with his clean voice. But Gerber is a poet on his own, Today's book of poetry can't remember when we last read a poet with this combination of certain and clear.

We could be terribly wrong but Today's book of poetry sees cycles as a central theme of Particles.

The circle of life,"we are born, we suffer, we die" as Anatole France suggested, has been altered by the smooth dulcet tones of Dan Gerber's poems to be, more properly, "we are born, we see beauty and we suffer, we die."

Now don't ever blame Mr. Gerber for the outlandish claims of Today's book of poetry.  But Dan Gerber's shift of the bar is not small change.  In the order of things Gerber's consistent, charming and subtly powerful voice has been ringing the bell through generations who've abandoned the narrative for more academic and esoteric ground.

Not Gerber, he has stayed the course with his reflective posture, careful breathing and sustained optimism.

For Randall Jarrell

                             for Gretel Ehrlich

A man struck by lightning

is seldom appeased by house current.

The bolt that steals vision or

restores it, splits the young poplar,

hurls thunder over the roof,

makes widows of farmwives

and ashes of the barn.

The wild geese never die; the lilacs

reappear each May, and the night sky

continues its imperturbable dance.

...

Today's book of poetry gets excited when the name of any of the giants appears in a poem.  Randall Jarrell was under appreciated, but we can see that Dan Gerber thought highly of him.  Yet another reason to sit down at Gerber's fire and listen to him burn.

Our morning read was a tickle here at the Today's book of poetry offices.  Our heat wave continues; my computer has turned itself off twice this morning, the screen just goes blank with a pppffffffttttt.

It does not like the heat.  Someone was kind enough to leave a chocolate on my pillow last night.  When I tried to open it, liquid chocolate ran all over my hand.  Pure liquid.

We've got the big fans out now, blowing directly on our computers.  Milo, our head tech, is working on better solutions, bless his big egghead heart.  Kathryn, our Jr. Editor, led the charge this morning.

Dan Gerber's poetry makes all the readers look good.  At every point in these poems Gerber's honest voice, and all of his intentions, are perfectly clear.  His quiet voice rings with authority.

Finally, This Rain

Every spring, foretold by its candles,

the pine grows that much taller.

Becoming the image of the image cast ahead

of what we hope to become —

stars continually revising themselves

and stars too faint to be named

translate the great dark hours of our being

into a language we love.

...

Today's book of poetry has a great deal of admiration for the poet/novelist Jim Harrison.  When we saw his blurb on the cover of Particles Today's book of poetry knew we would like the poetry of Dan Gerber.  We just had no idea how much.

Just like the best in any other endeavor, these poems quietly go about their business without a care in the world.  They know their own strength.  Dan Gerber burns with assured certainty.

Dan Gerber

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
 Dan Gerber is the author of a dozen books of poetry, fiction, essays, and memoir.  He has received the Mark Twain Award, "Book of the Year" honors from Foreward magazine, and inclusion in Best American Poetry and The American Life in Poetry

BLURBS

“Dan Gerber tenderly reels his readers through the ‘beautiful movie’ he calls the passing of time on earth in a language completely unadorned and Zen-like in its quietude. The thing itself carries the weight of these poems, which recall the deep imagery of Vallejo, Neruda and Wright.”

—Rain Taxi

“Gerber has a gentle touch and an unaffected, articulate voice that can be smart, funny, wise—sometimes all at the same time.”

 —Library Journal

“These are beautiful meditative poems of surprise and wonder fully engaged with the world of experience, which he regards with a sacramental reverence.”

 —Mark Arendt, awards judge, Society of Midland Authors 2013 Book of the Year Award in Poetry

“[Gerber’s] poetry explores everyday experiences and images, successfully converting them into something unique and magical.”

 —Library of Michigan

“[Gerber’s] evocations are clearly, simply rendered with an almost Zen-like kind of meditative transcendence.”

 —Fallon Eagle Standard

“[Gerber] is one of the most adept and accessible of the poets who explore the meaning of humans, relation with earth and existence itself.”

 —ForeWord

"Dan Gerber's work is completely untarnished by fad or fashion and I enter it again and again with a sense of wonderment.  When our age pass, this work will remain."

—Jim Harrison

Dan Gerber

at the EP Foster Library

Video: AskewPoetryJournal

coppercanyonpress.org

703

DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration

Prison Industrial Complex Explodes — Mercedes Eng (Talonbooks)

Today's book of poetry:
Prison Industrial Complex Explodes.  Mercedes Eng.  Talonbooks.  Vancouver, British Columbia.  2017.

from Section 3

In 2003, at the age of 14, Ashley Smith was confined to

a youth detention facility for 1 month after throwing

crabapples at a postal employee. The initial 1-month

sentence lasted almost 4 years, almost entirely in isolation,

until her death by self-strangulation in 2007. Though Smith

was videotaped placing a ligature around her neck, guards

did not enter her cell to intervene and 45 minutes passed

before she was examined and pronounced dead.

...

Today's book of poetry will try to answer all the appropriate questions regarding Mercedes Eng's absolutely incendiary Prison Industrial Complex Explodes.  Eng, through diligent research and persistence, has unearthed and given life to this unbelievable (but too damned real) indictment of our alacrity at putting our citizens in prison.  Eng's case is plain and clear and direct, she has ample and obvious and odious proof that our joy of incarceration is aimed primarily at people of colour, aboriginal citizens, and it is rising rapidly.

Eng has amassed clippings, documents, reports, songs, family photographs, government papers and so on; she has broken them down into knowable information.  A factual assault on the senses that is disguised as a book of poetry.  This isn't often pretty poetry but it certainly is necessary.

from Section 6

Manitoba's Child and Family Services department seized

358 newborns, an average of one newborn every day,

between 2014 and 2015. The province has one of the

highest apprehension rates in Canada and it currently has

about 10,000 children in care, the majority of whom are

indigenous.

In 2007, the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society

of Canada and the Assembly of First Nations filed a

human rights complaint alleging that Aboriginal Affairs

and Northern Development Canada provides deplorable

funding for child welfare on reserves, far below financial

support given to other Canadians.

In 2013, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

reported that 62% of First Nations children in Manitoba live

in poverty, are three times more likely to live in a house

requiring major repairs, and are five time more likely to

live in an overcrowded house compared to low income

non-indigenous children.

60s Scoop

62% of red children

without adequate food water and shelter

means change genocidal intent constant

...

Prison Industrial Complex Explodes has hit close to home for Eng, her father's story plays out in these pages.  Eng bring clear worded hypocrisy right to the front of the class, right to the front of the chaos.

Eng has papered the corridors of this book with the official prose, letters and various communications from prison, from deportations.  There really is nowhere left to hide.  Eng has created a long poem/manifesto that lays bare the tattered and racist logic that feeds the big economic machine.  The Prison Industrial Complex is making some people an awful lot of money.  Big money.

When all is said and done on the American southern border, after all the horrid, racist, extremist and alarmingly bad behaviour, follow the money.  Racism can be very profitable.

up next on Border Security: Canada's Front Line

The B.C. Coroners Service has confirmed that 42-year-old Lucia

Vega Jimenez died in Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA)

custody. Jimenez was awaiting deportation to Mexico when

she attempted suicide. She was found hanging from a shower

stall in the immigration holding centre at the Vancouver air-

port, on December 20, 2015.

Jimenez had a job as a hotel worker in Vancouver when she

was arrested over an unpaid transit ticket, transferred to jail,

then sent to the CBSA holding cells at the Vancouver airport

to await deportation.

...

Today's book of poetry's morning read was a cranky affair.  The weather in Ottawa has been pizza-oven-hot recently and some of us haven't fully reformed after melting out of shape.  And Prison Industrial Complex Explodes offers no respite, nor should it.  Page after page of Eng's book ring out like a steel hammer hitting an anvil.

Eng's hammer blows are damning evidence of the larger society's blind eye and willing complicity.  Eng puts a magnifying glass on the horrible domino consequences of our own systemic racism as it has torn across generations.

There are no lullabies for bedtime in Prison Industrial Complex Explodes, instead, Eng gives us a warning shot across the bow of reason.  These systems, our collective and willful ignorance, and the motives of big business all combine to create cycles of internment for many Canadians, simply because of the colour of their skin.

from Section 4

they let out Jessi's dad when Carole gave birth to

their daughter

beautiful Carole, paper-bag-coloured skin a black waterfall

of Pocahontas hair

Jessi was lucky to get a golden halo

Jessi's destatused mama died of the system

they let out Jessi's dad to look after her

once the price of her mama was extracted

I wonder how it is for beautiful

could-pass-for-a-white-girl Jessi

would-be-pheneticized-as-a-white-girl Jessi

Jessi who not only looked like a white girl

but the right kind of white girl

the kind of white girl boys and men go to war over

the kind of white girl who needs more lebensraum

the kind of white girl I used to wanna be

...

Mercedes Eng has very carefully dotted all her i's and crossing her t's to build a winning case.  Sometimes, and this is one of those times, the song is a bitter one, but so very needed.

Mercedes Eng can burn like Cannonball Adderley could burn.  Today's book of poetry will be looking forward to more from Eng.  Prison Industrial Complex Explodes is the indictment the title promises.  Good for Eng.

Mercedes Eng

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mercedes Eng teaches and writes in Vancouver, on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories. She is the author of two chapbooks, February 2010 (2010) and knuckle sandwich (2011), and of Mercenary English (CUE Books, 2013; Mercenary Press, 2016), a long poem about violence and resistance in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood of Vancouver. Her writing has appeared in Jacket 2, The Downtown East, The Volcano, on the sides of the Burrard and Granville Bridges as contributions to public art projects, and in the collectively produced chapbooks, r/ally (No One Is Illegal), Surveillance, and M’aidez (Press Release). She is currently working on a women’s prison reader and a detective novel set in her grandfather’s Chinatown supper club, circa 1948.

BLURB

“Simple – but not simplistic – lines such as ‘i think about that yellow bead a lot’ reflect Eng’s exquisite attention and make me feel intimately connected to the poet-speaker. … [Other lines] reveal imagination and attention to lineation. … At once powerful and beautiful, gentle and urgent, I await more from this voice.”
     —Doyali Islam in the Globe & Mail

talonbooks.com

702

DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration