tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11834796047674945932024-03-04T22:43:39.716-08:00Today's Book of PoetryMichael Dennis Christian McPhersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13401126239156068551noreply@blogger.comBlogger821125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-62670359471106948392021-01-03T06:27:00.001-08:002021-01-03T06:27:13.954-08:00Michael Dennis (September 1, 1956 - December 31, 2020)It is with deep regret that Today's Book of Poetry announces the death of Michael Dennis. He passed away December 31st, 2020. Michael's Today's Book of Poetry touched a lot of lives. He will be greatly missed by so many. Christian McPhersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13401126239156068551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-1166417623544949552020-04-03T06:37:00.001-07:002020-04-03T06:37:26.754-07:00The LAST Today's book of poetryHello all you beautiful poetry monsters. <br />
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Due to circumstances beyond our control Today's book of poetry will no longer be posting a blog/review.<br />
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I would like to thank each and every publisher, poet, and press agent I've had the pleasure of dealing with.<br />
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Today's book of poetry is one of the better experiences I've had in my life and I would like to thank you all for it.<br />
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Publishers, take note, Today's book of poetry will no longer be answering emails or requests. Once again, thank you for letting me create Today's book of poetry. I got to read so much fabulous poetry, it really was the best job in the world.<br />
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Sending love and peace.<br />
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Michael Dennis<br />
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<span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Thanks for all the peaches.</span>Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-56268352148884614692020-03-29T12:27:00.003-07:002020-03-30T10:00:00.168-07:00As One Fire Consumes Another - John Sibley Williams (Orison Books)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">As One Fire Consumes Another. </b>John Sibley Williams. Orison Books. Asheville, North Carolina. 2019.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>The 2018 ORISON POETRY PRIZE</b></span><br />
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Hello to all you poetry fans, thanks for turning in. The last couple of weeks have seen nothing but things we haven't seen before. </div>
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Today's book of poetry and all of our staff send all of our love and best wishes to those countless health care workers and essential workers and the police and the firemen and firewomen too. Thank you. That person behind a mask at the hospital, the grocery store, the bank, that's what heroes look like.</div>
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As such today's blog is dedicated to Sally Riley and Connie White and Birgit Jackson, not only essential workers but essential sisters.</div>
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Now to poetry. Today's book of poetry has been down the John Sibley Williams path before. Today's book of poetry looked at his book, <i>Disinheritance</i> (Apprentice House Press) back in November of 2016 and you can see that here:</div>
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<a href="http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2016/11/disinheritance-john-sibley-williams.html">http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2016/11/disinheritance-john-sibley-williams.html</a></div>
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Beyond excellent if memory serves, <i>Disinheritance </i>was one of the best books of poetry Today's book of poetry has had the pleasure of writing about, full stop. And <i>As One Fire Consumes Another</i> is more of the same, excellence.</div>
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<i>As One Fire Consumes Another </i>is Williams forth book of poetry and the man has it down. Almost every poem in this collection has been previously published in a magazine or journal that we other poets would all be tickled to appear in. Reading John Sibley Williams is a bit shocking because he never drops the ball, no matter how hard the poem hits. Today's book of poetry surveyed our office for today's poetry selections because we simply couldn't decide on our own. Like picking out diamonds from diamonds. Today's book of poetry was helpless, every poem in <i>As One Fire Consumes Another</i> is essential stuff. John Sibley Williams is one of the very best poets of his generation.</div>
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<u>Small Treasons</u></div>
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Somewhere, a body moves across</div>
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another without harm, as if taking a</div>
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knife to the sky, & we can answer</div>
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when a child asks where the world</div>
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goes when our eyes close.</div>
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Somewhere, we are sorry; I assume</div>
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for our silences. Bones ache & char</div>
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& must burn, somewhere. Even our</div>
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ghosts have left us. There must be a</div>
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place where hands aren't cages &</div>
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cages aren't gestures well-</div>
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intentioned but failing. Where we</div>
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love with more than body & hurt &</div>
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know when we have hurt. Some-</div>
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where, a less flammable history,</div>
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at least where the sparks fly upward</div>
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before falling back to ash.</div>
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Today's book of poetry needs to apologize to both our readers and to John Sibley Williams. All of these poems appear in <i>As One Fire Consumes Another</i> with perfect margins on both sides of the text. As our head tech Milo is in quarantine in another country and Thomas, our new intern, is in quarantine just up the street Today's book of poetry is helpless. Of course I blame others who can't defend defend themselves, I certainly wouldn't admit to my own faults. Hopefully we'll be back to a full staff soon.</div>
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<i>As One Fire Consumes Another</i> is filled with poems that sound so familiar as to be memory or even nightmare, it is like these poems belong to the memories of ghosts we don't know yet. These poems catalogue an often grim horizon of rape, lynching, war, death and so on. So how then does the reader leave <i>As One Fire Consumes Another</i> with any modicum of hope? Today's book of poetry suggests that it is because of the heartwork visible in a John Sibley Williams poem. The voice in these poems is a voice we all recognize, a voice that even as it scorches the earth leaves us hope. How can that be?</div>
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Today's book of poetry has been sitting on <i>As One Fire Consumes Another</i> for a couple of weeks while watching the world unfurl, slow down, grind to an almost stop. Today's book of poetry knew we'd need a poetry monster to get our ball rolling again. John Sibley Williams is that poetry beast. This cat only knows full burn.</div>
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Not that the alloy filament sparking</div>
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iron wires needs us to call this <i>light.</i></div>
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Even in our absence, shadows flee,</div>
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& when the switch lowers, return to</div>
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us undiminished. Not that the dead</div>
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won't still be here in the morning if</div>
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we dress their wounds & declare the</div>
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world healed. It's not that anything</div>
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really heals. Not that torture works</div>
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or fails. Even if they drown upside</div>
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down in a small bucket of water in </div>
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white room lit by a single swaying</div>
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bulb, our questions keep coming.</div>
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If you have a book club you should read <i>As One Fire Consumes Another. </i>If you teach poetry you're going to need copies of <i>As One Fire Consumes Another</i>. If you love poetry as Today's book of poetry knows you must, this is the next poet you need to read.</div>
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There is no let up in these poems. Williams never takes his foot off of the gas. This morning Today's book of poetry was listening to Steel Pulse and Bob Marley and the Wailers too, their sound swallowing you until you think you are singing the song. Williams does the same thing. As you read these poems his voice becomes a familiar, a haunting echo of how you have seen the world turning towards the flame.</div>
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<u>Three Ways to Feign Suicide</u></div>
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The neon interrupting night calls us.</div>
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Behind the only convenience store in</div>
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this town built on convenience,</div>
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safety, hall monitors, & bright white</div>
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fences, we exhaust our bodies. Un-</div>
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labeled pills, vodka, screwing what-</div>
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ever recognizes itself in the swollen</div>
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whiteness of our eyes. It's not the</div>
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dying, not <i>how</i>, but the uncertain</div>
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<i>whenness.</i> That we may all be loved</div>
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like good little sons, but not equally.</div>
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There are a thousand ways to say it,</div>
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but we'll take touching ourselves or</div>
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each other over <i>the world will never</i></div>
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<i>be more than the world </i>any day. As</div>
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we sketch schools in dust with our</div>
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heels, call our dead older brothers</div>
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<i>teacher, </i>burn our returned letters to</div>
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god. As we love like unconquered</div>
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trees, like hay in horseless fields. As</div>
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we yell <i>fire</i> in crowded fires, press</div>
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twigs to our temples to mean <i>bang.</i></div>
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It's not the glue holding broken toys</div>
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together but that anyone bothered. It</div>
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is no bother, sparrow, hurling stones</div>
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at you when our candles burn longer</div>
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than our hands can hold them. Each</div>
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day is the day the earth ends, & then</div>
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there's always tomorrow. Morning</div>
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needles through night to find us no</div>
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closer or farther from ourselves; all</div>
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our kicked-out-of-heavenness gone.</div>
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What I think I mean to say is, we're</div>
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just animal enough to stay.</div>
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Today's book of poetry needs to take this opportunity to thank poetry fan and all-round excellent citizen and pal, David St. Scrimshaw, for sending us a poetry care package courtesy of Black Squirrel Books. The kindness of others never fails to reminds us here at Today's book of poetry that hope is everywhere.<br />
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Heartbreak and then hope, it's a good combination. John Sibley Williams works so close to that line it is a frightening spiral, before you know it the excitement overcomes fear and then you don't want it to stop. Today's book of poetry gives a sincere and very deep bow in John Sibley Williams direction, we are privileged to see <i>As One Fire Consumes Another.</i></div>
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Stay at home poetry bums and read more poetry, repeat the process. </div>
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<i>As One Fire Consumes Another</i> is a good poetry book to start this process with. It really doesn't get any better than this.</div>
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<img alt="PHOTIC ZONE — John Sibley Williams — SPLIT ROCK REVIEW" src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50046593e4b0675a38eea882/1576600152794-XFF6HSJJKIBOGF1REG5K/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kBbdSUIHrnfszC0Uv-s6NXNZw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWEtT5uBSRWt4vQZAgTJucoTqqXjS3CfNDSuuf31e0tVGho-jSmQAPWn94Nvix4OSMAOlmV6QajS_lhzTPq6JK5e3fdiwvU2dIXnCeUs0K4JU/JSW.jpg" /></div>
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John Sibley Williams</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
John Sibley Williams is the author of <i>As One Fire Consumes Another</i> (Orison Poetry Prize, 2019), <i>Skin Memory</i> (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press, 2019), <i>Summon </i>(JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize, 2019), <i>Disinheritance</i>, and <i>Controlled Hallucinations</i>. He has also served as editor of two Northwest poetry anthologies, Alive at the Center (Ooligan Press, 2013) and Motionless from the Iron Bridge (barebones books, 2013). A nineteen-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Laux/Millar Prize, Wabash Prize, Philip Booth Award, Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize, American Literary Review Poetry Contest, Phyllis Smart-Young Prize, The 46er Prize, Nancy D. Hargrove Editors' Prize, Confrontation Poetry Prize, and Vallum Award for Poetry. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and works as a freelance poetry editor, writing coach, and literary agent. Previous publishing credits include: Yale Review, Midwest Quarterly, Southern Review, Colorado Review, Sycamore Review, Prairie Schooner, Massachusetts Review, Poet Lore, Saranac Review, Atlanta Review, TriQuarterly, Columbia Poetry Review, Mid-American Review, Poetry Northwest, Third Coast, and various anthologies. <br />
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John holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Rivier University and an MA in Book Publishing from Portland State University. He teaches poetry for Literary Arts as part of their Writers in the Schools program and works as a poetry editor and mentor for <a href="https://www.poetrybarn.co/">The Poetry Barn </a>and <a href="https://www.writebynight.net/">WriteByNight</a>. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his partner and boisterous twin toddlers, Kaiya and Gabriel.<br />
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This is an important book from a major talent. Williams is an honest witness of a nation’s foibles, a writer who has the chops to see and name the worst in us and then divine it into something humane and beautiful to read.<br />
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—The Oregonian<br />
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John Sibley Williams confronts the violent side of American history and its effect on our notions of self, fatherhood, and citizenship. […] The poems, which veer from elegiac to declarative to prayerlike, drill down into the beliefs and fears that underpin this violence.</div>
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—Poets & Writers Magazine<br />
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One of the most original books of poetry I have read in decades.</div>
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—Sean Thomas Dougherty<br />
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His poetry sets the normative uses of poetic language alight and burns away our safe skin of lyric expectation and contextual surety. Do not expect to read these poems and be unchallenged, unchanged.</div>
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–Rusty Morrison <br />
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<i> As One Fire Consumes Another</i> transcends beyond the boundaries of family and history and country, beyond the body’s tragedies, the “silenced bones of others.” These poems rise as invocation, as testimonial to life’s unfiltered beauty, violence, and faith, to the “light . . . already in us.”</div>
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–Vandana Khanna<br />
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<i>As One Fire Consumes Anothe</i>r is a rare creation full of song and seethe […] It is a book of radiance and ruin that manages to be benevolent while breathing fire.</div>
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–Simone Muench<br />
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If America’s collective conscience is at war, the wounds and battle scars are in full display in John Sibley Williams’ arresting book.</div>
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–Rigoberto González<br />
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These poems live in brilliant little cages that Williams has built for them, the language itself held to the fire. This collection grieves. It flames.</div>
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–Chelsea Dingman<br />
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Full of passion and heart, this book is always digging through the rubble towards life.</div>
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–Tyree Daye</div>
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DecemberMag Vol. 26.2 Launch Event - John Sibley Williams- Poetry Reading</div>
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Video: December Magazine</div>
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<a href="http://orisonbooks.com/">orisonbooks.com</a></div>
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<b style="color: red; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;">DISCLAIMERS</b></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;">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</span><span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;"> other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.</span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 18.2px;"><b>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"</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 18.2px;"><b>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.</b></span></span></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-42876150451617019422020-03-19T10:51:00.000-07:002020-03-19T10:51:08.002-07:00We Were Like Everyone Else - Ken Victor (Cormorant Books)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">We Were Like Everyone Else. </b>Ken Victor. Cormorant Books. Toronto, Ontario. 2019.<br />
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<i>We Were Like Everyone Else</i> by the soon to be well-known Ken Victor isn't much like anything else. Books of poetry this fine are as rare as hen's teeth. Victor writes mostly narratives but unlike the vast herd of poetry monsters out there he is rarely the hero of his story.</div>
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Today's book of poetry dove into <i>We Were Like Everyone Else</i> and wham! Victor's lead off poem kicked my poetry head hard. I knew instantly that this type of cooking had to be shared. The man can flat out burn.</div>
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<u>The Discovery Of Mouths</u></div>
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At first eating was through skin</div>
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like plants: the way they devour sunlight</div>
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without teeth or tongue. Foods were</div>
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rubbed in, all over. Ripe avocados,</div>
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for instance: on bellies, on arms,</div>
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buttocks, breasts, scalp. Wherever</div>
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the body wanted nourishment. Feeding time</div>
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was a potpourri of ecstasies: a banana</div>
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on the spine, plums rolled</div>
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behind the knees, a sliced cantaloupe</div>
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cradling the elbow. All this was</div>
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thousands of years before the first</div>
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one-minute screen kiss, back</div>
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in the very earliest days of Eden,</div>
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back when thoughts jumped without</div>
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speech across the gaps between them.</div>
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Adam and Eve, that is, who never</div>
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missed a meal, sampling the Garden</div>
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all over their bodies: putting</div>
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leaf lettuce between their toes,</div>
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pushing ripe baby tomatoes into their ears,</div>
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pomegranates turning their genitals red.</div>
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How sweet the delicacies of those early days!</div>
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Before Freud, before gossip, before hunger.</div>
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🔩🔩🔩🔩🔩🔩</div>
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<i>We Were Like Everyone Else </i>is one of those grab-bags you dig in to anywhere and come out rich. Ken Victor writes about all the big stuff; family, father/son relationships, parenting, death and the Angel of.</div>
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The poems vary in style but consistently hammer home the same messages, love your community, but family first, faith is an honour not an imposition, community again.</div>
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Ken Victor has studied with some of our generations very best poets and it shows; Jack Myers, Tess Gallagher, Philip Booth, Stephen Dobyns, Hayden Carruth and others. Many of the poems in <i>We Were Like Everyone Else </i>have previously been published in magazines or journals. We are lucky Victor decided to share them with us.</div>
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<u>What Seems To Matter Most</u></div>
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When Ricky Holt, juvenile delinquent, booked into the woods</div>
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that day in '81 to escape his early-release program, I yelled to him</div>
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that he juked like the Juice, the way he was running in and out</div>
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between the scrub oaks and the pines, and Ricky stopped and</div>
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glanced back at me with that handsome black face of his, knowing</div>
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I could never catch him, so he smiled before disappearing, then</div>
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I had to radio for the dogs because we couldn't have him loose</div>
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this close to an off-season town on a windy stretch of Cape Cod,</div>
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so eventually they got him and hauled his ass back in front of me</div>
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and asked me if I wanted to take him back or have him locked up,</div>
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<i>well,</i> I said, without a moment's hesitation, <i>you can lock 'im up</i>;</div>
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I don't know why I said it, he wasn't a bad kid, just not able to get</div>
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his act together, which I understand, I mean was I much different,</div>
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I'm not sure I have it together now, thirty years after I said</div>
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lock him up, which is when Ricky went back into the system and</div>
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I didn't give him a second thought until the Juice again became</div>
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a story: his white Bronco going down the freeway, taking me</div>
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back to Ricky in those woods, dodging trees like nasty linebackers</div>
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aiming to take their crack at him -- blam! you sucker! -- Ricky</div>
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thinking he could get away, turn his big dreams into something</div>
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real the way O.J. had been The #1 Man for a lot of years, breaking</div>
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records and downfield tackles before he went to trial -- black man</div>
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white woman -- the whole sorry story driving out all other news</div>
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and America brought back to what seems to matter most to it,</div>
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me thinking how I was once the judge and the whole goddamn</div>
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jury and I made my decision lickety-split no second chances, you</div>
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either get with the program or you git, and I started wondering</div>
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where that came from, why there wasn't the slightest bit of mercy</div>
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wrapped somewhere inside my ready justice, as if I thought under</div>
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Ricky's Converse All-Stars he must have had bootstraps just like</div>
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those turn-of-century immigrants, and if he wasn't going to begin</div>
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to pick himself up I wouldn't do it for him, and so Ricky returned</div>
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to the state's secure facility where he'd started, where he'd wait</div>
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to hear what came next: words from the social worker, the juvenile</div>
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judge, the facility superintendent, pronouncements woven together</div>
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like strands in a rope vigilante citizens were only too ready to yank.</div>
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🔩🔩🔩🔩🔩🔩🔩🔩🔩🔩</div>
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<br /></div>
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Ken Victor isn't afraid of taking on the hard truth poem and they can truly be a bother. Victor doesn't flinch, nor should he. Many of these poems involve lessons given and learned by his children, given and learned by our poet. These tender poems are cornerstones, are the blood and bone and love made cornerstones of Victor's foundation. These poems ring true like pure musical notes.</div>
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<i>We Were Like Everyone Else</i> is a book you will want to go back to. There is so much Today's book of poetry enjoyed but it doesn't all come easily. Watching those we love diminish and die in front of our eyes is traumatic - some of these poems will tear your heart up.</div>
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<u>The Request</u></div>
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The day my son was born</div>
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my spiritual practice dissolved.</div>
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Whatever I had absorbed</div>
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on the wisdom of non-attachment</div>
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left in a great commotion. Rope of</div>
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-- what else can I name it -- love</div>
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pulled me towards his unopened eyes.</div>
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Expelled from his first home, he flailed</div>
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naked in the new light. I bent over my wife</div>
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and tasted the salt sweat beading on her brow,</div>
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stroked her hair matted in its disarray,</div>
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bent over both of them -- flesh</div>
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to flesh to flesh -- and whispered a request:</div>
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<i>grant me another hundred years</i></div>
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<i>to spend in my present form.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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🔩🔩🔩🔩🔩🔩🔩🔩🔩</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Ken Victor has some of the same demons we all carry and some of the other kind too. In <i>We Were Like Everyone Else</i> his humanistic voice will raise your spirits, some of his dark moments will haunt you, but luckily Victor also doses out enough hope to sustain all you poetry babies.</div>
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Ken Victor is first rate, <i>We Were Like Everyone Else </i>will be amongst the best poetry you read this year.</div>
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<img src="https://apt613.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Ken-high-res2-300x260.jpeg" /></div>
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Ken Victor</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
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Ken Victor moved to Canada full-time from the States in 1990 after spending many summers guiding canoe trips in Northwestern Ontario. A graduate of the writing program at Syracuse University, over the years he has published his poetry in journals on both sides of the border. <i>We Were Like Everyone Else</i> is his first book. Now a Canadian by choice, Victor makes his home with his wife and three children in the Gatineau Hills of West Quebec, where he designs learning for organizations.</div>
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<a href="http://cormorantbooks.com/">cormorantbooks.com</a></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b>811</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<div style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2px; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;">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</span><span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;"> other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.</span></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-8299910420190011382020-03-16T10:52:00.000-07:002020-03-16T16:00:58.085-07:00Bulletproof - Matthew Murrey (Jacar Press)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">Bulletproof. </b>Matthew Murrey. Jacar Press. Durham, North Carolina. 2019.<br />
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<img src="http://jacarpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/BP-front-cover.jpg" height="640" width="414" /></div>
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"Grim as a box of bullets."</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><u>Shadow of a Prayer</u></span></div>
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Matthew Murrey's <i>Bulletproof </i>"comes correct" as our dear friend Chef Duncan would say. Almost every poem in <i>Bulletproof</i> has previously seen the light of day in an anthology or journal or magazine and so on, that's not easy to do. When Today's book of poetry was a much younger poet that was the path; publish in small magazines and journals and then take that success to the bigger magazines and journals and so on. Once you'd staked some ground there, in the grassroots, those poems became the manuscript you'd send on to a publisher, a book publisher.</div>
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<i>Bulletproof</i> is quietly intense poetry, Murrey is crystal clear all the time but that doesn't mean that he's constantly showing all of his cards. Murrey's poems have vigor but they never swagger.</div>
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<u>Bike Messenger's Last Drop</u></div>
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Fifteen stories above brake lights,</div>
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horns and clenched steering wheels,</div>
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keyboards are quiet, doors locked</div>
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and phones mute in their cradles.</div>
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I'm walking back to the elevators</div>
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with an envelope left in the hallway</div>
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for me--my final run of the day.</div>
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Half past five and I'm past ready</div>
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to be done, to go underground</div>
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for a noisy train, to join everyone</div>
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heading home for the night.</div>
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Then an elevator opens; two women</div>
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step off, pushing their metal carts</div>
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of buckets, mops, soap, and rags.</div>
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They're speaking a language I can't</div>
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place--Serbian or Ukrainian perhaps.</div>
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They nod to me, then one heads east,</div>
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one west, toward opposite ends of the hall.</div>
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Their conversation ends, cut off</div>
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by distance and the rattle</div>
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of their carts. Last bit of work</div>
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in hand, I ride the elevator down,</div>
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thinking of those women--</div>
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how they smiled and talked</div>
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with each other; how one patted</div>
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the other's arm as they parted.</div>
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Also I'm imagining all the trashcans,</div>
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dusty tables, coffee stains, toilets</div>
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and dropped Kleenex--the tasks</div>
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they will bend and kneel to;</div>
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how they were separated;</div>
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how we are silenced.</div>
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📣📣📣📣📣📣</div>
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<i>Bulletproof </i>is so down to earth genuine that the music might be missed for the terra firma, but Murrey doesn't roll that way. What Murrey cooks has no fat, these lean poems vibrate with heart-music. <i>Bulletproof</i> lives in the space of the common ground we all share and breathes common sense. Odds are you poetry babies have lived one or more of Murrey's sharp narratives. Matthew Murrey's heart is always available, but it might be behind a bulletproof vest.</div>
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At our morning read we heard all about the police action on our quiet street last night. Today's book of poetry takes a small stack of poetry to bed most nights, usually before 9. By 10:30 Today's book of poetry was dead to the world and to the arrests taking place in front of our offices. Haven't heard any of the details but simply because of the proximity - this sort of information alone can raise your blood pressure, make the hair on your arms vibrate. Matthew Murrey's <i>Bulletproof </i>does the same beautifully damned thing.</div>
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<u>Lucky You</u></div>
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All the breaks</div>
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you'll never know. Red light</div>
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that kept you from being</div>
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broadsided and brain-damaged</div>
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just three blocks further on.</div>
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The thief who would've broken</div>
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in and waited under your bed</div>
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with a gun, got killed</div>
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when he was only ten, a freak</div>
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accident that broke his neck.</div>
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The thunderstorm bruising</div>
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the horizon would've been my last,</div>
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but I was on the couch, too sick</div>
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to get up and check the car windows</div>
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when the pelting rain started</div>
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and the tree limb fell, busting</div>
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the sidewalk and burying</div>
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its splintered end deep in dirt.</div>
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What doesn't happen, doesn't</div>
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hurt--hurtles by like a city block-sized</div>
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mountain of rock silently shooting</div>
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past the earth, whizzes by unseen</div>
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like a stray bullet, like germs in a sneeze.</div>
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Another year of drinking that water</div>
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and the doctor would've said,</div>
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"I hate to break this to you."</div>
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Good thing the phone rang.</div>
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Good thing they took a wrong turn.</div>
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I'm so glad you came early. Oh,</div>
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and that mosquito you just slapped,</div>
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that was the one. Lucky you.</div>
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📣📣📣📣📣📣</div>
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Today's book of poetry shares much of Matthew Murrey's world view, how luck is both saint and sinner. We've both encountered the sharp end of the stick. Today's book of poetry doesn't remember who said it first, but it doesn't matter how many times you get knocked down (in life, getting knocked down is a certainty for us all), life is all about getting back up.</div>
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Murrey shares the contradictions we endure in our every day walk through it all. <i>Bulletproof</i> isn't in the business of offering solutions. These poems give poignant consideration to where the rubber meets the road.</div>
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<u>Shoot the Cat</u></div>
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That's what my father did: killed</div>
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the engine, went back in the house,</div>
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opened the drawer by the bed,</div>
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and picked up the loaded thirty-eight.</div>
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He'd been backing the SUV down</div>
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the driveway when he ran over Foma</div>
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who'd lived with my sister for ten years</div>
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before she moved to Rochester.</div>
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I'm not sure if it took two shots, or just one,</div>
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but if cats could talk, Foma would have</div>
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thanked him for not letting her writhe and yowl</div>
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with her crushed pelvis for the last hours</div>
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of her fifteen years in Jacksonville,</div>
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which had been pretty good up until that moment</div>
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when she didn't see or hear the Dodge Ramcharger,</div>
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and my father didn't see her in the wide mirror</div>
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at his elbow. They both were getting old.</div>
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Today's book of poetry wants to send out all our best wishes to all you poetry babies as the world braces for the COVID - 19 pandemic. What an excellent opportunity to read more poetry. If there is hoarding to be done, make it books of poetry, fill your shelves.</div>
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And if you're buying poetry nothing could be more prescient than the honest beauty and big hearted Matthew Murrey and his <i>Bulletproof. </i>Murrey's poems are splendid common sense rendered lyrical.</div>
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Matthew Murrey</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
Matthew Murrey was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, graduated from Stetson University in Deland, Florida, and then moved to Chicago in 1984. In Chicago he lived at a Catholic Worker house for a year, worked as a dishwasher, cook, bike messenger, and residential assistant - and met his partner. They moved to Iowa City in 1986 where he completed a graduate degree in education before returning to Chicago. Back in the city, he worked as a bus driver for a mental health center and - in 1992 - moved to Urbana where he was a mental health counselor for almost 8 years. In 2000 he enrolled at the University of Illinois and completed a library degree; he is now a public school librarian in Urbana. Murrey and his partner have two grown sons.<br />
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“A generous range of thought-worthy subjects, approached with simplicity, wisdom, and a deft use of language.”<br />
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Matthew Murrey</div>
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reading at the Book launch for <i>Bulletproof</i></div>
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at the Urban Free Library</div>
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March 5, 2019</div>
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Video: Matthew Murrey</div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-6583083357639102020-03-14T14:04:00.001-07:002020-03-14T14:29:15.035-07:00CIRCADIA - kevin mcpherson eckhoff (Gaspereau Press Limited)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Today's book of poetry:</div>
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">CIRCADIA. </b>kevin mcpherson eckhoff. Devil's Whim Occasional Chapbook Series. Devil's Whim Chapbook No. 37. Gaspereau Press Limited. Kentville, Nova Scotia. 2018.<br />
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kevin mcpherson eckhoff's <i>CIRCADIA</i> gives us twelve absolutely engaging list poems. Those of you poetry babies who regularly attend Today's book of poetry will remember our fondness of the form. eckhoff's poems, each of the twelve is titled for a month of the year, are scatalogical gold.</div>
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Before you are finished the all too brief <i>CIRCADIA, </i>you really will not want it to end, eckhoff will have you travel from lemming history and Play-Doh to the Violent Femmes and the male CEO of Mother's Against Drunk Driving. This is deep-sea diving without taking a breath.</div>
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If this were a road trip, it would be one of the best; <i>CIRCADIA</i> is poetry rendered into hilarious and somewhat doomed hopscotch. Not sure if eckhoff would ever take his foot off of the gas, but what a ride.</div>
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<u>September</u></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Play that song,</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Play it again.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Now, improvise.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i> </i>JOHN LENT, "INTERSECTIONS"</span></div>
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I ate some cotton candy. I bought a plastic Wonder</div>
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Woman cup for a dollar. I lifted some weights. I'm</div>
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not in a classroom teaching. I didn't vomit. I picked</div>
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up four boxes of books and papers and puppets and</div>
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knickknacks that the custodian had cleaned out of </div>
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my office at Okanagan College. I ate five peaches. I</div>
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asked the president of the board of directors to step</div>
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down. I spit my gum out the car window. I brought</div>
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home an orphaned baby vole. Kiddo named the baby</div>
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vole, which we've since learned may actually be a</div>
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pack rat, Diggin' Smily. I ran. We moved the toddler-</div>
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sized armchair into the bathroom because my</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">3</span>-year-old was spending so much of his day on the</div>
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potty and the milking stool gets so hard on the butt</div>
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after reading five books. I lifted some weights. My</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">3</span>-year-old asked: "What does God think of John</div>
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Lent?" I flipped a table to emphasize a point. I drove</div>
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to Vancouver. Playing at the park with my <span style="font-size: x-small;">1</span>-year-old,</div>
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the moonrise was a word thief. I ran. There were</div>
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many toads on the road. I ate some popcorn. A kid at</div>
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the park told me that he is really into parkour and</div>
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that he just learnt about it yesterday. I watched a</div>
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lawyer cage his tears, in part, because I questioned</div>
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his actions and abilities. I petted a capybara. I didn't</div>
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go to the lantern festival. I deactivated my Facebook</div>
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account. I cried. I texted so much while driving. I</div>
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wondered how dreams work. I took three boxes of</div>
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books to the bookstore to sell. I spotted a fawn on</div>
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the side of the highway nuzzling a large lump of</div>
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brown fur.</div>
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📣📣📣📣</div>
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The twelve monthly missives make for a eventful year, eckhoff is hammering out poems that are consistent, anti-cryptic, clear cut, and clean of artifice. What more could the poetry angels ask for?</div>
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Today's book of poetry loves the way kevin mcpherson eckhoff rolls the dice and we cannot wait to see more of this obviously smarty-pants brilliant poet's poetry. </div>
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<i>CIRCADIA</i> makes it all simple, a grandfather dies as easily as a snack of warm nuts appears. A crossword puzzle and Max Ernst's <i>The Hundred Headless Woman</i> appear on the same palette and with the same simple but vivid colours.</div>
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<u>March</u></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i> Between thought and expression, let us now kiss the culprit.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i> Ooh, I don't know just what it's all about</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i> </i>VELVET UNDERGROUND, "SOME KINDA LOVE"</span></div>
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I almost had sex. I ran. I didn't wear a seatbelt. I got</div>
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shit-eared by Laurel because her favorite foliage in</div>
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the front yard, a red twig dogwood, which she kept</div>
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calling forsythia, was by her judgement, irreparably</div>
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over-pruned by my mother. I played at the park. I </div>
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auditioned for the role of James. I Googled "how to</div>
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cook frozen steaks." I drank three coffees. I lifted</div>
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some weights. I watched my<span style="font-size: x-small;"> 3</span>-year-old reveal how a</div>
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cattail that has survived the winter contains the fluff</div>
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of roughly a hundred thousand billion dandelion</div>
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seeds. I had a new passport photo taken. I went to</div>
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the chiropractor. I went swimming in the public</div>
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pool. I cleaned up my <span style="font-size: x-small;">3</span>-year-old's puke from the bed.</div>
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I lifted some weights. I bought the hedgehog a </div>
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wheel, in which it ran for <span style="font-size: x-small;">90 </span>minutes. I threw up. I</div>
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did not lift any weights. I wondered about the word</div>
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"hide" --how its noun and verb meanings collide. I</div>
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threw rocks into a creek. I lifted some weights. I had</div>
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sex. I momentarily fell asleep on the hardwood floor</div>
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while my <span style="font-size: x-small;">3</span>-year-old and I hid from Jehovah's</div>
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Witnesses who were knocking on our door. I started</div>
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watching the second season of <i>Daredevil</i>. I shaved. I</div>
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ran. I beat up the cherry tree using a scythe to sap</div>
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my anger. I ate a lot of chocolate. My <span style="font-size: x-small;">3</span>-year-old</div>
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tossed a shred of toenail into the hash browns</div>
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as they were frying. I picked up my new passport.</div>
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I didn't buy my mom a birthday gift.</div>
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📣📣📣📣📣</div>
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It's almost spring here in Ottawa and we are all anxiously awaiting "open-window-weather", in the meantime we will rely on poetry like kevin mcpherson eckhoff's refreshing <i>CIRCADIA</i>. There is so much to enjoy in these inventories, catalogues, lists, poems.</div>
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Today's book of poetry has Pharoah Sanders blasting out of the box, his seminal recording of "Oh Lord, let me do no wrong." Today's book of poetry bought this recording many years ago, in Los Angeles, and then played it non-stop as we drove our rented car up and down California. Sanders always gives Today's book of poetry more than we asked for, always a life-confirming Walt Whitman "barbaric yawp." <i>CIRCADIA</i> dances like that, a rhythm all of its own.</div>
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<u>June</u></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i> I waited in the shadow of my stupid house.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i> </i>JAMES FRANCO, "THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT"</span></div>
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I rolled down a grassy hill. I went to my first gala film</div>
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premiere. I lifted some weights. I only had one</div>
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coffee. I sneezed. I killed a mosquito. I cleaned the</div>
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vegetable crisper. I saw my best friend. I self-taped</div>
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an audition for the role of Shawn in a film called <i>He's</i></div>
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<i>Out There, </i>even though I know I won't get it. I was</div>
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hot. I ate some buffalo-wing-flavoured combos. I</div>
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swam in Okanagan Lake. I ran. I didn't get a</div>
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callback. I thought about Orlando, the city, not the</div>
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book. I clipped my fingernails. I saw a fly trapped in</div>
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a Ziploc bag at the playground and I didn't let it out.</div>
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My parents visited. I read 36 chapbook-length</div>
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manuscripts. I tried teaching my 10-month-old how</div>
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to gesture "momma" in American Sign Language,</div>
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which he could only imitate as "bitch." I lifted some</div>
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weights. I lamented not having found Anne Tardos</div>
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and her work 10 years ago. I felt like a hammer. I</div>
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nabbed a feral kitten out from under a red minivan at</div>
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Caravan Farm Theatre and brought it home. I went</div>
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swimming at the green boathouse. The kitten went</div>
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to live with our friend Cody. I signed up for a </div>
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LinkedIn account. I ran. I read about Yuxweluptun's</div>
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proposal to rename B.C. I worked out at the Vernon</div>
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Boxing Club for the first time.</div>
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📣📣📣📣📣📣</div>
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Today's book of poetry looks out over our big wooden desk and sees the room Michael Hewko built for me. A quick and simple look at our shelves quickly reveals how poetry beasts like David Clewell, Stuart Ross, Cameron Anstee, David Collins, et al., have showered on our office with generosity. The poetry world can be like that. We have much to be thankful for in these offices and it gives Today's book of poetry hope.</div>
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In <i>CIRCADIA</i> eckhoff circumnavigates some difficult terrain but with such elan that the lasting impression is one of giddy comfort. You will have a poetry smile on your face after reading this book, our new intern Tomas guarantees it.</div>
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kevin mcpherson eckhoff</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
Kevin McPherson Eckhoff is a writer, an actor, a teacher, a hubbub and a daddoo. The Globe & Mail described his most recent book—<i>their biography</i> (BookThug)—as “wide-ranging” and “incredibly playful.” He plays one of the lead characters in Sean Braune’s feature film Nuptials. By day, he teaches writing and shit at Okanagan College with his very star bff, Jake Kennedy; by night, he lives on unceded Splats’in Territory with a Laurel and two miniscule muscular men.<br />
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<span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;">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</span><span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;"> other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.</span></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-48325594009093916242020-03-12T13:23:00.000-07:002020-03-12T17:21:59.476-07:00This Is Not A Frank Ocean Cover Album - Alan Chazaro (Black Lawrence Press)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">This Is Not A Frank Ocean Cover Album. </b>Alan Chazaro. Black Lawrence Press. New York. 2019.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Black River Chapbook Competition Winner</b></span><br />
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<img alt="Barrelhouse Reviews: THIS IS NOT A FRANK OCEAN COVER ALBUM by Alan Chazaro" height="640" src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59fe08f48a02c745b77a8aa2/59fe0f1d53450a448c7034dc/5dd21c2939d8ba0c23b98cb0/1575062809172/chazaro.jpg?format=2500w" width="414" /></div>
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Being a sixty-three year-old grumpy white man in Canada, Today's book of poetry is sadly unfamiliar with contemporary music. Bird, Trane, Prez and so on, Billie, Sarah, these are the musicians I know. Hip hop, as I've only very recently discovered, is rock n roll as much as any other. But until I started to write this blog/review I had never heard of Frank Ocean or Christopher Edwin Cooksey, I certainly had never heard of Odd Future or listened to <i>Channel Orange </i>or <i>Blond. </i>But after a first reading of Alan Chazaro's <i>This Is Not A Frank Ocean Cover Album</i> we figured we needed to hear Frank Ocean's acclaimed <i>Blond. </i>Astounding.</div>
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Alan Chazaro's <i>This Is Not A Frank Ocean Cover Album </i>is like a slice of some new fruit, spicy, fragrant and tasty. Alan Chazaro can cook. So can Frank Ocean.</div>
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<u>Self-Portrait as American</u></div>
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I say <i>fuck</i></div>
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because it feels right</div>
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about now,</div>
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and I say <i>love </i>because</div>
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what wrong</div>
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could it bring?</div>
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I haven't shot a pistol</div>
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since my stepdad</div>
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flung his Desert Eagle</div>
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from the bedroom and took us</div>
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to burst freedom as kids.</div>
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The smell of sulfur</div>
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and devil, the pinch</div>
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of steel between my <span style="font-size: x-small;">10</span>-</div>
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year-old finger. I didn't</div>
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seek this, was never good</div>
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at hitting body-</div>
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sized targets,</div>
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kept my eyes</div>
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shut while I curled</div>
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the trigger. It's heavier</div>
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than you think,</div>
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to hold and re-</div>
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lease thunder.</div>
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Not like the movies but</div>
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somehow like the movies.</div>
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Ears still ringing,</div>
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vibrations</div>
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in my bones.</div>
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💥💥💥💥</div>
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Alan Chazaro is doing some singing of his own in <i>This Is Not A Frank Ocean Cover Album. </i>But wouldn't you know it, he's also looking at colonialism, toxic masculinity and tenderness. Chazaro is using a multi-coloured brush and painting broad strokes when he paints his landscapes. And of course he paints in the detail so that it all fits.</div>
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Yes, Today's book of poetry uses metaphors like cooking, singing, painting, to describe poetry and we feel good about it. And just in passing, our photo does not do it justice, the cover of <i>This Is Not A Frank Ocean Cover Album </i>is one of the very best we have seen in a long time. Splendid.</div>
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<u>Self-Portrait as Cartographer</u></div>
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Have you ever retraced the borders on a world</div>
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map with your abuela's lipstick? Post-</div>
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colonialism is a word that means <i>re-hustle</i>,</div>
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but should never be re-Tweeted. This isn't</div>
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a political statement. The states have been on fire</div>
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for as long as they have been stated. What happens</div>
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when GPS can no longer locate what you are</div>
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looking for? I'm talking cartography,</div>
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the fog-swallow of clouds, a wandering</div>
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mathematics. Since we've come a long way</div>
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from the art of papyrus. Since we've come for more</div>
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than your blood can script. Return to your proper</div>
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homes. This land is full of forsaken places</div>
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I've never visited. What is a sign if it only points to you</div>
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in one direction? How can you sleep with your eyes</div>
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open and an open road ahead of you?</div>
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Is it possible to be found when you've fallen</div>
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off the map? I've been in wilderness. I've been in fluorescent</div>
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cities. I mean this literally--how the lights raged</div>
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across both places. How I know the silence</div>
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of hands that can draw worlds and hands</div>
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that won't even try.</div>
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💥💥💥💥</div>
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Today's book of poetry was listening to Frank Ocean this morning, but when we typing up this blog it was Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, that lot. I don't think Mr. Chazaro would object. </div>
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The world is on fire and Alan Chazaro is pointing fingers. This poetry takes place in a world Today's book of poetry has not spent much time in - so why is it so compelling?</div>
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Actually, this is where Frank Ocean really comes in to play, listening to Mr. Ocean it was easy to imagine Chazaro writing these poems. The same casual elegance and a little embrace of the classic "fuck you."</div>
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Chazaro writes about Oscar de La Hoya fighting Julio César Chávez and Today's book of poetry is in the room. Today's book of poetry has nothing but admiration for this poem and the poet who got it down.</div>
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<u>Julio César Chávez vs. Oscar De La Hoya, 1996</u><br />
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That night our apartment was an armpit, testosterone</div>
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and sweat-washed as if Papi and his friends were the ones</div>
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entering the ring. When he let me sip his Heineken I knew</div>
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it was a big deal. I stumbled and hiccupped, imitating</div>
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Dumbo from the cartoon I'd loved. The men laughed, easily</div>
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entertained until Chávez appeared on screen. The <i>Mexican</i></div>
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<i>Warrior,</i> they called him. Papi reminded me</div>
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how he had battled one hundred fighters, more</div>
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than Ali, or Tyson, or Dempsey. The De La Hoya</div>
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entered. Everyone booed, telling him to go back</div>
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to his locker like the traitor he was. The Mexicans</div>
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thought he was gringo and the gringos thought</div>
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he was Mexican. I should've smiled</div>
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with missing front teeth for <i>The Golden Boy</i></div>
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in his mixed-up outfit, a combo</div>
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of US and Mexican flags, but I didn't, I don't</div>
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remember the actual fight, a flurry</div>
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of blurred punches and the card girls in bikinis. I wasn't sure</div>
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what took place until everyone on the couch started</div>
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grumbling, their movements a slow and beer-confused</div>
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disappointment. I swear someone must've cried. Chávez </div>
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was hunched over in his corner, right eye swollen</div>
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from repeated jabs to the brow, while De La Hoya</div>
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stood center, undefeated.</div>
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💥💥💥💥</div>
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Poetry may be the uniter of worlds, Alan Chazaro was not considering the attention of an aging Canadian, his house surrounded by snow, when he wrote these fine poems. A true poetry voice always has a clear sound and Chazaro cooks that up proper.</div>
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Today's book of poetry will be waiting, both hopeful and anxious, for Chazaro's next poetry title. The man is a stone cold poetry assassin and Today's book of poetry loves that madly.</div>
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<img alt="Image result for alan chazaro poet photo" src="https://bamlive.s3.amazonaws.com/styles/program_slide/s3/Event_Reading_2019-04-06_Alan-Chazaro_002.jpg?itok=goOAmdVq" /></div>
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Alan Chazaro</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
Alan Chazaro is a high school teacher at the Oakland School for the Arts, the former Lawrence Ferlinghetti Fellow at the University of San Francisco, and a June Jordan Poetry for the People alum at UC Berkeley. A Bay Area native, his poems have been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, Puerto del Sol, Huizache, Acentos Review, and Ninth Letter. He is a recipient of an AWP Intro Journals Award and has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes. His first poetry collection, <i>THIS IS NOT A FRANK OCEAN COVER ALBUM</i></div>
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(Black Lawrence Press, 2019), was the winner of the 2018 Black River Chapbook Competition, and his second book, <i>PIÑATA THEORY</i> (Black Lawrence Press, 2019), was awarded the 2018 Hudson Prize.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>BLURBS</b></span></div>
"Listen: This book is so good it makes me want to curse. Better still: it makes me want to go write. Alan Chazaro's<i> THIS IS NOT A FRANK OCEAN COVER ALBUM</i> is full of neon imagery—a blunt passed around like 'just-born stars,' an apartment full of men watching boxing as an armpit. Chazaro's lyric is expansive; his music is tight. Nod your head & find yourself going back to each poem to trace its wisdom like a kid hitting rewind on a Walkman to hear their favorite punch line over and over. Chazaro's poems explore masculinity & machismo with tenderness, they define & redefine ideas of home, and they shout out the Bay Area with love & precision."<br />
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—José Olivarez<br />
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"Welcome to the blood hymn of the fast-moving body. In <i>THIS IS NOT A FRANK OCEAN COVER ALBUM</i>, debut poet, Alan Chazaro, breaks open—beautifully—the contemporary poetry landscape, crossing bridges, contemplating borders, and reckoning with the legacies of a rumbling boyhood. The voices here are tender, intellectual; hungry for desert wonder and midnight hoops, they wind their way through the ruins of Athens, the streets of Mexico City, and back to the yards and bars of Oakland. 'We are byproducts of earthquakes,' confesses the speaker; 'Do not look away.' A burning and beautiful achievement by a poet on the rise."</div>
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—Brynn Saito<br />
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"Alan Chazaro's <i>THIS IS NOT A FRANK OCEAN COVER ALBUM</i> challenges us to listen. To reckon with the troubling vibrations of diaspora and masculinity in the landscapes of a gentrifying America and postcolonial world. In these pages you'll find a poet who has done that listening, who has listened to himself, his loved ones, his community. Who knows 'there are streets that have retained the noises of ghosts,' and has found a way to remix those vibrations as a way of navigating the joys and perils of his world."</div>
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—Malcolm Friend<br />
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"T<i>HIS IS NOT A FRANK OCEAN COVER ALBUM</i> is a full-throated song, a reclamation of language, history, and memory that resonates across time and space and generations. Here, the Bay Area is sentient and brimming with sound, possessing a body and blood of its own. Chazaro's language is pure electricity, revealing the sonic landscapes and silences that surround lineages, memories, and displacements. By alchemizing loss into light, these poems are both cosmic and deeply embodied. Chazaro rewrites masculinity and reckons with colonialism, all while guiding us toward the mythic possibilities of creation: 'how constellations are formed / from the darkness of our mouths.' Each poem contains a home within itself, a home that defies nation and gentrification, a home that can hold all of us. This collection is kaleidoscopic, alive with joy and mourning and defiance. With each singing line, it brings the future to us: 'One day, / let us all return to ourselves.'"</div>
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—Kristin Chang</div>
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Alan Chazaro -- "16 Reasons Why a Dreamer Will Be the First Person to Build a Spacecraft"</div>
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Oakland School for the Arts-- Heart of Oakland 2019 Written by Alan Chazaro Performed by Alan Chazaro and OSA students</div>
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<a href="http://blacklawrence.com/">blacklawrence.com</a></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;">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</span><span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;"> other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.</span></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-75878594017855087642020-03-10T09:28:00.000-07:002020-03-12T13:15:24.447-07:00Local Haunts - David White (Pedlar Press)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">Local Haunts. </b>David White. Pedlar Press. St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. 2019.<br />
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There is all the sad glamour you are every going to need in the first section of David White's <i>Local Haunts.</i> The first section of this book, titled "Port Franks, Looking Towards Kettle Point" makes poetry out of distressing and disturbing childhood travesties. There is an electric current running underneath this section, when you are reading <i>Local Haunts</i> you can feel it hum.</div>
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In White's poems coming of age comes at a cost. Some of these poems hit the reader like a punch and others like a weep. Either way that hum keeps you plugged in.</div>
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For Today's book of poetry there is some common ground between David White and myself. The first section of <i>Local Haunts</i> reflect some of White's experience growing up in and around London, Ontario and having a father in the military. Many of White's locations are familiar to my childhood self. My father was a member of the RCR (Royal Canadian Regiment) and stationed in London, where I was born just two short years after Mr. White. Today's book of poetry was born at St. Joseph's Hospital, London, Ontario. I have memories of Wolseley Barracks. Apparently my misbehaviour was a factor in the formation of rules about children watching movies on the base. Enduring the beach at Iperwash was a regular happening in my family, I enjoyed it about as much as Mr. White, so not much at all. Although our complaints were somewhat different.</div>
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<u>Narcissus</u></div>
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Dragged out of the bathtub, held there</div>
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naked, dripping, suspended in my Daddy's grip</div>
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before the full-length mirror,</div>
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six years old, skin and bone,</div>
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bruises all on display,</div>
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scrawny genitals shriveled up,</div>
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while he wails away beyond words:</div>
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<i>You fuckin' little brat! Goddamn skinny little puke.</i></div>
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<i>People'll think we don't feed you, you god-</i></div>
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<i>damn little bastard.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Bone dance of throttled skeleton</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
held there, purples turning black.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
One last thrust. I'm flat against the mirror,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
face and body grotesque,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
a dangling distortion, more</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
emancipated Third World child</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
than suitably fattened North American,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Daddy screaming, beer breath</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
hot on my shoulder:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>fuckin' skinny little son of a bitch.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
💥💥💥</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
David White is gay, but Today's book of poetry would never mention such a thing unless it was relevant to the poetry. In the remaining two-thirds of <i>Local Haunts </i>much of his poetry concerns his journey in a world that can still be frightfully hostile. Yet for Today's book of poetry there enough moments of splendid joy, optimism and celebration in <i>Local Haunts</i>, to entice all you poetry babies. White's community, like all others, looking for love and happiness, and rightly so.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The second and third chapters/elements of <i>Local Haunts </i>share and revel in the experience of searching for and sharing love. Entirely admirable end game plan. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<u>Days of 1986</u></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Last time I saw Greg Van Patter,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Gay farmer, he was walking,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
hobbling with a cane</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
past Kingsmill's Department Store.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
That was out of character, but soon,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
too soon, he was dying of AIDS.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I first met Greg during a summer gift:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
homemade ice cream</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
on the lawns of Eldon House</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
his--suited, for the party--</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
supple body, perfectly fitted,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
consecrated to toil,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
laugh lines caressed</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
by sun on furrowed fields, eyes</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
flared as his glance</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
irresistibly engaged,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
his smile impeccable</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
through the extended evening blue.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I revelled in the musk</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
of his event horizon,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
those moments</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
of erotic singularity</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
amidst all the dainty</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Eldon House Garden Partiers,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
those ends of June when Chris,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Museum Director,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
rounded up all his friends</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and, unbeknownst to the Board,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
surreptitiously put on the biggest</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"A-List" Gay party in town.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Gone now so many of the revellers</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
who danced away those evenings</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
as the dusk embraced</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
then erased their dreams.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
💥💥💥</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There are so many fine and precise moments in <i>Local Haunts</i>, whether White is in a happy poem or a sad one, his constant attention leaves the attentive reader with that little jaw drop moment with expedient frequency.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Today's book of poetry will return to David White's excellent <i>Local Haunts</i> in a moment. We wanted to report that our readership just surpassed 800,000 and we're pretty excited about that here in our offices. Our new intern, Tomas, surprised us with a cake, eight candles on top. It was a great way to start the day. The cake, vanilla with vanilla icing, side of whipped cream, was delightful. That's the good news.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The less good news is that Today's book of poetry has been sad of late. One of our greatest poetry friends, David Clewell, died quite recently and unexpectedly. Today's book of poetry had spoken to David just a few days before his demise but David barely mentioned that he was ill. David Clewell, former Missouri State Poet Laureate, had been a guiding light in recent years. His knowledge of poetry and poets simply superior to any I had previously encountered. David's generosity of spirit and action filled Today's book of poetry's heart with joy AND added ludicrously wonderful additions to the Today's book of poetry poetry library.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Our good friend Michael Hewko died last week. If you knew about Hewko you knew he was simply the best at what he did. But it is unlikely you ever heard of Michael. He was the genuine curmudgeon. K and I have artwork by Michael Hewko in several rooms of our house, he painted all the walls, built all the bookcases in my study and the permanent ones in the rest of our house, he designed and built our bathroom, and he was my curmudgeonly old friend. The very first art I ever bought was from Michael Hewko. It hangs in our bedroom. Oh yes, he designed and built a sliding shelf that fits over our bed, built it out of old doors. The man was a certain type of genius and those of us who loved him now have that big hole where he used to grumble.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Death is coming to us all, no doubt about that shit. And my sadness is certainly no worse than yours. But this particular double hit, following a year of funerals and grief, was simply staggering. Today's book of poetry is looking forward to getting back on track, yesterday's surprising Ottawa sun storm of delight was a good step.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Reading David White's <i>Local Haunts</i> is exactly the poetry kick in the ass that Today's book of poetry wanted/needed to get our train back on the tracks. Here's some more:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<u>Almost As If</u></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i> It was never easy being a homosexual.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i> </i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>-Stephen Sondheim</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and it's almost as if I'm cruising Mannahatta,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
arm in arm with Walt Whitman,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
searching every passing eye</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
for resonant desire,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
searching for the one</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I could cling to,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
electric, adhesive,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
spontaneous genital combustion,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and it's almost as if I'm holding</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Hart Crane's hand,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
to keep him from leaping</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
from the ocean liner's deck</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
into the Gulf of Mexico.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"Goodbye. Goodbye, everybody," he cries,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and the ship sails on towards</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
the desolation of America,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and it's almost as if I'm howling</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
with Allen Ginsberg</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
while the best minds of my generation</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
are destroyed by the madness</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
of yet another grasping, greedy,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
hypocritical, evangelical,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
insincere abomination</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
of Capital,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and it's almost as if I'm standing</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
beside Marsha P. Johnson</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
outside the Stonewall Inn</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
those early morning hours.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
June 28, 1969, grieving</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
the death of Judy Garland and shouting</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"Gay Power!"</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
before a billy club strikes her head,</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
handcuffs encircle her wrists,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and it's almost as if I'm demonstrating</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
with ACT UP</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
at the AIDS Conference in Montreal</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
June 4, 1989,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
chanting "Silence = Death,"</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
reading the Montreal Manifesto</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
(and what do I mean, "almost?"</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I was <i>there</i>,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
chanting, carrying my placard),</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and my body's hanging,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
broken, in Wyoming</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
on the fence beside Matthew Shepard,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
October 12th, 1998,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
pistol-whipped face</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
a red sea of blood</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
except where tears</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
river down his dying cheeks:</div>
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he was finally, October 26, 2018,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
twenty years after his death,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
laid to rest in Washington</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Cathedral, and I'm attending</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
the marriage of friends</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
who've been living together for decades</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
but only now can legally seal their bonds</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and live the dream they've held on to</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
all these unacknowledged years,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and I'm maintaining vigilance</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
against the rising tide</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
of far-right ignorance</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
seeking once again</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
to repeal our future.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
💥💥💥</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
All of you poetry babies, thank you so much for 800,000 hits, Today's book of poetry certainly appreciates it. We would like to thank each and every one of you personally. In lieu of that we will continue to bring you quality poetry at just the right price.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
If you would like to interact with Today's book of poetry we are sending out a challenge: send us your favourite book of poetry you don't think we have in the stacks. Best entry will receive two Crying Charlies and one night's stay in the Stuart Ross Guest + Reading Room, transportation not included.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Our mailing address remains:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Michael Dennis/Today's book of poetry</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
111 Dagmar Avenue</div>
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Ottawa, Ontario</div>
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Canada</div>
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K1L 5T3</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
So Today's book of poetry is happy to be back in the saddle, happier still that we can bring you titles like <i>Local Haunts</i> by David White. A big, big, big thanks goes out to the publishers, like Pedlar Press, who keep Today's book of poetry in business by sending us their best.</div>
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<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<img src="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d602ac_a3bdb867c81c46ec81750302b346e81f~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_283,h_301,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/d602ac_a3bdb867c81c46ec81750302b346e81f~mv2.webp" /></div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
David White</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>David White </b>was a participant in <i>Renga: a collaborative poem </i>(Brick Books, 1980). In 1994, in completion of his Ph.D., he wrote <i>A Territory Not Yet On The Map: Relocating Gay Aestheticism In The Age Of AIDS. </i>His first solo collection of poems is <i>The Lark Ascending </i>(Pedlar Press, 2017). <i>Local Haunts</i> is his second collection. For many years he taught Theatre History and Writing at Fanshawe College. He lives in London, Ontario.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://pedlarpress.com/">pedlarpress.com</a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b>807</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div>
<b style="color: red; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;">DISCLAIMERS</b></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2px; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2px; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;">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</span><span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;"> other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.</span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 18.2px;"><b>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"</b></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 14px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 18.2px;"><b>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.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 18.2px;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-37650979799166541332020-02-13T12:49:00.004-08:002020-02-13T12:49:55.246-08:00Tinderbox Lawn - Carol Guess (Rose Metal Press) + Human-Ghost Hybrid Project - Carol Guess and Daniela Olszewska (Black Lawrence Press)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">Tinderbox Lawn. </b>Carol Guess. Rose Metal Press. Brookline, Maine. 2008.<br />
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<img alt="Image result for tinderbox lawn carol gues" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51OcdfwCCwL._SX342_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="font-size: xx-large;">Human-Ghost Hybrid Project. </b>Carol Guess and Daniela Olszewska. Black Lawrence Press. Somewhere in the upper north-east. 2017.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<img alt="Image result for human-ghost hybrid project" height="640" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ3GEd2iAGcpjSu8d1XgfZ6AFYYOx5q73t2iTu15fKwLQhl2BVW" width="413" /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Today's book of poetry is entering uncharted waters. This, our 806th blog/review, is our first post where we have tackled two books, one by a hybrid Human-Ghost, and the other by Carol Guess. That's where we'll start, Today's book of poetry thoroughly enjoyed every second we were in <i>Tinderbox Lawn.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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Utterly charming with overshadows of dark and unforgiving wit. Carol Guess beats the craps out of sardonic. <i>Tinderbox Lawn</i> is a conflagration of tidy and tardy prose poems that collectively report on a fractured world.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Tinderbox Lawn</i> is reporting the news of the day and every page feels like a scoop. Think Lois Lane channeling Lucy Riccardo and Anne Sexton. Though untitled, these harmonically connected bon bons and bon mots paint a rather fully textured picture. Guess give us new entry points to our own imaginations.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
. . .</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
We watched the girl through her open window. <span style="font-size: x-small;">45</span>th Street</div>
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was hot but she was on fire. We were thinking we should</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
fuck her as she undressed in front of a face or a mirror. I</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
said look at her hair, soft. You said look at her lips, bloom.</div>
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We'd prepared our room: dog in her cage, silk over skylights</div>
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because of the heat. You said she's sweet. I said three's</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
sweeter. And after we'd take notes on who was better.</div>
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Seattle had never been hotter. You had a bottle and I had a</div>
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bottle. A building caught fire, rows of condos attached at the</div>
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hip. Fire trucks slipped on glossy pavement. Water filled the</div>
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moonlit basement. A man flew from a balcony into the air.</div>
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Ash stained our hair and the whorls of our dresses. Water</div>
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caressed us, the thick blue knife slicing away burnt boards</div>
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and glass. We lit cigarettes off the burning grass and breathed</div>
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smoke until the streets were clean, the dog lay dreaming,</div>
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and you were mine again. Breezes fanned the trees and the</div>
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tinderbox lawn. Both the window and the girl were gone.</div>
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<br /></div>
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💥💥💥</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Tinderbox Lawn </i>was entirely a first class gas.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>Human-Ghost Hybrid Project </i>teams up Carol Guess with Daniela Olszewska, together they conjure the Human-Ghost and the Human-Ghost is another gas altogether. Sublime.</div>
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<i>Human-Ghost Hybrid Project</i> is made up of short, prose poems, much like <i>Tinderbox Lawn. </i>Human-Ghost sounds a lot like Carol Guess, but also like someone new, something new, enter Daniela Olszewska. Today's book of poetry doesn't know how these two shared the reins but they sure do gallop. Today's book of poetry does have some experience writing poems with another poet, my associate and I would like to think the results were fruitful. With<i> Human-Ghost Hybrid Project</i> there is no doubt the success of these poems.</div>
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Humour makes up a large part of the Human-Ghost mystique but that's just a clever entry point to the radical possible the Human-Ghost seems to champion. There is all sorts of poetry magic happening in these lines. The poems have titles like "Parking Garage Pastoral" and "Watering the Dead", both great titles, stand alone three word poems in fact. Once you get inside this book these poems, sometimes disguised as fables, you see that Human-Ghost has a new paradigm for Human-Ghost world.</div>
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<u>Superstition Sale</u></div>
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On Sundays, we set up a fort and sell wind-up woodland animals</div>
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painted to look like moral imperatives. Let's try and sustain our</div>
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autumnal wet-fruit-wrapped-in-hair-smells. We aren't hapless; we</div>
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just dress this way to people will give us a little less guidance. On</div>
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Monday, we scrap whatever's unsold: usually crows and tube-nosed</div>
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bats and wind-up foxes. We junk their parts for baby seals. No one</div>
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wants black cats' eyes or boys raised by wolves.</div>
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<i>Human-Ghost Hybrid Project</i> had much the same affect on Today's book of poetry as the somewhat haunting <i>Tinderbox Lawn. </i>We were wildly amused, animals are named, a text message arrives in a bottle, the flattest robots are revealed and rowboats meet royalty. What more could you ask?</div>
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Guess and Olszewsky have, without ego, merged into a single entity, a singular voice, Human-Ghost. Today's book of poetry digs the Human-Ghost and gets off on their clever burn. We can only hope this hybrid hothouse finds time to go exploring again. Witty gets over-used and smart just won't cut it. Carol Guess and Daniela Olszewska do it right.</div>
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<u>Eyelet and Eyesore</u></div>
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The boss said <i>prenup, </i>not <i>pre-need.</i></div>
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Here I am, married to my job again.</div>
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Sometimes a girl just has to wear white, trip over her veil on the</div>
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way to HR.</div>
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The honeymoon was downsized off yachts overlooking offshore</div>
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accounts.</div>
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It isn't easy being smarter than Marketing or negotiating a</div>
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rainbow-colored parachute without a ripcord.</div>
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Even my dress dressed down on casual Friday, leaving me unlaced</div>
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and French-cut in the breast pumping closet.</div>
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We down corporate coffee on company time ("we" meaning "me</div>
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and peeps at my pay grade").</div>
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We passed notes in infrared ("we" meaning "the two secretaries</div>
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from Legal").</div>
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My dowry was ivy-covered, everyone meant for me to wed up.</div>
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Every Halloween, I costume in a new First World Problem.</div>
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I love my ability to love whatever loves me back, it makes me stay</div>
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slim enough to look good in lace.</div>
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All day long, I've been surfing the web for vintage jewelry. My best</div>
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friend from college wanted to be an astronaut. I don't know whether</div>
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or not I should send her this link about the planet they just</div>
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discovered: it's made entirely out of diamonds, it's like four</div>
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thousand light years away.</div>
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Today's book of poetry admires this poetry very much, it beyond our imagination to write, but reading it is pure pleasure. Carol Guess and Human-Ghost partner Daniela Olszewska are welcome at Today's book of poetry any time.</div>
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Carol Guess</div>
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Daniela Olszewska</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
Carol Guess is the author of numerous books of poetry and prose, including <i>Darling Endangered, Doll Studies: Forensics</i>, and <i>Tinderbox Lawn</i>. In 2014 she was awarded the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement by Columbia University. Recent BLP titles include With Animal, co-written with Kelly Magee, and <i>Human-Ghost Hybrid Project</i>, co-written with Daniela Olszewska. She is Professor of English at Western Washington University.<br /><br />Daniela Olszewska is the author of three full-length collections of poetry:<i> cloudfang : : cakedirt </i>(Horse Less Press, 2012), <i>True Confessions of An Escapee From The Capra Facility For Wayward Girls</i> (Spittoon Press, 2013), and<i> Citizen J</i> (Artifice Books, 2013). With Carol Guess, she is the co-author of<i> How To Feel Confident With Your Special Talents </i>(Black Lawrence Press, 2014) and <i>Human-Ghost Hybrid Project</i> (Black Lawrence Press, forthcoming).<a href="https://blacklawrencepress.com/authors/daniela-olszewska/"></a><div>
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<a href="http://rosemetalpress.com/">rosemetalpress.com</a></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;">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</span><span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;"> other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.</span></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-54658114742352678522020-02-10T11:10:00.000-08:002020-02-12T07:42:57.743-08:00Divided - Linda Frank (A Buckrider Book/Wolsak & Wynn)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">Divided. </b>Linda Frank. A Buckrider Book/Wolsak & Wynn. Hamilton, Ontario. 2018.<br />
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<img alt="Book Cover: Divided, Linda Frank" src="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2335/9075/products/9781928088585_300x300.jpg?v=1562270596" /></div>
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Clearly Linda Frank's poetry posse includes a world class botonist and a scientist with an eidetic memory. How does Today's book of poetry know such things? The answer is quite simple; no one poetry brain could pull these poems together. These poems require multiple experts and fathoms upon fathoms of research.</div>
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<i>Divided</i> is that completely unexpected cornacopia of delights. Frank's poems pass all of our poetry tests. Linda Frank is both remarkbaly insightful and unimaginably thorough. It isn't enough that her understanding of human nature, emotion and character is illuminating; Frank sees the big picture so clearly, she can use the various languages of animals and insects, she is able to use their knowledge. The resulting poems delight.</div>
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Thomas, our new Assistant Editor, found Linda Frank's <i>Divided</i> "an absolutely compelling read" and Today's book of poetry couldn't agree more.</div>
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<u>Von Frisch's <i>Ten Little Housemates</i></u></div>
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The housefly he calls a trim little creature. A man</div>
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would have to leap from the Westminister Bridge</div>
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to the top of Big Ben to compete with the flea.</div>
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All living creatures are equal in the great law</div>
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of life, he writes. Even bedbugs. Lice can carry</div>
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two thousand time their body weight with their forefeet.</div>
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Cockroaches are a community that has come down</div>
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in the world. Silverfish, entirely harmles sugar guests.</div>
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The spider's actions differ in detail according to the weaver's</div>
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character. In gnats, the organs of flight have reached a high </div>
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level of perfection. We cannot blame the tick for her bloodthirstiness.</div>
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Anyone who has to hatch a few thousand eggs deserves a good meal.</div>
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Moths are useful scavengers. What else would happen</div>
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to all the decaying hair and feathers that disnintergrate so slowly?</div>
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Von Frisch's little housemates are extraordinary, in their own way</div>
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exceptional. At the end of each affectionate chapter</div>
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he recommends in equally good-natured tone and detail</div>
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how each could best be exterminated.</div>
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💥💥💥 </div>
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Today's book of poetry had some standards blasting out of the box in our office this morning, Coltrane's <i>A Love Supreme,</i> Anita Baker, some Gil Scott Heron. That sort of tone.</div>
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<i>Divided</i> is presented in four sections which include the closest inspections of the beetle, anthropod and arachnid worlds, accounts of women who were pioneers in their scientific fields, accounts of the first balloon flight (untethered) and an account of the first descents into our oceans. Linda Frank even shares some elements of her own story. </div>
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What Today's book of poetry enjoy most is the consistency of Frank's voice, she can hold a note. Linda Frank's poems all come at the reader in the same way, as revelations. Frank uncovers truths we previously never questioned. All of this good. But for you poetry monsters the most important question is "does it burn?"</div>
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Damned straight. Today's book of poetry has never seen this particular manner of cooking before but we'd sure like to get our hands on the recipe. Frank goes all poetry-Julia Child poetry wise and botanically bent. <i>Divided</i> not only makes the reader feel smart and smarter, <i>Divided</i> makes the reader truly curious.</div>
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<u>Falling Stars</u></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">CAROLINE hERSCHEL, 1750-1848</span></div>
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Every night up on the flat roof</div>
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over the hayloft</div>
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the great man's sister</div>
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with her telescope, hunting</div>
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for wanderers</div>
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messengers that enter the solar system.</div>
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Every night up on the flat roof</div>
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over the hayloft</div>
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in thrall to the polished lens</div>
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sweeping the sky for comets.</div>
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The great man's sister</div>
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minded the heavens.</div>
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No longer such a lonely thing</div>
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to open one's eyes.</div>
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Every impulse of light exploding.</div>
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Only thirty "hairy stars" ever recorded</div>
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and she, the Lady's Comet Hunter</div>
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alone and free up on the flat roof</div>
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over the hayloft</div>
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found eight in a dozen years.</div>
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She knew those distant stars ceased to exist</div>
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millions of years ago.</div>
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Her starry night, her stellar landscape</div>
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not really there at all.</div>
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Light travels long</div>
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after the heavenly body is gone.</div>
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Her sky, so full of ghosts.</div>
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💥💥💥 </div>
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Today's book of poetry so enjoyed Linda Frank's <i>Divided</i>. We've tasked Thomas, our new Assistant Editor with procurring Frank's three other poetry titles. Poetry this exciting and enlighting is juat a full stop pleasure but it doesn't happen by accident. Today's book of poetry would bet our fortune that Frank's other poetry titles delight as well.</div>
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Frank invites the reader into gardens of wonder, deep into the dark sea, and delightfully into an ocean of tulips that decorate an Ottoman rulers pleasure and obsession. These are all worthy adventures, experienced through a particularly sharp lens.</div>
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Today's book of poetry can only begin to imagine what Linda Frank's reading list must look like. These poems required both difficult magic to conger and encyclopedic dexterity to imagine. This sort of mastery can only from a poet a the top of the game.</div>
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<u>Dragonfly</u></div>
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The Devil's darning needle, ear sewer, eye poker, ear cutter,</div>
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eye snatcher. Horse stringer. Troll's spindle.</div>
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The adder's servant, it follows</div>
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snakes around and stitches them up when they are injured.</div>
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August god, lady of the weeping willow, widow skimmer,</div>
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water witch. The Devil's little horse sent by Satan</div>
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to create chaos</div>
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to steal people's souls.</div>
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💥💥💥</div>
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Here is the new deal. Today's book of poetry will personaly vouch for any purchase of Linda Frank's <i>Divided. </i>If any of you poetry monsters buy this book and are dissapointed - you have our address, send your copy to us and we'll refund your money.</div>
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That's how good Linda Frank's burn feels.</div>
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Salute.</div>
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<img alt="Image result for linda frank photo" src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59af009ff9a61e682acbfc1b/t/5a1c351d71c10b644bde4e67/1512665570032/Linda+Frank+-+PC+Caitlin+Burgess.jpg?format=1500w" /></div>
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Linda Frank</div>
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(Photo curtesy of Wolsak & Wynn)</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
<a href="https://www.wolsakandwynn.ca/authors-all/linda-frank">Linda Frank</a> was born in Montreal and now lives in Hamilton, Ontario. A retired professor from Mohawk College, she has written three books of poetry:<i> Cobalt Moon Embrace, Insomnie Blues</i> and <i>Kahlo: The World Split Open</i>, which was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award. She is a past winner of the Banff Centre's Bliss Carman Poetry Award and has been shortlisted for the National Magazine Awards.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>BLURBS</b></span></div>
<a href="https://www.thespec.com/news-story/8737125-divided-we-fall-for-linda-frank-s-poetry/#.W0aoUs4VRdc.facebook">Divided, we fall ... for Linda Frank’s poetry</a><br />
“Wonderstruck by nature and science, [Frank] uses them beautifully in this book to draw out the most myriad and finely observed insights, on everything from sexual politics and bedroom intimacy (or the lack of it) to species extinction, the swiftness of life, religion, control, capture, the call of the wild and children."<br />
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- Jeff Mahoney, The Hamilton Spectator<br />
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<a href="https://crowgirl11.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/4-women-with-new-books-of-poems/">4 Women with New Books of Poems!</a><br />
"This is a vital text as there is not a single piece in here that doesn’t consider other life forms than the human. […] These pieces are more than worth an embedding in your empathetic core."<br />
- Catherine Owen, Marrow Reviews</div>
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<a href="http://hamiltonreviewofbooks.com/zachary-thompson-reviews-linda-franks-divided-and-amanda-jernigans-years-months-and-days">A Review of Amanda Jernigan's Years, Months, and Days and Linda Frank's Divided</a><br />
"None of [her] interpretations are ever in conflict with one another. Rather, they enhance an already dense set of poems by offering sundry entry points. In a time where much popular poetry resembles candid notebook entries or performative tantrums, Frank's poems arrive refreshingly and consolingly classroom-ready."<br />
- Zachary Thompson, Hamilton Review of Books</div>
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<a href="http://wolsakandwynn.ca/">wolsakandwynn.ca</a></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;">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</span><span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;"> other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.</span></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-7053749723898623652020-02-07T10:08:00.002-08:002020-02-07T10:08:43.173-08:00Silence Like Another Name - John Levy (Otata's Bookshelf)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">Silence Like Another Name. </b>John Levy. Otata's Bookshelf. Otatablog.wordpress.com. 2019.<br />
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Today's book of poetry is taking another stab at the poetry of John Levy. <i>Silence Like Another Name</i> is another brilliant flight of character appropriation, time travel and driftwood.</div>
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Today's book of poetry wrote about John Levy's <i>On Its Edge, Tilted </i>(Otatat's Bookshelf), back in June of last year and you can see that here:</div>
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<a href="http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2019/06/on-its-edge-tilted-john-levy-otatas.html">http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2019/06/on-its-edge-tilted-john-levy-otatas.html</a></div>
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Levy is a special sort of magician, hypnotist, slight of time trickster. One minute he's standing beside Diane Arbus and being photographic, moments later Anthony Bourdain cooks his last meal. John Levy uses cultural icons and celebrity to help weigh the moment, as a diving board, a particular short-cut to your brain - and once there he jackknives right into your poetry sense of ability.</div>
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<u>How Diane Arbus Would've Photographed Me</u></div>
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Say she happens to be in Tampa when my</div>
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family is staying at a hotel there. Summer of</div>
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'58, which makes me</div>
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six or seven. She's out by the pool.</div>
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She likes pools, just as she likes beaches</div>
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and nudist camps, and positions herself</div>
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near the steps at the shallow end as I begin to</div>
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climb out. Surprised by the fully-clothed woman</div>
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with a big black camera around her neck I</div>
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stop, one foot on a higher step, water dripping down my face,</div>
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thin arms drooping at my sides. I have my mouth open</div>
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for that first photo, the one</div>
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she exhibits, as I look</div>
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into her camera</div>
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with no thought in my head that I should do</div>
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anything with the face I forget all about.</div>
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💥💥💥</div>
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John Levy has the serious burn and we are happy to have him aboard. Dexter Gordon would be proud of what Levy is cooking, Levy might even get Miles to smile. Levy invites everyone to the world inside his poems, he invites them to play, to live it out like a tapestry of how it could be. </div>
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Levy writes letters to the characters he admires and employs, he admits himself directly into their lives. This is marvelous poetry magic. Today's book of poetry admires the voices Levy is able to conger at will, he inhabits them enough to be poetry truthful. </div>
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At this point a brisk solo by Louis Armstrong, listen closely, Levy is in there.</div>
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<u>Occasionally</u></div>
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when I am reading a book and have</div>
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my hand on the page I notice my hand</div>
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as if it belonged somewhere</div>
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else, or to some other</div>
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being. Knuckles, veins, fingers,</div>
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skin, color, all peculiar and</div>
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as if also</div>
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by an author I'll never meet.</div>
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💥💥💥</div>
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<i>Silence Like Another Name</i> invokes experience as a saintly charm. Collectively these poems have a strong effect on the reader, the reader feels experienced. Levy isn't afraid of the big question so death strolls in and out of the pages just like in real life.</div>
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Levy mentions a rainy day in Ljubljana and a poor poet writing his last poem there. Today's book of poetry is lucky enough to have been in Ljubljana. Then it clicked for Today's book of poetry, how appropriate - Levy's poems give Today's book of poetry the same sense of light-headed glee and mystery glow as our trip to that beautiful city. </div>
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In our first night in Ljubljana we were with family and friends. We choose a resturant with a patio, the weather was excellent, we were seated as though we were old friends of the chef, we had excellent wine and excellent food and just as we were about to enjoy our excellent deserts the sky opened with fireworks. It felt like the fireworks had been arranged and orchestrated just for us. John Levy's <i>Silence Like Another Name</i> presents dire from time to time but Today's book of poetry felt optimism in the air with these poems, much like Ljubljana.</div>
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<u>"Death frequents the poems..."</u></div>
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John Wilson writes, in an Introduction</div>
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to a book of essays on Robert</div>
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Creely, of Creeley's later</div>
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poems. The entire</div>
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sentence</div>
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reads</div>
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"Death frequents the poems, but the intense</div>
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loneliness</div>
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of the earlier poetry</div>
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has subsided." Of course those are my</div>
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line breaks. The use of</div>
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<i>frequents</i></div>
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as a verb</div>
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isn't</div>
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unusual, but somehow</div>
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gets to me. Wilson</div>
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continues and quotes</div>
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part of a poem by Creely about his late</div>
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mother, "Mother's Voice." Creely begins</div>
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by saying it has only been a few yearss</div>
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since she died and he can hear her</div>
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say "I wont want</div>
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any more of that." Paraphrase</div>
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the poem. No.</div>
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Creely has been dead</div>
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more than a few years now (I'm writing</div>
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in June 2018, so more than 13.) I saw him</div>
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twice, once in Canada giving a reading and then</div>
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30 years later in Tucson giving another. Now</div>
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he</div>
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frequents death, if it makes any sense</div>
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to use that verb.</div>
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I bought every book of his and</div>
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double copies of several, thinking</div>
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I'd use one to mess up with notes</div>
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and leave its double pristine. I always wanted</div>
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more of what he offers, still do. Where</div>
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he frequents, in his poems, doesn't</div>
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subside. At 66 I recall being about 21</div>
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in a small house in Seattle that someone made</div>
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into a bookstore. Alone in a room I found</div>
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a copy of <i>For Love</i>, a book I already owned,</div>
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and opened it again, facing the</div>
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corner, and while I can't remember</div>
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the specific poems I chose to enter I see its</div>
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cover,</div>
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still </div>
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hold it open.</div>
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💥💥💥</div>
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We should all pay such lovely homage to our heros, to those whose steps we now try to follow. Today's book of poetry thinks everyone should read some John Levy. Start with <i>Silence Like Another Name</i> and then, like me, start hunting for the rest. The man can burn.</div>
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Today's blog/review was written with Sacramento poet Richard Lopez and Norwegian poet Dag T.<br />Straumsvåg in mind. Both of these men swim beatifully in the same waters as John Levy, we should all be so lucky.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSyvRcIzK3nHaO2v2ZJlzcXzs_dWVhcE7fI22MIyy8CbtoWDbx9a1C-Tfi6tbUIZ9uznsaZWmudJTYtvQdILzu9OCrnOjf34g9BExCL10G2gKi5TFJwtUvsp_cIiRkaoSJj9Npm6m8orw/s1600/0.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSyvRcIzK3nHaO2v2ZJlzcXzs_dWVhcE7fI22MIyy8CbtoWDbx9a1C-Tfi6tbUIZ9uznsaZWmudJTYtvQdILzu9OCrnOjf34g9BExCL10G2gKi5TFJwtUvsp_cIiRkaoSJj9Npm6m8orw/s320/0.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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John Levy</div>
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(Photo by Paul Matthews)</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
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<tr><td width="36%">John Levy was born in Minneapolis. His father, a businessman, went to law school at the age of 45 and then opened his own law firm (and later began a solo practice). Levy's mother is a sculptor and painter.<br />
When Levy was a young boy, his family moved to Phoenix. His first exposure to poetry was in the sixth grade, when his older brother began playing recordings of Dylan Thomas reading his poetry.</td></tr>
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Later, Levy began to read e. e. cummings and at age 15, after finding a book of William Carlos Williams poems, began writing poems.</div>
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Levy graduated from Oberlin College in 1974. He worked in a factory that summer and earned the money to fly to Kyoto, where he lived for a year and a half. For six months he worked as a waiter and dishwasher with the American poet Cid Corman in a coffee and ice cream shop Corman had started with his wife Shizumi. He briefly returned to Arizona in early 1976, where he was a poet-in-residence at a private school (K - 12) for a month, having been awarded a grant by an arts commission. Levy then moved to Paris where he lived for just over a year, earning his living by babysitting a young Canadian boy and by working as a personal secretary for a retired diplomat.</div>
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Levy published his first collection of poetry, <em>Suppose a Man</em>, at the invitation of James L. Weil, publisher of The Elizabeth Press. Weil also published Levy's second collection, <em>Among the Consonants</em> (in 1980), and Weil became a generous and supportive friend until his death in 2006.</div>
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In 1980 Levy moved to Tucson and continues to live there. After moving to Tucson, he worked as a carpenter with a high school friend who had started his own construction company. From 1983 to 1985, Levy moved to Meligalas, Greece where he taught English as a second language at private language schools in Kalamata. After returning to the United States, Levy took up the study of law in 1988 at the University of Arizona College of Law. After graduation, he clerked at the Court of Appeals (1991-1992), then undertook a solo practice for three years (doing both criminal and civil work). He then joined a small firm that specialized in plaintiff's securities fraud class action cases. In 1997 Levy joined the Pima County Public Defender's Office, where he has worked in the felony trial division (except for a nine-month stint in the appellate unit).</div>
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Levy's poetry has appeared in various poetry magazines in the United States and in England, and has been anthologized in <em>How the Net Is Gripped </em>(Stride Press, 1992) and <em>A Curious Architecture: A Selection of Contemporary Prose Poems </em>(Stride Press, 1996), both anthologies edited by Rupert Loydell & David Miller.</div>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b>804</b></span></div>
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<b style="color: red; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-align: center;">DISCLAIMERS</b></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2px; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2px; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;">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</span><span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;"> other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2px; text-align: center;">
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 14px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 18.2px;"><b>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"</b></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 14px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 18.2px;"><b>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.</b></span></span></div>
</div>
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<br />Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-89648646719227094582020-02-05T11:58:00.000-08:002020-02-05T11:58:37.976-08:00Doubter's Hymnal - Laura Cok (Mansfield Press)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">Doubter's Hymnal. </b>Laura Cok. Mansfield Press. Toronto, Ontario. 2019.<br />
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<i>Doubter's Hymnal</i> is a coming of age song that questions faith, looks at family life, and makes readers sit straight up. If there is a God he is a shadowy creature.</div>
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Laura Cok's manifesto is a stern examination of where faith meets practice. The intersection is frantic with electricity and sombre as prayer.</div>
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Today's book of poetry was pushed to the edges of our understanding, we were also kept riveted. Cok's poems move across the page with admirable precision. If these poems were cakes - the icing would be perfect.</div>
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<u>Needle</u></div>
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I was happy so of course</div>
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I looked for something to ruin</div>
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some proof that disaster</div>
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was already knit too many rows back</div>
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to unravel and save</div>
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the slipped stitch, the blinked-open gap</div>
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to poke a finger through and widen</div>
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what comes through is daylight</div>
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from another room and the water</div>
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running in another kitchen sink</div>
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where another pair of soapy hands</div>
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are lifting it up,</div>
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twisting out the water,</div>
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wringing its soft neck.</div>
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💥💥💥</div>
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Laura Cok bends time in<i> Doubter's Hymnal,</i> she invests time in divesting all the traditional party tricks of their reason, she challenges both faith and fate. When called upon Cok provides a "cure for loneliness" and does reap both an answer and some questions. Today's book of poetry is making <i>Doubter's Hymnal</i> sound far more complicated than it is.</div>
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<i>Doubter's Hymnal</i> has Cok making it crystal clear in every poem, these poems have both intention and direction.</div>
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<u>Seven Brief Lessons on Physics</u></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> with thanks to Carlo Rovelli</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF THEORIES </span></div>
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Time passes more quickly in the mountains.</div>
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Not a romanticism, but a fact --</div>
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the higher you are, the faster it all goes.</div>
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Down in the desert there is a fraction of a fraction more.</div>
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You could wander out along and see</div>
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the curvature of space streaking overhead.</div>
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The Milky Way like a veil pulled back.</div>
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Behind it, another veil.</div>
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💥💥💥</div>
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Today's book of poetry found themselves fully engaged, fully completely, as Saint Gordon of Downie suggested to us all. The Today's book of poetry minions sat down to our morning reading and cracked through <i>Doubter's Hymnal </i>with agile reverence.</div>
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Today's book of poetry will surpass 800,000 readers sometime later this week, we were sitting at 794,000 earlier today. That is a lot of poetry monsters and every one of you is welcome. Today's book of poetry is currently expanding our offices. We've had a moderate but steady improvement in our office machinery, we've been able to retire our Commodore 16. We're feeling optimistic and plucky.</div>
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Laura Cok helped.</div>
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<u>Tide Over</u></div>
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I'm thinking all the time what it'd be like,</div>
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the belly swollen, tidal turn moon.</div>
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One cup a day, then decaf, watching you</div>
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brew separate pots, since this is the one thing</div>
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I'll have to do alone. Not absentee:</div>
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you'd be there for each grainy ultrasound,</div>
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each diaper class, the baby <span style="font-size: x-small;">CPR.</span></div>
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But when the foot kicks out there's only one</div>
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soft bladder it connects with. Flesh distraught,</div>
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my breasts unrecognizable to both.</div>
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Small alien that's chosen me for host.</div>
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Skin taut, now loose, in this, the great exhaling.</div>
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Sea-change inside, moon-conjured, amniotic,</div>
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first creature that could wash to shore and crawl.</div>
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💥💥💥</div>
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Laura Cok surprised Today's book of poetry in the best possible poetry way. <i>Doubter's Hymnal </i>is never terse, but these poems have been worked whippet thin. Nothing left but muscle.</div>
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Laura Cok</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
Laura Cok is a writer and editor based in Toronto, Ontario. Originally from Northern California, she spent time in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Waterloo, Ontario before settling in Toronto. She holds an MA in English Literature from the University of Toronto, winner of the E.J. Pratt Poetry Medal and the University of Toronto Magazine alumni poetry contest. Cok has previously published widely across Canada and works in corporate communications.<br /><div style="text-align: left;">
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<a href="http://mansfieldpress.net/"> mansfieldpress.net</a></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-79380813349525707472020-02-02T10:47:00.000-08:002020-02-02T11:19:22.866-08:00Acacia Road - Aaron Brown (Silverfish Review Press)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">Acacia Road. </b>Aaron Brown. Silverfish Review Press. Eugene, Oregon. 2018.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Winner of the 2016 Gerald Cable Book Award</b></span><br />
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Last night Today's book of poetry found ourselves at Aaron Brown's <i>Acacia Road.</i> We'd been there before when we first read Brown's poems. Most of <i>Acacia Road</i> either occurs in Chad, Africa, or is a memory of an experience Aaron Brown had while living in Chad. Born in Texas but his family moved to Chad when he was young, he is back in America now, and the emotional pull of the great continent is in every word Brown puts on the page. Brown's poems are in English but the reader soon sees that Brown is speaking a language of his own.</div>
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<i>Acacia Road</i> is cinematic and often joyous in the rich and complicated splendor of Brown's African experience. Literally and unabashedly Brown shares mango inspired sugar-high romps of memoir, and then the shells begin to drop. Machine gun fire.</div>
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<u>Maternal</u></div>
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when I see you again</div>
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what will we say</div>
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to each other</div>
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my Chadian grandmother</div>
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you brought me</div>
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spiced and steaming coffee</div>
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you made me sit and drink</div>
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your eyes proud of who</div>
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I was becoming</div>
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a <i>rajil</i> you said so emphatically</div>
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the same eyes with which</div>
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you gazed at your blood-son</div>
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your youngest given to you</div>
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in husband's memory</div>
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conceived before they took your love</div>
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and shot him at the outskirts</div>
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your Madri would grow</div>
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to care for you in old age</div>
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to provide for his brothers</div>
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who couldn't find a job</div>
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for drink and lounging around</div>
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but he was taken too</div>
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dead from his motorcycle</div>
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and what must you say</div>
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to the shriveled tree</div>
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in your backyard</div>
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the one under which you sit</div>
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pouring coffee for guests</div>
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serving them sweet biscuits and dates</div>
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💥💥💥 </div>
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Aaron Brown's childhood ended in synchronization with a neighbouring war, violent rebel activity and a hasty but necessary farewell to Chad. As an adult back in America he bids his memory into action trying to remember the names of his African friends and family. It seems they both fill Brown with joy and the harrowing realization that time chips away at all, the memory fades.</div>
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Brown is looking for some sort of redemption and these poems are his evidence and his prayer. To get memory right, make it true, you sometimes have to take the long way around.</div>
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<u>Acacia Road</u></div>
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From thirteen thousand feet, the twisting acacias -- thirsty thorn-trees reaching</div>
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a web of fingers up to the sky, into the earth -- look like shrubs</div>
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shriveled under the sun seeming so distant, yet so present with its heat.</div>
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Streams of cattle ridge like ocean waves across the plains, the sleek</div>
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and sheen of their backs, ants' exoskeletons, labor for miles</div>
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to the burst of brush beyond the endless nagga. Rising from earth</div>
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mountains pepper the plain: mounds of rocks, marbles of God, pile high</div>
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above dom trees whose black seeds clump like fistfuls of obsidian --</div>
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when they fall they make the sound of a bullet rushing through a dust devil,</div>
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rushing to the point of impact in the sand silencing</div>
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the sound of lead. From thirteen thousand feet, I wonder if a shepherd</div>
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roaming the road remembers the rebel trucks that breathed death</div>
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into the dust, clouding the air with sandgrain, cloaking black barrels of kalashes</div>
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aimed across a land I now study, five years later through the plexiglass,</div>
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a land sucked dry, flying to the town at the world's edge, the place no soldier</div>
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would go. The circles of huts and thatch swell as the empty oxbows</div>
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wind a road to follow -- a road that breaks at carcasses of colonial homes</div>
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and people streaming in polyester gold and deep azure sky --</div>
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and somewhere, down there, a three-part gate along chari kabir stands</div>
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as the entry to mine, but to find it, turn at the broken cement mixer,</div>
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the one left lying abandoned by a truck traversing the desert so far it makes</div>
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light its load, casting off the disrepaired, losing its cargo piece by piece.</div>
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💥💥💥</div>
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Today's book of poetry was in, hook, line and sinker, the first time we read <i>Acacia Road.</i> With each subsequent reading more was revealed. Aaron Brown is willing to take his time, he is a natural story teller. We had Dexter Gordon on the box this morning, <i>Tanya. </i>Simply one of the best songs in the jazz canon. The mood seemed to fit our office reading of <i>Acacia Road</i>. Sophisticated, emotional and always just a little cool.</div>
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Aaron Brown can burn and Today's book of poetry is happy to share.</div>
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<u>Tuareg Prayer</u></div>
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Twenty years you waited for me to believe</div>
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in the same God as you -- you, travelling</div>
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by horsecart with the rest of us, pitching</div>
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your tent next to the rainy-season-filled</div>
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pond, the gum trees sapping tears for our poverty.</div>
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We followed rain clouds. You followed us.</div>
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Showing us love. We showed you ours.</div>
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Now, as the meat on my bones passes</div>
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through death's teeth, will you remember me?</div>
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Will you, during the rainwind afternoons,</div>
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think of the date-tree shade and the tea</div>
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we shared? Will you think of our children</div>
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growing up together with the goats,</div>
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rolling bike tires with sticks</div>
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and singing to the full moon?</div>
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You have waited for me this long.</div>
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Now I ask you to hold out a little while</div>
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longer -- until the millet stalks have grown</div>
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past your shoulder, and the camels come</div>
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back from the north.</div>
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Then, you too will close your eyes</div>
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one last time when the sun is at its hottest</div>
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and your belly full of camel meat.</div>
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On the other side, you will walk</div>
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the twisting path between the knife-tipped bush.</div>
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You will find me at the entrance</div>
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to the camp, waiting for you,</div>
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waiting to go in together.</div>
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💥💥💥</div>
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When we got to the last verse of "Tuareg Prayer" during our morning read, there wasn't a dry eye in the place. We even heard a sniffle from the office where it is rumoured Max lives. Full points all around for Aaron Brown's sublime <i>Acacia Road.</i></div>
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Brown proves that poetry is the best way to travel.</div>
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<img alt="Image result for aaron brown poet photo"" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEg_mC-GBiDzKF5Cx3SuNtHsQwEH5iBa9Uvgiodd0LGpnQCj7iBv0c5lqYa8D9-ARHOYbxLIu6lau8st0OS450EB2RscpLKw2Ff-iK7U9g2WRDLaKoR9AhLqAXnMPBiSlM3xf4_bCgliWx5Ssks40SBa5qmmBNFENSPAS35FzH0KhXSsmE6qCQCIZDLb=" /></div>
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Aaron Brown</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
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Born in Texas and raised in Chad, Aaron Brown is the author of the poetry collection, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Acacia-Road-Gerald-Cable-Awards/dp/1878851691">Acacia Road</a>, winner of the 2016 Gerald Cable Book Award (Silverfish Review Press). He has been published in World Literature Today, Tupelo Quarterly, Waxwing, Cimarron Review, and Transition, among others, and he is a contributing editor for Windhover and blogs regularly for Ruminate. Brown now lives in Texas, where he is a professor of English and directs the writing center at LeTourneau University. He holds an MFA from the University of Maryland.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>BLURBS</b></span></div>
"<i>Acacia Road</i> is a vivid, brilliant, and haunting memory palace, evoking Aaron Brown's childhood spent in Chad on the cusp of its civil war, and while at times the 'second space' of recollection, seems idyllic, the sound of shelling and gunfire, and news of human violence is never far away."<br />
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- Michael Collier<br />
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"These poems proceed by an earnest story-telling and remembering. And while the surfaces of the poems are characterized by skillful narrative and descriptive impulses, underpinning most of them runs a deeper agon and self-critique, uncovering both a fear of and a relentless thirst for the ecstatic. These poems embody, at their best, that thirst."</div>
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- Li-Young Lee<br />
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"Aaron Brown’s poetry is beautifully written and has a strong sense of description, thus transforming the ordinary into exquisite, blissful bits of writing. From the precious time spent with friends come these poems in which not a particular geographic region, but the land of youth, generosity and love is the true mother country so longed for." </div>
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-African Book Review<br />
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"Aaron Brown’s <i>Acacia Road</i> moves between the past and the present, and the known and the unknown, wandering the rooms of memory and the knowledge of the body. But <i>Acacia Road</i> also evokes real places, full of real lives and hard lessons, deeply felt and evocatively rendered. The narratives in this book resist easy certainty, and the images suggest how distance is both a measure of miles, and an important emotional register, as a cloud-like voice rises up to say, 'pay attention / or you will / miss your destination.' And these poems do pay close attention. To language—'I knew how to sing a little.' To time—'then and only then could we share a kind of silence, the pause between one cup of tea and the next.' And, ultimately, to the questions that remain for all of us as we travel together: 'Now, as the meat on my bones passes through death’s teeth, will you remember me?' One way I measure the impact of a book is in my desire to start over again when I am finished, and it was a deep pleasure to turn and return to the mysterious and familiar roads of these richly imagined poems." </div>
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-Jenny Browne<br />
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"<i>Acacia Road</i> is a collection I want to return to and hold my ear against. I swear, you can hear the silence violence brings about, splintering."</div>
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- Collateral Journal<br />
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<a href="mailto:sfrpress@earthlink.net">sfrpress@earthlink.net</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><b>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.</b></span></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-61537657895274218532020-01-31T07:26:00.000-08:002020-01-31T08:27:33.577-08:00Reunion - Deanna Young (Brick Books)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">Reunion. </b>Deanna Young. Brick Books. London, Ontario. 2018.<br />
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Deanna Young is the Poet Laureate of Ottawa, the city Today's book of poetry calls home. Today's book of poetry has been lucky enough to feature Young once before when we looked at her excellent <i>House Dreams</i> (Brick Books, 2014). That blog/review can be seen here:</div>
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<a href="http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2014/12/house-dreams-deanna-young-brick-books.html">http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2014/12/house-dreams-deanna-young-brick-books.html</a></div>
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More recently, meaning a few months ago, I had the great pleasure of doing a House Reading with Deanna here in Vanier. Deanna was monster good and the crowd knew it.</div>
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So I now know Deanna Young, just a little bit.</div>
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Which brings us to <i>Reunion</i>, the latest from Deanna Young. <i>Reunion</i> is a brave book, startlingly candid. You will be haunted by these poems.</div>
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<u>Girl at Home</u></div>
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There is always the fear</div>
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of emerging from the bathroom, towel-wrapped</div>
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to encounter a man</div>
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who's been listening for the clunk</div>
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of taps choked off, the shush</div>
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of water stopped.</div>
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When she peers into the hallway</div>
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-- even decades later -- and he is not,</div>
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thank God, there, still</div>
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she braces</div>
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for the dash to the bedroom,</div>
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droplets fleeing from her ankles.</div>
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What's that?</div>
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You've heard this before,</div>
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dear reader? This old complaint?</div>
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Perhaps</div>
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you should leave us then.</div>
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As I was saying.</div>
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Let us bow our heads</div>
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in silence now</div>
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for the morning she stepped</div>
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from behind the plastic curtain</div>
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to find drawn in the steam</div>
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of the vanity mirror</div>
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a message:</div>
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<i>I see you're a woman now.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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Anytime I want, is what he meant.</div>
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💥💥💥</div>
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<i>Reunion</i> is memory rendered nightmare. Fear, the deadening, under your skin fear that comes from living with threat, twenty-four hour, "Anytime I want" fear. These powerhouse poems go back and forth in time to become both history and memoir, both a confession and a litany of other's sins.</div>
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<i>Reunion</i> takes place mostly in the most terrible place on earth, the home you live in - turned into a crypt, a torture chamber, a threat.</div>
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Ultimately <i>Reunion</i> is a story of redemption through poetry. None of us can fully realize the terror that inspired these poems. But it seems that Young's poems are written from the other side of grief.</div>
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Young has emerged on the other side of these travesties with a gift. These poems are all the evidence you need. <i>Reunion</i> is top tier stuff, Today's book of poetry is convinced that <i>Reunion</i> is as good as any poetry we've read this past year.</div>
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<u>Visit, 4:00 a.m.</u></div>
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Last night my father</div>
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showed up in my dream.</div>
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I knew him by his back and wide shoulders.</div>
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His head of curly black hair</div>
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none of us inherited.</div>
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We were doing this dance,</div>
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he and I, among rooms</div>
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that were all connected, in a circle.</div>
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Him unwilling to face me</div>
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and me, indignant.</div>
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My son was at the table</div>
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doing homework.</div>
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My father would stop his roaming</div>
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to peer over the boy's shoulder</div>
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and then move on.</div>
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I kept watch</div>
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from behind the glass of my dream.</div>
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I knew I was there.</div>
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My son bent over his work</div>
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unaware of the ghost. I did not believe</div>
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he was in any danger.</div>
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I watched only</div>
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for any sign of love</div>
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for the boy</div>
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who looks so much</div>
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like me at eight.</div>
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I don't think I'll see him again.</div>
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My father rarely spoke to me,</div>
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never met my eyes</div>
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if he could help it.</div>
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He never touched me</div>
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either -- I just want to make that</div>
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perfectly clear --</div>
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not after the time</div>
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he lifted me from my crib</div>
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and threw me at the wall</div>
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like a cat.</div>
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As a brutalized man</div>
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does a cat.</div>
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My young mother</div>
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who had, until recently, never known violence,</div>
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rushing in, blood vessels bursting</div>
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around her eyes,</div>
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a kitchen knife.</div>
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The ensuing scene.</div>
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💥💥💥</div>
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Some of these horrors are familiar territory for Today's book of poetry.<i> Reunion</i> is the authentic reveal. Frankenstein's monster does throw the young girl in the well. What makes this journey splendid for the reader is that Deanna Young's voice is so real, read true, it comes across as a whisper that children share when they are hiding, and it comes across like an angry murder of crows.</div>
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Today's book of poetry takes our hat off to Deanna Young, <i>Reunion</i> shines in spite of the torments that inspired it, in spite of the torments the reader inherits. Deanna Young burns and Today's book of poetry couldn't be happier to bring <i>Reunion</i> to all you poetry monsters.</div>
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<u>Recrimination</u></div>
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I stand here this April morning, dear citizens</div>
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of Biddulph, and swear this truth: the cries</div>
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that ran through that house were unholy, the clamour</div>
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you heard and harm you suspected, the marks</div>
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on the arms of my mother, your call to action.</div>
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And yet you stood by. You closed your drapes</div>
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and extinguished your lamps. In the morning,</div>
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mist hung in the air, as it does her today, a lamentation</div>
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risen from the lawn. And was your blood so chilled</div>
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that thoughts of children dwelling in that</div>
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yellow house on George Street could not</div>
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unstop the fair accusations in your throats?</div>
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Could not one of you have gone to him, and said,</div>
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<i>John, this is wrong.</i> Were you not duty-bound</div>
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to knock at the door of that madness?</div>
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I am looking at all of you here today, a blanket of light</div>
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draped over us at this crossroads, the sun still rising.</div>
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Go home with these thoughts in your minds.</div>
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And blessings be eternal on any of you who did</div>
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step forward then -- the righteous. Though I did not</div>
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know you, I am here by your kindness. In the name</div>
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of the mother, the daughters, and the small black dog.</div>
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💥💥💥</div>
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Today's post is #801 for Today's book of poetry and we had been considering closing up shop to have more time for own writing projects. But books like Deanna Young's marvelous, brave and harrowing <i>Reunion</i> bring a shot in the poetry arm to Today's book of poetry. It is good to be reminded why Today's book of poetry believes in poetry.</div>
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<i>Reunion</i> will take a deserved place in the pantheon.</div>
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<img src="https://www.brickbooks.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Deanna-Young_photo-by-Alice-Young-2018-300x450.jpg" /></div>
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Deanna Young</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
Deanna Young’s previous books include <i>House Dreams,</i> nominated for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry, the Ottawa Book Award, the Archibald Lampman Award and the ReLit Award, and Drunkard’s Path. Young grew up in southwestern Ontario during the 1970s and ’80s.<i> Reunion</i>, her fourth collection, belongs to that place and time. She now lives in Ottawa, where she works as an editor and teaches poetry privately.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>BLURB</b></span></div>
“Each of Deanna Young’s spare, pitch-perfect poems seems to contain a novel. Young weaves in and out of time, playing with perspective, to illuminate experience…. This is a poetry that makes memory sharper, consciousness larger, life longer in all directions.”<br />
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—Jury, Trillium Book Award for Poetry</div>
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<a href="http://brickbooks.ca/">brickbooks.ca</a></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b>801</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small;"><b style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px;">DISCLAIMER</b></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4;"></span></span><br />
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<div style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><b>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.</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 11px; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><b>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"</b></span></div>
<div style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><b>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.</b></span></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-25448419072288087702020-01-28T10:46:00.001-08:002020-01-28T10:46:37.399-08:00Gloss - Rebecca Hazelton (University of Wisconsin Press)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">Gloss. </b>Rebecca Hazelton. University of Wisconsin Press. Madison, Wisconsin. 2019.<br />
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<img alt="Image result for gloss rebecca hazelton" height="640" src="https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/images-pk/S19/Hazelton-Gloss-c.jpg" width="426" /></div>
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Marcus Wicker calls the poems in Rebecca Hazelton's <i>Gloss</i> "wise, sexy, well-tuned language machines." Now that is a line Today's book of poetry wishes we'd come up with ourselves. </div>
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Today's book of poetry has visited Rebecca Hazelton's poetry movie before. Back in March of 2014 Today's book of poetry was delighted to hit all you poetry monsters with a look at Hazelton's <i>Bad Star </i>(YesYes Books, 2013). You can read that here:</div>
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<a href="http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2014/03/bad-star-rebecca-hazelton.html">http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2014/03/bad-star-rebecca-hazelton.html</a></div>
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We were convinced that Hazelton could burn when we read <i>Bad Star</i>, but you have to get your hands on <i>Gloss </i>to see what she's cooking now. Today's book of poetry liked Hazelton's <i>Bad Star</i> very much but <i>Gloss</i> is simply at another level. A very splendid level. </div>
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<i>Gloss</i> is precise, emotionally certain and feverishly honest. These poems are so, so tasty. These are adult poems, the more experience the reader has the more these precious-cut diamonds will shine.</div>
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<u>Self-Portrait As A Very Good Day</u></div>
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Behind dark glasses I am enormously present</div>
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wading in a pool of flickering light</div>
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algal at the edges</div>
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like a sick green dream of California</div>
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where dragonflies dip and skim</div>
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the surface of the lightly poisoned water</div>
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some of them</div>
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coupling on the fly</div>
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as if sex weren't already awkward</div>
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when I fuck I hardly levitate at all</div>
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and when I dive</div>
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beneath the water</div>
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I want to be detached</div>
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from the searing world above but how</div>
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does one stop caring</div>
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when there are so many</div>
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voices calling</div>
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where are you where are you</div>
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come up there are snacks</div>
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so I swim back</div>
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to frozen grapes and lemonade</div>
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to the teenaged boys strolling by</div>
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with fishing poles and bait</div>
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while the young girls spin</div>
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on tire swings and scream to go faster</div>
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as if there were some shortage in the world</div>
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of speed or disaster</div>
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💥💥💥</div>
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These poems work like a summer sunburn, forcing you to peel back a layer or two so that Hazelton can test her vocabulary on your tenderest skin. Make no doubt about it, she is going after the real you - and she gets there.</div>
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<i>Gloss</i> comes at you from multiple directions but Hazelton is in every word, embrace, every heart rendered bleeding. Today's book of poetry felt emotionally challenged with Hazelton's magic, we were forced to look closely at ourselves, our faults and our freedoms. <i>Gloss</i> is all over the gender battle, but like most of us, our theories weaken when surrounded by lust.</div>
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Rebecca Hazelton goes there and sets that shit aflame, eloquently. She writes about the heat of the blaze, the burn on the skin, the cold, black and wet ashes left behind.</div>
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<u>When He Is A Woman</u></div>
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When he is a woman I set his hair,</div>
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the brown strands</div>
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exit the comb's teeth</div>
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gold, spill down his shoulders</div>
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to a slender waist I put my hands around</div>
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when I want him to feel small.</div>
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When he is a woman I am a man</div>
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and as a man I am aware</div>
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of how to make his breath catch as I touch</div>
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one freckled breast,</div>
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as I unbuckle</div>
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my buckle with a definitive air.</div>
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When he is a woman the love feels more</div>
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real, his eyelashes more real, his mouth</div>
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like an unkissed girl's more real,</div>
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and I hold to the fiction</div>
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he's never known another's hand</div>
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sliding up his thigh, not this way,</div>
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or another mouth</div>
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speaking these words that glide up his thoughts</div>
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the way a man declares</div>
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a land claimed, and then there's a flag.</div>
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When he is a woman</div>
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I feel optimistic,</div>
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when he is in a dress that suits</div>
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his small frame, when the heels</div>
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he walks in put his round hips to sway,</div>
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all these things make the smoke hover</div>
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above my scotch</div>
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on the rocks.</div>
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In this, as in all things,</div>
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I am traditional.</div>
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💥💥💥</div>
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Today's book of poetry has been sidetracked in recent months by human business, funerals and weddings, the weight of days, and so on. Our intention is to return to our "every other day" format of posting blogs/reviews. Of course Today's book of poetry would like to be taller and sing like Saint Marvin Gaye. None the less we shall be after the gang to pick up the pace.</div>
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We can promise that our enthusiasm has not swayed. Today's book of poetry has a bookcase full of new poetry joys that we are dying to share with you poetry monsters.</div>
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Rebecca Hazelton's <i>Gloss</i> is the 800th blog/review in the Today's book of poetry catalogue. Who knew? Today's book of poetry is lucky to have Hazelton.</div>
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<u>Self-Portrait With Your Head</u></div>
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<u>Between My Legs</u></div>
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Glazed in sweat, I'm in the hot tropics</div>
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of Florida,</div>
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where the geckos Velcro across</div>
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the bedroom window</div>
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on fine invisible hairs,</div>
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where a perfunctory promise</div>
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hangs over us like a broken chandelier</div>
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too heavy</div>
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to dismantle.</div>
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I watch the ceiling</div>
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for cracks, a water stain</div>
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and try to imagine the happy</div>
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kingdom,</div>
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as if I could punch my own ticket</div>
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just by wishing harder</div>
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but the princess sleeps and sleeps.</div>
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Say peach, say plum, say typical</div>
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to split the velvet nap</div>
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with a clumsy thumb:</div>
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so much depends on</div>
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the idea of breakfast in bed</div>
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versus the sloppy practice.</div>
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Rebecca Hazelton's <i>Gloss</i> is just the ticket to get Today's book of poetry back on track. <i>Gloss</i> has everything you want from poetry. If you get inside <i>Gloss</i> it will teach you something about yourself. How often can Today's book of poetry claim that?</div>
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Hazelton's <i>Gloss</i> is as intimate as a kiss, as memorable as a crisp slap in the face.</div>
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<img alt="Image result for gloss rebecca hazelton" height="640" src="https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/images-pk/S19/HazeltonRebecca-2018-c.jpg" width="447" /></div>
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Rebecca Hazelton</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
Rebecca Hazelton is the author of <i>Fair Copy, Vow</i>, and the chapbook <i>Bad Star</i>, and the coeditor of The Manifesto Project. Her poems have appeared in Boston Review, Poetry, and The New Yorker. A two-time Pushcart Prize winner, she is an assistant professor of English at North Central College.<div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>BLURBS</b></span></div>
“A masquerade ball of velvety self-portraiture and a subversive parade of cultural norms recast as light kink. This book playacts its anxieties—gender roles and group texts, suburban mansions and contractual commitments—until the violence that underpins them is spotlighted on stage.”<br /> —Emilia Phillips, author of <i>Empty Clip</i><br />“Funny, irreverent, and searingly honest, Hazelton dares to explore the obligations that we have with one another and with ourselves. And who wouldn’t want to trust the speaker of these poems? In prickly, worldly, and intimate poems, Hazelton’s wit and wisdom urge us to understand beauty in our complicated lives.”<br /> —Oliver de la Paz, author of <i>Post Subject: A Fable</i><br />“These poems are wise, sexy, well-tuned language machines, full of stinging humor and quick-witted swagger, interrogating the highs and lows of cohabitation and maturation. Simply put, <i>Gloss </i>is masterful—a knockout collection I will continue to read, teach, and learn from for years to come.”<br /> —Marcus Wicker, author of <i>Silencer</i><br /><div>
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<a href="http://uwpress.wisc.edu/">uwpress.wisc.edu</a></div>
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<b>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.</b></div>
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<b>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"</b></div>
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<b>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.</b></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-44951470644987961182020-01-15T16:19:00.000-08:002020-01-15T16:19:57.551-08:00Forty-One Objects - Carsten René Nielsen (The Bitter Oleander Press)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Forty-One Objects.</b></span> Carsten René Nielsen. Translated by David Keplinger. The Bitter Oleander Press. Fayetteville, New York. 2019.<br />
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<img alt="FORTY-ONE OBJECTS" src="https://www.spdbooks.org/Content/Site106/ProductImages/9780999327944.jpg" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #3b3131; font-family: &quot; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; max-height: 510px; max-width: 100%; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /></div>
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<i>Forty-One Objects</i> by the Danish poet Carsten René Nielsen, translated by David Keplinger, is one of those books that fills your poetry heart with pure poetry joy. Nielsen writes poems that instantly made Today's book of poetry think of Stuart Ross's surrealist poetry. Stuart Ross, recent winner of the 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize, is Canada's premiere surrealist.</div>
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These poems, like Ross's, are filled to over-flowing with clever leaps of faith, secret wisdom about the inner workings of it all, genuine humour. There is a constant flow of original thinking. With many poets, good and the other kind, the reader often feels the lines and/or subject is one the reader already knows or expects.</div>
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Nielsen doesn't row that way.</div>
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<u>Chalk</u></div>
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I tried to write on the blackboard, but the chalk left no</div>
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trace. As if the board were made out of metal, or the chalk</div>
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were a rusty nail. Not that it mattered. My students were</div>
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sitting, as my students do, silently screaming with closed</div>
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eyes, their hands pressed against their ears. So quiet it was</div>
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in the room, one could hear the insects flying against the</div>
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large windows. Were my eyes two small suns, or was the sun</div>
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shining so brightly that summer that we were all lit up from</div>
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inside? I don't know. It is you who remembers this.</div>
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David Keplinger has done some superb work translating Carsten René Nielsen. This past year Today's book of poetry spent considerable time and joyous effort in an attempt to translate Norway's </div>
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Dag T. Straumsvåg but with very little success. Clearly Keplinger has tools Today's book of poetry doesn't. These translations sound, feel and read as though were written in English first. Keplinger has inhabited Nielsen words until they belong to them both. With two cooks in the kitchen things can often go wrong, not these cats, they both know how to burn.</div>
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<i>Forty-One Objects</i> is excellent evidence of something Today's book of poetry has long believed. The poetry world is endless and filled with remarkable voices. As readers we have to take our hats off to small presses like The Bitter Oleander Press for bringing great voices from other languages within hearing range.</div>
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<u>Jewelry Box</u></div>
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The youngest of the sisters, the loveliest one, was given a</div>
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jewelry box. If one tried to open it, it buzzed painfully in</div>
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one's fingers, and the hair on both head and body stood up.</div>
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After several attempts in vain, the girl ended up in the dog</div>
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basket, where she lay, peeing. "Just give her a cigar," said</div>
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Uncle, "I'm longing for Chinese girls, and we have to move</div>
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on!" And on we went, in the middle of the night, onwards</div>
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on the same bicycle to the dentist. A molar was found in</div>
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an oyster, and later a silver spoon among the instruments</div>
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in a drawer. "Milk teeth," laughed the dentist incessantly,</div>
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"Milk teeth," while unsteadily he pointed at my mouth.</div>
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Today's book of poetry is trying to get caught up on a big backlog. Our intern Maggie has returned to the real world. Kathryn and Milo are busy Kathryn and Miloing. Max, our rarely seen and cranky Senior Editor, has been busy working on a personal project that seems to be coming along nicely. The rest of us have been scraping ice off of the lane way and reading what comes in the mail.</div>
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Poets like Nielsen give Today's book of poetry optimism, hope. Certain people just know how to burn, they are able to dance from birth. </div>
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<u>Glasses</u></div>
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Tired of listening to Tim Burton playing the guitar, Schubert</div>
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explaining how a person does his tax returns, and Joseph</div>
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Brodsky telling about his experiences as the new dogcatcher</div>
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in town, Jesus Christ - also known as "The Weasel" - tunes</div>
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into a radio station where jazz is played. It's Mingus with</div>
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<i>Goodbye Pork Pie Hat</i>, at an elegy dedicated to Lester Young,</div>
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who wore such a hat. Jesus always confuses Prez with Buster</div>
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Keaton, but then again, his eyesight isn't what it used to be.</div>
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He has often thought about getting glasses but is afraid -</div>
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even with the crown of thorns - to be confused again with</div>
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John Lennon. </div>
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January is only half over is how Today's book of poetry was feeling when we opened<i> Forty-One Objects.</i> By the time Today's book of poetry was finished Nielsen's poetry we were more of the "wow," January is already half over. Hope goes a long way. Today's book of poetry wants you readers to get a big slice of it. Carsten René Nielsen is serving it up.</div>
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Just as a final note, Today's book of poetry wanted to be sure to say that Stuart Ross writes good poetry of every stripe, not just surrealist poems. <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Dag T. Straumsvåg is cut out of the same general mold, excellent poems of every stripe. And on a personal note these two men are friends with Today's book of poetry. Their books are treasured.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
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<img height="266" id="image" src="https://365tekster.dk/images/introbilleder/56/_thumb2/crnielsen600x900.jpg" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; display: block; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; max-height: 100%; max-width: 100%; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" width="400" />Carsten René Nielsen</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">ABOUT THE POET</span></b></div>
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Carsten René Nielsen, born 1966, is a Danish poet and author of ten books of poetry and one book of flash fiction. His first book published in 1989 was awarded the Michael Strunge Poetry Prize. The prose poems <i>Cirkler</i> (<i>Circles</i>, 1998) won him critical acclaim throughout his native Denmark. Recent collections include the prose poems<i> Enogfyrre dyr</i> (<i>Forty-One Animals</i>, 2005), Husundersøgelser (<i>House Inspections</i>, 2008) and <i>Enogfyrre ting</i> (<i>Forty-One Objects</i>, 2017). He has won several fellowships from the Danish State Foundation for the Arts. In the United States two of his books in translation have been published: his selected prose poems, <i>The World Cut Out with Crooked Scissors </i>by New Issues in 2007, as well as the prose poems<i> House Inspections</i>, by BOA Editions in 2011, both books translated by David Keplinger. In 2014 a selection of Nielsen's poems was published by EDB Edizioni in Italy under the title <i>8 animali e 14 morti</i>. He lives in Aarhus, the second largest city of Denmark.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR</span></b></div>
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David Keplinger is the author of five books of poetry including<i> The Prayers of Others</i> (2006), winner of the 2007 Colorado Book Award, and <i>The Clearing</i> (2005), both from New Issues Poetry & Prose, as well as <i>The Rose Inside: Poems </i>(Truman State University Press, 1999), chosen by Mary Oliver for the T.S. Eliot Prize of that press. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. He is also the author of World Cut with Crooked Scissors (New Issues, 2007), which he co-translated with Danish poet Carsten Rene Nielsen. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, Florida Review, AGNI, Nimrod, and Minnesota Review. He currently teaches at American University in Washington, D.C.</div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-3860030079474568092020-01-13T10:23:00.000-08:002020-01-13T10:23:30.810-08:00Every Ravening Thing - Marsha de la O (University of Pittsburgh Press)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Every Ravening Thing.</b></span> Marsha de la O. Pitt Poetry Series. University of Pittsburgh Press. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 2019.<br />
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Marsha de la O waltzed in to our office like she owned the place. Once we read<i> Every Ravening Thing</i> we weren't sure. It was like a new kind of wind had swept through Today's book of poetry's brain, maybe a new type of sirocco or chimera. These poems, happy or sad, play out like marvelous candies you can roll around your poetry mouth. Not trivial penny candy, no Sir, these are not the lint-bound mints of Sunday disappointment, no, these are pure gold. Toffee so pure and carmel smooth, these poems are almost smoky.</div>
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<i>Every Ravening Thing</i> is smart, smart, smart. Today's book of poetry would suggest that instead of embracing any one narrative style, or structural framework, school, etc, de la O never boxes herself into a process induced corner. de la O burns with extra sauce and comes out looking like the quintessential everywoman.</div>
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de la O isn't afraid of the dark and she's not offering up solutions, but she sure is taking a good look at what is important. She certainly has things to say, worth listening to things.</div>
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<u>In Those Months Gold Leaf Drifted onto His Skin</u></div>
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Late nights, late nights, rain fingered his guitar,</div>
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He played bars every weekend, trained dogs</div>
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on the side, dreamed an orchard out back,</div>
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white peaches, dark plums.</div>
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Once he made a barbecue</div>
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from a fifty-gallon drum, simmered mussels</div>
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in wine.</div>
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Late nights, late nights,</div>
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talking through winter, his laugh turned to velvet</div>
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when the temperature dropped.</div>
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Scorpion on his bicep, at his heels an Alsatian.</div>
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All through summer his garden spoke in tongues,</div>
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stone fruit, dark plums.</div>
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The day they told him<i> no,</i></div>
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not a chance for a transplant, he took a whisk</div>
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broom to the cemetery, swept his father's grave.</div>
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Dark nights, dark nights, rain pierced his eyes.</div>
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When the Feather River overtopped its banks</div>
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he finally got down</div>
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to the slow work of drowning.</div>
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❢❢❢</div>
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2020 is upon us and this past year's hangover feels worse, a little more difficult than others. Even when President Reagan was standing under the red, white and blue Today's book of poetry didn't feel this particular sense of dread. Today's book of poetry believes that a regular diet of helpful poetry is called for. Marsha de la O falls right into this prescription, she is step ahead of the curve, leading, not following. Take two helpings of<i> Every Ravening Thing</i> and call Today's book of poetry in the morning.</div>
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Today's book of poetry has to admit that de la O got under our skin, turned us around once or twice,<i> Every Ravening Thing</i> has weight. Marsha de la O's landscapes resemble our own, it's when she explains the old terrain and makes it burn new that our eyes widen.</div>
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<u>Star Pine</u></div>
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Time can slow to a halt in a hallway</div>
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with a view of a star-pine</div>
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by the pharmacy, and the roof below</div>
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with its carpet of asphalt and small rocks.</div>
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I've got a window seat and minor piety,</div>
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I've got a chant, thrumming:</div>
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You, my faith, my ark, my bricks and mortar.</div>
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We've already said good-bye.</div>
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My rule is: keep your mouth shut.</div>
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We don't know how it gets in a body.</div>
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If I yawned, a tumor could flit inside</div>
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about the size of a cream puff or a golf ball</div>
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without symmetry - spikes and folds and webs</div>
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like a baby dragon.</div>
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And when it hatched, the mother</div>
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bent her fearsome neck</div>
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and moved that nestling</div>
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near where your blood bustles.</div>
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I've got a thick skull of hope</div>
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unwinding a vision, a picture</div>
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for afterwards:</div>
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you're pink faced and twinkling, rosy-all-over,</div>
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maybe shambling a little, but otherwise</div>
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the same.</div>
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You're looking good.</div>
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I'm the life form with a sour smell.</div>
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It's fear, but I tell myself that's covered here</div>
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by the dead smell of caution, they're non-committal.</div>
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They pad by in booties and hairnets, careful</div>
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of the I.V., the pole, the whole awkward procession,</div>
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a movable bed, a bag of clear liquid</div>
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dripping like mercy.</div>
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And the patients</div>
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with sheets drawn up to their chins</div>
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have suffered themselves to be tethered and pressed</div>
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like good and sweet animals.</div>
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The elevator opens, they're pushed inside,</div>
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the door closes behind them.</div>
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I watch them leaving, and wait for you.</div>
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The star pine leans toward the glass.</div>
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I'm mouthing thank you</div>
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and whispering please.</div>
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That star pine is your lost sister.</div>
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That star pine is your brother's soul,</div>
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sane and calm and cleansed.</div>
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The dragon</div>
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bends her fearsome neck;</div>
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the tree</div>
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is breathing next to the window.</div>
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Let it breathe for you.</div>
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❢❢❢</div>
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"I've got a thick skull of hope." Today's book of poetry is going to have to contact Marsha de la O and ask if we can use that as a title for a book.</div>
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So de la O goes up one side of illness, fear and grief and comes down the other somehow hammering splendid. And then she pulls out the Upanishads. Today's book of poetry has a particular fondness of the Upanishads from our last time in a classroom. We remembered "the essence of all beings is the earth," and more. de la O has an understanding of the complications every life faces.<i> Every Ravening Thing</i> takes a look at it all in these robust and lush poems where we learn, like de la O, to: "let touch teach me."</div>
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<u>To the Grandmothers</u></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Chernobyl, thirty years later</span></i></div>
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Old women with side gardens and jars</div>
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of moonshine alone in empty villages,</div>
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tell me, solitary lynx, multitudinous wolf</div>
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pack, how do you do it - all my life I've lived</div>
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in cities, bought food from grocery stores -</div>
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what's it like to return to the abandoned zone</div>
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on foot, reclaim your cottage beside the dank</div>
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canal, to howl, to hunt in packs, to foal calves,</div>
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fell trees, light down in the bodies of swans</div>
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and swim in cooling ponds, why would you</div>
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fly three thousand miles to build a nest</div>
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inside the cracked concrete sarcophagus</div>
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over the remains of reactor four? She grins,</div>
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hands over a jelly jar of vodka, the good stuff,</div>
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<i>Motherland is motherland,</i> she says.</div>
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❢❢❢</div>
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Today's book of poetry is proud to start off 2020 with Marsha de la O's<i> Every Ravening Thing.</i> We are big believers in the "start as you mean to go on" vibe. We are all about the poetry burn and de la O is aces.</div>
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No promises for the forthcoming year but we are looking forward to reading all the poetry that comes through the door. Our deepest gratitude to University of Pittsburgh Press and the almost 200 other poetry presses who send work Today's book of poetry's way.</div>
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Luckily we already know the line up for the next little while. It makes Today's book of poetry blush it is so rich.</div>
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Stay tuned.</div>
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<img alt="Marsha de la O" src="https://upittpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/delaOMarsha_updated-e1544124495747-432x507.jpg" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-bottom-left-radius: 50%; border-bottom-right-radius: 50%; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-left-radius: 50%; border-top-right-radius: 50%; border-top-style: none; box-sizing: inherit; color: #0a0a0a; display: inline-block; font-family: europa,HelveticaNeue,&quot; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; height: 431px; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 100%; object-fit: cover; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; width: 431px; word-spacing: 0px;" title="Marsha de la O" /></div>
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Marsha de la O</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">ABOUT THE POET</span></b> </div>
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Marsha de la O is the author of Antidote for Night, winner of the 2015 Isabella Gardner Award, and Black Hope, winner of the New Issues Press Poetry Prize and winner of an Editor’s Choice, Small Press Book Award. Other awards include the Morton Marcus Poetry Award and the da Poetry Award. She has published extensively, including recent poems in The New Yorker and the Kenyon Review, with work forthcoming in Prairie Schooner. De la O lives in Ventura, California, with her husband, poet and editor Phil Taggart. Together, they produce poetry readings and events in Ventura County and edit the literary journal Spillway. </div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">BLURBS</span></b></div>
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<i>Every Ravening Thing</i> presents a matchless intensity and intellectual grit, a fearless investigation into the world amplified by a vision that is both cosmic and detailed in our common suffering. This is a brave book of poetry.</div>
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- Christopher Buckley </div>
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What is ferocious – ravenous – here is the poet’s driven need to tell things as they truly are, which means it’s not always a pretty picture that she so carefully assembles for the reader. And I love the raucous regard she has for diction: reckless and powerfully inventive and fresh the way air can be fresh. All of this is held together by a commitment to the music that drives these poems in a way that soothes the ear.<i> Every Ravening Thing</i> could serve as a warning to all of us about our failures as men and women, and as a celebration of the good we’re capable of doing and in that way is a necessary part of our reading.</div>
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- Bruce Weigl </div>
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This is poetry meant to open hearts and change attitudes in fundamental and necessary ways, poetry of witness and utility. It is also often deeply moving. </div>
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-South Florida Poetry Review</div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-62438134462711139532019-12-21T07:31:00.001-08:002019-12-21T08:45:35.243-08:00House of Sparrows: New and Selected Poems - Betsy Sholl (University of Wisconsin Press)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>House of Sparrows: New and Selected Poems.</b></span> Betsy Sholl. University of Wisconsin Press. Madison, Wisconsin. 2019<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">WINNER OF THE FOUR LAKES PRIZE IN POETRY</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br />
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The first thirty-seven delightful pages of<i> House of Sparrows: New and Selected Poems</i>, are new poems from the desk of Betsy Sholl. These poems, on their own, are more than worth the price of admission.<i> House of Sparrows</i> is the latest from Ms. Sholl, the latest in a sizable line-up of killers. </div>
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Today's book of poetry looked at Betsy Sholl's<i> Otherwise Unseeable</i> (University of Wisconsin Press, 2014) back in May of 2014. You can see that blog/review here:</div>
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<a href="https://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2014/05/otherwise-unseeable-betsy-sholl.html">https://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2014/05/otherwise-unseeable-betsy-sholl.html</a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="color: #000120;"><i>House of Sparrows</i> brings together selected poems from five of Betsy Sholl's previous collections,<i> The Red Line</i> (1992),<i> Don't Explain</i> (1997),<i> Late Psalm</i> (2004),<i> Rough Cradle</i> (2009) and<i> Otherwise Unseeable</i> (2014). Like the only other Betsy Today's book of poetry is familiar with, Betsy Struthers, Sholl has built a formidable practice one huge brick at a time. Those of you not familiar with the very fine Canadian poet Betsy Struthers need to brush up on your Betsy's.<br />
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Sholl's new poems read like testaments that have already stood the tests of time, they read like needed wisdom. Sholl's poetry hums honest, wicked shrewd, all hammered out of a giant and tender heart that beats a solemn, sad song. Then Sholl throws in some hope, some redemption. It is all so human.<br />
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Betsy Sholl creates poetry that echoes like music both longed for and cried to. Betsy Sholl can burn.<br />
<br />
<u>Her Story</u><br />
<u><br /></u>
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Johnson City, Tennessee</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i></span><span style="color: #000120;">What a ruckus - those fricatives inside<br />
that truck, spitting our roadside grit<br />
digging itself in deeper.<br />
<br />
Overhead the sky's one eye looks down.<br />
Near full it rose, rusty as the truck's<br />
undersides and dented with shadows.<br />
<br />
Below, out of gas, trapped, that truck<br />
hardly looks like it once jumped red lights,<br />
gunned through town, took hairpins<br />
<br />
with a squeal. As to the woman inside<br />
pounding the wheel, she just saw her man<br />
of fourteen years take off with somebody<br />
<br />
blond and younger. She's got a fifth<br />
on the seat beside her, a pistol,<br />
a box of ammo already emptied out<br />
<br />
into every Slow Curve, Falling Rock,<br />
Soft Shoulder she passed downshifting<br />
on the upgrade.<i> Who you think does that?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
she'll ask months later, then grin.<br />
But now, inside that bucket of rust,<br />
it's just her hollowed out, a full bottle<br />
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of sleep, and the moon overhead<br />
watching, so she points her pistol,<br />
pulls the trigger and laughs, bitter<br />
<br />
as the pills she unscrews and scatters<br />
like buckshot across the road.<br />
The she lean back into liquor's drift.<br />
<br />
Come morning, an old man will drive up,<br />
peer in, see all that trouble<br />
and hook up chains to haul her out.<br />
<br />
He'll give her gas enough to get to town,<br />
tell her,<i> Now you never mind, Honey,</i><br />
<i>you just go on -</i> and she will. She will.<br />
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💥💥💥<br />
<u></u><i></i><u></u><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><br />
When Sholl is in a corner she has no problem employing one of Today's book of poetry's favourite tricks. She calls on some giant like Theolonious Monk, crawls into one of his recipes until all the pieces fit. Betsy Sholl does this better than Today's book of poetry (damn her). When she was writing these poems we doubt she was worried about their influence on Today's book of poetry or anyone else. But in this small world you can never tell who is listening, taking notes. Bowing in appreciation.<br />
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Betsy Sholl knows the difficulty caused when two things are true at once. That life isn't black or white or fifty shades of gray. Our limitless palette is gaudy with riches and yet we struggle to be kind, knowing, coming correct.<i> House of Sparrows</i> is ironic and serious as a heart attack, the language nuanced, instantly recognizable as a voice that should be listened to.</span><br />
<span style="color: #000120;"><br /></span><i></i><span style="color: #000120;"></span><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i>
<u>House of Sparrows</u><br />
<u><br /></u>
What if every time we saw the word<i> sorrow</i><br />
we switched it to<i> sparrow?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i> For my life is spent with sparrows...</i><br />
<i> With drunkenness and sparrows...</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Or if it went the other way, the song would be,<br />
<i> His eye is on the sorrow...</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>🐦</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
My eye's on the neighbor's eaves,<br />
and the copper-roofed house we put up in our yard,<br />
<br />
its many rooms, multiple nests, generations --<br />
as if we brought this clamor on ourselves,<br />
<br />
this hurdy-gurdy, rabble, host and quarrel<br />
of sparrows<br />
mixed with the morning radio<br />
<br />
🐦<br />
<u></u><u></u><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><br />
broadcasting a bombed hospital, bodies<br />
under fallen roof tiles, shards of over-voice and wailing,<br />
<br />
while outside birds flare up, knock each other off the feeder,<br />
sparrows the color of rubble, of dust and mud,<br />
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burnt cars, blown-out windows, of wreckage<br />
they could roost in, the earth a house of sparrows<br />
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🐦<br />
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on Sparrow Street, hunger house, and woe<br />
to the poor who are spared nothing,<br />
<br />
who gather at borders to beg and forage, are sold<br />
<i> two for a penny, five for two cents.</i><br />
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And yet doesn't it say the Lord God<br />
attends -- bends down to count<br />
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🐦<br />
<br />
each one shot, starved, buried in rubble? --<br />
A man of sparrows and acquainted with grief,<br />
<br />
who says, when I bow my head,<br />
<i> Sparrows are better than laughter.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
And to the rabble, the wailing, the how, the when,<br />
who says,<br />
<i> Your sparrows will turn to joy--</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>💥💥💥</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Today's book of poetry will be in Ottawa for Christmas this year but we have suspended our annual Christmas Eve festivities for family reasons. Shortly after Christmas Today's book of poetry and our much better other half will be heading to Montreal. We are heading to Montreal to gain all the weight we've lost in the last year. We both love Montreal and will do our best to eat well and find poetry, drink well and find poetry. You know the drill. Montreal is one of the finer places on the planet to spent time with the one your love.<br />
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<i>House of Sparrows</i> reminds Today's book of poetry of why we started writing these blogs/reviews in the first place. Sometimes the poetry we get to read is simply too splendid not to be shared. Betsy Sholl meets that standard. We'll be scanning bookshelves in Montreal for the rest of Betsy Sholl's titles.<br />
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Betsy Sholl</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">ABOUT THE POET </span></b><br />
Betsy Sholl is the author of nine poetry collections including <i>Otherwise Unseeable, Rough Cradle, Late Psalm, Don’t Explain, </i>and<i> The Red Line.</i> A former poet laureate of Maine, Sholl teaches at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.</div>
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“Her work brings the poetry of Nathaniel Mackey to mind: its specificity, its engagement with and curiosity for living, even in the bluer stretches.”<br />
—Boston Globe<br />
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“Very polished poetry that with careful attention can, in Wordsworth’s phrase, lift us up when fallen.”<br />
—Central Maine<br />
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“A quiet, yet powerful journey through nature, memory, regret, and hopefulness. Readers will find themselves returning to its deftly understated voice again and again.”<br />
—Split Rock Review<br />
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“This magnificent collection proves yet again why Sholl is one of our truly indispensable writers, whose poems engage what must be addressed if we are to fully encounter, as she writes in her triumphant title poem, ‘the wailing, the how, the when.’ I remain awestruck by her artistry.”<br />
—Sascha Feinstein<br />
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“I love Sholl’s unyielding honesty, the great heart and deep intelligence of her vision.”<br />
—Nancy Eimers<br />
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“It’s difficult to love the world enough, especially for someone like Sholl, who sees with such searing clarity its cruelty and sorrow. But, like Keats, she dares to, in poem after poem in this masterly collection. And we are all the richer for it.”<br />
—David Jaus<span class="review-source" style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 0.95em;">s</span></div>
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<b>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.</b></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-7254820815835248712019-12-19T09:37:00.000-08:002019-12-19T09:37:19.692-08:00Midlife Action Figure - Chris Banks (ECW/A Misfit Book)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Midlife Action Figure.</b></span> Chris Banks. ECW/A Misfit Book. Toronto, Ontario. 2019.<br />
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<img alt="Midlife Action Figure by Chris Banks, ECW Press" height="640" id="ProductPhotoImg" src="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0719/2207/products/9781770415058_web_1024x1024.jpg?v=1553720095" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-image: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 300; height: auto; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 100%; orphans: 2; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" width="413" /><br />
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Chris Banks would have us believe that, as Roethke said, "Poetry is an act of mischief."<br />
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<i>Midlife Action Figure</i> is one particular form of mischief. But Banks has so much more in store for us. Today's book of poetry has seen this sort of anarchy before. Anarchy? Poetry anarchy and beauty. But rarely, if ever, have we seen a collection where every single poem is a poetry monster. These bloody epistles are giants. We mean Coltrane giant, Miles Davis great.<br />
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Today's book of poetry has had Chris Banks on the table before. Back in August of 2017 Today's book of poetry wrote about Banks full length collection,<i> The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory</i> (ECW/A Misfit Book), with much excitement and fanfare. You can see that blog/review here:<br />
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<a href="https://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-cloud-versus-grand-unification.html">https://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-cloud-versus-grand-unification.html</a><br />
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Since then Today's book of poetry has been on a bit of a mission. We have procured the following Chris Banks titles:<i> Invaders</i> (Anstruther Press, 2015),<i> The Cold Panes of Surfaces</i> (Nightwood Editions, 2006),<i> Winter Cranes</i> (ECW Press, 2011) and of course the brilliant<i> The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory.</i> Now we need to find a copy of his first book,<i> Bonfires.</i> Until then Today's book of poetry has considered sending our Today's book of poetry Task Force and Inspection Team to his home to see how he does it.<br />
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Dag T<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; color: #666666; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; list-style: none; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">. </span>Straumsvåg does it in Nynorsk, American hero Campbell McGrath does it in volume after volume, and Chris Banks does it from Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Astounding.<i> Midlife Action Figure</i> is an imaginary bomb going off in your poetry head. Ideas come at you so quickly your brain figures it is getting a poetry version those "pop rock" candies that used to go off like sparklers in your mouth.<br />
<br />
<u>Reading So-and-So's Selected Poems in a Used Bookstore</u><br />
<u><br /></u>
I like the jade dragons and the bougainvillea.<br />
The various mistresses of Paul Klee, Gustav Klimt.<br />
Jackson Pollock pissing in a fireplace at a party.<br />
A locomotive hauling away a sibling's death.<br />
Allusions to Pompeii. A Greek philosopher du jour.<br />
A token villanelle. An amusement park.<br />
Roller coasters on fire. What beautiful rhymes!<br />
Afro and gazpacho. Crocus and hocus-pocus.<br />
Syllabics of beauty and despair and truth<br />
hidden in musty stacks. Someone's handwritten<br />
notes in the margins:<i> Love this one! Huzzah!</i><br />
Haikus solemn as frogs beneath a lily-white moon.<br />
Lyrics a reminder of the shadow's dark roost.<br />
How about this one poem with sledgehammers?<br />
A grand piano overflowing with Blue Morphos?<br />
A Japanese actress who cut off her lover's genitals,<br />
threw them into the sea? The last poem<br />
in the collection will rip your heart out, I swear.<br />
It's about a boy throwing rocks at a seagull,<br />
smashing its wings. The bird hopping broken.<br />
The Gatha of Atonement. It's little prayer.<br />
Human shame like a shipwreck in a bottle.<br />
The poet's photograph is in black and white.<br />
He lives in a French chalet, or as a recluse<br />
on a Greek island, summers when not teaching<br />
freshman about poetry and personal failure.<br />
There is an ivy-league campus in the photo's<br />
background. His crow's feet, grim smile, says<br />
each day, I walk out of my French chalet, or<br />
a white house with a blue door, heading<br />
to the old town, poems gestating, where I buy<br />
my breakfast, a newspaper, thinking about<br />
friends back home. At night, in my dreams,<br />
I put a contract out on this poet's life.<br />
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💥💥💥<br />
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Today's book of poetry has been arguing with the poetry gods and some personal demons this December. Mr. Banks and<i> Midlife Action Figure</i> pretty much fixes that action for the time being.<i> Midlife Action Figure</i> raises the bar for everyone in 2020.<br />
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Banks makes you laugh, demands you cry and kicks you where the sun shines the least when need be. He both kisses and kicks ass. The poems go up one side of you and down the other so quickly you're not sure what is occurring. Just like a Grade Six Billy Dunlop learned about the wrath within my Grade One sister Sally. Billy was thumping me senseless for some reason or another and out of the blue my pint-sized sister raccoon-launched herself onto his head. She jumped down on Billy from above, her legs around his neck and her little hands pulling out amazing large tufts of Billy-hair from every direction at once. Chris Banks<i> Midlife Action Figure</i> will do that! Sally whack a Billy Dunlop.<br />
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Just like my sister and the infamous Confederate general, who realized his troops were surrounded and uttered "Excellent, attack in all directions," Chris Banks' poems are an onslaught against the senses.<br />
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<u>Stolen Matches</u><br />
<u><br /></u>
Existence is not for the weak. Consciousness<br />
moves like a river beneath sheet ice. I make<br />
going to the grocery store an event. Every meal<br />
when you are single is a sad banquet. So what<br />
if we are incisors, daydreams. Hey Muse, hit me up.<br />
Let's go dancing. The lyric makes its little noise,<br />
something like,<i> out of the darkling sky come</i><br />
<i>the white stars, little frozen glyphs, or Valkyries</i><br />
<i>burning in separate Valhallas.</i> No more hand-me-downs.<br />
I have nothing up my sleeve except nerves<br />
forming a small city with dirty cabs. I don't<br />
want to learn the patter, the schtick, of one word<br />
against another. I want the feast. The offal<br />
I leave on a silver dish for gods who<br />
starve this time of year. Choose wisely<br />
amongst the coloured rags. Memorize<br />
traumas. The after-life is a recital. Hello loss.<br />
Hello exaltation. Have I made you smile yet?<br />
Knowing this poem is a forgery. I traced it by hand<br />
in elegant calligraphic script. Like a dry drunk,<br />
I want more and more of what I cannot have.<br />
Emotions disfigure perception. Open all the doors.<br />
What is the difference? Heave-ho the familiar<br />
and see what takes its place. The scope is cavernous<br />
so take a good flashlight. I follow my thoughts<br />
into a gully where they are playing with stolen matches.<br />
Isn't that always the case? Put away the Play-Doh<br />
when you are done. The school closed down years ago.<br />
Clean up the art tables. I'll lock up after you.<br />
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💥💥💥<br />
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2019 has been a difficult year here in the Today's book of poetry offices. But we've also seen more support and kindness than every before. Just this past week Sir Christian McPherson replaced our essential office machinery. Our newish Apple (which we dearly loved) rotted itself senseless and the poet McPherson has given us a rather remarkable replacement. We are hoping that with some TLC we can drive this new machinery for many happy Today's book of poetry years. McPherson was the catalyst behind starting Today's book of poetry years ago. We can't thank Christian enough.<br />
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It's getting awfully close to Christmas and that rat bastard Santa must be stocking up on coal. But if you want to please anyone in your poetry universe you cannot go wrong with Chris Banks'<i> Midlife Action Figure.</i> Whether you want to be naughty or nice.<br />
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Mr. Banks burns like he invented the term.<br />
<br />
<u>Midlife Action Figure</u><br />
<u><br /></u>
My body feels made by Mattel.<br />
There is no lifetime achievement<br />
award for surviving emotional<br />
trauma. Van Gogh cut off an ear,<br />
went about his day. I don't mean<br />
to make light of suffering. My alma<br />
mater tells me by phone they could<br />
be doing better. Can I coat-check<br />
this malaise? Talking to neighbours<br />
feels like treading water. Similes<br />
are passe. I need an electrician to<br />
rewire my mood. Going to parties<br />
when you don't drink is open-heart<br />
surgery without local anesthetic.<br />
I've completed all seven seasons<br />
but my knees are arthritic, and<br />
my chakra is in shambles. I love<br />
how business thinks innovation<br />
is dreamt up in hotel bars and<br />
conference rooms. Being forced<br />
to take the arts package is what kills<br />
creative embryos. My depression<br />
is pure Suzuki method. I'm going<br />
to open a Montessori school<br />
for recovering addicts. Ever seen<br />
a masterpiece wrapped in cellophane?<br />
Go to your local record store,<br />
dig around in the stacks. Maybe<br />
the letter does not arrive on time<br />
so you drink poison, or decide<br />
to take up pole dancing. Either way,<br />
someone's parents end up crying.<br />
Pull the string protruding from my back.<br />
Listen to what I am about to tell you.<br />
There is not much time.<br />
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💥💥💥<br />
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Today's book of poetry is sure you get what we're selling but in case we are not being clear enough: Chris Banks'<i> Midlife Action Figure</i> is full burn feast. There is no end to the delights Banks' brings to the table.<br />
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This is what poetry can be, at it's best. Absolute and splendid.<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a aria-label="Search images of Chris Banks Poet" h="ID=SERP,5312.1" href="https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=chris+banks+poet+photo&id=36C27D8F35FEB6DE1F5B809734C93FDAA6E91230&FORM=IQFRBA" ihk="/th?id=OIP.exbzOyKydhp4vpXU45FUugHaEF&pid=3.1&cb=" m="{ns:"SERP",k:"5312"}" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #600090; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; height: 104px; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; outline-color: rgb(0, 168, 157); outline-style: solid; outline-width: 1px; position: absolute; text-align: left; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; touch-action: manipulation; white-space: normal; width: 189px; word-spacing: 0px;" t3="prismmagazine.ca" t4="1200 × 661 · jpeg"><img alt="Image result for Chris Banks Poet" class="sgt rms_img" data-bm="24" data-priority="2" data-src-hq="https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.exbzOyKydhp4vpXU45FUugHaEF&w=189&h=104&c=8&rs=1&qlt=90&dpr=1.25&pid=3.1&rm=2" height="104" id="emb2213DDCEC" src="https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.exbzOyKydhp4vpXU45FUugHaEF&w=189&h=104&c=8&rs=1&qlt=90&dpr=1.25&pid=3.1&rm=2" style="border-bottom-color: currentColor; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; border-image-outset: 0; border-image-repeat: stretch; border-image-slice: 100%; border-image-source: none; border-image-width: 1; border-left-color: currentColor; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: currentColor; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border-top-color: currentColor; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 50%; touch-action: manipulation; transform: translateY(-50%);" width="189" /></a><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></span><br />
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Chris Banks<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">ABOUT THE POET</span></b><br />
Chris Banks is a Canadian poet and author of four previous collections of poems, most recently<i> The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory</i> (ECW Press, 2017). His poetry has appeared in<i> The New Quarterly, Arc Magazine, The Antigonish Review, Event, The Malahat Review and Prism International,</i> among other publications. He lives and writes in Waterloo, Ontario.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">BLURBS</span></b><br />
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“<i>Midlife Action Figure</i> delivers surprise, delight, and sense; Banks slams sly one liners as though he were competing in a professional wrestling match . . . The result is breathlessly entertaining and gut-punchingly wise . . . <i>Midlife Action Figure</i> is an insightful tour through the human experience, crafted in clear and specific imagery that captivates the imagination and the intelligence. It is a book that begs to be read and reread.”</div>
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— Quill & Quire Starred Review </div>
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“‘The laboratory of aesthetics / these days is really about mischief / and surprise’ writes Chris Banks in this collection of cheeky, pointed dicta on everything from how to survive an emergency to enduring a job interview, amid surreal admissions that the speaker has a ‘minor crush on Saturn's moons’ or possibly suffers a ‘slow leak’ as each year his ‘heart grows an extra ring.’<i> Midlife Action Figure</i> is a book of solid poems from the centre of existing, through deep space and the places in the mind like ‘Matryoshka dolls’ that endlessly nest into their own allusiveness, returning with a yield of essential observations and imperatives for the continuance of the earth.” </div>
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— Catherine Owen, award-winning author of <i>Designated Mourner</i> </div>
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“The poems are densely thick and incredibly rich, akin, somewhat, to a lyric molasses in which a reader is caught up in an unexpected lyric flow . . . A poetry in which one can't easily pull away from . . . Banks' poems are a kind of lyric collage.” </div>
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— rob mclennan’s blog</div>
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“[A] spirited, wide-ranging collection.”</div>
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— Toronto Star </div>
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“‘My spirit guide is a scarecrow’; ‘guilt is everyone’s personal gulag’; ‘can I coat-check this malaise?’; ‘death is classically trained’: Chris Banks builds poems out of short sentences that are like photons, little packets of energy full of aphoristic punch and surprise. He delights in the swings of imagination, in the way every next image or idea can plow new ground even as it alters the meaning and feel of what has preceded it. The result is a constant state of euphoria, an ongoing demonstration of the swerve and swirl of human consciousness. ‘A river is a correspondence course’ — as with so many lines here, my recognition that I’ve never thought of it that way is followed immediately by the sensation that there’s no other way to see it, that I am being shown the truth.” </div>
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— Bob Hicok, award-winning poet and author of <i>Elegy Owed </i></div>
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“There were a lot of single lines that stood out to me, I found many gems among these short poems . . .<i> Midlife Action Figure</i> is a powerful collection that will evoke many thoughts.” </div>
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— Literary Lizard blog</div>
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<a href="http://ecwpress.com/">ecwpress.com</a></div>
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<b style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px;">DISCLAIMER</b></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-19284292712845646842019-11-11T06:07:00.000-08:002019-11-11T06:07:38.760-08:00A Generous Latitude — Lenea Grace (ECW Press)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">A Generous Latitude. </b>Lenea Grace. ECW Press. Toronto, Ontario. 2018.<br />
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Anyone who can write a fine poem and have it end in St. Louis-du-Ha!-Ha! is alright by Today's book of poetry standards. Lenea Grace does this and so much more in <i>A Generous Latitude.</i> Grace reads like an experienced pro in the debut collection, her grit shines and she has some panache.</div>
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Lenea Grace has Guy Lafleur's disco-hockey record in one poem and Larry (GOAT) Bird's old French Lick Converse All-Stars in another. If neither name means anything to you — you are way to young to be reading poetry. The same might be said of Grace's nod to the effervescent Kate and Anna McGarrigle, who make an appearance in an ode to Montreal. And as Today's book of poetry writes this blog/review their is the realization that Lenea Grace may be the poet most dialed into Today's book of poetry's zeitgeist.</div>
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<u>Pressure Drop</u></div>
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<u><br /></u></div>
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Take a glass milk bottle</div>
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and drop a lit match down</div>
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the windowed shaft.</div>
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Take a hardboiled man,</div>
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peel him, and balance</div>
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him upon the mouth-</div>
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piece.</div>
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<br /></div>
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His pelvis will meet</div>
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the opening, torso</div>
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and limbs shoot</div>
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east and west. Tap</div>
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his left foot and he will spin,</div>
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smouldered rod and flesh</div>
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and glass.</div>
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He is no weathervane,</div>
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caught unawares by the high</div>
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pressure system that circles wrists,</div>
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grazes buttocks and spine.</div>
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No match for the match,</div>
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burnt and low, feverish.</div>
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You cannot adjust</div>
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these temperatures, outside</div>
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and inside. You cannot stop</div>
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reverse ignition. You will not</div>
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not watch. When it happens</div>
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you will not watch.</div>
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And it will happen.</div>
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The bottle will strangle</div>
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his size, distort</div>
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his body: a muscled parabola,</div>
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sucking down and down,</div>
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snapping vertebrae, folding,</div>
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palms touching palms,</div>
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necks and shoulders.</div>
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Shoulders and necks</div>
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and shoulders will catch</div>
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the necks and the necks</div>
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will catch the shoulders.</div>
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Pop and release.</div>
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💣💣💣</div>
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Today's book of poetry is happy to announce that Lenea Grace's <i>A Generous Latitude</i> adds another fine "list" poem to the lexicon and we'll be happy to run it by you.</div>
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<u>Because</u></div>
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<u><br /></u></div>
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Because the Atlantic.</div>
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Because the Pacific.</div>
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Because the hemispheres.</div>
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Because the equator, the belted cinching of guts, the green and the blue.</div>
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Because the guts.</div>
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Because the flaws.</div>
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Because we are heavy.</div>
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Because we are raw.</div>
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Because my mother has nerves.</div>
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Because my father shave his mustache in <span style="font-size: x-small;">1981. </span>and <span style="font-size: x-small;">1983. 1987.</span></div>
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Because his father wrote with his left hand.</div>
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Because Zuma rains.</div>
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Because lobsters shriek.</div>
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Because old men play cribbage in undershirts.</div>
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Because birches peel.</div>
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Because dogs know.</div>
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Because lakes smoke.</div>
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Because that teacher told me to mouth the words.</div>
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Because there are indoor voice and outdoor voices.</div>
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Because there are indoor shoes and outdoor shoes and no shoes at all.</div>
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Because because.</div>
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Because there are hands.</div>
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Because we carve our names in desks.</div>
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Because we carve our names in stone.</div>
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Because we are not permanent.</div>
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Because we singe our eyes.</div>
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Because there are eyes,</div>
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the scratched inky things,</div>
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the sanding of iris,</div>
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the sleep of because.</div>
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💣💣💣</div>
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<i>A Generous Latitude </i> makes you think Lenea Grace would be a cool person to spend time with, witty funny and a little dangerous. Her poems are observational gems, situation comedies with dark intentions. Grace burns.</div>
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Today's book of poetry was even able to tolerate Grace's admiration for David Hasselhoff, which comes off as a both a gentle caress and the proverbial kick in the ass.</div>
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<u>The Why And The How</u></div>
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<u><br /></u></div>
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Why are boats always women, and</div>
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where is Long Lake —</div>
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how you ride my mind</div>
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<br /></div>
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how to pet a dead horse</div>
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how to feed this hoop snake</div>
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and always why boats are women.</div>
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Why bathtubs crawl on fours,</div>
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and how water grows opaque</div>
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and still — you ride my mind:</div>
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<br /></div>
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run grey galleys worn and coarse,</div>
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teak and holly slats, the strakes,</div>
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If boats are always women</div>
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<br /></div>
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then men are the oars — slicing</div>
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pink for pink's sake:</div>
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you ride my mind</div>
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in circles. There is no shore</div>
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for us, only questions in the lake —</div>
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why boats are always women</div>
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and how you ride my mind.</div>
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💣💣💣</div>
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The more humorous Lenea Grace tries to be the more human/humane she sounds which is a great trick. And trick is the wrong word, Grace comes at the reader head-on and once she gets there she stands her ground. <i>A Generous Latitude </i>burns like the best.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxR47wulUtVGtz9gRm52Mpa6UKg1_qlZZlUyHVn0i2YLSks652paQV6wRpvNkDAyU8453Bwn9ftNrYEaNzZO71A9I9hStOXk0NbrBI-S3ZFcqyjfd4Ccw-8_9Qk9_T6Eq8x3yKi7EIgG0/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxR47wulUtVGtz9gRm52Mpa6UKg1_qlZZlUyHVn0i2YLSks652paQV6wRpvNkDAyU8453Bwn9ftNrYEaNzZO71A9I9hStOXk0NbrBI-S3ZFcqyjfd4Ccw-8_9Qk9_T6Eq8x3yKi7EIgG0/s400/download.jpg" /></a></div>
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Lenea Grace</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">ABOUT THE POET</span></b></div>
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Lenea Grace’s work has appeared in Best New Poets, The Fiddlehead, Washington Square Review, CV2, Riddle Fence, Grain, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of McGill University, University of Maine at Presque Isle, and The New School. Lenea is a founding editor of The Mackinac poetry magazine. She grew up in Texas and Oklahoma, spending her summers at Long Lake and John Island in northern Ontario. She lives in Gibsons, British Columbia.</div>
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<a href="http://ecwpress.com/">ecwpress.com</a></div>
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❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌</div>
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<span style="color: magenta; font-size: x-large;">Important Poetry Bulletin:</span><br />
<span style="color: magenta; font-size: x-large;">Today's book of poetry just hit 700,000 readers. Thank you, each and every one of you.</span><br />
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-44110989610122060182019-10-29T09:30:00.000-07:002019-10-29T09:32:09.708-07:00The Sad Songs of Hell — Brent Cunningham . (Ugly Duckling Presse)Today's book of poetry:<br /> <b style="font-size: xx-large;">The Sad Songs of Hell. </b>Brent Cunningham. Ugly Duckling Presse. Brooklyn, New York. 2017.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEnABgrRTAK-1lnhWxkNQFZ4O3BE1Csfwv1NCbHdSsc22H1l9yjVoqVJ-dFQBhrFz0IS_MyA5Ch4-WyKZ124mdI3Nhx-5MW59iqv6_7dxxpxXsKu2pETYWEXG3KALb8E9U-TQS1PfP3ds/s1600/SadSongs-GIANT-744x1024.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEnABgrRTAK-1lnhWxkNQFZ4O3BE1Csfwv1NCbHdSsc22H1l9yjVoqVJ-dFQBhrFz0IS_MyA5Ch4-WyKZ124mdI3Nhx-5MW59iqv6_7dxxpxXsKu2pETYWEXG3KALb8E9U-TQS1PfP3ds/s640/SadSongs-GIANT-744x1024.jpg" width="464" /></a></div>
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Absolutely astonishing. Brent Cunningham "translates" Arthur Rimbaud like you have never imagined. To start, Brent Cunningham admittedly doesn't speak or read French. Just off the top of our Today's book of poetry heads we've never been quite so taken by imagined translations.</div>
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If Today's book of poetry properly understands Cunningham's technique <i>The Sad Songs of Hell</i> come to us through a process of "translation by excessive confidence." The resulting poems are fanciful to say the least, we loved them. But it did take Today's book of poetry a few minutes to figure out what was actually going on in Cunningham's <i>The Sad Songs of Hell.</i> When you open this lovely chapbook Brent Cunningham's translations appear in full sized text at the top of the page. In the lower right hand corner of each page is the original Arthur Rimbaud poem, in a microscopic font. </div>
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Fortunately for us all, at the back of each copy of the gorgeous <i>The Sad Songs of Hell</i> is a<br />
magnification lens made of plastic and with a small portrait of the young Rimbaud. Beautiful.<br />
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<br />
<u>Sensation</u><br />
<br />
mostly I use these bruised digits to make you feel<br />
they dress dolls in peacoats, befoul menus with herb-stains<br />
but they never forget: they're not raspberry-capped-feet—<br />
only your bare chest opens their imperceptible vents<br />
<br />
if you want an excuse for me here it is: I think the body's a rind<br />
love only feels infinite & only if you're on the mounting end<br />
it's obvious you and I have legs, good legs, like all Bohemians<br />
but when Nature created those, she wasn't even a Woman<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Par les soirs bleus d’été, j’irai dans les sentiers,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Picoté par les blés, fouler l’herbe menue:<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Rêveur, j’en sentirai la fraîcheur à mes pieds.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Je laisserai le vent baigner ma tête nue.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien:<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Mais l’amour infini me montera dans l’àme,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Et j’irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Par la Nature, — heureux comme avec une femme.</span></div>
💣💣💣<br />
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The poems. Rimbaud is only a diving board for the pyrotechnic Cunningham. Once he bouncing on the end of the board, Cunningham, there is really no telling where is going to alight and let down, even less chance of knowing; is it a somersault, a cannonball, and so on.<br />
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Brent Cunningham's odd gift for translation could be used on any text from any language and to that Today's book of poetry says "have at it." Today's book of poetry will gladly eat up whatever Cunningham is serving.<br />
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Today's book of poetry should have mentioned this earlier, Brent Cunningham is convinced he has somehow found a darker narrative than the original Rimbaud. And perhaps he has, but these poems, these delightful translation brim with light. They brighten the surroundings.<br />
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<u><br /></u>
<u>The Truth About Dormitories</u><br />
like a river with pot-breath, lip synching<br />
in green pants, another so-called "Agent<br />
of the Sun" stands at Education's pinnacle<br />
making, today, chocolate from melted crayons<br />
<br />
if he's an insurrectionist I'm Ke$ha<br />
part cream cheese, part blueberry bagel<br />
night after night smoking that moss<br />
staring at an internal Everglade<br />
<br />
glaciers were crossed, on foot, to forge us<br />
sick infants left to sleep forever<br />
& Nature, our former workhorse, burned & spoiled<br />
<br />
so if a marine breeze occasionally blows perfume<br />
through the mold-specked window above his toilet<br />
it'll only deepen the shame of this darkening coast<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">C’est un trou de verdure, où chante une rivière<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Accrochant follement aux herbes des haillons<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />D’argent; où le soleil, de la montagne fière,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Luit: c’est un petit val qui mousse de rayons.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Un soldat jeune, bouche ouverte, tête nue,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Et la nuque baignant dans le frais cresson bleu,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Dort; il est étendu dans l’herbe, sous la nue,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Pâle dans son lit vert où la lumière pleut.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Les pieds dans les glaïeuls, il dort. Souriant comme<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Sourirait un enfant malade, il fait un somme:<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Nature, berce-le chaudement: il a froid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Les parfums ne font pas frissonner sa narine;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Il dort dans le soleil, la main sur sa poitrine,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Tranquille. Il a deux trous rouges au côté droit.</span></div>
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💣💣💣<br />
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The sun is shining in the nation's capital this morning and Today's book of poetry is feeling optimistic, we think we caught it from Brent Cunningham's <i>The Sad Songs of Hell.</i> These poems are whippersnappers.<br />
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Our morning read was led by the reclusive Max, our Senior Editor. Of course he didn't leave his office, he simply opened his never to be darkened door and bellowed. He bellowed from his office, and between laughs and Cunningham's opus, and then insisted on reading the Rimbaud poem in the original French. Max demanding we follow suite, so of course we did.<br />
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<br />
<u>Androgynous Love</u><br />
<u><br /></u>
her pinkie, a curlicue wrapped in rabbit fur<br />
dips into the cheese; she pulls back her hair<br />
& then, the unexpected: vegetarians<br />
steal the butcher's financial statements<br />
<br />
whether your soul is gray, green or buffet-colored<br />
makes a difference to the two kinds of people at this resort<br />
there's the Cowboys, pissing on the poor<br />
& the Gracious Sons, who consume them like parfait<br />
<br />
tonight society's antenna glows red, transmitting gout<br />
& alien horrors into the mind's buried cables<br />
weaving a fate so singular & brutal it's unspeakable<br />
<br />
& on a dozen rainy graves this phrase: <span style="font-size: x-small;">LOVE SAVES</span><br />
yet the wheel does wheel sending another corpse<br />
through the terrible, angelic, ulcerous Asshole of the World<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Comme d'un cercueil vert en fer blanc, une tête</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">De femme à cheveux bruns fortement pommadés</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">D'une vieille baignoire émerge, lente et bête,</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Avec des déficits assez mal ravaudés ;</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Puis le col gras et gris, les larges omoplates</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Qui saillent ; le dos court qui rentre et qui ressort ;</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Puis les rondeurs des reins semblent prendre l'essor ;</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">La graisse sous la peau paraît en feuilles plates ;</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">L'échine est un peu rouge, et le tout sent un goût</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Horrible étrangement ; on remarque surtout</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Des singularités qu'il faut voir à la loupe...</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Les reins portent deux mots gravés : Clara Venus ;</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- Et tout ce corps remue et tend sa large croupe</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0.7); color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Belle hideusement d'un ulcère à l'anus.</span></span><br />
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Cunningham's poems/translations are surreal but true, impossible but delightful. It's hard to ask for more.<br />
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Brent Cunningham</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
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Brent Cunningham is a writer and publisher. He is the author of the poetry books <i>Bird & Forest </i>(UDP), <i>Journey to the Sun</i> (Atelos Press), and the chapbook, <i>The Sad Songs of Hell</i> (UDP). He helped found the SPT Poets Theatre Festival, helped coordinate the Artifact Reading Series, and is on the board of Small Press Traffic. He is the Managing Director for Small Press Distribution and founded Hooke Press with Neil Alger, a chapbook press dedicated to publishing short runs of poetry, criticism, theory, writing, and ephemera.</div>
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Why do I laugh hysterically merely at the title of this jubilant suite of translations and their originals plucked from Rimbaud’s Hell? Wait, what are originals, what are translations? They are all originals. Real, authentic poems. But then what is the relationship between the poetry of Rimbaud and that of Cunningham? Now we get to the cunning of Cunningham’s work. Using key cognates (true or false), a lot of freedom (free association, cf. Freud), magical thinking, and sounds, or the idea of sound, or the sound of an idea, Cunningham exquisitely and skillfully constructs, with logic and anti-logic, hilarious and/or solemn bursts of dramatically charged poems. As Norah Jones says, “It’s music, man!”<br />
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—Norma Cole</div>
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<a href="http://uglyducklingpresse.org/">uglyducklingpresse.org</a> </div>
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<b style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px;">DISCLAIMER</b></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>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.</b></span></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-55195635427498581722019-10-27T08:23:00.001-07:002019-10-27T08:23:34.876-07:00Fresh Pack of Smokes — Cassandra Blanchard . (Nightwood Editions)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">Fresh Pack of Smokes. </b>Cassandra Blanchard. Nightwood Editions. Gibsons, British Columbia. 2019.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Cc5mGe4_TsRiwsqlKJOsKDvhvx1L8mjDrfaxgVhyphenhyphenVNtMu5_aGFRBGGEWHR1WQe5LQjh5L915F7VxEK5kgnO09LLnic-Xcs3kXexyrmrN-Plk6VxJ_HpzblqId4DBewqg8vPjKv9kKbA/s1600/0889713529.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Cc5mGe4_TsRiwsqlKJOsKDvhvx1L8mjDrfaxgVhyphenhyphenVNtMu5_aGFRBGGEWHR1WQe5LQjh5L915F7VxEK5kgnO09LLnic-Xcs3kXexyrmrN-Plk6VxJ_HpzblqId4DBewqg8vPjKv9kKbA/s640/0889713529.jpg" width="440" /></a></div>
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Today's book of poetry's first thought, when we stepped back to catch our breath, say about 30 pages in, was that I was back with Billy Hays in a Turkish prison ala Midnight Express. <i>Fresh Pack of Smokes</i> feels so vividly harrowing and morbidly exciting that you can almost smell the decay and feel the defeat. Cassandra Blanchard's poems sound more real and honest than Charles Bukowski's sad songs. And make no mistake, Today's book of poetry still worships Sir Charles the B.</div>
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Blanchard isn't so much down and dirty as she is candidly and explicitly blunt, with a burnt sense of humour somewhere near that darkest of blacks, the one that reflects zero light. Other than Nigerian poets fighting in the rebellion, Today's book of poetry has rarely encountered this kind of literary slap in the face wake-up call.</div>
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<u>XXX</u></div>
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I must have turned a thousand tricks over those six years, you name</div>
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it I've done it, the perfect whore, young-looking so the men buzzed</div>
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around me like bees on honey, you have no idea how many men see</div>
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working girls for a quick blow job in the car after work before going</div>
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home or taxi drivers or stockbrokers, all kinds like the author of</div>
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children's books or the man who was a politician in Native self-</div>
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government or probably your boyfriend or husband, there are the</div>
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real cold mean ones and the okay ones who were not that bad and I</div>
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mostly had middle-aged married white men and I guarantee that you</div>
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know someone who has paid for sex; once I did a blow job where he</div>
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blew his load in exactly three seconds or the vampire-looking dude</div>
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with a foot-long boner that made me almost piss myself, but it's </div>
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always been strictly business, I've been around the block for sure.</div>
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At a Quebecois rehab centre, there was the gender rule, <i>no breaking</i></div>
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<i>gender,</i> as in no fucking with either gender and of course I broke that</div>
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rule multiple times, at night when everyone was asleep I would slide</div>
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into bed with my woman and quietly make her cum, I couldn't not</div>
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do it and it didn't help when a chick would get a crush on me, I guess</div>
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I had to break the rules, it felt so good to be bad — I've never even</div>
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been on a date before, it has always been straight to screwing, I guess</div>
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it would be nice to go out for dinner rather than sleeping with some-</div>
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one in secret, for two years we were together, the violent psycho and</div>
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me, the pushover, but damn we clicked in the sack and everywhere</div>
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too like in a semi or on the bus or outside, the only time we got</div>
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along was when we were fucking, this bitch was a sociopath, I swear</div>
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her eyes had nothing behind them but even though I was in danger</div>
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around her, she made me feel safe and made me feel like I was losing</div>
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the hamster wheel race, seriously though, I've had enough to last me</div>
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three thousand years and that's nothing to be happy about, being for </div>
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sale ain't nothing to be proud of.</div>
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💣💣💣</div>
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<i>Fresh Pack of Smokes </i> has velocity, like it is being shot out of a gun. Every one of these compact prose poems carries the full weight of crack exploding. Every one of these poems sees predators and police while looking for a safe place to sleep.</div>
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<i>Fresh Pack of Smokes</i> assaults the reader's level of comfort in our comfortable world. All those woman we pretend are invisible when we see them on a street corner, all those women we pretend we don't see as they fall through the crack. Blanchard gives them a voice. As Maryse Holder so bravely wrote "Give Sorrow Words".</div>
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<u>Streets</u></div>
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It may sound very stupid but there's something about the streets that</div>
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always appealed to me, there was a type of freedom where I could do</div>
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what I wanted when I wanted whenever I wanted and never be tied</div>
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down to one place, the only rules being those of the street, never</div>
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staying in one place for long, on an endless journey for more and</div>
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more drugs until it became the most important task at hand and I</div>
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could not plan anything because I didn't know where I would be in</div>
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any foreseeable future and I had no address, however the flip side to</div>
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all this was that I was tied up — I was a prisoner and everything that</div>
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came with it, I was a coin, each side a cell with thick bars.</div>
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💣💣💣</div>
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It's a cold, grey morning here at Today's book of poetry. It's raining "hammers and nails" as Tom Waits once suggested, it's raining as though we were waiting for an ark. Sunday is always a quiet day in the Today's book of poetry offices. We're pretty soft about actual attendance as all of our staff are volunteers.</div>
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One dear friend and contributor, Otis, flashed by earlier this week. It was great to see him, he'd been living in Mexico, Belgium and Italy this past year. No grass growing on that cat. Today's book of poetry sent him off with an armful of chapbooks (which he paid for, bless his cotton socks), and a big Today's book of poetry hug. We are always happy to see old friends.</div>
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Cassandra Blanchard's <i>Fresh Pack of Smokes</i> is gripping and frightening. We can't help thinking that there, for the grace, luck, whatever, goes my sister, my mother, my love, and so on. Blanchard's poems leave no room for doubt. Any false glamour we might have imagined is sanded down to the ugly survival bone. Spectacularly squalid stuff, it gets behind your eyes, under your fingernails, these poems make you feel dirty, used. Blanchard has revealed a dark talent, a beautiful mind that tours hell.</div>
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<u>Stars</u></div>
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Instead of calling the ambulance they dumped his body on some-</div>
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one's lawn, my father had overdosed on heroin and his so-called</div>
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friends were too afraid of the police to try and save his life and so</div>
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the cops came to our house and because we were children they</div>
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gave teddy bears to us, however I was asleep when the officers came</div>
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so I woke up to my sister crying and she said<i> he passed away</i> and I</div>
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thought he fell in a ditch, passing away like falling, and so I went to</div>
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my mother who was in the shower crying and she told me he was</div>
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dead and I understood; my memories are there but there are not so</div>
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many of them and some of them I would rather not remember like</div>
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the alcohol he was dependent on and the violence that came with it;</div>
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he was troubled but he loved us, I look up at the sky and to me he is</div>
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a lone star in the ever darkening cosmos.</div>
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💣💣💣</div>
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Today's book of poetry loved Cassandra Blanchard's <i>Fresh Pack of Smokes</i> and will be on notice for Blanchard's next book. It's going to be a killer. This kind of talent and honesty is going to burst the seams somewhere. Kudo's to Nightwood for putting their ass on the line.</div>
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Blanchard burns like she came up with the expression all on her own. Today's book of poetry is an instant fan.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQOQTvd9nkhJvcuQuB9wOQecB3Aw3z8pTt7ZlgLphnm7ov5yRiHvGWA6XZ3z8wDDWP0F0gk3qwgRRVWoojkdXdNksUNMZHgiUyn8ElLOMw7kcnUWAWOYfujtGBcj74FKo03lPz3W2Qhi8/s1600/16554025_web1_190423-NBU-cass-blanchard-author-crop.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQOQTvd9nkhJvcuQuB9wOQecB3Aw3z8pTt7ZlgLphnm7ov5yRiHvGWA6XZ3z8wDDWP0F0gk3qwgRRVWoojkdXdNksUNMZHgiUyn8ElLOMw7kcnUWAWOYfujtGBcj74FKo03lPz3W2Qhi8/s400/16554025_web1_190423-NBU-cass-blanchard-author-crop.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Cassandra Blanchard</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
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Cassandra Blanchard was born in Whitehorse, YT, but called Vancouver home for many years. She holds a BA from the University of British Columbia with a major in gender, race, sexuality and social justice. Her poetry has been published in a handful of literary journals. <i>Fresh Pack of Smokes</i> is her first book of poetry. She lives in Duncan, British Columbia.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>BLURBS</b></span></div>
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There's tremendous pressure on underrepresented artists to diffuse complex stories so they may be made more easily understood and consumed by the mainstream. Debut author Cassandra Blanchard's unapologetic, immersive and veracious voice cannot be diffused! Her prose poems stand bold and true on the page, with barely a stanza break to mitigate their power. I am honoured to stand with her poems — I've been a big admirer of Blanchard for years. Read <i>Fresh Pack of Smokes</i> and become an admirer too.</div>
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— Amber Dawn</div>
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This is a book, ultimately, about dignity. These poems spill over like a sentence as long and relentless as a lifetime. Grasping for what feels fleetingly like a normal life, the narrator instead wrings words from blood. This is a book of a city that is everywhere, of policing, of using, of survival that is all-consuming, of fear and pleasure and hallucination that are three sides of a coin. This is a book about the wisdom of not caring and yet the pain of still doing so.</div>
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— Ray Hsu</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
Truly distinctive in vision and voice, Blanchard's <i>Fresh Pack of Smokes </i>probes the pain and elation, the silence and clamour, the confinement and the freedom of life on the street. The power of Blanchard's poetry arises from its rare combination of raw honesty, remarkable detail and spiralling accumulation, producing a collection that is as difficult and unrelenting as it is exceptional, necessary and wise.</div>
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— Daniel Scott Tysdal</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://nightwoodeditions.com/">nightwoodeditions.com</a></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b>793</b></span><div>
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<b style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />DISCLAIMER</b></div>
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<div style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>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.</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 11px; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>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"</b></span></div>
<div style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>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.</b></span></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-9271859123983444512019-10-25T12:00:00.000-07:002019-10-25T12:07:48.712-07:00The Night Chorus - Harold Hoefle (McGill-Queen's University Press)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">The Night Chorus. </b>Harold Hoefle. McGill-Queen's University Press. Montreal, Quebec. 2018.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQsfZqr-goTzkp1cubO1DHBRIpaz2LNzBG_RlPnpEom4qQAveo6v-9A7_kDBpPFjPeQQUOshm_0gXWWOA2J-M9cXHM_WUNfwbxSYR6zvUCuksYCjQz0J39Dqxj5s_1diUrECzYfGs-ZIo/s1600/9780773554924.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQsfZqr-goTzkp1cubO1DHBRIpaz2LNzBG_RlPnpEom4qQAveo6v-9A7_kDBpPFjPeQQUOshm_0gXWWOA2J-M9cXHM_WUNfwbxSYR6zvUCuksYCjQz0J39Dqxj5s_1diUrECzYfGs-ZIo/s640/9780773554924.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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The older we get here at Today's book of poetry the more we forget what we are trying to remember. To the best of our bad memory Harold Hoefle showed up at my farm house door when I was guarding the Stanhope/Grand Tracadie border in Prince Edward Island. Harold and I shared a mutual friend, Sir Patrik of Hunt, whose word was gold. This was back around 1985, I think, and Harold Hoefle was a long distance runner at the time.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Since then Mr. Hoefle has shown up periodically, over the years, but the last I heard he was writing prose. When <i>The Night Chorus</i> arrived here at Today's book of poetry we were surprised, but then not surprised at all. It finally makes sense, that old Harold Hoefle had been a poet all along.</div>
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<i>The Night Chorus</i> reminds Today's book of poetry of younger days, sitting across a table, from one of <i>those</i> people. You know the ones I mean. The story tellers. Those folks who know something you don't, but need too.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<u>A Loving Follow-Through</u></div>
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<u><br /></u></div>
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At least it's not dripping off the kitchen table,</div>
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the wet cereal of my brain, but the font room's got</div>
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my Kyla and Jimbo, I hope not messy like me,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and <i>he's</i> already gone, he off-ed right off,</div>
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the screen door banging at that orange moon,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and it was so him to do us after dark,</div>
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but that's my Brian, it's like I married</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
every nasty bit in the ten o'clock news.</div>
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Good that he called <span style="font-size: x-small;">911 </span>(someone should mop),</div>
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though now for-sure he's barrelling out of town,</div>
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whipping along the ditch with a bottle in his crotch...</div>
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and isn't <i>cereal</i> a weird word? I am (was) serial,</div>
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as in serially attracted to the Brians,</div>
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thrones who chug whisky like beer,</div>
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who brag <i>I'll sleep when I'm dead</i> - those guys.</div>
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So there's me with my loser beacon. Yvonne told me,</div>
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blonde to blonde, party girl to party girl.</div>
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She opened and shut her fist in my face,</div>
<div>
said <i>that's your forehead winking at crazies.</i><br />
Guess it's true, I could never get past men like him,<br />
as if Brian were just the end product, exactly that,<br />
but he's the one I chose, the one with the wooden bat,<br />
taking down the world that tried to take him down,<br />
and starting right at home with a big wind-up,<br />
a smooth swing, and a loving follow-through.<br />
<br />
✍✍✍<br />
<br />
Wouldn't you know it, Harold Hoefle has a poem in memory of another Canadian poet, Judith Fitzgerald, and Today's book of poetry was reminded of our brief acquaintance with Ms. Fitzgerald. Judith was generous and supportive at a time when there wasn't much in the way of support for our poetry. It went a long way. Fitzgerald, like many of us, was tortured by parts of her life. Harold Hoefle swims up that river in his poem "Death of a Poet", but he comes out clean on the other end by adding a glimmer of hope, a glimmer where none existed.<br />
<br />
<u>Death of a Poet</u><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">(i.m. Judith Ariana Fitzgerald, 1952-2015)</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i>
Your life was lightning. You struck a room,<br />
flushed and flamed every cheek, then turned away<br />
from the burning stumps of all who wanted you,<br />
smoke curling like your hair in summer.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
Childhood: yours was not green buds, soft air.<br />
Hunger tore at you and your siblings; the mother<br />
never there. So you scavenged alleys: the bins,<br />
the cans. Fear and weakness fed on you.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
Your poems, the postcard rooms you lived in,<br />
the angles of a minute-by-minute existence<br />
jutting out and in: your life was Cubist.<br />
One edge was a writer's yard,<br />
the deck of that lakeside A-frame where,<br />
below the maples, the poets heard<br />
you read and make comments, shared laughs,<br />
but mostly stared -<i>gamine, sylph, sibyl?</i><br />
Like others, the poets wanted more:<br />
the thighs you crossed, the hair you tossed.<br />
The winning moves you learned from loss.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
The crack of a bat was something<br />
you also knew. In bars, at parties,<br />
your tongue could sever anyone, but when<br />
church bells tolled at twilight - off you'd run<br />
to be alone, to stand shadow.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
At a Windsor desk, your lookout on the slow river,<br />
you'd watch boats pass and water ride the shore.<br />
You thought of people you knew, or had known:<br />
that carousel of friend/contact/met-once/ex-something.<br />
One memory remained: the man you loved the most,<br />
whose torment kept his own hands at his throat.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
It's after two on a dull, December day.<br />
But you'd be right at home with these muted tones<br />
of cat-grey, ochre; of wet snow dripping down<br />
the brick. Still, you had to paint the vision<br />
in your head - blue shot through with black -<br />
a backdrop for your own red hair and white skin.<br />
Your only prayer: that art let you let go.<br />
<br />
✍✍✍<br />
<br />
Today's book of poetry has been running hither and yon without making up much ground. We'd been meaning to post some kind words about Mr. Hoefle for several weeks. Life just keeps getting in the way. There is much to be admired in Hoefle's slim volume. You can feel Hoefle assembling his choir, his night chorus to sing against the inanity of it all. These poems filling in emotional gaps, leaps of common and uncommon faith, all of it, tied up tightly in Hoefle's terse and vibrant poems.<br />
<br />
<u>Strong Tea</u><br />
<u><br /></u>
The day you came back,<br />
a leak had pouched the ceiling,<br />
a grey drywall saucer<br />
with a hole in the middle.<br />
But you and I,<br />
we drank strong tea<br />
and talked,<br />
the ping-pong<br />
of word and window glance,<br />
of fast laugh and topic switch.<br />
<br />
After a look outside,<br />
you said the capped waves<br />
were angry.<br />
And when you left<br />
you didn't wave,<br />
capping off<br />
not just your thought.<br />
<br />
I waved at your back,<br />
my hand flopping,<br />
as if the wrist were broken.<br />
<br />
✍✍✍<br />
<br />
We're hoping Harold Hoefle will get us back on track her at Today's book of poetry. We are expecting some big changes in the next few weeks. We'll have to get back to you with those, so please stay tuned.<br />
<br />
In the meantime Hoefle's <i>The Night Chorus </i>will meet your poetry needs. Check it out, take it for a walk around the block. Night music.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmOwkXmaspLrwhNVuk5HUlppHW7dVeQjSDW9vs9Wfr4wAzLGp4mhdMLKQ3ARfmNUm0d7GllIluMomZkuWsC6EepWhycRkHMASuy77nFHyhAJZe49_xYAVbQ670JNhp8UllQPxXzYhx9T4/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmOwkXmaspLrwhNVuk5HUlppHW7dVeQjSDW9vs9Wfr4wAzLGp4mhdMLKQ3ARfmNUm0d7GllIluMomZkuWsC6EepWhycRkHMASuy77nFHyhAJZe49_xYAVbQ670JNhp8UllQPxXzYhx9T4/s400/download.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Harold Hoefle</div>
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Photo: John W. MacDonald</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
Harold Hoefle teaches English and Creative Writing at John Abbott College. He lives in Montreal.</div>
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<div>
<a href="http://mqup.ca/">mqup.ca</a><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b>792</b></span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<b style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px;">DISCLAIMER</b></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<div style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>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.</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 11px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>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"</b></span></div>
<div style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>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.</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-33286160306267312952019-10-19T11:18:00.000-07:002019-10-19T12:09:00.446-07:00Every Atom - Erin Coughlin Hollowell (Boreal Books)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">Every Atom.</b> Erin Coughlin Hollowell. Boreal Books. An Imprint of Red Hen Press. Pasadena, California. 2018.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh86viUl9Z3egxzYhDvDL4LPQqScWkIwdM1bJgCoBp0-Ve18KCYE0g2146DX-xsm4N52QB-b2eOOXc1ggt5XxWbHLePC8-zzyJ8De4JCn54QeBz4qZx2kCIgaICpHVGRKKsCBewMp2V1y0/s1600/36472458.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh86viUl9Z3egxzYhDvDL4LPQqScWkIwdM1bJgCoBp0-Ve18KCYE0g2146DX-xsm4N52QB-b2eOOXc1ggt5XxWbHLePC8-zzyJ8De4JCn54QeBz4qZx2kCIgaICpHVGRKKsCBewMp2V1y0/s400/36472458.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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There are few things harder than watching your parents fade away in front of your eyes. The loss of memory can narrow a parents universe to the point where you can no long provide comfort. Welcome to Erin Coughlin Hollowell's <i>Every Atom.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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This mother and daughter diorama is poignant, prescient and palliative. Parts of our lives, the end parts, are often lived out in slow operas of dissension. Those we love slowly ebbing to the side of the stage and then out of lights until we become them and then full curtain to black.</div>
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<i>Every Atom</i> narrates a horrific battle wrought tender, a one way abandonment, not deliberate, but terminal. Hollowell understands mortality but can't embrace it, can't fight it.</div>
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<u>Who learns under it to</u></div>
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<u>destroy the teacher</u></div>
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<u><br /></u></div>
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First they taught us how</div>
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to put on our white</div>
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gloves. How to scrub each</div>
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night to keep them clean.</div>
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Never mind that I</div>
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was six and that boys</div>
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just twelve years older</div>
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died every day in</div>
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the jungle. Totted</div>
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where they fell. We learned</div>
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to diaper babies,</div>
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to pin away from</div>
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<br /></div>
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the child's skin and</div>
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toward our own. How</div>
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to curtsy and sit,</div>
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ankles crossed, our hands</div>
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<br /></div>
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like sleeping birds in </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
our laps. Each dinner,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
the television </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
detonated with</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
gunfire from helicopters.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Mother had me set</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
the dinner table.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I had been trained which</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
direction the knife</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
blade should face. I knew</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
how to use a shrimp</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
fork. I could iron</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
anything smooth. I </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
was a child, but I</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
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knew that white gloves</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and party manners were</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
best, because when I</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
was silent, clean, and</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
neat, my mother</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
would love me.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Or so I was taught.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
⛱⛱⛱</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Every Atom</i> is lamentation and prayer, fear and the cost of freedom, Erin Coughlin Hollowell renders us hopelessly hopeful, dutifully doomed. There is no getting out alive. The lead in every single story will do this dance, one way or another. Hollowell's lamentations have character and beauty mixed in with the sadness.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Hope raises her innocent resilience higher with almost every turn of the page in spite of the obvious stations of impending doom waiting.</div>
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One of the hardest parts of living is continuing on when those we love most leave, perish, die. Perhaps even harder are those circumstances where a loved one leaves in stages. Cognitive skills and memory echo out hollow canyons where our love used to be. A loved voice recedes in fear from the very souls who love hardest and longest. Hollowell's sorrows are not unique, we all have them. That Hollowell makes these circumstances into art is the joy.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<u>If they are not the riddle and the untying</u></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<u>of the riddle, they are nothing</u></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
We are built for breaking. We know this</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and yet still more babies are born</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
with their soft skulls and hunger.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
What word can stop a bullet? Walking</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
down the wrong street, a woman is in the sudden</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
embrace of a stranger drunk on luck's spittle.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
All of us put our hope in time, as if simple</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
accretion will make our lives valuable.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
For some people, it rains every damn day.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
All of those names etched in stone, all</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
the different ways we shine ourselves</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
like tiny moons reflecting a broken code.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
We scatter. The sea rises and gnaws away</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
at the territory we mapped so assuredly.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
So many stories we thought we would</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
never forget. A lost saint for every family.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
At night, I rest my lips against my lover's throat,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
his pulse beneath carries me along in my little boat</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
of affection and need. Oh this wreckage life,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
the breath of a hare dreaming in a hawk's shadow.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
⛱⛱⛱</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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Our morning read spawned some invigorated conversation as Hollowell skirts and flirts with the big death thing. <i>Every Atom</i> drapes the notion of the big nap and the dance to get there with a cloud that will eventually embrace us all. She gets away with this grim reportage and prognostications by colouring her palette with compassion. Her poems are beautiful poems even when recording the brutal.</div>
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Today's book of poetry has been going through a period of transition, technical and otherwise. This will be the first blog/review done on our newish office equipment. When I say newish I mean that there have been previous owners, but it is all new to us. Beautiful and mysterious. Today's book of poetry is on a serious computer learning curve. Stick around though, we anticipate good things as a result. </div>
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<u>Not asking the sky to come down</u></div>
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<u>to my good will, scattering it freely forever</u></div>
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The crow's compass swings wildly.</div>
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See him tumble from the sky, a flung rag,</div>
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a scrap of darkness plummeting.</div>
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I want to own such reckless practice.</div>
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To find the taproot of doubt and dig it out,</div>
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be scraped clean on the sun-bleached soil.</div>
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Saint Crow, I am a shabby petitioner.</div>
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One of your feathers tucked behind my ear,</div>
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I am hungry for your spring song gospel.</div>
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Teach me how to scull through the day</div>
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with wings pinioned, lucky, afflicted,</div>
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ready to abandon this broken and whole.</div>
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When I woke this morning, night's trespass</div>
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still on the water but horizon igniting,</div>
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I pledged myself to your gape-mouthed ministry.</div>
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Hurl me beyond the wildfire of my mind</div>
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into air. Into that crystalline shatter</div>
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so I might, like too-bright light, scatter.</div>
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⛱⛱⛱</div>
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Today's book of poetry has some personal experience with the horrors of the last act but we've never managed to find Erin Coughlin Hollowell's grace or her emotional precision. Today's book of poetry is continuously surprised at how many ways there are to burn, but burn Hollowell does.</div>
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Hats off to Hollowell for showing us.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivfA4vkJV_o2YpAaCPbVnzazPqsn7YpYjYspA9rYXkgd5j_ntwhlMsxqI1cGgAUnaMT_iilMCf1Y78ipjdq4bGRYjTzxl9sZiGH1MybHgsm7sZkFoTwG8_0-8er2_OaVRTTPDG1x9dEak/s1600/6561760.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivfA4vkJV_o2YpAaCPbVnzazPqsn7YpYjYspA9rYXkgd5j_ntwhlMsxqI1cGgAUnaMT_iilMCf1Y78ipjdq4bGRYjTzxl9sZiGH1MybHgsm7sZkFoTwG8_0-8er2_OaVRTTPDG1x9dEak/s400/6561760.jpg" /></a></div>
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Erin Coughlin Hollowell</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
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Erin Coughlin Hollowell is a poet and writer who lives at the end of the road in Alaska. Prior to landing in Alaska, she lived on both coasts, in big cities and small towns, pursuing many different professions from tapestry weaving to arts administration. In 2013, Boreal Books published her first collection <i>Pause, Traveller.</i> She has been awarded a Rasmuson Foundation Fellowship, a Connie Boochever Award, and an Alaska Literary Award. Her work has been most recently published in Prairie Schooner, Alaska Quarterly Review, Sugar House Review, and was a finalist for the 49th Parallel Contest for the Bellingham Review.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>BLURBS</b></span></div>
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"With clarity and grace, Erin Coughlin Hollowell cleaves into the liminal spaces between living and merely existing, between the past and forgetting, between mother and daughter, and brings us these hard-won and resilient gifts from her journey. <i>Every Atom</i> is a book that you need to read, because in it are the poems that matter." </div>
--Kevin Goodan, author of <i>Let the Voices </i><br />
"Erin Hollowell has written a stunning and beautiful tribute to a mother as she slips away into loss of memory and belonging in a body and family. And yet the richness of relation here?wreckage and tenderness?is a balm for the losses we all know we will suffer on behalf of those who have given us our lives and for our very selves. 'Saint Crow,' she writes, for darkness is indeed an entrance into the holy in these wise and nourishing poems." <br />
--Alison Hawthorne Deming, author of <i>Stairway to Heaven </i><br />
"There comes a moment in every Erin Coughlin Hollowell poem when the heart threatens to burst open and spill light." <br />
--Luis Alberto Urrea, author of <i>The Hummingbird's Daughter </i><br />
<a href="http://borealbooks.com/">borealbooks.com</a><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px;">DISCLAIMER</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><b>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.</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><b>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"</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><b>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.</b></span></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1183479604767494593.post-16569427000349080022019-10-09T08:48:00.000-07:002019-10-09T10:15:06.185-07:00Motel of the Opposable Thumbs — Stuart Ross (Anvil Press)Today's book of poetry:<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">Motel of the Opposable Thumbs. </b>Stuart Ross. Anvil Press. British Columbia. 2019.<br />
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<u>The North Star</u></div>
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<i>for Laurie Siblock</i></div>
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The first time I meet Laurie I walk into her house and</div>
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hand her a jar of pickles. Her father's side of the family</div>
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is Ukrainian, and therefore she loves pickles, she must</div>
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love pickles, I have brought her some pickles. I hand her</div>
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two roses, each rose is orange, one for her and its echo</div>
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for her cat, who has recently died, a rose for each. In</div>
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the park near the beach, she wraps her arms around a</div>
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tree too thick for her to wrap her arms around. Her</div>
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smile is composed of her eyes, her cheeks, her lips, her</div>
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teeth, her nose, the depths of her, the air that surrounds</div>
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her. Across the lake is Rochester, you'll find Rochester</div>
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there, where Frederick Douglass launched the <i>North Star,</i></div>
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his abolitionist newspaper, in eighteen hundred and</div>
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forty-seven.</div>
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💫💫💫</div>
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Today's book of poetry finds it utterly impossible to be impartial when it comes to Stuart Ross and his poetry. <i>Motel of the Opposable Thumbs</i> is the seventh Stuart Ross title Today's book of poetry has had the pleasure of writing about. That is, by far, the most Today's book of poetry has written about any other poet, go figure. </div>
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Here is a list of those titles and the links to the blogs/reviews:</div>
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<i>You Exist. Details Follow </i>(Anvil Press) - posted June 23/2013</div>
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<a href="http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2013/07/you-exist-details-follow-stuart-ross.html">http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2013/07/you-exist-details-follow-stuart-ross.html</a></div>
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<i>18 Goddamn Centos </i>(Proper Tales Press) - posted February 10/2014</div>
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<a href="http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2014/02/18-goddamn-centos-stuart-ross.html">http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2014/02/18-goddamn-centos-stuart-ross.html</a></div>
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<i>In In My Dream </i>(Book Thug) - posted April 27/2015</div>
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<a href="http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2015/04/in-in-my-dream-stuart-ross-book-thug.html">http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2015/04/in-in-my-dream-stuart-ross-book-thug.html</a></div>
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<i>Cobourg Variations </i>(Proper Tales Press) - posted February 27/2015</div>
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<a href="http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2016/02/cobourg-variations-bunch-of-poems-and_27.html">http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2016/02/cobourg-variations-bunch-of-poems-and_27.html</a></div>
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<i>A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent </i>(A Buckrider Book/Wolsak & Wynn) - posted May 27/2016</div>
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<a href="http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-sparrow-came-down-resplendent-stuart.html">http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-sparrow-came-down-resplendent-stuart.html</a></div>
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<i>Pockets - </i>(ECW Press) - posted January 4/2018</div>
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<a href="http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2018/01/pockets-stuart-ross-ecw-press.html">http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2018/01/pockets-stuart-ross-ecw-press.html</a></div>
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Today's book of poetry will do our best to be unbiased — but there are plenty of reasons for our enthusiasm.</div>
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Today's book of poetry is Michael Dennis and my last book, <i>Bad Engine </i>(Anvil Press), only exists because of the efforts of Mr. Ross. Ross went through all of my published poems and most of my unpublished work and, picked what he liked best and put together his selection of my poems for <i>Bad Engine. </i>Then he edited them.</div>
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For the many dozens of other Canadian poets who've been edited by Ross, you'll know instantly what I mean when I say that a Ross edit means you have better poems. Stuart contacted Anvil and told them he was working on a collection of my poetry. Anvil said yes. Anvil said yes. Life changing for me. Another day at the poetry office for Stuart Ross.</div>
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My second book of poetry from Anvil Press, <i>Low Centre of Gravity, </i>will be appearing in 2020, this time I picked the poems, but with Stuart's help, and of course he edited it. I agreed with virtually every edit he suggested. </div>
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All of that to say that Today's book of poetry and Michael Dennis owe Mr. Ross. We are old friends. A couple of weeks ago Today's book of poetry had wooden signs laser cut by my brilliant brother-in-law, and secret poetry fan, Steven Predko. Mr. Predko knows and admires Stuart and his poetry. The signs were free because they were for Stuart. What signs you ask?</div>
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These signs! Our guest room is now proudly called the Stuart Ross Guest and Reading Room. Sir Bill Bissett, Frank Davey, the late Richard Huttel and a small herd of other poets have stayed in our guest room. Now it is official, Stuart Ross has a room named after him.</div>
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Which brings us back to <i>Motel of the Opposable Thumbs.</i> My dear friend Stuart Ross has always been a fine poet. But like good wine, he is improving with age. Today's book of poetry has long believed that Mr. Ross was one the best poets in Canada, <i>Motel of the Opposable Thumbs</i> proves my point.</div>
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<u>Toronto Poem</u></div>
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Toronto, the taxi cabs flow mournfully</div>
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through your hunchbacked streets. Anxious</div>
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towers reach into the white-haired clouds</div>
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that throw shadows over</div>
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your tired, sweaty people, who squeeze</div>
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between each other on self-conscious</div>
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sidewalks cracking open beneath the</div>
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weight of fearful commerce and</div>
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vanishing newspapers. Your edges ripple</div>
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and fade into devoted car-worshipers.</div>
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Your tired mechanics and surgeons</div>
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work deep into the noisy night,</div>
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Jewish poodles sniffing at</div>
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their inquisitive ankles.</div>
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💫💫💫</div>
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Stuart Ross is the most recent recipient of the prestigious Harbourfront Festival Prize for contributions to Canadian literature. Some of the other previous recipients of the Harbourfront Festival Prize include Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Christopher Dewdney and so on. Titans. The prize was totally deserved, Stuart's work in the Canadian poetry world has spanned over forty years and includes his publishing others through his own Proper Tales Press, workshopping all over the country, and encouraging other writers. </div>
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You can read about Stuart's Harbourfront Festival Prize here:</div>
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<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/books/stuart-ross-to-receive-10k-harbourfront-festival-prize-for-contributions-to-canadian-literature-1.5286918">https://www.cbc.ca/books/stuart-ross-to-receive-10k-harbourfront-festival-prize-for-contributions-to-canadian-literature-1.5286918</a></div>
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Stuart Ross was also the recipient of the 5th Kitty Lewis Hazel Millar Dennis Tourbin Poetry Prize which is awarded by Today's book of poetry. <i>Motel of the Opposable Thumbs</i> easily explains the Today's book of poetry award. The Harbourfront Festival Prize is for his contributions to the literary community, and as far as I can tell, my experience with Stuart Ross and <i>Bad Engine</i> is only one small example of the tireless work Ross has been doing for other poets for decades.</div>
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<i>Motel of the Opposable Thumbs</i> proves what Today's book of poetry has been saying since we first met Stuart Ross back in the late seventies, early eighties, he is one of the most wildly imaginative and innovative poets we have. <i>Motel of the Opposable Thumbs</i> continues Ross's excellent oeuvre and will expand the hold he has on his many devoted readers. In recent years Mr. Ross has allowed a new compassion to be seen in his work along with his already considerable glee.</div>
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Stuart Ross, the poet, has been on a trajectory all his own for a long time and his poems continue with a brisk and often surreal, scatological logic, his newest poems bring him closer and closer to exposing his very big heart. <i>Motel of the Opposable Thumbs</i> is unpredictable, but that in itself should be expected, Ross has never been predictable. What Ross has always been, and remains, is full on unique, original. There isn't anyone writing poems in Canada who can do what Stuart Ross does. <i>Motel of the Opposable Thumbs </i>prove it.</div>
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<u>Motel of the Opposable Thumbs</u></div>
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<i>in memory of Sydney Ross</i></div>
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We soar through the night. Bugs spatter our windshield.</div>
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My father, he's alive again. Steers with one hand.</div>
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Our headlights bounce the road. Air whips our hair.</div>
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He sucks on smoke. I clutch a bag of chips.</div>
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The moon sucks on clouds. A bat flits by.</div>
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My father flicks on the radio. The highway spasms.</div>
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A dark rectangle. VACANCY ruptures the horizon.</div>
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"We'll stop here." My father's deep rumble.</div>
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I'm nearing sixty. He is long dead.</div>
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He sits on the edge of his twin bed. I sit on mine.</div>
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Mould in the bathroom. A spider on the lampshade.</div>
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"And the nurse slid the ring from my still, withered</div>
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hand and handed it to you in the corridor." Light sputters.</div>
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The Coke machine rattles. I slide under the covers.</div>
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The highway goes silent. I can't warm my hands.</div>
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💫💫💫</div>
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Today's book of poetry admitted from the start of today's missive that we were utterly incapable of being unbiased when it comes to Mr. Ross. He changed the trajectory of my life for the better when he put his hands on my poems. How do you pay that back? Read <i>Motel of the Opposable Thumbs</i> and there is every chance Stuart Ross's poems will change your poetry trajectory.</div>
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<img height="360" src="https://i.cbc.ca/1.5286950.1568742038!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_780/stuart-ross.jpg" width="640" /></div>
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Stuart Ross</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>ABOUT THE POET</b></span></div>
Stuart Ross is a writer, editor, writing teacher, and small press activist living in Cobourg, Ontario. He is the award-winning author of twenty books of poetry, fiction, and essays, most recently<i> Pockets </i>(ecw Press, 2017), <i>A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent </i>(Wolsak and Wynn, 2016), and<i> A Hamburger in a Gallery</i> (DC Books, 2015). Stuart has taught workshops in elementary and high schools across the country and was the 2010 Writer-in-Residence at Queen’s University. Visiting schools and working with students of all ages is his favourite part of his writing practice. Stuart is at work writing nearly a dozen different poetry, non-fiction, and fiction manuscripts.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>BLURBS</b></span></div>
“An admirably light touch: a democratic sense that all risks are created equal; an irrepressible need to play the clown, even when it results in self-sabotage; Ross’s stylistic hallmarks are on full display in <i>Motel of the Opposable Thumbs.</i><br />
— Jesse Eckerlin, Quill & Quire<br />
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“[With <i>Pockets,</i>] Stuart Ross develops a fragmentary, dreamlike novel that is startling, sometimes silly and marbled with melancholy.”<br />
— Jonathan Ball, Winnipeg Free Press<br />
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“The wit and irreverent wisdom of Stuart Ross has been a mainstay of Canadian poetry for years, but in <i>A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent</i> we also see him at his most vulnerable … grappling with our mystifying world with his trademark affection and fury.”<br />
— Adam Sol, Canadian Jewish Literary Awards citation<br />
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Oath of Allegiance to Poetry by Stuart Ross</div>
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Video: Wally Keeler</div>
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<a href="http://anvilpress.com/">anvilpress.com</a></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b>790</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b>DISCLAIMER</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;">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</span><span style="color: red; font-size: xx-small; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12.6px;"> other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.</span></div>
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Today's book of poetryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11420751924139159090noreply@blogger.com0