Bulletproof - Matthew Murrey (Jacar Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Bulletproof.  Matthew Murrey.  Jacar Press.  Durham, North Carolina. 2019.

"Grim as a box of bullets."

                                                                                             Shadow of a Prayer

Matthew Murrey's Bulletproof "comes correct" as our dear friend Chef Duncan would say.  Almost every poem in Bulletproof 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.

Bulletproof 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.

Bike Messenger's Last Drop

Fifteen stories above brake lights,

horns and clenched steering wheels,

keyboards are quiet, doors locked

and phones mute in their cradles.

I'm walking back to the elevators

with an envelope left in the hallway

for me--my final run of the day.

Half past five and I'm past ready

to be done, to go underground

for a noisy train, to join everyone

heading home for the night.

Then an elevator opens; two women

step off, pushing their metal carts

of buckets, mops, soap, and rags.

They're speaking a language I can't

place--Serbian or Ukrainian perhaps.

They nod to me, then one heads east,

one west, toward opposite ends of the hall.

Their conversation ends, cut off

by distance and the rattle

of their carts.  Last bit of work

in hand, I ride the elevator down,

thinking of those women--

how they smiled and talked

with each other; how one patted

the other's arm as they parted.

Also I'm imagining all the trashcans,

dusty tables, coffee stains, toilets

and dropped Kleenex--the tasks

they will bend and kneel to;

how they were separated;

how we are silenced.

📣📣📣📣📣📣

Bulletproof 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.  Bulletproof 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.

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 Bulletproof does the same beautifully damned thing.

Lucky You

All the breaks

you'll never know.  Red light

that kept you from being

broadsided and brain-damaged

just three blocks further on.

The thief who would've broken

in and waited under your bed

with a gun, got killed

when he was only ten, a freak

accident that broke his neck.

The thunderstorm bruising

the horizon would've been my last,

but I was on the couch, too sick

to get up and check the car windows

when the pelting rain started

and the tree limb fell, busting

the sidewalk and burying

its splintered end deep in dirt.

What doesn't happen, doesn't

hurt--hurtles by like a city block-sized

mountain of rock silently shooting

past the earth, whizzes by unseen

like a stray bullet, like germs in a sneeze.

Another year of drinking that water

and the doctor would've said,

"I hate to break this to you."

Good thing the phone rang.

Good thing they took a wrong turn.

I'm so glad you came early.  Oh,

and that mosquito you just slapped,

that was the one.  Lucky you.

📣📣📣📣📣📣

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.

Murrey shares the contradictions we endure in our every day walk through it all.  Bulletproof isn't in the business of offering solutions.  These poems give poignant consideration to where the rubber meets the road.

Shoot the Cat

That's what my father did: killed

the engine, went back in the house,

opened the drawer by the bed,

and picked up the loaded thirty-eight.

He'd been backing the SUV down

the driveway when he ran over Foma

who'd lived with my sister for ten years

before she moved to Rochester.

I'm not sure if it took two shots, or just one,

but if cats could talk, Foma would have

thanked him for not letting her writhe and yowl

with her crushed pelvis for the last hours

of her fifteen years in Jacksonville,

which had been pretty good up until that moment

when she didn't see or hear the Dodge Ramcharger,

and my father didn't see her in the wide mirror

at his elbow.  They both were getting old.

📣📣📣📣📣📣📣

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.

And if you're buying poetry nothing could be more prescient than the honest beauty and big hearted Matthew Murrey and his Bulletproof.  Murrey's poems are splendid common sense rendered lyrical.

Matthew Murrey

ABOUT THE POET

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.

BLURB
“A generous range of thought-worthy subjects, approached with simplicity, wisdom, and a deft use of language.”

     - Marilyn Nelson

Matthew Murrey

reading at the Book launch for Bulletproof

at the Urban Free Library

March 5, 2019

Video: Matthew Murrey

jacarpress.com 

810

DISCLAIMERS

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

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

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

Dazzle - Alison Stone (Jacar Press)

Today's book of poetry:

Dazzle.  Alison Stone.  Jacar Press.  Durham, North Carolina.  2017.

"Don't settle for pale,

idea filled days. Let joy slap

you out of sleep."

                                                                                                 from "Pleasure"

Dazzle is exactly as advertised, the damned thing "dazzles" as sparks appear between your fingers while you are trying to read.  Damned blue sparks that tickle your fingers and fuck up your brain.  Alison Stone has a trick where she leads you down one garden path or another and then she shivs the readers brain to an entirely different plane.

It's a madhouse inside Dazzle.  Stone is writing within a self-imposed and very formal technique in many of these poems but you simply don't notice specific literary technique until the second time around.  The first time you read these poems you do some sort of Dazzle jaw-drop.

After reading a couple of Alison Stone's monsters you are not only hooked, you're hooked bad and only the next last line will help.

Teenager

My body's hot-wired, brazen as the garter

on a bride's thigh. High on anger,

we climb our hill near

the graveyard, lean against the broken gate

to pass around a flask of Tang

and vodka while stars dye the dull green

bushes silver. Somewhere politicians rant

and old people, their dreams eaten

by money, rest up for the death they enter

every morning and call compromise. Eager

kisses leave me trembling and great.

...

Alison Stone plays with style for her own amusement, stretching those extraordinary poetry muscles simply because she can.  But whether she is writing free verse or adhering to a tight set of self imposed arbitrary rules - these poems all work the same way.  Stone softens us up with the tender details and careful suggestions all decorously arranged and then she lowers some sort of heavyweight boom.  It is simply marvelous how she sets them up and then knocks them down.

Abandonment

Tossed aside, I'm dull. Toad-

ugly. Fat. Dumb. Battered. Bent.

Each muscle and tendon

aches. Whatever I did wrong, let me atone.

Friends offer vodka, swear I'll mend.

One morning, I wake up. It's done.

Birds no longer chirp your name;

the sun's insistent yellow might mean

promise. When you can't get a date,

feel lonely, scared, don't

call. I'll be fucking a new lover with abandon.

...

Stone takes no prisoners and takes no sass.  Alison Stone is a poet after my own poet heart with Dazzle.  There is never a moment's hesitation in these poems.  Stone is willing to bet it all every time out of the gate.  Today's book of poetry thinks that Stone has her bad engine tuned to perfection, these poems are note perfect when at high rev and Stone never takes her foot off of the gas.

Sweetheart

I love you, but don't test

my patience. I won't share.

I know that

bitch from down the street

has starte-

d sniffing around, wanting a taste.

She better keep her twat

out of our happiness. Three's

a bloodbath. This is no threat,

it's a fact: I won't let you waste

our love. You'll only leave in a hearse.

...

There's five or six inches of fresh snow outside this morning and it is still coming down like Santa was expected.  That means that some of the minions didn't make it to the office in time for our morning read.  But I smell scotch all over Milo and Kathryn's meagre snow complaints.  I won't mention it because they are both poetry dedicated and work for the right price.

The reading itself was a gas.  So many of Stone's poems start out like the better angels of our hopes and dreams only to reveal the true nature of our devilish hearts.

These poems rang out across our offices like silver bullets and each and every one of us was a damned vampire.  At the end of the reading bodies were scattered all over the floor.

Twilight

The space between

husky and wolf,

between longing for

and shouldn't have.

No-man's-land

between lovers' bodies

and the thickening dark.

Short corridor of last chances,

final flickerings

before moths kamikaze

toward cracked street lights

and the dull sun,

sucker punched by night,

goes down.

...

Dazzle is exactly as advertised.  Whether Stone is taking apart a relationship and revealing the deep, dark heart of truth or simply musing about the "husky and wolf," if you aren't "dazzled" by these poems then your poetry engine is misfiring.

Today's book of poetry ended up reading these poems to K last night when we went to bed.  K is the better judge of almost everything and Alison Stone's Dazzle not only got K's seal of approval, it garnered actual profanity-laced praise.  Like me, K couldn't contain the combination of joy and awe these poems evoked without swearing.  Today's book of poetry doesn't have any higher praise.

Alison Stone

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alison Stone has published three previous full-length collections: Ordinary Magic (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Persa Press, 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, Barrow Street, Poet Lore, and many other journals and anthologies. She has been awarded Poetry's Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly's Madeline Sabin award. She was recently Writer in Residence at LitSpace St. Pete. She is also a painter and the creator of The Stone Tarot. A licensed psychotherapist, she has private practises in NYC and Nyack.

BLURBS

“With a jeweler’s lapidary skill, Alison Stone has fashioned a string of gemlike poems that indeed (dare I say it?) dazzle—with wisdom, wit, and brio. She’s crafted every line to a high polish, rich in metaphor and music. Wide-ranging in subjects—so much to catch the eye—this book brims with “the shimmer, the shiver, the quicksilver / flickers. The sparkle, the dazzle of poetry.” Readers, enjoy!”
     — Richard Foerster

“Stone is not a ‘literary’ poet (there are enough of them)… She is interested in a woman’s truth, and has something hard won (but won) to give her readers. This is strong poetry.”
     — Allen Grossman

“Stone offers lean and sparkling poetry that invites us to join with it — poems that are, in their way, multi-faceted spaces to explore, discovering what we may, and grafting what we bring.”
     — Timothy McLafferty

Poems from Dangerous Enough by Alison Stone

Video: DobraPolskaSzkola

jacarpress.com

653

DISCLAIMERS

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

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

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

In Case of Sudden Free Fall - Deborah Bogen (Jacar Press)

Today's book of poetry:
In Case of Sudden Free Fall.  Deborah Bogen.  Jacar Press.  Durham, North Carolina.  2017.

"the sun rises like a guillotine"

                                                                                                 - Deborah Bogen

Deborah Bogen's poems have a distinct hum to them and Today's book of poetry fears we will never get the description of it quite right.  It's like these perfectly modern little prose poems are clever disguises for the epic movies underneath.  You can hear the poetry machine hum golden as though a soundtrack were about to burst through.  And Bogen's movies are a gas.

Today's book of poetry has all the time in the world for Bogen's type of clever. In Case of Sudden Free Fall has a cast of guest stars that runs from Vincent Van Gogh to Charles Dickens, Jean-Paul Sartre to Baudelaire and so on.  Bogen works these cultural iconic celebrities right into her narrative as though they were there all along.

Bogen has one of those technicolour pens and as a result these little movies appear in vivid colour.  Bogen's subtle twists on/of language had me working my way backwards to track her careful steps. In Case of Sudden Free Fall bursts with unassuming intelligence and confident logic.  Today's book of poetry likes how Bogen navigates.

Looking at Guernica

I'm thinking in terms of stage props, rubber knives and

plausible explanations. You say I should relax, take an as-

pirin, make some coffee, but where-oh-where, old friend,

are the shield-walls for our hearts? These days, these ter-

rible days, you tell me are only warnings, but we've both

seen Guernica. Chaos is a wild-eyed bull standing over a

dead child and Christians or no-Christians the messiah

isn't coming.

So we walk to the cemetery, to look at all the old-timey

names on the monuments. Did you know, I say, that in-

scribed is just another word for cut?

...

Today's book of poetry would be out of line with my own cosmic forces and make-up if we didn't mention that In Case of Sudden Free Fall has a poem where "Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt make things right."  If you don't know the two Sonnys stop reading this and look them up.  Respect.

Deborah Bogen drops jazz musicians and painters into her landscapes and soundtracks to great affect.  She uses these characters as a cultural shorthand, she knows the emotion generated by the charged names of the famous.  How when we hear the name of William Turner we cannot help but think of the sea, the sea-scape and the unknowable chorus of clouds.  Bogen knows that we readers are pre-conditioned and sends us through to her clever manipulations like Ivan Pavlov and his dogs.  It is no cause for alarm, our appetite whetted, we gulp it down like smiling pups on a juicy bone.

How-to For the Daughters of Suicides

First of all. Be Fine. They want you to. Fix your face,

brush your hair, say I'm fine, thanks, fine. And in a way,

it's true. Because now you don't care what you eat, when

you eat, if you eat. You don't care how you look. Or what

you think. You don't think. And that's weirdly swell. Like

lidocaine. Or being made of chrome.

Tomorrow a long dark car will take you to the cemetery.

Wear a plain black dress, or dark blue if you only have

that. Later, you must contend with the women who bring

casseroles, but otherwise you can relax. Remember, the

body must inhabit this space, but there's nowhere your

mind has to be.

...

Today's book of poetry's morning read was interrupted by the delivery of a parcel from our St. Louis correspondent David Clewell.  The entire staff danced around the box in anticipation and the Twangster did not let us down.  Once again, Mr. Clewell has brought holiday cheer to a new season. This particular reading assignment included Lynn Emanuel, David Kirby, Campbell McGrath and Albert Goldbarth.  We still don't believe in God or heaven here at Today's book of poetry but we're pretty sure the Twangster is a poetry monster angel.  Today's book of poetry is very thankful that he is out there monitoring the poetry ether.

To get back to the matter at hand, Deborah Bogen's poetry has pace, In Case of Sudden Free Fall rolls steady as a train.  Today's book of poetry was completely in Bogen world for this most pleasant journey, dark corners and all, because she allows the reader such easy access, decorates the path she wants followed.  Even with the occasional sad destination these poems make you open your happy eyes just a little wider.

In Case of Sudden Free Fall

You can put it in your pocket, in your tire well, in your

armpit. You can stash it under your baseball cap, or wrap

it up in a handkerchief. You can stuff it in your under-

wear or hide it in your brand new pigskin wallet. You

can slip it under your armband, or bury it in the desert

or whisper it into your cell phone. You can smooth it out

and cut it up with little scissors. Or you can fold it. Care-

fully. Like money.

...

In Case of Sudden Free Fall is Deborah Bogen's fourth book of poetry and it shows.  This is polished, old hand in the kitchen, stuff.  Bogen teems with charming wisdom.  Bogen's hum will convince.

Deborah Bogen

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Deborah Bogen is a poet and novelist. In Case of Sudden Free Fall is her fourth collection. Her three previous collections of poetry are Living By the Children's Cemetery, Landscape with Silos (National Poetry Series Finalist and winner of the X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize) and Let Me Open You a Swan (Antivenom Press, Elixir Press). She was the winner of the 2016 New Letters Prize for Poetry for "My Stint as a Librarian & Other Poems." She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

BLURBS

“Grown-up poems for grown-ups.”
     — Stuart Friebert

“I loved reading In Case of Sudden Free Fall, Deborah Bogen’s beautiful and remarkable oneiric prose poem collection. A delicious gem, it takes the reader on a soulful and transformative journey. Under Bogen’s expert guidance, we travel from enchantment to melancholy, to surprising encounters with literary and artistic figures, to loss and death, and back to wonder. I’ll keep revisiting this collection time and again.”
     — Hélène Cardona

jacarpress.com

612

DISCLAIMERS

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

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

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

Feeding The Light - Jaki Shelton Green (Jacar Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Feeding the Light.  Jaki Shelton Green.  Jacar Press.  Durham, North Carolina. 2014.

Any poet who mentions Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Herbie Hancock and Ornette Coleman all in one poem is going to get the attention of an old jazz-rat like me.  These names fall of of Jaki Shelton Green's capable lips with such familiarity they might almost be an afterthought.  After all, what reasonable poet wouldn't want these giants wandering their poems and setting tempo?

But Today's book of poetry would be misleading our readers if we led you to believe that Feeding the Light is about jazz.  No, jazz lives here but it's not the addressee.  Green uses a stream of extreme consciousness to pinwheel through kaleidoscopic narratives.  There is light, as the title suggests, and it is refracted through a dozen different lens in real time.  The effect is splendid.

feeding the light

                for aunt lilly

                          (who taught me how to see in the dark)

we risk ice storms postpone passionate death to swirl head

first beyond wise breathing lessons beyond crimson soaked

necks crushed knuckles and stinking birth skin all the way

down past gray fields chaste moons yet light so pregnant it

seeps across insolent skies too ashamed to name the dances

too ashamed to name the shaman who eats the jazz behind

iron doors praying for half notes that cure blindness cure

the bestial that lurks inside places troubles on the water one

tenor eyelash at a time reappearing at the bottom of a worn

out morning after cup of mils pharoah herbie ornette we

risk falling out of the well used belly the platinum engraved

womb that cherishes a right handed bass player clean blue

velvet shoes that keep nameless eyes waiting he has a way

of singing thick thighs apart in the middle of blazing duets

knows how to pull blossoms out of the ground through

february snow drifts feeds a bastard sky child nothing but

horn a wild child reading the book of the thousand nights

and a night blue velvet shoes can't keep a damn lie straight

in between identifying frozen crushing faces slaughtered for

whispering jazz slaughtered for smelling like jazz wooden

zulu spears silver coins wet feathers we risk losing our

sense of flight our gypsy hearts in search of jazz eating

shaman who serves holy bread with blues water his voice

slicing daylight feeding small pieces to all that is left of a

brown jungle girl whose bones smoke up every juke joint in

between here and all the places she died alone on alabaster

steps voice strangled by kisses prayers abandoned weeping

shaman cures her dreams pours billie sarah nina ella down 

her throat horny hips thrust shatter shred blue velvet shoes

across the room a narrow mirror becomes a road and she

learns to fly straight through a glass sky she be music now

she be night-fed she be forgiveness rupturing a worn out

morning after cup of herself she be birthing remixing clocks

calendars numbers maps her sweat sweet round midnight

honey washing up onto a shore of seasons smelling like

drums tasting like a flute of curry we risk night searching

wanting to taste her skin.

...

Feeding the Light isn't about jazz but it has all the rhythms, drives like good jazz.  Green is making multitudinous connections at light speed, all held together with a rock solid bottom, foundation.

Feeding the Light is not about jazz but Jaki Shelton Green is wailing when she tells the story of an arranged marriage in Kandahar.  Any romantic mystique fouled by the green toothed grin and rancid breath of the aging groom.  Green explores the intimate violence of a woman's world, she goes places most of us never see.

waiting for love

alone cold mint tea in orange plastic torn djelaba a red

you forbid waiting drowning in six too many capsules of

magic trying to remember the words of the astrologer or

what you were screaming as you fled into the secret clay

wall of your brother's house trying to understand that i am

only allowed to pray on wednesdays pray only in the blue

mosque in Mazar-e-Sharif or join your sisters at Karte-

e-Shakhi this strange but magical Kabul my captor Kabul

the first time I drank the darkness of a particular Pashtun

male the morning i am face to face with Malalai the only

female police in Kandahar we play burqa eye games before

she slaps me shouting to lower my gaze cover my hennaed

wrists or wake up dead i return to these walls i name home

to the sacred stitches and colors rugs from your tribe my

dowry my art i smoke the ancient hashish i found buried

beneath the kitchen wall tiles your younger sister Selah

arrives tells me it belonged to your grandmother we smoke

sleep cry eat the feta olives grapes and dream of weddings

hair beaches nail polish dark warriors bearing Tibetan music

we arrive by caravan to the wedding site your father tells

me you will come so i search for you amongst the men

that encircle the wedding party and begin wishing that i

could place a hidden camera in the back of my burqa so

i can see you when you remain invisible i am the foreign

woman laughing undetected beneath my blue wedding

tent a gift from your mother reminding me that this is the

way for a refugee wife suddenly i smell the secret blend

of wedding oils against my face it is Zarah your sister

laughing far too openly amongst men hugging thanking me

for her happiness not understanding the smile in her eyes

i do not feel my body shift or her left hand seize the gun

from my pocket Zarah my sister-in-law forced to marry

the man with green teeth shoots her head off during the

beginning of the weeklong Eid-e-Ghorbon trying to forget

all i am forced to remember razor wire nights Koochie boys

wearing desert faces speaking to me in all the languages

of hunger begging for gold thread i don't remember the

name of the particular dark Pashtun male or the color of

Zarah's wedding dress i try to forget her smile the way

blood creates its own art spraying the cake the gifts of sugar

bread honey spices prayer carpets scarves from her sisters i

remember your daily screams when i forgot and opened the

door to visitors is Peshawar forgetting always to wear my

chador i remind you that i am the same woman you danced

with beneath the stars in Kandahar the same astrologer

who meets your eyes in the bazaar i am every woman in

the snow covered streets of Ghazni or in Herat Province

lighting candles in search of Zarah's gold teeth i am the lost

bullet lodged in the wedding cake that the man with green

teeth serves to his new bride Fatima i will meet her in the

bathroom stalls next door to the blue mosque and pretend

i do not see her tap my market basket remove the muslin

cloth covering the fresh chicken dates onions potatoes

lemons drop my knife into the deep pockets of her riding

skirts our smiles whispering salaams it is the coldest night

without you and i am preparing a dinner for your return the

foods of our passionate longings lentil and bulgar patties

stuffed eggplant kasseri cheese my brother smuggles from

Turkey chicken pilaf raisin compote i spend hours shaving

oiling my skin soaking in frankincense ginger jasmine water

arrange rose petals through our bed sharpen candle

sticks that will light this night there is no more hashish guns

or knives only the wedding feast waiting.

...

Green inhabits the lives of several unforgettable women, some almost mythic in stature and substance.  These are brave poems about strong women in a world where they are not always valued or appreciated.  To say the least.

Feeding the Light made for an energetic group of readers at our morning read.  Kathryn, our Jr. Editor, took the lead as she most often does these days.  The readers were unanimous, they wanted more.

Gender and culture make for a big battlefield but Green does not flinch.  

an eclipse of skin

i

the blood was calling

ii

ancient spirits

gather beneath erect feet

cry an ancestral anointment

kiss torn torso

restitch face to smile

iii

splintered hands

hold death songs

one breath crawling towards light

iv

hidden in every finger joint

hidden between shoulder and neck

hidden between heart and rib

v

yo hair is in my drink missus sarah

go ahead and move it william

you know you don't want to drink my hair

do you william?

...

Jaki Shelton Green is searching for the light in all things, storming through the darkness, spirit strong, reaching for the light.  This is the sort of optimism we applaud at Today's book of poetry.

Feeding the Light is one of those welcomed chapbooks that reads much bigger.  Once inside Jaki Shelton Green world everything expanded.  Green can burn.

Jaki Shelton Green

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jaki Shelton Green is a poet, creativity coach, teacher, and cultural activist.  Her books include Dead on Arrival, Dead on Arrival and New Poems, Conjure Blues, singing a tree into dance, and breath of the song.  The recipient of many awards, she was recently inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame.  She lives in Mebane, North Carolina.

BLURB

“Rooted in hypnagogic logic and deeply seated in the tradition of Jayne Cortez, Quincy Troupe and Ntozake Shange, Jaki Shelton Green’s verse narratives pay homage to the orphic ethos of the mythmaking South with all the viscous verve of Van Gogh with a palette of syllables, images and words blurring through our senses like the thick, sleek wax of magnolia leaves. Her images conjure cultural beauty from a world-weary—yet ecstatic—kaleidoscopic lens while sustaining a pained relevance that serves up love from every angle of human anguish: the forced marriage of a child bride; memories of grandmothers and mentors, praiseworthy and proud. In Feeding the Light, Jaki Shelton Green captivates with a global vision. Her poems are totems and tomes; they are percussive, convulsive and constructive.”

—Tony Medina, author of Broke Baroque, The President Looks Like Me & Other Poems, and An Onion of Wars.

Jaki Shelton Green

Poet Jaki Shelton Green reads at the 2014 North Carolina Literary Festival, where Green was announced as a 2014 inductee to the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame (www.nclhof.org). 

jacarpress.com

606

DISCLAIMERS

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

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

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

Duet - Dorianne Laux | Joseph Millar (Jacar Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Duet.  Dorianne Laux | Joseph Millar.  Jacar Press.  Durham, North Carolina.  2016.

Books of poetry that share two authors come in a variety of forms and styles.  In Duet by Dorianne Laux and Joseph Millar the poems are unattributed, written separately but presented as a unified front.  This takes some seriously elastic tolerance and trust, one poet allowing herself/himself to be represented by the words of another, to speak with your name and approval.

This duet is made up entirely of solos but the reader never knows who is playing lead.  It doesn't matter because Laux and Millar are in the same key throughout, they have found the same rhythm section, the bass is steady and the drumming is tight.  Laux and Millar riff like scat singers on a legion of our musical heroes from Bo Diddley to Cher, Dolly Parton's breasts are balladized and Elvis, the King, has his mansion/mausoleum costed for affect.

Listening to Paul Simon

Such a brave generation.

We marched onto the streets

in our T-shirts and jeans, holding

the hand of the stranger next to us

with a trust I can't summon now,

our voices raised in song.

Our rooms were lit by candlelight,

wax dripping onto the table, then

onto the floor, leaving dusty

starbursts we'd pop off

with the edge of a butter knife

when it was time to move.

But before we packed and drove

into the middle of our lives

we watched the leaves outside

the window shift in the wind

and listened to Paul Simon,

his tindery voice, then fell back

into our solitude, leveled our eyes

on the American horizon

that promised us everything

and knew it was never true:

smoke and cinders, insubstantial

as fingerprints on glass.

It isn't easy to give up hope,

to escape a dream. We shed

our clothes and cut our hair,

our former beauty piled at our feet.

And still the music lived inside us,

whole worlds unmaking us in the dark,

so that sleeping and waking we heard

the train's distant whistle, steel

trestles shivering across the land

that was still our in our bones and hearts,

its lone headlamp searching the weedy

stockyards, the damp, gray rags of fog.

...

This morning our read was also a concert.  Laux and Millar write such instantly approachable and easily digestible glee that the poems powered off the lips of the readers as though they were the rock stars of their dreams.  

Because Laux and Millar were calling out the spirits of Elvis, Bo Diddley, Quicksilver, Willie Dixon, The Who, Paul Simon, Cher and Sonny too, Theolonious Monk, Julie London, Lightnin' Hopkins, Mick Jagger, Joe Williams, Mel Torme and his beautiful velvet fog, Ray Charles, Dolly Parton, James Taylor, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Lil Wayne and more -- Today's book of poetry gave the challenge to Milo, our head tech.  Not surprisingly he was able to fire up a dance card on the box with everyone present.  Our morning read involved much music.

Who Do You Love

This is the night after Bo Diddley died

and we sit in the cafe drinking iced tea

reading his lyrics in the newspaper

along with the story of the hairline crack

in the left front hoof of Big Brown,

another American original.

Outside the long cars prowl the dusk

trailing their ribbons of smoke,

heat lightning flickers over the street

and the waitress Arlene

brings salsa and chips.

I want to say thanks

for the cavernous voice

and the black cowboy hat,

the triangle rhinestone Fender guitar

and the scratchy beat everyone stole--

Quicksilver, Willie Dixon, The Who,

easy to shuffle to,

easy to dance to:

"walk 47 miles of barb wire

with a cobra snake for a necktie"

Chonk-chicka-chicka-chonk-chonk.

...

Laux and Millar's Duet pays all of their guests the deepest respect they can offer up on the way to immortalizing them in poem.  Of course this playlist covers a particular and time specific era that includes mostly older gray haired souls like myself, but Kathleen, our young Jr. Editor, corrected me once again when she said the word I was looking for was "timeless,"

Laux and Millar taste just a little bittersweet and caramel while lamenting Gene Vincent and others with the certain knowledge that beauty dies young while songs live forever.

Dolly's Breasts

                    are singing

from the rafters of her chest,

swaying beneath sheeny satin,

suspended in the choreography

of her bra: twin albino dolphins

breaching from her ball gown's

rhinestone cleavage.  Her breasts

are sisters praying at twilight, a pair

of fat-cheeked Baptists dreaming

of peaches, her nipples the color

of autumn, two lonely amber eyes.

When she shakes her metallic bodice,

tinsel swimming up her pink fonts

of nourishment, the spotlight hums

and shimmies with them, the audience,

open-mouthed, stunned into silence

as she crosses her legs and bows, her hair

hanging down, a permed curl caught

in that soft, improbable seam.

...

Laux and Millar's Duet made the day here at Today's book of poetry, they hit just the right chord.  For Today's book of poetry our only complaint was pages, we were ready for more.

Dorianne Laux  |  Joseph Millar

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Dorianne Laux's most recent collections are The Book of Men, winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize and Facts about the Moon, winner of the Oregon Book Award. Laux is also author of Awake, What We Carry, and Smoke from BOA Editions. She teaches poetry in the MFA Program at North Carolina State University.

Joseph Millar is the author of Kingdom, Blue Rust, Fortune, and Overtime, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He teaches at Pacific University's Low Residency MFA Program.

Joseph Millar

International Poetry Library of San Francisco

Video: Evan Karp

Dorianne Laux

International Poetry Library of San Francisco

Video: Evan Karp

jacarpress.com 

574

DISCLAIMERS

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

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

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

Resisting Arrest, poems to stretch the sky - Edited by Tony Medina (Jacar Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Resisting Arrest, poems to stretch the sky.  Edited by Tony Medina.  Jacar Press.  Durham, North Carolina.  2016.

The anthology Resisting Arrest, poems to stretch the sky is not Black Lives Matter but Today's book of poetry is convinced it may be the most authentic volume that voices the same concerns. The last thing in the world Today's book of poetry wants to do is to 60-year-old-white-mansplain the races issues of the day so I will try to tell you about why these poems matter.

Sometimes the truth is a hard read but these poems propel the reader into a small part of the reality over 40,000,000 Black Americans, over 1,000,000 Black Canadians face daily, systemic racism.

Resisting Arrest reads like poetry as indictment of a broken society.

How We Could Have Lived or Died This Way

Not songs of loyalty alone are these,

But songs of insurrection also,

For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel the world over.

                                                                                  Walt Whitman

I see the dark-skinned bodies falling in the street as their ancestors fell

before the whip and steel, the last blood pooling, the last breath spitting.

I see the immigrant street vendor flashing his wallet to the cops,

shot so many times there are bullet holes in the soles of his feet.

I see the deaf woodcarver and his pocketknife, crossing the street

in front of a cop who yells, then fires. I see the drug raid, the wrong

door kicked in, the minister's heart seizing up. I see the man hawking

a fistful of cigarettes, the cop's chokehold that makes his wheezing

lungs stop wheezing forever. I am in the crowd, at the window,

kneeling beside the body left on the asphalt for hours, covered in a sheet.

I see the suicides: the conga player handcuffed for drumming on the subway,

hanged in the jail cell with his hands cuffed behind him; the suspect leaking

blood from his chest in the back seat of the squad car; the 300-pound boy

said to stampede barehanded into the bullets drilling his forehead.

I see the coroner nodding, the words he types in his report burrowing

into the skin like more bullets. I see the government investigations stacking,

words buzzing on the page, then suffocated as bees suffocate in a jar. I see

the next Black man, fleeing as the fugitive slave once fled the slave-catcher,

shot in the back for a broken tail light. I see the cop handcuff the corpse.

I see the rebels marching, hands upraised before the riot squads,

face in bandannas against the tear gas, and I walk beside them unseen.

I see the poets, who will write the songs of insurrection generations unborn

will read or hear a century from now, words that make them wonder

how we could have lived or died this way, how the descendants of slaves

still fled and the descendants of slave-catchers still shot them, how we awoke

every morning without the blood of the dead sweating from every pore.

- Martin Espada

...

Today's book of poetry fears my lack of proper perspective from the ivory tower of my entitlement but two years ago I did a reading in Bryn Mawr, just outside of Philadelphia, with Lamont B. Steptoe. Lamont is a Vietnam veteran, a poet, publisher, journalist and so on, his books include Kitchens of the Master (Iniquity Press/Vendetta Books) and Uncle's South Sea China Blue Nightmare (Plan B Press, 2013).  I can't quote from our conversation that evening except to say that it was a privilege to meet the man.  I was able to find the following quote from Lamont during an interview he did with Jordan Green for the American Poets Interview Series:

          "I'm an endangered species in American society.  I feel like a Jew in Berlin

          in 1939.  I grew up in the 50's when there was hope, when people thought

          that with integration we would overcome segregation, that integration

          would solve the problem.  But that's not what happened."

How to Not Get Killed by the NYPD.

When you see the pitch-perfect black 4-door shaded windows roll

up on you, don't grip your wheel. Casually look over your shoulder

as a shaded window slips down. Don't think drive-by. Don't remember

history. It's only the police. Keep your hands on the wheel. In plain

view. It's the police. Keep your hands on the wheel. The light will turn

in your favor. Don't drive off. Keep your hands on the wheel. Wait,

with your left foot pressed hard on the clutch, right foot pressed lightly

on the brake. Hands on the wheel. Raise an eyebrow when the police

officer raises a question: what's the speed limit in New York City? Note:

the correct answer is 30, no matter the street, no matter the avenue.,

no matter the faster moving highway traffic, the answer is 30          30.

Don't ask him to clarify. Don't smile. You are anxious. You will smile.

Don't explain when asked why you're smiling. Don't explain

your explanation when asked why you're explaining. Don't say:

we're blocking the road. Don't say: we're triple-parked.

Don't ask them to clarify the infraction. You are the infraction.

Don't remove your hands for the wheel. Accept

that you were pulled over. Accept the fact of the two fingers patting

the badge. Accept the hostile forehead, the condescension of the mouth.

Accept the fact of the wheel, troubling your hands. Accept their power.

          Nod.

when they repeat: we could give you a summons. Over & over & over

they will repeat this. Summons. Summons. Summons. We could

          give you --.

The light will turn yellow. Red. Don't read the lights as a sign. The light

will turn green again. Don't let them see your jaw set in irritation. Accept

their power. Don't remember the history of police brutality in

          New York. Keep.

your hands in plain view. They shoot you in New York. 41 times.

4 times. In your grandmother's bathroom, they will shoot you. In front

of your house, they will call you burglar and shoot you. Don't remember

any of this. Don't ask them questions. Don't nod your head. Keep

          Your hands

on the wheel. Don't smile. Don't smile. Don't smile. Keep your hands

on the wheel. There is a right answer to their questions: yes, yes, yes, yes,

yes, yes, yes, you have the power, you have the power, you have the

          power, you

have -- Keep your hands on the wheel. Drive off before they arrest you

for sitting too long at a green light. Avoid looking in your rearview

          mirror.

They will not drive off before you. They will haunt you in the daylight.

In their smoke-black 4-door (illegally) tinted windows, they mean

          to haunt.

- Metta Sáma        

...


Resisting Arrest is hot to the touch and hard to read.  There is no arguing the unassailable truths in these poems, they shower down like a hard rain.  These poems are gut-punch certain and so damned sad that you want to turn back time.

Editor Tony Medina has done an extraordinary thing here, he has brought articulate and impassioned reason and wrapped it in "a terrible beauty", Medina has amassed "Hearts with one purpose alone."

Red Summer, 2015

1
The year
is 2015
Nine holy martyrs are shot
by a man with a scheme
He was nurtured and
weaned on
a textbook of lies
in which slavers and
killers reigned
supreme
Jefferson Davis
Nathan Bedford Forrest
and Robert E. Lee.

2
The devil entered
Vesey's church
disguised as a youth
But the children of god
recognized a hoof
could smell his soot
but clung to their vow
not to give strangers
the sinner's boot

3
They invited him in
to join them in prayer
and so powerful was their
prayer with its African roots
after Daniel Roof completed
his assignment from hell
He said their prayer
almost got to me
almost turned me
said he
Almost bought
the devil to the mourner's
bench
His mind full of bile
he came to defile
A mother played dead
in the blood of her child.

4
a child was shot down
while holding a toy
The police asked questions
but nobody was blamed
The stars in his eyes went
dim in the day
he lay on the pavement
where children played games

5
A man was shot in the
back
while running away
The shooter took aim
as though he were game
the demons are partying
with their buddies, the
fiends, and having a good
time
drinking bad whiskey
and drinking bad wine

6
Red Summer
the year is
2015
For making ends meet
by selling cigs loose
or making a lane change
they will give you the noose
His neck was crushed
in the back of a van
he got "the wild ride"
he could breathe no more
They found her dead on
the jailhouse floor
A grand jury looked
and issued a tome
They blessed the killers
and allowed them to roam.
Go and kill again the
suburbs said,
we got
your back when you shoot
a black in the back

7
When Dorsey got news
that both wife and child were
dead
that's our mood
in this summer of dread
The spirit was his guide
when he wrote that great song
but who is the god
who will take our hand
and who is the god
who will lead us on?

8
"Don't you get weary"
Martin said when he
spoke of his dream
His words have kept us
from drowning in screams
in this bloody summer
of 2015
Where killers and murderers
reign supreme and
demons are partying with their
buddies the fiends, and having
a good time
drinking cheap whiskey
and drinking Ripple

9
You brought down the flag
you all joined hands and
cried
but you still have
highways and buildings
honoring those who
committed high crimes
Who didn't want people to
be free
Jefferson Davis
Nathan Bedford Forrest
and Robert E. Lee.


- Ishmael Reed

...

Today's morning read was a somber and serious affair.  Sometimes all you have to offer, as a reader, is respect.  We read the poems in Resisting Arrest, poems to stretch the sky and then Kathryn, our Jr. Editor, suggested that as measure of that respect we include all of the poets from the anthology in today's blog.

Lamont B. Steptoe does not appear in this blog but we met him through our great friend Frank "Chui" Fitzgerald and thought our Philadelphia conversation added some perspective.  Today's book of poetry takes our hat off to Lamont.

Here are the voices you'll get to hear in Resisting Arrest:

Jane Alberdeston Coralin
Abdul Ali
Lauren K. Alleyne
T.J. Anderson III
Jabari Asim
b: william bearhart
Zeina Hashem Beck
Tara Betts
Roger Bonair-Agard
Derrick Weston Brown
Jericho Brown
Mahogany L. Browne
Ana Castillo
Ching-In Chen
James Cherry
Kwame Dawes
Joel Dias-Porter
LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs
Mark Doty
Michell L.H. Douglas
Rita Dove
Cornelius Eady
Kelly Norman Ellis
Martin Espada
Adam Falkner
Malcolm Friend
Ross Gay
Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Brian Gilmore
Keith Gilyard
Veronica Golos
Jaki Shelton Green
Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Minal Hajratwala
Joy Harjo
Niki Herd
Everett Hoagland
Rashidah Ismaili
Esther Iverem
Reuben Jackson
Patricia Spears Jones
Quincy Scott Jones
Allison Joseph
Douglas Kearney
Ruth Ellen Kocher
Yusef Komunyakaa
Nile Lansana
Raina J. Leon
Kenji C. Liu
Haki R. Madhubuti
devorah major
Jamaal May
Tony Medina
Kamilah Aisha Moon
Thylias Moss
Ricardo Nazario y Colon
Marilyn Nelson
Rae Paris
Boa Phi
Khadijah Queen
Camille Rankine
Ishmael Reed
Tennessee Reed
Kim Roberts
Metta Sama
Sonia Sanchez
Jon Sands
Danny Simmons
Marilyn Singer
giovanni singleton
Lynne Thompson
Venus Thrah
Askia M. Toure'
Quincy Troupe
Frank X Walker
Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
Afaa Michael Weaver
Marvin K. White
Phillip B. Williams
L. Lamar Wilson

This choir of poets will bring down the house.  Their harmonies so beautiful and complex you can almost stop believing that they are screaming for their lives.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.  Damned right they do.

Jacar Press may have produced the most important book of poetry you'll see this year.

...

jacarpress.com

546

DISCLAIMERS

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

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

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