When I Was Straight - Julie Marie Wade (A Midsummer Night's Press)

Today's book of poetry:
When I Was Straight.  Julie Marie Wade.  A Midsummer Night's Press.  Body Language 11.  New York, New York.  2014.

It's only every once in a while I get to read a book of poetry like Julie Marie Wade's When I Was Straight.  They just don't come along all that often.  Why?  Because writing one fine poem is hard work -- writing a book full of them is almost impossible.  Wade never misses a beat, if she were shooting arrows the bullseye would be full.

When I Was Straight is a teeter totter of excellence, a balancing act of humour and pathos.  Wade marches right into the middle of all our misconceptions about what it is to be queer and comes out the other side in full pride stride.

When I Was Straight

Everything came to me vicariously -- a promise,

a post-script, a preview of coming attractions.

Desire a quiet rumour that rippled through the halls.

At the cinema, someone always paid for popcorn, a soda

with two straws, little licorice candies.

I loved to sit in the back row & watch

till all the credits rolled.

"You have a gift," the blond boy said, "for stalling."

Later, in a twin bed in a college dorm, I spoke without

     thinking--

"I like you. Let's get this over with."

His pink mouth amazed, so wide & round.

"Did you hear what you just said?" he asked.

I hadn't been listening.

...

These confessional poems are as celebratory as they are sensational.  Wade is so damned charming and at ease in the world that the big declarations she is tattooing into your senses don't hurt a bit.  

Julie Marie Wade might have also considered a career as a stand-up comic because her timing is Rolex and her punch lines all George Foreman.

Today's book of poetry was entertained at every turn.  Wade is wicked smart and it shows in every poem.  She never employs the heavy hand but we are certain she has one when needed.

When My

Mother Learns

I Am A Lesbian

At first, silence, & then a thud of breath as if

her throat has slid through the chute of her lungs

& landed, heavy -- like a stone -- like a sword

lodged suddenly inside it.

"This explains why you don't wear make-up!" she wails.

A snap -- a pulsing panic pulled back & lightly

camouflaged as fear: "What will I tell my friends?

How can I tell my friends? I can never tell my friends!"

Finally, fatigued & determined: "No one must know."

I give her permission to lie -- privilege she takes

as right. I promise her nothing has changed except

the second chromosome of the body resting next to me.

She asks, not wanting the answer: "I suppose you have

to sleep in the same bed?"

- No, in sleeping bags, Mom, cocooned on separate couches

still wrapped in our swaddling clothes. -

I could have said it, but I didn't.

No tolerance for the Absurd.

My mother's voice, all tissue paper & cellophane,

turns tearful, liquid in its pain: "Where did we go wrong?"

I want to tell her not to forgive me, plead through

the twisted wires that she will not waste her prayers.

"We raised you with God's laws," she says.

"We told you to be pure."

"You raised me to love," I say.

"You told me to be happy."

- But she didn't mean this way, didn't mean this way.

Dear God, she didn't mean this way. -

I watch out the window, sigh.

Already prayers are streaming up the sky.

...

We had a splendid read in the Today's book of poetry offices this morning.  It almost feels like spring in Ottawa today and our winter crazy staff are now willing to suspend their disbelief.  Everyone intoning a brief incantation of "please, no more snow!"

So, it was high stepping optimism ruling the floor this morning with Julie Marie Wade's When I Was Straight providing the fire and gender works.

Wade didn't get to her gracious heights without some other blazers cutting a path and setting a trail. Wade doffs her respectful hat to Maureen Seaton and her poem "When I Was Straight" and to Denise Duhamel and her poem "When I Was A Lesbian."  Wade tells us in her notes that When I Was Straight would simply not exist without the influence of Seaton and Duhamel.

When An Old

Classmate Learns

I Am A Lesbian

"Oh my God! I knew it! I always knew it. I was

like Julie is so gay, & people were like oh,

whatever, you just think everybody's gay because

it's an all-girls school, but I knew I wasn't gay, &

I knew most of those girls weren't gay, so I was

like fuck you, Jasmine, go suck on one of your

Jolly Rancher rings! Do you remember those?

So, how's it going? Do you have a girlfriend or

something? I have to tell you in college I had a 

gay roommate, & she got lucky like every single

night. Seriously. I'd come back to the room &

there'd be some ribbon tied around the door,

so I'd have to hang out by the vending

machines in the lobby looking like a total loser.

I never saw the girls go, through, I guess they

must have gone out the fire escape or

something. Nobody thinks there would be that

many gay girls in Iowa, you know, but I guess

they're kind of everywhere now. Do you still

live on the West Coast or what? If I were gay

I would be like San Francisco, here I come, but

truth be told, it's kind of dirty. My boyfriend took

me there once -- we're actually engaged so

technically he's my fiance now, but you know,

he wasn't then, so -- we just walked around a lot &

got some of that good chocolate & saw the seals.

& I was like hey, isn't there some really cool old prison

that you can see if you take a ferry from here, & then

he was like San Francisco is full of fairies, ha, ha!

I hope that doesn't offend you. I mean, I thought

it was funny, but my boyfriend is like totally down

with gay people. He would really like you because

you're smart & it's kind of hot when a girl isn't

into you at all, you know? Well, I guess you would

want a girl to be into you, huh? So scratch that.

But I mean most girls are always trying to get with

him & then I have to be like whoa, hands off, that's

my man. Sometimes I think it would be so much

easier to be gay. It would just take all the pressure

off. I wouldn't have to get my hair done or worry

how my boobs looked, & if somebody called me

fat, I could just be like I'm a lesbian, douchebag.

I mean, seriously, do you even have to wax?

...

Wade has no qualms about using humour/sarcasm to get us where we need to go.  When I Was Straight is one of those books you need to get into the hands of every queer person you know because it will make them feel better about the world.  Then we need to get When I Was Straight into the hands of every straight person because it will make them smarter.

Julie Marie Wade kills it.

Julie Marie Wade

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julie Marie Wade (Seattle, 1979) completed a Master of Arts in English at Western Washington University in 2003, a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry at the University of Pittsburgh in 2006, and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Humanities at the University of Louisville in 2012.

She is the author of Wishbone: A Memoir in Fractures (Colgate University Press, 2010; Bywater Books, 2014), winner of the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Memoir; Without: Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2010), selected for the New Women’s Voices Chapbook Series; Small Fires: Essays (Sarabande Books, 2011), selected for the Linda Bruckheimer Series in Kentucky Literature; Postage Due: Poems & Prose Poems (White Pine Press, 2013), winner of the Marie Alexander Poetry Series; and Tremolo: An Essay (Bloom Books, 2013), winner of the Bloom Nonfiction Chapbook Prize.

Wade is a member of the creative writing faculty at Florida International University and a regular reviewer for Florida Book Review, Lambda Literary Review, and The Rumpus.

She lives with her partner, Angie Griffin, and their two cats in Dania Beach.

BLURB

“Julie Marie Wade’s lush post-confessional poems are unabashed in their desire, tentative then bold in their knowledge. They’re sparkly talismans to transform and transport us, delicacies with creamy insides to fill us up. WHEN I WAS STRAIGHT is a profound ‘before and after’ examination of the self, complete with cultural and family commentary—delightful, heartbreaking, magic and real stories with a multitude of prepositions to guide us: a gifted young poet’s coming to, coming out, coming jubilantly back into self. ”

     - Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton

amidsummernightspress.com 

563

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.

Martha - Leslie Allison (Ugly Duckling Presse)

Today's book of poetry:
Martha.  Leslie Allison.  Ugly Duckling Presse.  Brooklyn, New York.  2015

When I tell you that in part, Martha is a sex fantasy for lesbians you are going to start thinking one thing.  Well, think another, because Martha is a ghost story.  No, a feminist knee-slap, laugh out loud kitchen party, if it were Martha Stewart's kitchen and she were surrounded by sex-slave minions.

This is a carnival ride with illustrations by Molly Schaeffer that will remind Canadian readers of Joe Rosenblatt style drawings of flying labia, multitude of them arranges into bouquets, mental bromides, dashing off of the pages.

Today's book of poetry believes two important things are happening at the same time in Leslie Allison's highly entertaining Martha.  There is the pink-toned-pink-lipped-Divine-over-the-hill and bonkers comic romp that is Martha.  And at the same time it is clear that Allison is being serious as a heart attack with every word.  

There are no titles per se in Martha and it is unlikely my choices of text fall into Leslie Allison's original design so please know the fault is mine, not Allison's.  Today's book of poetry thought that every line in this punk steamroller of a chapbook was cherse.  And ghosts.

- - -

Dear Diary:

do you remember when I arrived?

back then the images were like straight out of Moby-Dick

noble and naval, ropes, wood

cold steam lilting truth from room to room

and now

well, my vagina

has nerve damage

and it's all

I can think about

in the drawing room

I see Kate

names are not ever real words

but Kate is a word

Madeline's palatial shudder creates a vortex that sucks me

under like riptide

and dark moisturized genderless Kate

is endless

forever trailed by Ghengis Khan

who puffs himself up and

sheds in her shadow

Martha's skin is neon moire

her oily hands are dishrags

even still portions of her always appear to be moving

she appliques a life-size two dimensional version

of every object in the house

onto that very object

an applique of a curtain

on a curtain,

a chair on a chair

so the palace is a quilt

Martha's own body is concealed

behind an applique of herself

this house may be the house

in which she lives

marbled curls and peels

distortion

she fingers literally everything

this may be the definition of 'crafts'

...

Martha has our heroine joining Martha Stewart's fictional nun's-habit-wearing-harem in an oddly fantastic Martha Stewart world of delicate debauchery.

Leslie Allison's Martha sure roiled up some reaction at this morning's read.  Milo made great comic strides riffing through this ghost love story full of passion but then every once in a while he would bounce awkward over some of the more overt and ribald sexuality that prance over these pages like a Madeleine Schubert driven Pegasus.  Kathryn, our new intern, punctuated Milo's red cheeked silences by pointing out that women's sexuality has been thoroughly colonized by the oppressive nature of the male gaze and that books like Martha undermine the dominant male role in our deeply polarized and protestant society.

Oh that Kathryn.

- - -

Actually that's the only face she has

and she puts it on every morning

flipping through profile pages

the usual suspects drum out their wares in waves

do you even know what is interesting about that?

I sure don't

to be fair, I know nothing if I'm not high

I just wait for Martha to feed me mashed potatoes

with her little fingers and I suck them until she tells me to stop

but Madeline, she chants a little song in my ear

when Martha goes out of town:

we built this temple

not let's burn it to the fucking ground

oh

how I wish she meant this

flower

When I went into Martha's room last night

to ask if I was allowed to change out of my habit

one of the interns was stoking the embers in the fireplace

one was burrowing her face in Martha's immaculate bush

and one was singing the day's numbers:

Martha Stewart Living

Omni

           Omnimedia Inc Inc Inc!

Novemmmmmmmber Twenty-Two, Two Thousand and

      Thirteen

3.44 + .04

(1.18%)

open o PEN open 3.41

hiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh 3.45

l-ah-ooow 3.36

volume ume ume volUME 135,119

average volume 305,000

maaaaaaaarket cap 323.5 miiiiiillllllllllllllioooooooooon

"Maybe now isn't a good time," I said quietly

        and exited habited.

...

Leslie Allison is doing at least three things in the absolutely delightful romp Martha.  Today's book of poetry wishes we were better equipped to tell you exactly what they are.  We aren't.

So we'll stick to what we know and why we do like Martha.  How could you not?  Martha vibrates with a boisterous brio, it almost hums in your hands as you read it.

- - -

Dear Diary:

I can hear Kate's blood through vines overheard, I can hear the

     moon in the bed.

Three bodies are masts and the dog ate through the crotch of three

      pairs of my underwear.

The moon smokes through Kate. Did she call them panties?

Three masts are smoke on the dog.

that night, I saw myself

walking through the desert

I was hanging there, being mildly amused

cheeks warming up, crotch turning violet

the disembodied eyes in front of me

their waves growing darker and darker blue

I think it stopped being consensual when Martha got in there

up to her elbow

her ruched gloves stretched taut

she said she needed a wet brush for the waves

more like a give to it

more like a torn wake

...

Today's book of poetry would give away almost all the Crying Charlie's in our possession to see the look on Martha S's face as she read this fawning and fabulous fantasy ode.  We would hope she'd keep it next to her pillow.

Leslie Allison's first chapbook is a stunner.

Leslie Allison

Photo: Mekko Harjo

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Leslie Allison is a writer and performer. She composes choral music for performance collaborations with Francis Weiss Rabkin. Her dance and poetry criticism can be found in HTML Giant and The Brooklyn Rail, and her band Cross released its debut album, It's Curtains, earlier this year. Martha (Spring 2015, Ugly Duckling Press) is her first chapbook.

BLURB

If you hear yourself morosely whispering I’d really hoped there’d be more stoner girls slaying the ghosts of the patriarchy here just as you are stepping out of the shower on a dark wintry morning, cheer up, help is at hand! Here, in this little book, Martha Stewart has joined up with a wave or weave of beautiful peonies opening our decorous and sullen heart-minds into the pure pleasures of an altered universe: plural, funny, sexy, bright and animate. Leslie Allison has made a new room for poetry, a hologram of a corner shimmering where no corner exists. Enter, bring a towel, or not!

     - Ann Lauterbach

uglyducklingpresse.org

453

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.