On April 16, at Bexley Library in Bexley, on the eastern edge of Columbus, the Ohio Poetry Association held the launch party and reading for its first anthology, Everything Stops and Listens, edited by poet, Steve Abbott. I am honored to have a poem in this book that also includes some of Ohio’s most notable poets such as David Baker, Stephen Haven, Kathy Fagan, George Bilgere, and Cathryn Essinger, to name only a few. Everything about the book is top-shelf: the poem selections, the layout, the paper; not to mention, the beautiful cover art by Deb Grenert. Technical assistance with the book was provided by a cadre of Ohio poets including, associate editors, Mark Hersman, Chuck Salmon, Janet Ladrach, and Rinda Sansom. Lisa Van Doren designed the cover and Jonathan Johns provided technical assistance. Patricia L.K. Black, Janet Ladrach, Melanie Boyd, Carolyn Dandelides, and Chuck Salmons provided editorial assistance.

More than a hundred people gathered at Bexley Library to help launch the book, to bask in a day of poet camaraderie, and  to hear many of the poems from the book read by those who wrote them. Here’s a small sampling:

from “At the Pond” Afterwards” by Erica DeWeese

…The fish, bloated with eggs,
Lay their futures in mud and silt,
Moving ever forward,
Ignoring the split-second turns above:
The lovers’ quarrel ending moan-sticky mornings,
The boy reeling in his fishing line too soon,…

from “Simile” by David Baker

…But there is no likeness beyond her body
in flames, for its moment, no matter its moment.
Yet the fringe bloom burns. Yet the moth shakes
and chews, as in sex…

from “Your Brass Bell Calls Me” by Phyllis Lee

…The mantle clock slices hours
into quarters and in a west window
the geranium saved from a killing frost
throbs its redness.

from “Pacific Coast Highway Blues” by Chuck Salmons

…elevating the bebop spirit
above the sea and trees.
I want that Kerouac

on-the-tracks railing, railing,
railing past brick-a-brack shacks
with the clickety clack,

Jump-back-Jack rhythm
of the blues in my head.
I’m going’ home to my baby,…

Ohio Poetry President, Mark Hersman, under whose tenure this beautiful collection has come to fruition, wrote in the forward that the book highlights the diversity of voices from across Ohio. He says,

“This anthology is a showcase that any Ohioan will be proud to own and any non-Ohioan will envy. The Ohio Poetry Association is please to present this long-awaited, much-anticipated collection. It is a testament to the creativity, talent, and insight of the people of Ohio—evidence of not only what words can do to us, but what they can do for us.”

You can buy a copy of Everything Stops and Listens on the Ohio Poetry Association website.

***

A Poetry Workshop in Dayton, Ohio

This year during National Poetry Month I was invited to present a two-part poetry workshop at Wright Memorial Library in Oakwood, (Dayton,Ohio).

In the sessions, we explored contemporary poetry. Attendees brought their favorite poem to class to read aloud, then talked about why they liked the poem. This lead to a discussion of what it is that makes us enjoy reading or hearing a poem; what are the attributes of a memorable poem. We also did in-class exercises to awaken the muse.

During the second session, participants read a poem they wrote from a prompt. It was thrilling to hear what these individuals had created.

It was a delight to facilitate such eager and talented participants.  Here is a concrete poem by one of those who attended, Mia Pitsinger, who gave her permission to publish it on this site.

***

“Author followed the line of poetry within her“–An Article in the Dayton Daily News

On April 29, I met with Sharon Short, staff writer for the Dayton Daily News. Sharon writes a weekly column called, “Literary Life.” Sharon asked me questions about my writing,  my background, my poetry, and my writing process. She was so easy to talk to and so engaging that at one point, I felt like I was just blabbing on and on. (The secret of a good interviewer!) The result is a beautifully written account of my writing journey. I am so grateful to Sharon for chronicling it so accurately and so kindly.

In additional to being a columnist, Sharon is also a novelist. Her latest book,My One Square Inch of Alaska came out at the end of January this year. My book club read it and we all loved it! I can’t recommend it enough. Sharon says of the book on her website,

This coming-of-age ‘book club’ novel is about a pair of siblings in a gritty 1953 paper mill town in Ohio, yearning to break free of the strictures of their family, their times, and their town.

She has written two mystery series, the Josie Toadfern Mystery Series and Patricia Delaney Mystery Series, and has a short story, Downriver, available as an ebook. Sanity Check: A Collection of Columns, brings together articles that Sharon wrote for the Dayton Daily News for over a ten year span. The humorous articles are about the foibles of everyday living

© 2010-2013 Grace Curtis

This was my first introduction to Andy Robert’s work even though Andy is a well-known Ohio poet from Columbus.  (This speaks to the fact that there are so many wonderful poets in Ohio and I am finding new ones every day.) Andy is an accountant, social worker, and poet extraordinaire. His poems have appeared in hundreds of small press publications and literary journals such as Atlanta Review, The Aurorean, Barnwood, Chiron Review, and Coal City Review. Andy’s poetry is surprising and possesses a kind of edginess that I find appealing. Here is a short segment from his poem, “The Blank Need That Eats.” It is taken from his chapbook, Who’s On My Land?

I will put on a clean shirt and walk to the party
and if you still don’t like me
talking about the black eyes of birds
that give back nothing
—no light, no fear, no brain—
while pecking at insects, I’ll leave. 

Borderlands takes place at Main Street Books in Mansfield, Ohio, which is sandwiched between Columbus and Cleveland, on the third Saturday of every month from 2-4 p.m.

Of course there are the obvious benefits: a cache of poems to work on and a helpful flexing of the poetic muscle. But, I have discovered several delightful consequences, as well.  Taking up the 30-poems-in-30-days challenge has forced me to…

1. think about poetry throughout the entire day

Because I am looking for poetry, every act, every delay, every bird, every item on the shopping list feels poetic. Since poetry is a slow process for me, thinking about poetry throughout the day slows me down, which is a good thing. It puts me into a poetry-writing frame of mind. And in a more contemplative mood. I carrying that with me through my day.

2. organize my poetry files

Each individual Word Document is labeled by day of the month and saved in a new folder identically named on both my hard drive and also in Dropbox. This enables me to feel organized which in turn puts me into a better frame of mind for writing a poem. And, I am rewarded by seeing the number of poems I am writing arrayed chronologically. That feels like progress.

3. remember that poetry is everywhere and in everything

For instance, I observed two ducks outside the entrance of an abandoned grocery story. They looked like they were arguing. Knowing that ducks mate for life, I thought, that is not unlike human couples who have squabbles from time to time. Because I am looking for poetry, I made a connection I may never have made otherwise. It made that moment in my day more interesting.

4. get creative with my poems

I’ve been exploring list poems, concrete poetry, experimental, traditional forms, found poetry, series, and more. I am trying to expand my definition of poetry as well. It is easy to get into a rut. I am using this forced-writing approach to reconsider my habits.

5. read other people’s poems more deeply

I have made it a personal quest to analyze other poets’ work more closely as I write my own poems this month. I am asking: How is she doing what she’s doing?, What is this poem about?, How is this sound being created? In some cases, I am mimicking line lengths, rhythms, forms, and style of poems written by poets whose work I admire. It is very useful.

If I end up with one good poem this month, it will have been worth it. If nothing else, I will have a pile of poems to review, revise, and cannibalize. It’s not too late to start. I’d love to hear what value others are seeing (or not seeing) with this approach.

I am at no loss for information about you and your family; but I am at a loss where to begin.

– Demosthenes

Recently, an editor of a well-known journal posted a message online from a reader who was praising the latest edition. The reader said she could feel the stake the poets had in their words and content. That  got me to thinking about how one can tell when a poet has had a stake in his words and content. We frequently hear these kinds of statements being made in reference to poetry. For instance, we say we can feel the tension in the poem, or the poem surprises us, or it is accessible, or it is coded, or it resonates. These terms are often first used by a writer in a critical essay or, by a book reviewer; then, overtime they worm their way into our shared lexicon.

Our propensity to talk about poetry thusly speaks to the difficulty we have identifying, and then, articulating in plain-speak, how poems do what they do. Most poets know, for instance, what is meant when a poem is said to be accessible. That we tend to broaden our vocabulary used in our poetic discourse speaks in part to our desire as poets and readers—or at least it should—to understand more clearly what makes a good poem good. Knowing it and knowing how to accurately talk about it using shared vocabulary—often begged, borrowed, or stolen from other usages—develops a kind of basis of understanding, murky as it continues to be.

It is fascinating and enlightening to listen to poets talk about poetry. In fact, one of the best things about the annually released, The Best American Poetry books, edited by a guest editor (including such notables as John Ashbery-1988, Jorie Graham-1990, Adrienne Rich-1996, and Paul Muldoon-2005), and Series Editor, David Lehman, is the introductions by the guest editors. In these short passages, each talks about why he selected the poems for that year’s book. The intros are like keys that unlock the double cast-iron, triple dead-bolt locked doors of understanding, since the guest editor explains in more or less, specific—and usually eloquent—terms, what made the selected poems stand out from among the hundreds considered.

For example, in the 2008 edition, guest editor, Charles Wright tells us, by referencing lines from W. B. Yeats, “The Circus Animals’ Desertion”, that poetry comes from the heart, (the “foul rag-and-bone-shop of the heart,”) and also, that, as  Keats asserts,  poetry is a matter of ‘soul-making,’ along with a little math.

It truly is not a matter of arrangement, of performance, of presentation, of rhetorical dazzle or surprise, though all of those matters may be a part of it. It is not the distractions, but the focus…It’s the only time that two plus one makes two—language is half, technique is half, and emotion is half…It’s not a question of paper, of typewriters, of white space or of dark space—it’s a question of what’s in your life, and where you want that life to lead you. You’ve only got one, and you can fill it with whatever you want…But if it is poetry that you want, then don’t look for language games, intellectual rip-offs, or rhetorical sing-alongs. You’ve got to know in your heart of hearts, that Keats is right, that it is about soul-making, that it does matter, and that it can make you or break you as a person.

Wright is suggesting that the poetry that resonated with him that year was the poetry in which he could sense the poet’s ‘make you or break you’ stake in the game; poetry that was not just from the heart, not just soul-making—but also, poetry that was, in this odd equation using poet-math:  half language, half technique, half emotion.

He must have felt that the poems he selected for inclusion, came as close as possible to making the math work out. Here is a passage from one of the poems in that edition, “Pentecost” for John Foster West, by R. T. Smith, from Notre Dame Review:

Squint-eyed and cunning, its tongue split

like a wishbone, the canebrake sulls up,

cursive spine and the diamond in spiral

like genetic code,

and Joby frets the Stratocaster, its plastic

the color of a salted ham. A tambourine’s

discs shiver, and Brother Pascal wields the Book’s

hot gospel like a blunt instrument. This is

spirit. This is bliss. The words from Heaven

would almost strangle you. The Holy Ghost

is a rough customer alright, . . .

And, here is another from Susan Mitchell’s “Ritual”, from The American Poetry Review:

as one who casts the word bread upon the word waters, testing

as one who not believing something will rise up from

those waters, but not disbelieving either

casts out her voice

as one curious or hungry or filled with longing breaks

off just the crust of a word, throwing

the way she threw as a girl when everyone

told her that was not the way

to throw. . .

In both of these poems, you can indeed feel a ‘make you or break you stake in the words and content.’ It manifests itself as a kind of intensity. In “Pentecost” the rhythm is as pulsing as, well, a Pentecostal church service. The language is lush and startling (or do we call that, surprising), e.g. wielding the Book’s hot gospel like a blunt instrument. In “Ritual” the language seems to twist and turn from what one might expect, e.g. rather than casting the bread upon the waters (from Ecclesiastics 11:1), Mitchell writes of the casting of the word bread upon the word water. Also, there is no capitalization or sentence punctuation in the poem. As you read, you often feel you are coming to the end of a sentence, but instead, the poem takes you off into another idea that plays off the last idea. It’s an intriguing structure—a long run-on—that supports an overarching sense of the personal questioning and rumination that runs throughout the poem.

Finally in Wright’s introduction he says:

Everyone talks about the “great Health” of American poetry nowadays. And it’s hard to fault that. There are very few bad poems being published, very few. On the other hand, there are very few really good ones, either, ones that might make you want to stick your fingers in a Cuisinart, saying Take me now, Lord, take me now.

Indeed, we have all had the experience, upon reading a moving and brilliant poem, like these two for example—there are so many in this series each year—of wanting to stick our fingers into a Cuisinart and say, Take me now, Lord, take me now.  Wright’s equation—half heart, half technique, and half emotion, is his explanation of what makes good poetry good. He is using a far-fetched metaphor to speak to what often feels like, the far-fetched qualities of a great poem.

Perhaps it is appropriate to express astounding and beautiful poetry as  some kind of inexplicable math. And, maybe it is also important to just accept some measure of “inexplicability” in the matter—language inadequacy, if you will—even as we continue to try to pin it down with any possible terms we can beg, borrow, or steal, such as sticking one’s fingers into a Cuisinart and saying Take me now, Lord, take me now.

© 2010-2012 Grace Curtis

Poet, Lynn Powell in auditorium of the Schar Building at Ashland University, shares insights from Ohio poets.

On Saturday evening, featured poet, Lynn Powell read from her book, The Zones of Paradise. Following the reading, Powell answered questions about her work and her writing life. She talked about the risks she takes in her poetry.

On Sunday afternoon, she provided a craft seminar. Since the event was held in Ohio and Powell’s participation was sponsored by the Ohio Arts Council, she selected two Ohio affiliated poets, Mary Oliver and Elton Glaser to feature. She shared with the group five lessons learned from the work of these two accomplished poets. Following are some notes I put  together from her talk.

1. Write the poems that only you can write.

Using Mary Oliver’s poem, “Little Owl Who Lives in the Orchard,” from her book, House of Light, Powell demonstrated how Oliver uses her unique voice as she writes about a little owl in an orchard, “His beak could open a bottle,/and his eyes—when he lifts their soft lids—/go on reading something/just beyond your shoulder—/Blake, maybe,/or the Book of Revelation.” Later in the piece, using a surprisingly dark metaphor Oliver says, “Never mind that he is only a memo/from the office of fear—.”

I believe Powell was suggesting that we write poems only we alone can articulate, poetry that is coming from our own peculiar way of seeing the world, from our own background, from our own concerns. She suggested that poetry is not about mimicking someone else’s voice, but rather about speaking from a place of authenticity as Oliver does in her work.

2.  Sweat the small stuff.

Powell went on to posit that paying mind to the small details in the poem can help to make it compelling. By way of illustration she referred to the work of poet, Elton Glaser. In Glaser’s poem, “Crab Festival in Henderson, Louisiana,” from his book, Here and Hereafter, Powell pointed to Glaser’s lush description of a crab festival.

From the picnic pavilion, over the low-fi speakers,

The keen and fracas of a Cajun fiddle

Pulled us in, my sister sizzling in a two-step,

Fast feel on the concrete floor, before the old folks

Eased out, belly to belly in a bayou waltz,…

It is this kind of detail—the small stuff—that brings this poem to life. The speakers are low-fi, the fiddle is Cajun, the sister, sizzling, the floor is concrete and the old folks are belly to belly in not just any waltz, but, in a bayou waltz.

3.  Ignore the party line.

Powell suggested to us to take with a grain of salt all the things we have been told to avoid or to “not” do as poets. That might mean taking on subjects that are considered over-worked or too large. It might refer to an overworked metaphor. I think Powell was suggesting that if the poem is strong enough, or if it presents the material in a fresh way, have at it. She pointed to Glaser’s poem, “Down to Earth” (Here and Hereafter) as an example: “And why moon about the moon? It’s not/So gorgeous as I thought: a pocked face/Like a dented hubcap, and bald, with no chin.”  Clearly this is a new take on the well-worn image of the moon. In the context of this poem, it is not only fitting, it is the counterbalance to the image of the speaker’s earthliness. Glaser goes on to write, “I need the sluggish tug of mud around/My roots and, overhead, the sleeves of moss/From old oak.”

4. To write about the large, start small.

Powell used Glaser’s poem, “Blue Passport” (Here and Hereafter) as an example of a love poem that opens with the simple image of January winds striping the tinsel from dead trees. As Glaser works his way down the poem in couplets, he writes, “If I’m down to one day, make it/A Tuesday in April, and some little hill town//In Tuscany, rough wine in the glasses/And a luster of tall air along the stones,//And you there with me…”

5.  Let everything of yourself into the poem.

Powell suggested that we not censor our voices out of the poem. This is something I have been thinking about lately. I have been trying to write from a more authentic place. It’s easy to fall into the thinking that the poem must be steeped in mystery and laden with craft. It’s easy to feel we need to be clever in our poems. It is easy to let those concerns take over. But, I think Powell was suggesting that we need to let ourselves into our poems, that this is how others find connection with them. In the examples shared with us, poems from Mary Oliver and Elton Glaser, there is a clear voice of authenticity. Mary Oliver writes about the nature in a way that reflects her authentic intrigue. Glaser speaks of love and loss from deep within himself using lush description and images.

In the Company of Poets

In addition to the craft seminar presented by Powell, the workshops on Saturday and Sunday were lively and helpful. Workshop facilitators, Stephen Haven, Sarah Wells, and Deborah Fleming from Ashland University, along with, Lynn Powell worked with groups of poets on individuals poems.

This wonderful weekend was not just about just about the helpful workshops, craft seminar, and inspiring readings. It was also about the special camaraderie of poets from near and far. It was about reconnecting with old friend and making new ones. I even  learned about the sweet music of Paul Reece. The time

Poets gathered to share meals.

together felt important. I am so grateful to Ashland University and to those who worked so hard to make this such a great event. This was the first poetry workshop weekend Ashland University has sponsored. I hope it is not the last.

© 2010-2012 Grace Curtis

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 5,500 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 9 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

We lost the tungsten stream

      through fracturing birch limbs

as we scouted  

                   by road. And

         (now is the time and place to admit it)

we were wrong. Wrong

in the way a cat miscounts

            or a fish is fooled

                 by glint.      We were wrong to think

we understood the rivulet

        into which we set our little craft or to think

 we understood the obsession of these waters

                     to flow from peak to sea

quickly.       Wrong

to not see                      the clinched fist

       of its first punch        our chests flung bare

before ore so frothy we couldn't stop

           to ask how we’d landed here or how

we’d missed this rocky mêlée.

                           On my knees clutching

the bow-sides I screamed hard left

right straight ahead left left until . . .

                   we settled

into a pool      quiet

     in the way a crocus stares down snow

or in the way a day opens up

               to hold                the winter sun

a few more arcs or in the way

                        we come to understand the power

of a possibility

       we had never considered.

First published in Hobble Creek Review.

© 2012 Grace Curtis

Great News!

N2Poetry was selected

as the 2012 Winner

of 99Fiction’s Blog Competition!

Be sure to check out 99Fiction for the best in short,

fiction and poetry.

On Inspiration

Lately, I have been thinking about what inspires me. If I am in a poetry frame of mind, i.e. reading, writing about or contemplating poetry, which is nearly always, almost anything can–a word, a song, art, a cricket, laundry, a person. Often, those little jolts of zing that make you feel like you’ve been sprinkled by fairy dust come to nothing but sometimes they work themselves into something surprising. Occasionally non-poet friends will say, I bet there’s a poem in that, referring to a fender bender or some other stand-out moment in life. Well, sometimes there is and sometimes there isn’t. What I have learned is that it is more often those quiet moments in life, those seemingly insignificant touch-points that inspire, frequently not revealing themselves as the embryo of a poem until weeks, months, or years later.

A Poet’s Craft, A Comprehensive Guide to Making and Sharing Your Poetry by Annie Finch  is a book I have been keeping close at hand. It is a textbook every poetry teacher should consider using. It is a wonderful reference for novice and seasoned poets alike. I picked it up at the AWP in Chicago this year and carried it home on the plane. It’s one and five-eighths inches thick and weighs almost two and a half pounds. I was concerned it might put me over my 50 lb. luggage limit. As it turns out, it would have been worth having to leave a pair of jeans or all my underwear in Chicago just to get this book home. It is the best thing I brought back with me from the conference.

The first chapter of Finch’s book is about inspiration. She talks of the muse, citing Sir Philip Sidney’s poem, “Loving in Truth” (1591), “…Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,/Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,/Fool, said my muse to me, look in thy heart and write.”

Finch says:

It might seem as if a poet would need the greatest artistic faith and skill during the actual process of opening to the mysterious and sometimes scary water. But what happens inside those pools depends on the focus, the strength of heart, and the self-awareness that we develop during every day of our lives as human beings; beyond that, inspiration is largely a matter of surrender.

For me, surrender is the hardest part, the giving of myself over to the creative impulse, the understanding that I am constantly being handed inspiration at every turn of every day, that it is all there for my picking and choosing.

One of my favorite blogs is Brian Brodeur’s “How a Poem Happens” in which Brodeur features a published poem and interviews the poet on how the poem came about. One of his standard questions is:  Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears? Each poet talks about sources of inspiration for the poem. Reading over just a few of these, highlights how diverse are our sources of inspiration, and how important it is to surrender to creative invention, even if it is found in the pulling of weeds.

What inspires you?

© 2010-2012 Grace Curtis