What I Got For A Dollar Poems by Bert Stern

 

What I Got For A Dollar

Poems by Bert Stern

Off the Grid Press

Boston, MA

www.grid-books.org

ISBN: 978-1-946830-01-2

93 Pages

$16.00

Review by Dennis Daly

If ever there were a tour de force of poetic cravings this is it. What I Got for a Dollar is Bert Stern’s third poetry collection and it’s magnificent. Stern craves deeply, but not shrilly, the cause behind the cause of creation. He makes the basic argument for divinity’s possibility as deftly as Thomas Aquinas ever did. Perhaps better. In fact the somewhat absentminded Deity that Stern conjures up behind his naturalistic images seems eminently likable, albeit dependent on humanity for help in keeping up appearances.

Everything depends on the focus in Stern’s poems. In one poem he considers the micro world, Blake’s grain of sand. In other contexts the poet ponders over what he curiously calls “the ordinary.” Occasionally he jumps off the earth’s edge to commune with more fearsome, macro and fiery powers. Even the political and the comic are not beyond Stern’s observational attention. Also, throughout the collection, the poet works in an exquisite commentary on aging. He embeds it in both his persona’s longings and perceptions.

Before the first section of poems Stern positions an elegant poetic inscription, which acts as a prologue of sorts and speaks to the poet’s overriding motivation. Here is a portion of it,

Behind the ripples

in water,

behind old age,

torrents of spring

plunge down mountains.

Under my face

I crave another face,

as if behind it all

a God still sleeps…

On the Ausable, the poem that opens the collection, portrays the poet-protagonist following a riverside path in the aftermath of a rain storm, seeking the most basic things and the most tangible concepts. He appears fragile yet full of life and describes his trek thusly,

I wobble down the rough path

of the bank, propped by love

and a broken stick, eyes

agog with dappled water.

On the cobbled beach

totter over stones,

breathe beginnings in…

The title poem, What I Got for a Dollar, sounds like an intended political piece, dark and forbidding, that pushed back against its author and had its way. Comedy and newfound optimism result. Here’s the heart of the piece,

…the man in the Red Sox cap

who loves Jesus (it says on the button pinned to the cap),

offers to help me lug groceries, and though, upstairs,

I give him a dollar

he doesn’t do it for that because, when I look for another one,

he waves it off.

“This works,” he says, so I know he really loves Jesus.

Contra my argument, love looks out, waiting for us to notice.

It’s springtime, and all the swelling renewal is like love.

I try to imagine a time after money, after celebrities

have stopped shouting

and the words a child says as I walk hand in hand with her

sound like salvation: timbre and innocence and openness

to what’s to come.

My favorite poem in the collection, entitled The Ordinary, considers the scene beyond our present tame realty. Every day we pour over our books, or screens, or peer through our pleasant windows. Habit and routine control all. Only imagination delivers divergent details on sedate creation and suggests the numinous, the feral and, possibly, the continuous. The poet concludes his piece with an arresting contrast,

The palette’s simple as the scene: skies gray

or blue or dappled, rain, snow or nothing falling,

a tree, one tree I’ve pruned and love

because it’s red and green and Japanese and

longest to hold its leaves.

Up ahead a gale’s coming in, but the ordinary prow

keeps its nose to the wind.

Up ahead rumbling thunder, visions of shipwreck,

but something sails on, and I’m haunted by

this ghost, this thin aroma

brilliant and concealed.

As if, behind the same old, a different face looks out

Through glowing-ember eyes.

Stern’s ekphrastic poem, Samuel Palmer’s Trees, works wonderfully well verbalizing the original painting, Palmer’s The Gleaning Field (1833). But Stern goes much further. He uses the painting as a way in, a way to explore metaphysical implications of the work. Consider this description of laboring peasants,

…the gleaners keep their eyes

on the ground, to pluck what’s left

from wheat stubble.

Soon darkness falls over them,

but for now it’s hard to name what

lurks in the waning light.

I might say “God,” but which?

The one who sees all but feels

nothing?

The people are hungrier than

the cattle, who freely gaze

amid the wheat still to be harvested.

God can’t remember why

he sent creation forth, and

his creatures never knew.

Craving a deeper reality or a more fulfilling reality doesn’t just happen. Usually it begins with a wound, a tear in the fabric of ordinary life. In Riding Bareback in the Tropics Stern’s persona discovers an antidote to lost love by going South. Citrus delights await. Most of us at one time or another have this urge. Some even buy the epistemological ticket. But few go. Perhaps it’s the coral snakes that dissuade us. Stern’s protagonist packs up and leaves. Here he describes the adventure and the aha-moment that follows,

So it came about, all old ties broken,

high in the canopies, spider monkeys noisier

than neighbors, air orchids the horses loved

to eat. One night, drunk, I galloped bareback

round the rim of a great, natural bowl, with only

my thighs to gird me against the unnamed hurt

I somehow managed to keep dodging,

even among coral snakes.

By reducing his spiritual cravings to poetry Bert Stern has, in a very real sense, already created what he seeks. Words become beginnings; they fill up nothingness with creative constructions that allow us to comprehend the nature of things and, by extension, nature. Lucky for Stern to have written this book. Double lucky for his readers.

Betsy Lenora: Owner of the Blue Cloud Gallery in Ball Square.

Betsy Lenora: Owner of the Blue Cloud Gallery in Ball Square.

Article by Doug Holder

Betsy Lenora arrived at my unofficial office in the Bloc 11 Cafe to tell me about her relatively new undertaking—namely ownership of the Blue Cloud Gallery in Ball Square. Lenora, 62, is the same age as this writer, so we were able to talk turkey—without the necessary footnotes that are sometimes needed. This longtime artist—who has traversed the shoals of both the Cambridge and Somerville art scene for many years—is still very much in the game with her stewardship of this venue.

Lenora has no formal schooling in the arts, although she has taken many courses on the fly. She describes herself as self-taught. I asked her if there were any advantages to this status. Lenora reflected, “ There are certain advantages. I never incurred any debt, and I never became pigeonholed in any niche.”

Like many artists I have interviewed she has worked a variety of jobs to make the daily nut—retail, restaurant, etc... But the most significant job she held, that was pivotal to her career was at the award-winning Cambridge Artists' Collaborative in Harvard Square. She told me, “ I worked their for seven years. I was involved in choosing the art for the store, and I managed the gallery. We selected and displayed the work of over 200 artists in a wide variety of media.”

All this of course gave her the smarts and acumen to own her own gallery the “ Blue Cloud.” The gallery was originally owned by Patricia Wellenkamp. Lenora worked there one day a week, but eventually was given the reigns of the store when Wellenkamp left for the hinterlands of Brookline.

Lenora said, “ We have a barrage of colorful work by over 100 local artists. We have blown glass, jewelry, ceramics, and more. The work is sold on consignment.

Lenora made it clear that she is strict about what work she takes: “ We don't cliched work—like beaded jewelry –for instance. This is seriously overdone. It has to be original and well-crafted.”

Lenora has a number of loyal customers in Ball Square. She is a favorite of Tufts students, and their visiting parents. She plans to have events at the gallery, including artists workshops, music and craft parties.

Lenora is an accomplished artist in her own right, with the requisite awards, gallery exhibitions, that comes with the territory . She also has a great love of photography. She does a lot of nature studies, and is influenced by the nature photographer Eliot Porter. She reflected, “ My forte is focusing on reflections of the surfaces of water. They create wonderful images.”

The Sunday Poet: Ari Alkalay Appel

Poet Ari Appel

Ari Alkalay Appel is a poet and essayist who lives and works in Roxbury. He enjoys cycling and woodworking during his free time. He grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, where he graduated from Newton North High School. He studied at Whitman College in Eastern Washington, where he obtained a degree in Rhetoric Studies. He also studied at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Manic Mechanic

My brain is flooding with information;

Information circulates through my neuro-circuitry

Like an electrical current.

I am dizzy, my vision is distorted, and

My head pounds at three second intervals.

The world is spinning.

My hands are engaged with tools.

I am twisting a wrench at every moment,

But I do not know what I am fixing.

The bikes pass through my workstand somehow

But my I am focused on the abyss,

The winding gaps in the scrap butyl tubes in a pile

Under my stand, coated with an indescribable white chemical powder

Leftover from their manufacture.

I can't stare at the pile enough;

It seems to provide the only symmetry to my mind's condition

That's where I've gone,

That's what I'll tell my friends and family:

I'm stuck staring endlessly into a pile of scrap butyl.

You may see me look elsewhere, but

You know where I really am.

Somehow, I still get the job done.

Rodger LeGrand and Doug Holder at Poets/Pints/ Aeronaut Brewery June 13, 2018

Join Porter Square Books at Aeronaut brewery for a celebration of local poetry.

The greater Somerville and Cambridge area is lucky to have such a vibrant poetry community. So, once a month we will gather at the community space at Aeronaut on the Duck Village stage, to celebrate that community with readings by three local poets.

The event will feature a social hour from 6-7 in which you can grab a beer and converse with the poets, hosts, and other poetry fans. The formal reading will be from 7-8 and will feature three local poets reading from their latest works.

The poets reading on June 13 are 

Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press. He teaches writing at Endicott College and Bunker Hill Community College. He is the arts/editor for The Somerville Times and director of the Newton Free Library Poetry Series. His poetry and prose have appeared in Rattle, The Boston Globe,  Cafe Review, Constellations, Word Riot, Small Press Review, Harvard Mosiac, and others. His latest collections of poetry are Last Night at the Wursthaus and Portrait of an Artist as a Young Poseur.

Rodger LeGrand studied writing at Sarah Lawrence College and the State University of New York at Oswego. He is a lecturer in Writing, Rhetoric, and Professional Communication at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has several collections of poetry in print—Two Thirds Water (forthcoming), Seeds, Millions of Ravenous Creatures, Hope and Compulsion, Waking Up On a Sinking Boat, and Various Ways of Thinking About the Universe. You can reach him at www.rodgerlegrand.com

Event date: 

Wednesday, June 13, 2018 - 6:00pm to 8:00pm

14 Tyler ST   Somerville, MA.

Zach Baum and others bring a vibrant public market to Union Square, Somerville

article by Doug Holder

Nestled behind the P.A's .Lounge off of Somerville Ave., 1 Bow Market Way, to be exact—is a new public market--the Bow Market-- brought to you by Zach Baum and his other co-conspirators. Baum-- a graduate of Tufts University-- who has a background in high tech and real estate development, told me he was influenced by the Agora-style markets in ancient Greece-- public open spaces used for assemblies and markets. Baum-- a man with curly mop of red-brownish hair and an affable manner told me, “We really wanted to create a vibrant place—with affordable spaces for artists, food markets, and a host of small vendors who might have been forced out of the market because of high rents. Here they would all share the same facilities, like the courtyard, bathrooms, etc... and many of the places are a 1,000 month to rent or less.”

I sat outside with Baum in the courtyard in front of the Remnant Brewery—an inviting space—with a gleaming metal brewery-and undoubtedly producing tasty craft beer. I saw a space for a macaroon shop, and Baum told me there is going to be (or currently there is) a fishmonger, spaces for immigrant food shops, caterers, art galleries, a chocolatier  and yes--The Comedy Studio. This was the very venue for upcoming comedians and their loyal audiences that was priced out of the Hong Kong Restaurant in Harvard Square. Baum also told me there will be spaces for vintage clothes, stationary shops, shoe retailers, and more.

Interestingly enough, according to Baum—60% of the vendors will be women and over 45% will be people of color. He feels the low rents will provide opportunities for this population.

Baum told me at the end of the summer there will be a grand opening. I plan to be there-- hoisting a craft beer and basking under the late summer sun.

For more information go to: http://www.bowmarketsomerville. com

El espacio improbable de un haikú ( “The Unlikely Space of a Haiku”) By Sergio Inestrosa Translated by Margaret Young

 

Author: Sergio Inestrosa

Translator: Margaret Young

Introduction: Ramón Alberto Meléndez Quinteros

Publisher: Almava Editores

Review by: Ari Samuel Alkalay Appel

El espacio improbable de un haikú (“The Unlikely Space of a Haiku”) written by Sergio Inestrosa and translated by Margaret Young is a collection of short poems that explores the themes of language, beauty, love, loss, homecoming, and the pursuit of self-realization, all in the forms of the haiku and the senryu. Small Japanese drawings accompany the poems on some of the pages. With just over one-hundred poems, the work makes a good introduction to the forms for those new to them, and for experienced readers, it challenges possibilities. The title influenced my reading of the collection, begging me to think about the haiku as a space rather than a form, a space in which we can rest, meet each other, or encounter forces greater than ourselves. The idea that this space is “unlikely” implies that the architecture of the haiku may contain hidden corridors to places we would not usually go. The time spent in a haiku is brief, less than one breath. Just as the heartbeat is the meter of the body, so breath is the meter of the mind, an indivisible unit of life. Inestrosa explores the poetic possibilities of a breath as a venue for thought. 

With some exceptions, the first three-quarters of the book are love poems, and the final quarter are existential poems. Some of the love poems manage to depict a tragedy in few words, such as “my life depends upon / the ration of time / you spend on me.” Some convey longing and impatience: “what good are dreams, / if you will never / appear in them.” Others convey physical desire: “my fingers grazing / the skin of your hips; / sets the room on fire.” 

The existential poems are my favorite, including: “low tide / broken shells, trash / on every beach,” which elucidates a 21st century conundrum, “lips are silent / through tears / the eyes speak,” which packs an impressive level of metaphorical significance into a small space, and my personal favorite, “where have I gone? / I can’t find myself anymore / in this mirror.” This last poem is haunting: if the first-person narrator can’t find herself in her reflection, where could she have gone? The paradox is that if one is lost, a mirror only reflects a lost person. One cannot find herself there. The mirror reflects the visual but not the metaphysical. Famously afraid of mirrors, Jorge Luis Borges might have been fond of this poem.

Each poem is printed first in Spanish, then in English. I enjoyed both versions together, sometimes the Spanish more and sometimes the English as standalone poems, but always their unity above all. One poem in which the translation really shines is “arde espuma / en la cresta de una ola / juegan delfines” (“froth blazes / on the wave’s crest / dolphins play”). The verb “blazes” utilizes the semantic repertoire of the English language to enhance the Spanish version. 

In my favorite poem about mirrors, I would change the translation. The Spanish is as follows: “¿dónde me he ido? / que ya no me encuentro; / en este espejo.” The English is printed above. In the Spanish, the second line is connected to the first syntactically with the word “que,” which is lost in the English. The “que ya” cannot be translated directly, but “now that” at the beginning of the second line in place of “any more” at the end would have at least maintained the syntactic connection between the first two lines. Despite this, many of the poems are clarified and enhanced by their translations. The book is simply not the same as a monolingual text. Reading it bilingually gives the poems more texture and resolution. An inhale prepares the reader for the page, an exhale reads the Spanish, an inhale processes what was read, an exhale reads the English, and finally, an inhale comprehends the poem as one: Spanish and English.

Taken together, El espacio improbable de un haikú (“The Unlikely Space of a Haiku”) by Sergio Inestrosa translated by Margaret Young is a beautiful and insightful volume of poems. It is nice as a book to peruse or to place on a coffee table and open to any page.

The Endicott Review Volume 35, Issue 1 Review by Zvi A. Sesling ( Brookline Poet Laureate)

 

The Endicott Review

Volume 35, Issue 1

Spring 2018

Copyright © 2018 by The Endicott Review

Softbound, 68 pages, no price provided

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

One often hears of the talented writers and artists in the Ivy League and other large colleges. However, at Endicott College there is enough talent to satisfy most aficionados.

Their 2018 Spring Issue is loaded with fine poetry, wonderful art and photography.

Take Dani Comorre’s I am… in which the author tells you their persona – or does not tell you:

I am…

a scientist forced to write poetry that might actually make sense

the brim of a hat that can be manipulated

bent or straightened forward or backward

the sugar at the bottom of your coffee

too sweet you can’t drink the last sip

as stable as a three-legged chair

a bicycle with square wheels

the rainbow coming from the pot of gold

the college student too old to be young but too young to be old

the one that’s too much, but is never enough

You can see the potential in this poet and it will be interesting to see how the poet will write this again and again in 10, 20 or30 years.

Rebecca Kenneally, a faculty member, observes nature. Here is her short poem Celebration which celebrates what many people would abhor.

The spiders came out in the night

and left streamers of silver

draped delicately over leaf and stem,

over goldenrod and birch.

I know the party wasn’t for me,

but I was honored all the same.

There are some other poems, for example, Sunflowers by Olivia Perez-O’Dess in which love and hate merge into love. There is also Symphony of Nature in which Dan Calnan ( The Ibbetson Street Press/Endicott College Young Poet for 2018), questions-- then reaches a conclusion for readers to contemplate. While both of these poems are too long to reproduce here, getting the publication will give readers the chance to read these and other poems see wonderful visual arts, among which are photos by Sydney Kimball and Mackenzie Corey, Jeff Thor, Jenna Valentine and an eerie one by Laura Cunningham. Some of the art works are excellent examples of photo-realism in which art can be easily compared to photographs. These include works such as Abbey Laurin’s humorous presentation of a woman tying a knot in a headband, Abigail Suchocki’s suggestive girl eating what appears to be a carrot and Ben Dages portrait of a male.

There are many other writings worth reading and art and photographs worth viewing. Hopefully the college will put them on exhibit for the public to enjoy.

_________________________________________

Zvi A. Sesling

Reviewer for Boston Small Press and Poetry Scene

Author, The Lynching of Leo Frank

The Sunday Poet: Prema Bangera

Prema Bangera

Prema Bangera is a poet, an artist, an educator, and an editor. Her writing has been published in Quick Fiction, Ibbetson Street, Muddy River Poetry Review, and other journals. She has had featured readings at Mass Poetry's Poetry Coalition themed U35 Reading Series, Salem Arts Festival’s Afternoon Delight, Medicine Wheel, and other venues. Her artwork was exhibited at G Studios and at AAMARP Studios (as part of Peace Drum Project programs), and has appeared on music albums, as promotional designs, and as a book cover which has been archived at Harvard University, University of Buffalo, and UMass Boston libraries. Bangera is currently the Mixed Genre Editor of Midway Journal. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Teen Voices Emerging, an all-girls program for Boston teens with a focus on writing and female empowerment. She also recently launched a healing Arts project called Narratives of Transformative Love. The incentive of this project is to use art and writing to address past traumas, negative criticism, and societal expectations in order to heal and transform our identity to reflect our own strengths and develop self-love.

Ethereal Beginnings

This erratic laughter of wind, masking

the loneliness one feels when in someone else’s country, 

when in face of this terrible beauty

of dark angelic cathedrals crawling into grey worrisome sky,

ready to devour its world beneath.

Even the light of sudden sun against one’s tender skin

leaves you afraid -- this calming loss,

this glistening starry water, its waves chiming against the air.

How when aware, you can hear

it whisper,

as if it were speaking only to you.