Franz Wright Reading Wednesday November 19th

 
Franz Wright Reading Wednesday November 19th

by Michael Todd Steffen, co-organizer of the Hastings Room Reading Series

This Wednesday, the 19th of November, at 7:00 pm Franz Wright will be reading in the Hastings Room at First Church Congregationalist, 11 Garden Street near the Harvard Square Sheraton Commander Hotel. Franz will be joined by Mary Buchinger-Bodwell and George Kalogeris. I believe this will be the first reading Wright has given in public for a some time. It’s going to be a special occasion, and gives me the space here to make some observations on his poetry.

One of the powerful virtues of Franz Wright’s poetry is its raw intelligence. Through his translations, references in his own poems and in interviews, he has impressed us with a wide-ranging and eclectic literary culture, while often expressing scorn for scholarship and convention, maybe partly for the sake of a mythos he has built about himself as a 21st century Romantic confronting the demons of child abuse, abandonment and addiction, leading his meditations anagogically to the themes of self-destruction and death, yet also to the therapy of speaking about these, recovery, and to a faith in and ultimate reliance on God and a life to come. These make for an interesting, distinctly American combination of derision for tradition and sophistication with a surrendering and humble faith in a redeeming God.

Wright has championed a bold, edgy, tell-all vernacular that warrants disregard for the second part of Emily Dickinson’s advice to tell all the truth (But tell it slant). His poems are edited (most notably in Walking to Martha’s Vineyard) less for content than for effects of counterpoint and silence.

In his 2013 collection F (Knopf), on the Christmas page, page 25, the poet comes to a statement of culmination echoing the subject of his meditation, mortality, an acknowledgment of an end itself:

    But I’ve said all that
    I had to say.
    In writing.
    I signed my name.
    It’s death’s move now.

It is a semantic notation in the music of acceptance of the inevitable: not that any of us are convinced that Franz Wright has exhausted his meaning or his means with poetry. Except to say that it’s okay with him in case.

The strophe is the second of four in a poem titled CRUMPLED-UP NOTE BLOWING AWAY, the title itself making an acronymic suggestion (C B A) of an order in reverse to its zero being, where the order starts back again.

The title also makes a poignant correlative image perhaps for how any of us can be made to feel on not so good a day: like a waded up piece of paper in the wind. Yet in our time of superabundant “pages” available and sent to us in every sort of binding, envelope or electronic mail, perhaps the note on the crumpled piece of paper we just happen to pick up and unfold, thanks to the unique path it has taken to get to us, becomes the most intimate, deliberate and meaningful scrap of reading we’ve had in a long time.

In a different way we notice the strophe’s last line, “It’s death’s move,” appealing less to our personal anticipation than to our curiosity about this game of chess the poet has been playing against Death. It is interesting and disinteresting at the same time, because it is a game neither Franz nor any one of us can finally win, though we have played it our whole lives with every hope and earnestness. This explains the next line and the ecstatic vision, wholly American in character, concluding the poem:

    It can have mine, too.
    It’s a perfect June morning,
    and I just turned eighteen;
    I can’t even believe
    what I feel like today.

    Here am I, Lord,
    sitting on a suitcase,
    waiting for my train.
    The sun is shining.
    I’m never coming back.

How explain the transformation that takes place between feeling as useless and random as a neglected piece of paper and as thrilled and hopeful as a teenager running away from home?

Centuries ago, the English poet John Donne made a similar pronouncement on his disinterest with the board game of mortality: Death be not proud… Donne is pertinent, perhaps questionable in this context, referring to the opening stanza of Wright’s poem. This is a variation on the old speculative question, If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does the tree make a sound? By applying the line of thought to the sun and its light and our vision, Wright significantly exaggerates the futility of the question, still with the purpose of evoking a subjective annihilation. In a much lighter complaint from a lover, Donne chided the sun:

        Busy old fool, unruly sun,
        Why dost thou thus
    Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
    Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
        Saucy pedantic wretch… (“The Sun Rising”)

Wright will echo one word from this passage perhaps for reference, while making his dismissive reply bespeaking the obvious solution to the dark, irresolute question he has been asking himself building up to writing the poem:

    Were no one
    here to witness it,
    could the sun be
    said to shine? Clearly,
    you pedantic fool.

Lucky Bones By Peter Meinke

Peter Meinke

Lucky Bones

By Peter Meinke

University of Pittsburgh Press

Pittsburgh, PA

www.upress.pitt.edu

ISBN 13: 978-0-8229-6310-3

82 Pages

$15.95

Review by Dennis Daly

Passion trumps this frivolous world of detail—Belgian chocolates, Coppertone lotion, dry martinis, bright ribbons, doubles tennis, and, heaven help us, sonnets. Peter Meinke in his new collection of poems, Lucky Bones, quantifies the passionate nature of interior intensity and hell-bent fervor by poking fun at himself and humorously (or not) eviscerating a chosen set of targets inhabiting this vale of tears that we call life. Many of his poetic commentaries Meinke delivers in formalist verse with a cunning dry wit that both elucidates and cautions.

The poet begins ominously with his first sectional poem entitled Drive-By Shootings. Here he sets up his backdrop and shades it with bitters. Meinke says,

        …People pedal on bikes drop

  Some money in the hole stick in their arms get a shot and wobble away

     Sometimes getting hit by cars the same needle all afternoon

             That’s the kind of world we live in

Civilization masks bloody-mindedness and boiling lust. Meinke’s piece Cassandra in the Library alludes to ancient Troy while the poet simultaneously conjures up modern academia and contemporary office life. Here’s the unpleasant heart of the poem,

            Poetry no wisdom withstands the test

               of blood: when mind and body clash

         the mind’s the one whose opposition’s rash

                        Killing liquid work’s dust

         Our craving for passion quenched by a crimson lust

           What can an office offer but a cursed

                 routine an inane trivial bore?

           A water cooler doesn’t slake the thirst

              of blood that rages for a taste of war

       a horde of disappointed men have dreams

    fired by bursting flares and female screams

The rhymes lighten the content thereby creating an odd but interesting counterpoint. I very much like this poem.

Skewing the Roman Catholic papacy can get old quickly and is not my cup of tea. However when a bit of compressed wit like the poem Habemus Papum nudges me I can’t resist. Habemus Papum, as announced by a cardinal from St. Peter’s Basilica after a papal election concludes, means “we have a pope.” Meinke appears to have tired of Vatican officialdom and its moribund language. He celebrates/laments in this part of the piece,

                        O goodum! Habemus papum

                             who’ll soon intone

                               the usual crapum

                        and the poor poor will weepum

Athletes and poets have a lot in common up to and including their need to be loved and appreciated in their own time. Unfortunately, the gods of sport and art operate on a different timeframe. In Meinke’s title poem, Lucky Bones, a tennis player of 78 years makes a great shot during a doubles game. He looks to his wife for approval as he had done as a younger man. But time has passed. Meinke concludes with pathos,

…his wife

who used to toss car keys

that flashed through light

like lucky bones crying Hey

         big fella think fast!

 And he thinks That’s

just past in my head

     like a re-eyed crow

and he’s thinking Christ he

could still catch them if she

   were still there to throw

Armed with talent enough to cause the doubling up in laughter of bards and bad reviewers everywhere, Meinke takes on the sonnet in his piece Front-Rhymed Easter Anti-Sonnet. His faux attack doesn’t miss a beat. Bucking revered tradition he even removes the end rhyme scheme and transplants it at the line beginnings. The untraditional cur! Consider these pretty funny lines,

    … Bad enough you have to use

  words without sinking the buggers in fourteen

  lines O Shakespeare Milton what made you

  choose them? O Formalist can’t you read the

signs? O Meinke why are you writing another?

            Who’s sick of sonnets?  Iamb  Iamb 

For Emily Dickinson it’s all about repressed sex and mannered poetry in Meinke’s excellent parody of that poet entitled Emily Dickinson Thinks about Buying a Ribbon. There’s something about Dickinson that invites quality parody. I’m thinking of X.J. Kennedy’s Emily Dickinson in Southern California. In Meinke’s poem Dickinson debates the color of her prospective ribbon almost to the point of indecency which, of course, is the point in this astonishingly deep piece,

I would like to get red—

Vermillion

       But father would disapprove

  A serious Blue—then—worn loose

  Like a Lover’s knot

        A decent one could strangle

  With it—I’d have wine

       Not the barrell’d rum of Father’s

  Then—let him come—

Meinke takes great pleasure in self-deprecation. He gets away with it because he is that good. His poem On Completing My PHD reads like an ongoing gag, but carries with in some quite serious undertones and unasked questions. The poet concludes by rattling off his educational symptoms,

And I who’ve developed

  a twitch a tic a cough

 can’t tell if I am finished

    or only finished off

    I learned Byron had a clubfoot

      Nietzsche’s health was drastic

         Poe was a dipsomaniac

        And I’m already spastic

 I learned that Shakespeare really lived

        so scholars have decided

   Though quite a few have studied me

       they’re not as sure that I did

The poet again summons up academia in a villanelle entitled The Old Professor. Keeping their eyes on Professor Warren’s nicotine-stained teeth as he enlightens his students on New England’s luminaries can prove a didactically sound methodology. Meinke explains,

                                                … Transfixed we

            watched you grind your nubby teeth to stumps

            waiting for you to spur us through our jumps

               from Cotton Mather up through Emily

                        Is every pilgrim happy on the bus?

             We never were sure when you were serious

                   chaining your Camels unpuritanically

                grinding your browning teeth to nubby stumps

              and tossing questions far from the syllabus:

                 Would you rather live on Broad or Beacon Street?

                        Are Smith and Bradford riding the same bus?

Peter Menke has been writing good, sometimes great poems for a long time. Whatever he has for breakfast I want to try. This poet’s in top form.


*** originally appeared in the Fox Chase Review

6 Hotels Hub Theatre Company of Boston @ Club Café

Hotels

Hub Theatre Company of Boston

@ Club Café

209 Columbus Ave

Boston, MA

Now Playing through November 22

6 Short Plays by Israel Horovitz

Directed by Daniel Bourque

and John Geoffrion

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

In his Talk Back with the audience following the performance of 6 Hotels, which is six short plays, playwright Israel Horovitz says that perhaps the scenario, “Beirut Rocks,” is too serious for  the set of plays presented.  Perhaps too, it is in many ways too political to be included among five other comedy pieces.

In the first play, “Speaking of Tushy” Horovitz presents a delicious appetizer of two guys who meet in a bar and begin talking about their ex-lovers.   Johnnie McQuarley, who sparkles throughout the six plays, is the center of this play along with Ashley Risteen.  Both are excellent and perform even better in the later presentations.  Supporting them are Matthew Zahnzinger, whose French accent could use some polish, but otherwise fits his part well and Lauren Elias, who along with her husband John Geoffrion founded Hub Theatre Company, works nicely as a waitress adding many lines to the comedy.

“Fiddleheads and Lovers” is another Horovitz comedy which revolves around food and two friends dating each other’s wives which result in humorous repercussions.  Since Horovitz’s six plays are meant to be performed by the same four actors, this one finds Risteen (Emma) and McQuarley (Noah) at dinner with Elias (Elsa) once again a waitress and Zahnzinger (Jerry), who is married to Emma, in his more natural American accent happening in on the scene and then his unseen date, who is Noah’s wife joining him. Not as confusing as it might seem, the awkward situation is humorous.

The third play, “Beirut Rocks” is Horovitz’s self-stated “serious play.”   True to his words there is no comedy in this one which finds four students in a hotel room in downtown Beirut during an Israeli air bombing which we can presume is during the war with Hezbollah.  There are problems with this cruelly flawed play. McQuarley as Benjy is Jewish.  Zahnzinger is Jake who is Irish and a Harvard student.  Elias as Sandy is an American student and Risteen (Nasa is an American Palestinian.   The first problem with the storyline is that there would probably be no Jewish students in Beirut studying Arabic at that time.  Second, Benjy tries to differentiate between Jews and Israelis.  Each time Nasa talks about Jews, Benjy asks, “ Jews or Israelis?” Nasa replies that there is no difference.   And in the final scene Nasa raises her arms to the heavens and prays for Palestinians to overcome Israelis.   For this Horovitz is not to be praised or criticized, but perhaps he should be given a few lessons in history.

In “The Audition Play” Risteen as Alexis is sensational.  She is supposed to have a Boston accent that the disembodied voice of the auditioner Ed (McQuarley) notes is more New York.  She plays the role expertly with comedic insight and at the same time tap dances that raises applause from an appreciative audience. This is Risteen’s opportunity to shine and she does.

The Hotel Play seemed a bit too familiar as if it had been done before.  Elias as Janice is the mistress of Aaron (Zahnzinger).  Aaron leaves quietly, leaving Janice alone.  Enter Chad (McQuarley), the room service boy,  who tries to comfort Janice as she reveals her affair and her intention to end it.  At that point Aaron reenters and the fun begins thanks to Horovitz ‘s comedic insights.

The final play is “2^nd Violin” which Horovitz says he had always wondered what the second person feels like and also that he always wanted to finish a play with a bad ending for the character.   Elias perfectly portrays  Evvie, the second violin who just cannot get her piece right, but as in the other plays she provides an exuberant, bubbly personality and just the right touch of comic relief.  She is supported by Catherine (Risteen) who tries to help Evvie get her piece right. Marvin (McQuarley) the stage manager keeps entering the room resulting in Catherine and Evvie having  a discussion about whether Catherine had an affair with Marvin. Catherine points out  Marvin always enters a room when the female performer is in a state of undress.  Zahnzinger as Sergei the conductor has a Russian accent more French than Russian and has morphed himself over the period of six plays from a drinker at a bar to a tuxedo clad symphony conductor, each – except for the accents –  believable.

In Horovitz we observe a playwright who clearly finds the vulnerability, fears and anxiety of people in stressful situations.  He knows their faults, understands their weaknesses and expertly inserts  these traits into comedic theatre . He is a respected and well-liked writer who has done much to bring memorable entertainment to the stage.  Hub Theatre Company of Boston does an excellent job of interpreting his plays and bringing them to the live stage.

____________________________________________________________________________

Zvi A. Sesling

Reviewer, Boston Small Press and Poetry Scene

Author, King of the Jungle and Author, Across Stones of Bad Dreams

Editor, Muddy River Poetry Review

Editor, Bagel Bards Anthology 7

Editor, Bagel Bards Anthology 8

Publisher, Muddy River Books

LONGSHOT & GHAZAL by Dennis Mahagin

LONGSHOT & GHAZAL

by Dennis Mahagin

Mojave River Press

Apple Valley, CA

ISBN  978 1 63120 004 5

Review by Susan Tepper

When reading a book of poems, I believe the unconscious mind searches for touchstones that justify and reaffirm each poem’s place in the narrative: or to put it more simply, when the poems hang together, and tell me a story, preferably in rich, abstract metaphor, with themes and tropes, phrases and voices that keep recurring, a la anaphora, to ‘ring the bell’ of a rapt reader.  

I first experienced LONGSHOT & GHAZAL in galleys over the computer.  The raw, honest beauty of this work, an almost frantic energy, elicits a skewed sense of humor, what I’ve come to recognize as a Mahagin trademark.  He never skimps— be it pain, pleasure, what is lost, what’s to be gained, what gets shoved aside, or mourned, as mysterious, relevant, absurd, profound. 

His skewed brilliance in two of the long poems, “Tumbleweed Suite” and “Absolute Longshot w/ the Seven Dwarves,” particularly the latter poem, will have you shaking your head at the risks this writer is willing to take on the page, and the payoffs he delivers. Case in point is the dwarf, Grumpy, visited by a dominatrix; or Dopey, hanging tough within the sanctum of a 12 Step meeting.

My print copy of this book is rendered strikingly in grey tones. No other color could suit this book better. Holding it, re-reading the poems, it struck me that I was in possession of a modern, vernacular poetic vision of Romeo and Juliet.

Longshot is what that word implies, and more.  It’s the X chromosome taking risk, jumping ship, striding forward in these broken narratives; marching toward the wisp of Ghazal, whom I view as a nymph creature, female, flighty as the clouds— that he finds, loses, finds again … infinitum.

Mahagin is one of the least sentimental poets working on the scene today.  Yet a few of the poems in this new collection touch specifically on love themes.  Is he a closet romantic, and did he also conjure up the Romeo/Juliet parallel?

‘Schmarties’ is a poem I’ll remember. The title is of course word-play for ‘Smarties’ (the candy wafers)—  and isn’t he saying something else about this whole ‘sweetness’ gig?  An excerpt recalls a Valentines Day long past:

Schmarties

“…Only eight weeks previous two of us conceived / in a state of Deep Winter, Eastern Oregon love, / how we’d plow through snow banks, arm in arm, / … / … From a corner of my lip, a handle bar / she kissed deep, said ‘Malarkey,’ reached for my V, / again and again… Now, alone on Valentines, (‘why / are you crying?’) out of time…/ …”

Deep down in the darkest recesses of the functioning brain, we move closer or away from certain writings, depending upon which receptors the words engage, and light up.  I found myself so emotionally invested in the doings of the Longhot, that I began to worry about the well being of the Ghazal.  And vice versa. So it was with a certain trepidation that I approached a poem placed toward the end of the book, entitled “Longshot’s Demise.”  It’s another of the longer poems; here’s an excerpt from the first stanza:

Longshot’s Demise

“Well, Jesus / if only it wasn’t / another glorious morning— / clouds slathered on a blue dauber, / darling yawns, shaving cream lather; / orange juice, bird song, stench / of French roast / from the Starbucks, / and a gas powered leaf blower / going off too early, at the center / of town. / … ”

So what will become of the Longshot?  Or the Ghazal?  Mahagin’s second collection is a tour de force in modern poetry, and most highly recommended.

*** This review first appeared in Black Heart magazine.

Review, THE BLOOD OF A TOURIST by William Taylor, Jr.,

Review, THE BLOOD OF A TOURIST by William Taylor, Jr., Sunnyoutside, PO Box 911, Buffalo, New York 14207, 92 pages, $13, 2014

Review by Barbara Bialick

In the title poem, “The Blood of a Tourist,” poet William Taylor, Jr. says he, Taylor, is like the tourist with blood so cold, he “could only look away” at the wino, “a wounded beast/drunk on the wine/of our fear…”

This is a collection that speaks of the “terror” in life—and “the people you try not to look at”:

“I awoke with the terror today/…this morning it lingered/in the unmade bed/the dirty dishes…/I saw it in the man on the bus/and the woman in the grocery store/and wondered if they saw it/in me/…most everyone knows the terror/more than they will say/.”

Taylor says he was born “with a weak heart and frightened eyes”—“I met the big nothing early on,” he says, having “to let others walk the world/as if they had some place in it.”

This reviewer had a similar feeling when I was young and felt like the author writes, “myself content with dreams/of little rooms with little windows/looking out upon the rain…”

Other sad people (or the secretly sad) could relate to these spare but arresting poems:  “It suddenly strikes me/that so many lives could be made/from all we’ve simply/thrown away…”

William Taylor, Jr. lives and writes in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, California. His other book titles are BROKEN WHEN WE GOT HERE (Epic Rites, 2013), AN AGE OF MONSTERS (Epic Rites, 2012), and THE HUNGER SEASON (Sunnyoutside, 2009).  Many of his poems have previously appeared in a wide variety of literary publications.

Reviewer Barbara Bialick is the author of TIME LEAVES and NEVER RETURNS (Ibbetson Street Press).

Chosen Child: Boston Playwrights’ Theatre

Chosen Child

Boston Playwrights’ Theatre

at Boston University

949 Commonwealth Avenue

Boston, MA

Now Playing through November 22

A Play by Monica Bauer

Directed by Megan Schy Gleeson

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

A schizophrenic wants to find his sister; his sister does not wish to be found. But is his sister actually his sister or someone else. And who is the woman doing her wash? Do we believe the woman talking to her is who she says she is? And what does Omaha, Nebraska have to do with all this? Questions, questions.

It all unfolds over approximately 90 minutes revealing a favorite subject of so many playwrights – dysfunctional families. However, there are some twists in this family, some of which are suspected, others come as a surprise; the unexpected is always lurking. And seeing Chosen Child will reveal the secrets embedded throughout.

In a discussion with the audience following the play, Ms. Bauer stated that parts of the play are autobiographically-based. This adds to the intensity and the interest in the characters. Ms. Bauer also said that while autobiographical the plot was heavily fictionalized with some things based on real happenings and others created to fit the play. However, one wonders how much was fictionalized, perhaps the dialogue is, and we are left to wonder if the characters are based on the real and where and where do the author’s life events begin and end.

The play is set in the New York City Port Authority Bus Terminal where David is trying to get to Omaha where he believes his sister lives. As the play progresses her location could be Omaha or somewhere in New York City. The play skips back and forth in time and moves to different places.

Playing David is Lewis D. Wheeler who speaks about people who may be imagined. Is his sister flesh and blood? Is the Rabbi he quotes real? Did his mother just die? More questions.

Lewis does an excellent job portraying David’s range of emotions. With shaking hands during heightened anxiety, he does a twirling dance common to schizophrenics and has a rising voice as he attempts to explain his situation and get what he wants, Lewis has created a memorable character who stays with the audience long after the play ends.

Margaret Ann Brady is a sorrowful, restrained Lee in her first Boston Playwright’s Theatre performance. Debra Wise (Donna) presents Donna, a psychologist, a person who has difficulty with her own emotions and needs to uncover her past and deal with the present. Claudia as Lee Mikeska Gardner portrays her as a young girl, young woman and finally as a dying mother is eclectic and unsympathetic as it should be played. Melissa Jesser as Anne, the Port Authority ticket seller displays the patience of a much older person trying to help David deal with his dilemma.

Overall there is a genuine value of seeing this play, an original by a Boston Playwright. It delivers an important message, sometimes difficult to watch, painful in so many ways. However there is a need for writing about adoption, a topic sometimes left unexplored on the stage, but one that is vital to society. That, plus the plot and the excellent acting make this a stage production worth seeing.

_________________________________________________

Zvi A. Sesling

Reviewer, Boston Small Press and Poetry Scene

Author, King of the Jungle and Author, Across Stones of Bad Dreams

Editor, Muddy River Poetry Review

Editor, Bagel Bards Anthology 7

Editor, Bagel Bards Anthology 8

Publisher, Muddy River Books

Minds of McLean Hospital: A Creative Balance: A Report on the Poets in the Asylum panel at the Boston Book Festival (Oct., 2014)

  


Minds of McLean Hospital: A Creative Balance: A Report on the Poets in the Asylum panel at the Boston Book Festival (Oct., 2014)

By Emily Pineau


    “McLean is a very beautiful place…the environment, the landscape…There are fake coyotes and wolves to scare off the geese. [But the] geese are not afraid of them because they know they aren’t real and I love this,” said poet and psychotherapist, Wendy Ranan, at the panel “Poets in the Asylum: The Poets of McLean Hospital” during the Boston Book Festival on October 25th, 2014. The panel was hosted by professor Doug Holder from Endicott College, who also has been a poetry group leader at McLean Hospital since 1982. The panel included Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam  (Gracefully Insane), Wendy Ranan ( The Quiet Room), Kathleen Spivack (  With Robert Lowell and his Circle), and Lois Ames (Confidante to Plath and Sexton--introduction to The Bell Jar).  McLean Hospital, a psychiatric hospital located in Belmont, MA, has been declared a national literary landmark due to the number of creative geniuses who have been treated there. Lois Ames opined that through poetry especially, patients are able to look at themselves, outside of themselves.  Poetry also allows patients to “develop their sense of continuity,” and to feel like there is a part of them worth seeing and exploring,

    Anne Sexton, who had taught poetry at McLean hospital, struggled with the concept of teaching patients at first because she did not want to hurt anyone’s fragile feelings.  This is when she turned to her friend and confidant, Lois Ames, and asked Ames to monitor her  poetry group and to give her guidance when needed.  Though, after watching Sexton, there was no critique to give because her method was immaculate.  Sexton later said to Ames, “I looked at the faces and looked at the eyes and all of [the patients] submitting poems.”  It is clear that Sexton deeply cared about teaching and how her words affected each of her patients.  Kathleen Spivack, author of With Robert Lowell and His Circle, added, “You knew you had Ann Sexton’s entire attention and that she cared.”  This type of dedication is what patients carry with them.  It is also this kind of love that has the potential to impact many patients’ lives and their writing. 


    After Ames talked about Sexton and the benefits of poetry at McLean, there was an opportunity to ask questions.  A patient (or past patient) at McLean attending this event was the first to take the microphone when this open discussion began.  When he started to speak, his demeanor and tone made it feel like he was starting a poetry slam.  He began, “This sums up Mclean,” and then he took a breath.  Every other word became the “f” word.  He continued and said:


    "We talk about fucking humiliation?  Every fucking night I stay in fucking ... McLean is fucking humiliating.  In the fucking quiet room...You want to know ...why I didn’t fucking kill myself?  Because I fucking failed.  At McLean I don’t... have a fucking creative bone in my fucking body.  It fucking drained it all out of me.  [Do you want to hear] the fucking truth about Mclean? [A patient there] fucking told me he was raped by [one of the workers] there." 

Doug Holder, the moderator of the discussion, encouraged the speaker to give someone else a turn to talk after he went on for awhile, and emphasized that the speaker had the right to his opinion, but that McLean has also helped a great number of people.  When the speaker put the microphone down and made his way to the door he added, “It’s not my fucking opinion.  It is the truth about what happened.”  After he left, Kathleen Spivack stepped in and talked about how the man was not wrong, and how she wishes that he did not leave so that they could have an open and honest discussion.  Unfortunately, not everyone is going to have a positive experience at McLean or any psychiatric hospital.  Also, not all psychiatric patients feel creative or want to write poetry.

 
    Once the awkward stillness of the room was cleared more questions were able to bring the calmness back.  Someone asked, “Is manic depression part of the creative picture?”  Spivack answered by explaining that it is a case-by-case thing.  If you are mentally ill this does not automatically mean you are creative, and if you are creative this does not indicate that you are depressed.  Also, earlier on in the discussion Ames stated, “[When it comes to creativity and mental illness] people write poetry in altered states of consciousness.”  In some ways mental illness does have a way of fueling creativity, and creativity allows someone to use an uncontrollable part of him or herself in a beautiful way.


    As the discussion came to a close Ames said, “I am 83-years-old, and you have to just keep pushing.” This relentless attitude can be used when writing poetry and when struggling with the battles of your mind.  Resources such as McLean hospital, poetry, and teachers give mentally ill people the opportunity to reach out.  And with this opportunity people may find the strength to “keep pushing.”

 **********************************************************************************

 Emily Pineau studies creative writing at Endicott College. Her poetry has appeared in the anthology, Like One: Poems For Boston, and in newspapers and literary journals such as the Somerville News, The Endicott Observer, The Endicott Review, Ibbetson Street, and Muddy River Poetry Review. In 2012 her poem, "I would for you" was nominated for a pushcart prize. In 2013 The Ibbetson Street Press published her poetry collection, No Need to Speak as part of the Endicott College/Ibbetson Street Press/Young Poet Series. She is currently an intern at Agni magazine at Boston University.

The Afterimages Poems by David P. Miller

David P. Miller

The Afterimages
Poems by David P. Miller
Cover Artist—Jane Wiley
Cervena Barva Press
Somerville, MA
www.cervenabarvapress.com
43 Pages
$7.00

Review by Dennis Daly

Scientists argue that the observation of any physical event changes it forever. I suspect that the same holds true for mental constructions entertained by the human mind—like memory. Memory needs distance and a delicate touch to keep it relatively undisturbed. Overly ambitious seekers of densely packed mnemonic truths and ham-fisted psychologists promising new age detective tools show very little for all their well- meant delving. On the other hand poet David P. Miller eases into his personal memories with a gentle touch and his efforts pay off with impressive poetic dividends.

The opening poem in Miller’s collection, Man with Teeth, touches with dutiful sensitivity an awkward moment shared between youth and age. It’s only a moment, but, in its oddness, one that lingers on through space and time. A four year old bus rider understands perfectly,

You contract your upper lip
toward your nose and use
your index finger
to indicate your teeth.
He takes this in.
His mother, mortified, mutters
“Don’t ask to see people’s teeth.”
But it’s too late. You and he
have shared a transgression
He will probably forget,
but you never will,
now that it’s in writing.

Buses become almost a mythical means of transportation into modes of being and remembered place. In his piece entitled Route One the poet takes us past a leviathan’s famous flukes into the city of Burlington Vermont. He searches for his own nativity. Here is a bit of the magic at the heart of the poem,

Across the cusp,
Route One begins the steep descent
toward what remains of old inland sea,
living lake still vast enough
to host its own rumored sea monster.
Gradual passage down Main Street
past the school building
where Melton and Dorothy went steady,
they who became my parents.
Where trees thin
water comes clear into view.

Miller skillfully treats another unique bus moment in his piece One Step Down. An elderly woman struggles with mobility and the dignity it brings. A chivalrous poet offers temporary assistance, not a personal relationship. The details exude subtlety. Poetic objectivity nudges the reader with its honest, but unsettling, last line exclamation. The poem ends this way,

I lurch from the pavement,
Offer my arm
As her balance worsens.

She finds vertical.
Her grip is steel.

Three steps and I
Pry her hand away.
We’re not going home together.

“Doing pretty well,” says the poet’s seventy-five-year-old father in an existential, if momentary reflection. He means it. Oh, there is irony here, but a natural brand which flows from the nasty, short, and brutish backdrop we all call home. The poem, entitled 1955, Miller sets into two scenes fifty-four years apart. I very much like his working of the juxtaposition of two age-appropriate sets of struggles. Shakespeare had it right: “What a piece of work is a man, how noble…how express and admirable.” The poet opens his piece with the younger version of his pioneer-parents,

The mother of twenty
the father of twenty-one
went away from home
together, he and she.
A boy of one month
nestled between boxes
in the back seat,
they drove, Vermont to Indiana,
left parents behind.
Her piano music packed
with the starter groceries
sent along to save the poor couple money.

I must say that I am familiar with the concept of starter groceries or tangible help with no guarantees. Shared moments like these—as simple as they are-- generously passed on by Miller, amaze with their singularity of reference and power of understated emotion.

In his poem Tangelo Peel Miller escorts us through life’s denouement with the sensual scent of citrus. His father sends a Christmas gift of Florida fruit. It affirms life loudly as the poet details whispers of death and aging. There is an undertone of religiosity here and the repetition of the word Christmas adds to it in an intriguing way. Miller puts it like this,

The scent of tangelo peel on my fingertips
midday at work.
The surprise package
of oranges, tangelos, and grapefruit
to be eaten while they were still good.
My father’s surprise
Christmas shipment of Florida citrus.
My father finding
Christmas again for himself.
My mother’s summer death…

Miller’s title poem, The Afterimages, does triple duty for me in this collection. Without question it also doubles as the poet’s master work, and thirdly it is, by the way, my favorite piece. Miller’s central character with her “rhinoceros limbs” rules the poem. She blinds gentlemen with the rudeness of her infirmities. The young, the healthy, and other mere mortals need to make way as she ascends into her mystical bus. Her staunch ally, the bus driver—a good man—supports her with absolute authority as she moves through the coach. Righteousness and civilization triumph, a poet finds wisdom, and a (perhaps) once-lovely woman finds her bus seat. Great climax! Miller describes his protagonist’s earlier journey thusly,

Supporting herself with
       A little folding grocery cart
on the bus at the supermarket
off the bus at the subway
determined smile and
the small voice of a girl
wears so many layers
dressed for November in May.
She pushes forth,
thanks the driver for kneeling the bus to her,
enormous, weak, tired.

Grab a suitcase full of your own memories. Get on this bus at the Cervena Barva Press stop. Then let first-rate poet and tour guide David P. Miller take you on his deftly-plotted magical spin.