Among Us by Harris Gardner

Among Us
by Harris Gardner
Cervena Barva Press, 2007
45 pages, $7
http://www.cervenabarvapress.com



Angels have held a fascination for many writers: Milton, Hass, Hopkins, Billy Collins, to name a few. But how does one manage to address the imperceptible, let alone the holy? Gardner’s answer is to bring angels down to earth, to imbue them with human characteristics and foibles. One of the early poems in the book, “Prequel to Exile” sets up a scene between the archangel Raphael and Adam that illustrates this technique.

Raphael instructs a rapt Adam:
“Set the plants and shrubs in even rows.
Sprinkle gently; grind with rocks what remains
from each meal. Cover the base with this blend;
then add plenty of fragrant earth.
The birds and bees will aid your labor.”

Adam’s response abruptly turns the tone
that stuns the learned seraph.
“Yes, yes, so you have taught before.
What makes me more curious
Is do the angels have sex in Heaven?”

Startled, the winged teacher blushes.

There is playfulness here, both in Adam’s question and in Raphael’s embarrassed response. Or take “Invitation to the Angels’ Ball”:

Please wear your best wings, dress is formal,
although this request is a bit abnormal.
Don’t worry if your halo is a tad out of date.
Wear your best pressed gown, we’ll still let you in.
It will be a rollicking frolic, a real swell time.

Gardner paints an image of angels as nervous girls before a middle school dance, and the idea of angels worrying about whether their haloes are out of fashion is charming. This poem, like many in the book, is not an attempt at religious insight, but rather a re-imagining of the celestial realm. In Gardner’s view, angels may really walk among us. “Can you ever date an angel? I often think so; / however, she turns out human after all. / ...I’ve never met an angel, or have I?” Or, from the title poem: “Perhaps when we look for them, / we can see angels everywhere.”

Gardner’s language ranges from the vernacular – “What, did I put too much spice in the lamb?” or “My high school economics teacher wrote in my yearbook...” – to a less successful vaunted diction that mimics biblical construction. But there are times when Gardner’s rich vocabulary serves him well. Consider the alliteration in the second stanza of “Angel of Faith”:

Elixir-tipped quills fill her quiver.
Tiny wounds heal deeper hurts.
Clarity quickens yearning throngs
who pause their flight from a thousand nicks

and karmic debt-collectors.

“Elixir” zings off of “quiver”, and “quills” flows beautifully into “fill.” There is a real ear at work here.

This collection’s central strength is its admonition to the reader to look beyond the mundane. “Seeing angels may challenge your vision. / No cost to believe in noble winged creatures.” In our bitter post-post-modern age, this is a welcome thought.

Eleanor Goodman/ Ibbetson Update/ Jan 2008

Hear Israel Voices, O Somerville Bard by Patricia Wild

Hear Israel Voices, O Somerville Bard

Somerville Journal

Jan 17, 2008

Patricia Wild


Chances are you know Doug Holder, know of him or know someone who has been published by his Ibbetson Street Press. Poet, writer, arts editor of the Somerville News, producer of a writers’ interview show on SCAT, tireless promoter of Ibbetson Street’s latest offering, Doug is a much a fixture in this community as Green cabs or Lyndell’s Bakery.

“I’m sort of provincial,” the ubiquitous poet says of himself. A Somerville resident for many years, Doug’s world encompasses Sherman’s Café, Davis Square’s McIntyre and More Bookstore, his home-based publishing business on School St, his commute to McLean Hospital where he works, and daily jogs along Somerville’s less-traveled streets. Until recently Doug’s forays beyond the ‘ville were to the wilds of Newton for the occasional poetry reading, or to Maine or Florida for a well-earned vacation. “ I had never been out of the country before” Doug explained. “I hate to fly.”

But about a year ago, when Helen Bar-Lev, a prominent Israel poet, invited Doug to travel to her war torn country, the provincial Somervillian accepted. Wisely, however, Holder “took a year to get mentally prepared.” Asked to serve as a judge for Voices Israel’s annual Reuben Rose Award, during his year’s preparation for the trip, Holder also read more than 250 entries for the contest, finally selecting two winners and 10 runner-ups.

On Dec.14, his beloved part of the world blanketed under half-a-foot of snow, Holder flew to Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport, where it was “almost tropical.” For his first couple of days in the Promised Land, Holder was put in a guest room at Y’Izrael kibbutz, where “ everyone is treated the same” and where he ate “simple and fresh” meals in the communal dining hall. During his week’s stay, Holder’s hosts kept him busy: he met with other poets; he toured the country and was asked to conduct all-day poetry workshops.

Very quickly, the reality of visiting a country “under siege,” became clear. Everywhere, the poet saw “children” that is to say, young Israeli soldiers, who sported M16s like young people in this country sport cell phones. Security checks, metal detectors, endless stories of death and bombings; “ You’re looking around all the time, you always have a sense of fear. Life is on the line.”

That pervasive intensity informs the Israel poetry scene. “Here, ( in this country) it’s you won’t get your next latte,” Holder quips. Israeli poetry is “very idealistic, very passionate. The poetry coming out of there is great.” Not particularly political himself, Holder observes: “You can’t separate art from politics in Israel.” Such passion made for some lively workshops.

Among the Israeli voices Doug heard was that of Ada Aharoni, a founder of the International Forum for the Literature and Culture of Peace. “We ( of the IFAC) believe that all conflicts can be alleviated if the sides know and understand each other better, through bridges of culture and literature. Our culture is at the basis of our identity, and in a long and tragic conflict like the Arab-Israeli one, the wounds are very deep on both sides, and to heal them we need a vehicle that can go that deep, and the most appropriate ones are poetry, literature and culture.” Asked if Ada Aharoni has influenced latest poems, Holder quickly responds: “It’s too early to tell.”

Although he had walked where David and Goliath once walked, stood at the Wailing Wall ( and had inserted a book of his poems into one of the wall’s crevices) had been impressed by the beauty of the country and the “ Israeli people trying to live in peace,” Holder’s delighted to be home. “ I really appreciate this country, where you can walk around, unencumbered. I do understand that these (Israeli) people are afraid,” he noted, then paused: “We could be like that.”

Before a Common Soil: Poems by Ifeanyi Menkiti

Before a Common Soil
Poems by Ifeanyi Menkiti
Dedicated to John Langstaff, Illustrations byKaryl Klopp
Published by Llora Press, Washington D.C.
Copywright 2007
68 pages

This is Nigerian-born Ifeanyi Menkiti’s fourth book of poems. He attended Columbia and New York Universities and later received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Harvard. He’s been teaching Philosophy at Wellesley College for more than thirty years and is famed locally for recently acquiring and running the Grolier Bookstore in Harvard Square, one of the most replete poetry corners in the country.

In his dedication to John Meredith Langstaff, the founder of Revels, Menkiti writes:

“I offer these poems in memory of a long friendship, and in acknowledgement of the power of song to heal a divided world.”

Divided into three parts - Getting to Know the World/Bearing Witness and Before a Common Soil – this lush lavender hued collection is full of iconographic cartoon pictures and mostly short, limerick-style (though often not rhyming) poems about the people and ways of many countries.

In How to Speak Nigerian, Menkiti offers this humorously edged account of colonization:

“In Bangkok where they speak Tagalog;
in Lagos where they speak Nigerian

Nigerian – what sort of language is that?

that the British carved themselves
a territory out of the swamps of Africa
and would have stayed forever
had the mosquitoes not given them
itches, malaria, and swollen toes

on His Majesty’s service was on thing

but to die of fever & snake bite
that was too much to ask an Englishman.”

Underneath the poem is a wood-cut like snake curled up against a gang of thickly-stroked black mosquitoes. These pictures add an almost child-like expression of innocence to Menkiti’s insightfully wry poetic observations.

It’s hard to fish out quotes from the entirety of these gems, but in a poem about a haven closer to home, “Central Square,” Menkiti writes of the Starbucks invasion:

“And then Starbucks became
“Tarred Bucks” and they said
it had a lot of stain
on its profits – this
according to the yells
of the yelling crowd;
and there was a leader
among them – a man
by name of Bruce Bombadier;
and he promised to pour gasoline
on the asses of the ruling classes;
he promised to burn them
until they could rule no more.”

A revolutionary at heart, or at least a strong sympathizer, Menkiti doesn’t glorify war or bloody stakes without offering the simple, concrete awareness of the hunger and the objects of it that mankind can never quite forsake. These poems are stylized to a degree – short lines, refrains – so that we feel engaged and amused at the same time. Even revolutionaries can be poked fun at. For instance, in A Call to Arms, he writes:

“Revolutionaries in the front line,
revolutionaries in the soup kitchen,

the fire they wish to bring
to the flesh of those who rule;
here, but also there, and everywhere…

“who fails to fight
is against those who fight

let those who are not
come out and declare why they should not be shot.

And, by the way, which one
Among you has walked
Away with his café latte?
His bowl of cream of broccoli beside it?”

Among his many and varied subjects are: Aristotle, Hector, Noah, San Francisco, Goetz, New York City and Billy Strayhorn. He harkens back to American slavery in Part 3, Before A Common Soil:

All Quiet on Slave Row

“Nor could they tell
Whether the Ne-
Gro was of Man
or was somewhere
between an ant-
Elope and a man.

We danced on the ephemera,
The ephemera danced with us,
us and the ephemera were one
……

But here, in our authentic
Southern sea, we wept

and spat the seed
of watermelon –

Jolly negroes
come to town.

…..

Lord of tears
and perspiratory blessedness.

we shook, we shook
to the rhythm of juba.”

Even interlacing what we think of as stereotypes or pop images
with which we are familiar, Menkiti manages with an eloquent declaratory
sentence to synthesize and switch the meaning. With his unique musicality, the author stays somehow in a mirthful state throughout this collection. It is a mood wanting in today’s cloud of woes. You will not find dark decrepitude here.

In the middle section Bearing Witnes, Menkiti travels South to Georgia and then to the ill-fated singer Billie Holiday in a two part poem called, “Red Earth” in which he invokes her well-known anthem “Strange Fruit” about lynching:

1. On Georgia’s Red Earth

On the red earth of Georgia,
wind at the back of me
& wind in front of me;
wind whose lashings
the limbs could not take;

2, Lady Day

There were those guilty of being black;
whom the white rules
would not allow;

and there was terror
in the eyes
of the little children

terror at the sight
of a strange fruit hanging
from an ordinary tree
where are you now, Lady Day?

On one other more comic note about the “ghosts of New York” in the ‘50s, he writes of a diner named Beulah’s at 9th & 41st st. (Hell’s Kitchen) in a poem called, “Annabelle:”

“how at Beulah’s
at the corner of 9th & 41st
the cappuccino “just plain sucks
like a cup of piss water
three days old;”

and you ask Annabelle
to please clean up her speech
& she calls you a misbegotten
son of the Holy Ghost

tells you to get out of the way.”

Spiritual, visual in presentation, humorous, rebellious and kind, Menkiti almost always leaves space for us to smile or do a jig; a space for us to ponder further or remember the message of his little dreamed-boxes. All poets provide evidence of something – an emotional flash, a telling detail, a hard-won tale. In ending, I quote from the poem Evidence—one of his more spaciously philosophical treats:

Evidence by glossolalia –
placate the spirits
that ululate
by the river banks…

which way my darling
is the way out
of this difficult knowledge?

Which number, the number
of God’s own intimate face?

Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Lo Galluccio for Ibbetson St. Press.
Lo is a poet/vocal artist and writer living in Cambridge, MA.

I am in a McIntyre and Moore Frame of Mind

As you probably know by now McIntyre and Moore Booksellers is going to close April 1. Along with the Jimmy Tingle Theatre this is a big loss for Davis Square and Somerville. Word has it they might relocate to the old "Bookcellar" site in Porter Square. The site will be much smaller. The "Bookcellar" was another fine used bookstore that hit the dust some years ago.

If I were to go to central casting and say " Hey, Mac. I need a used bookstore and make it snappy,!" McIntyre and Moore would fit the bill perfectly. The place reeked of books, and these tomes seemed to grow like weeds on an unruly plot of land. The clerks had the look and acted like an organic part of the whole. McIntyre and Moore has hosted almost all of my literary journal's readings ("Ibbetson Street") over the past 9 years or so. A picture of McIntyre and Moore graces the cover of our latest issue that was recently featured in "Verse Daily." It has also hosted countless events for the literary community, and the community-at-large. The store will be sorely missed. Here is an interview I did for The Somerville News and the Lucid Moon Poetry site some years ago with one of the owners; Mike McIntyre.






Mike McIntyre Interviewed by Doug Holder:
A Conversation With Mike McIntyre of McIntyre and Moore Booksellers


When you walk in the McIntyre and Moore Bookseller in Davis Square, you probably shouldn't ask, " Hey, what's new!" This bookstore is an oasis of used tomes in a square that more and more worships the spanking new. The store has the perfect ambiance for a business of this nature. Books are crammed in every nook and cranny. Patrons, their necks craned like bemused birds, comfortably browse the large and eclectic selection of fiction, non-fiction and poetry on the shelves.
McIntyre and Moore was founded by Mike McIntyre, and Daniel Moore on Oct. 1983 in Harvard Square, Cambridge. For 15 years it was considered the best used bookstore in Harvard Square, and in Boston for that matter. In April of 1998, the business was moved to Davis Square. Since then it has become the center for the literary scene in Somerville.
On an unseasonably warm September morning I met with one half of the partnership that runs this store, Mike McIntyre. McIntyre is a large man with a full beard, and appears to be somewhere in his 40's. He looks more like an outdoorsman, than a man whose stock and trade is with books.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DH: What is it about about your background that lead you to a career with books? What kind of person gravitates to this business?

MM: I grew up in Buffalo, N.Y. I would look around used bookstores, when I was in high school. In Chicago, (where I was a student at the Univ. of Chicago in the early 70's) I lucked into a part time job with POWELL'S, a big used bookstore in the area. I over heard the owner say on the phone that he needed a part time clerk. I walked over and said I was interested. He must of recognized me as a customer and said," Watch the store, I need to go to the bank." I guess I had the job...he was pretty casual about things. Selling and dealing books is not that attractive. The books themselves are. The people who go into the business would not go into any other type of retail. A friend of mine said she wanted to put up a sign in a bookstore she worked in, that read: " Don't bother the introverts." I am introverted. And this may be why there are so many grumpy book dealers, it comes with the personality. Handling books is interesting....it is sort of like you are serving the books themselves. The book as an object, becomes an obsession when you do this work for awhile. One of the problems with the business is that people are constantly asking for things that don't exist. It is fustrating to be on the floor for me. The questions people ask are often not helpful, like: "Is the basement downstairs?" Obviously it is. They want to know where the door is, but people often ask these questions to start conversations. Being an introvert at heart, I find this difficult. So I stay behind the scenes, although I sometimes miss what's going on, on the floor.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DH: Is Somerville a good place to sell books?

MM: Somerville would be a better place if there was more bookstores. This would create a better atmosphere for selling. One store creates an interest in another. Stores often deal with in different books, so instead of being harmful, this sort of presence would be helpful to us. Somerville is a nice area. The street and traffic people really are cooperative here. When we first moved into the store, we had three meters bagged, so the trucks could unload. They don't take used bookstores for granted here.

DH: Could you talk about why you moved from Harvard Square to Davis Square?

MM: We were located in a residental area in Harvard Square. With the end of Rent Control, we lost a lot of our old customers. Basically, if you didn't own you were out. The people who came into the square after this were looking for an expensive meal, but not the type of books we sell. They were more general market book people. There were a number of reasons we left Harvard Square. As I said one was the end of Rent Control, the others were the lack of other used bookstores,(the closing of PANGLOSS bookstore really hurt us), and the lack of Asian customers. The Asians bought a lot of books, but for the last 10 years there has been a downturn in their economy. That market wasn't there anymore. Harvard Real Estate offered us a new lease, but it wasn't any lower than we were paying. We weren't sure if we could afford it for the length of the lease. Later they became sympathetic and might of even reduced the rent, but we felt that they couldn't lower it enough for us to stay. Somerville was receptive to our move. When we were first about to move to Davis Square, the alderman, Jack Connolly, took me to a community meeting. I was very well-recieved. The alderman claimed this was the best response he ever got, at one of these gatherings.

DH: What is the future of Independent bookstores around here and around the country?

MM: It's pretty frightening. You have to pay whatever you have to for rent. The same books could be sold from your own home, (that you own) for a lot less money. The scene for independents has shrunk. There are the Canterbury, the Brattle, Rodney's, Boston Book Annex, but the list is getting smaller. I think the trend is to sell on the Web, from people's own apartments. Of course I would rather have someone fall in love with a book in their own hands, than on the Internet. A book's condition can only be described so well on the Net. I think the big chains threaten the general bookstores more than us, because we are specialized.

DH: You are very open to carrying local titles, local small press, and holding readings for local authors and groups. Is this profitable. ? What is your philosphy behind this?

MM: Readings are good for presence...for people to know that we exist. It doesn't make us money, but it doesn't need to. People buy some books, but the monetary thing is not a factor. Peter Coyle, the store manager, is very good at handling these events.

DH: Who are your favorite writers.

MM: Let's see...Hemingway, Algren, Cord-Wainer-Smith, to name a few.

DH: What do you see as the future for your store? What plans do you have?

MM: I would like to keep on doing what we are doing. I would like to hire more workers. It is hard for people to live on what we can afford to pay, especially in Somerville where rents are very high. We do provide benefits, and advancement potential. If I could I would build a sort of a dormitory, a cooperative of sorts, where employees could live fairly cheaply. Many of the clerks live outside the city, and travel a fair distance to get here. I see us as being around for awhile to come.


by Doug Holder

The Second Question by Diana Der-Hovanessian

The Second Question

by Diana Der-Hovanessian, 2007

The Sheep Meadow Press

PO Box 1345

Riverdale-on-Hudson, NY 10471

105 pages



In this book by Diana Der-Hovanessian, a poet of Armenian descent, the Second Question of the title poem is “How did you escape/death,” which follows the First Question “where in Turkish Armenia/were your people from.” The poem explains how the children of the women who had asked the second question now only ask the first. However, Der-Hovanessian will not allow the second question to be discarded. In this collection, she demonstrates—shows rather than tells—how death was and continues to be escaped. As one means to this end, Der-Hovanessian, a prolific translator of Armenian poetry, engages in dialogue with international poets. In a poem entitled, “1915,” she writes: “The Israeli poet says/even Satan has not invented a revenge/ for the death/ of a child;” she then poses the question: “And when there/ are not enough/ names for sorrow/ how can there be/a revenge that/ will not cause more?”



This is a volume of difficult questions—questions posed by someone outside, an exile, a “foreign associate” who, for example in the poem, “For Luda Laughing,” snaps at Luda’s husband who has asked Luda to get him a drink of water: “Why don’t you get it yourself?” Asking bold questions is one way Der-Hovanessian insists on life and change, another is through humor. A sense of humor, often dry and ironic, streams through these poems like sunlight, illuminating in its own fashion, how death is escaped. From pointing out how Emily Dickenson’s bread won first prize, while her poetry went unnoticed in her lifetime (“Emily Baking”) to “Seven Warnings in Search of an Armenian Feminist,” including the lines: “Beware the man who over-praises your cooking./He’s going to invite his friends over,” Der-Hovanessian shines her laughing light on dark corners.



The Second Question is organized into several parts; the section “Little Story” begins with the wry poem of the same name: “In your arms,/half asleep/your breath on my cheek;/in your arms/you asleep/everything complete;/in your sleep/the name you speak/is Ani. I am Marguerite.” So many of the poems in this collection share these qualities as they lull the reader with their beguilingly simple and sweet, nursery-rhymesque lines only to end with a stinging twist. This particular section of the book is filled with short, aphoristic poems like “Women’s Rib”: “Man might have been a lot wiser/if Eve came first as supervisor.” The final section, “Other People’s Stories,” contains translations and adaptations, reminding us that Der-Hovanessian is also an award-winning translator. The range of the work in this collection is startling; each page presents a surprise and the reader soon learns to expect the unexpected.



Mary Buchinger Bodwell, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of English

Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Boston, MA

Reviewer for Ibbetson Street Press

January 2008

Survival Notes. Adrian S. Potter

Survival Notes. Adrian S. Potter (Cervena Barva Press POBOX 440357 W. Somerville, Mass. 02144) $7.

Somerville’s Cervena Barva Press has published a collection of very short stories or flash fiction by Adrian Potter: “Survival Notes.” Potter is the winner of the 2003 Langston Hughes Poetry Contest and has numerous publication credits. Potter’s pieces have a raw edge to them. They take place for the most part in urban settings with angry male characters in the midst of existential crises. One story that peaked my interest in this collection was “Domestic Silence.” In this story, an unfortunate neighbor to a loud and argumentative couple, tracks the jazz music the abusive male in this unfortunate coupling plays to mute the loud protests of his many domestic brawls.

“ I’ve lived here for two years, long enough that I can determine the topic of their disputes by what record is playing. Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue,” means that that the husband is releasing the frustration of financial woes onto her fragile ribcage. The swinging melodies of Duke Ellington are reserved for senseless shouting matches, the type of overreaction brought on by male jealousy. Electronic jazz-funk, like Herbie Hancock and the “Head Hunters,” is synonymous with the profanities and backhanded slaps that come from drinking binges. I don’t even have to explain the subtle irony when songs from Coltrane’s “ A Love Supreme” filter from underneath their doorway.”

I would like to see Potter develop more stories like this. He may be on to something.

Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ Jan. 2008/ Somerville, Mass.

More Pictures from Israel Trip/Poem from Rena Navon

Some more pictures of my Israel Trip as a guest of the literary organization "Voices Israel"




Voices Israel Award Ceremony Tel Aviv





Doug Holder with Ada Aharoni author of the "Inner Voice of Saul Bellow"




Workshop-- Netanya, Israel.

* photos courtesy of Wendy Blumfield.

Poem From Rena Navon ( Voice israel Poet)

THANKS, DOUG

Doug Holder, we were happy to have you as our bard
You were always with us writers, thinking hard.
A quiet stream guided our attention, deftly
helping our poetic talent to further emerge.

Restrained, you patiently showed us your respect.
New Yorker and Bostonian, you aptly satisfied
our Mediterranean thirst, trusting
a message of our own to finally speak.

You silently weighed our poetry
at a painter's distance while allowing us others to
claim balance, form or values of various hues
before we came to submit our poems to you.

Doug, this is what you
Judge with integrity, can do.

Thank you.


Rena Navon
Israel


* Rena Navon wasBorn and educated in Pittsburgh, Pa. Fulbright for a project in poetry at universite de Caen. Ph.D. in French from Harvard. Teacher at Simmons and Wheaton Colleges. Dance student in master classes led by Robert Cohan, Merce Cunningham, Erick Hawkins amongst others. Performer in dance concerts at Radcliffe and Brandeis. Wrote most of her poetry after emigrating with family in 1974. Poems published abroad as well as those appearing regularly in Voices: Israel. Translations of his poetry commissioned by Natan Zach and published by Mellon Press. Honorary Mention in Miriam Lindberg's Peace Prize Competition. Leader of some early Voices' Workshops. Editorial Board for Anthology. Married to Professor of Philosophy, mother of 3 and grandmother of 23 for whom she needs 2 addresses to visit them all—Kefar Hassidim and Jerusalem.

THE COLLECTED POEMS OF PHILIP WHALEN Review by Richard Wilhelm

THE COLLECTED POEMS OF PHILIP WHALEN
Edited by Michael Rothenberg
Wesleyan University Press, 2007
ISBN 0-8195-6859-7
$32.97

The Collected Poems Of Philip Whalen, published by Wesleyan University Press, 2007, contains all of Whalen’s poems from his published collections, previously uncollected poems published in magazines and anthologies, and CALENDAR, his previously unpublished graduate thesis from Reed College. Also included are “visual poems,” (i.e. drawings, etc.) he produced over the years. There is a brief forward by Gary Snyder and an essay on Whalen by Leslie Scalapino in the front of the book and some essays and prefaces by Whalen in the appendixes, including “Goldberry Is Waiting” from the Poetics of the New American Poetry. The collection, edited by Michael Rothenberg is surely a must-have for Whalen fans.

Born in Portland, Oregon in 1923, Whalen attended Reed College after World War II on the G.I. Bill where he met fellow poets Gary Snyder and Lew Welch. Whalen was a key figure in the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance of the 1950s and, like many who came out of that milieu, developed an interest in Eastern thought and philosophy. In 1973, he became an ordained Zen priest and in 1991 became an abbot. He died in 2002.

This collection provides the reader with an array of poems, most of which, frankly, are not to this reviewer’s liking. The poems that do work for this writer are the imagistic ones written in the vein of William Carlos Williams, a major early influence on Whalen. (Haiku poetry grew out of Zen consciousness and influenced the Imagists who influenced the San Francisco Renaissance poets and the Beats who in turn began to explore Zen Buddhism.) Here is the second poem in the collection:

VIII

Moon under a screen
of telegraph wires
Moon under no screen but the wind
Moon under the sea
and no spray but self
wandering
(Winter, 1947)

Dale Smith, writing in Jacket Magazine (1998), notes the influence that Gertrude Stein appears to have had on Whalen’s development. Many poems seem to be about mind and perception. There is an obvious humor as well to his work. His process seems to be one of watching himself think but the pathways his mind takes are elided. This does not lend itself to ready comprehension even after several readings. There are wonderful poems written in an imagistic vein but they are far outnumbered by those solipsistic pieces that, whatever they may have meant to Whalen, remain opaque to the general reader. A short example can be quoted here:

MYSTERIES OF 1961
Lazy tongs
Jacob’s ladder
magnetized flywheel
gyroscope
folding mesh ring basket
*
Mr. KNIBX. a sinister
*
“A is for jelly,
B is for Jell-O”
*
“You are the how
they call panic”

Paul Christensen, writing on Whalen (Jacket Magazine, 2000), says:

(Allen) Ginsberg couldn’t understand the method; he missed the humorous
intent of the line in Whalen. ----Ginsberg kept looking for the sense to zero
in to conscience, or to a core of persecuted self—which is never there in
Whalen. So, as (Diane) Waldman tells him in her interview, Allen didn’t
“get it” when he read Whalen.


I’m afraid that, like Ginsberg, I don’t “get it” either. The poems I do like are unfortunately a rather small minority. Here’s one, though, a San Francisco poem from 1964, that represents the Philip Whalen that caught my attention years ago:

LATE AFTERNOON

I’m coming down from a walk to the top of Twin Peaks
A sparrowhawk balanced in a headwind suddenly dives off it:
An answer to my question of this morning

Regardless of this reviewer’s likes and dislikes, true fans of Whalen could not ask for a better collection than this Wesleyan Press edition.


Richard Wilhelm
Ibbetson Update, 2008

* Richard Wilhelm is the arts/editor of the Ibbetson Street Press. He is a regular review for the Boston area small press and poetry scene. Wilhelm has upcoming work in the Istanbul Literary Review.

Ibbetson 22 in Verse Daily-- Jan 21 2008

®
Today's poem is "Eclipse"

from Ibbetson Street




Sarah Hannah's first book, Longing Distance (Tupelo Press, 2004), was a semi-finalist for the Yale Younger Poets Prize and was nominated for the Norma Farber Award, The Kate Tufts Discover Award, two Pushcart Prizes, and the Forward Prize. Her second book, Inflorescence, is forthcoming from Tupelo Press in Fall 2007. Sarah Hannah taught at Emerson College until her recent passing.
All the poems by Sarah Hannah that have appeared on Verse Daily:
November 26, 2007: "Tread-softly (Cnidoscolus stimulosus)" "Hell, this is a field without end..."
July 12, 2007: "The Riddle of the Sphinx Moth" " An enormous body kamikaze-dives..."
October 16, 2006: "At Last, Fire Seen As a Psychotic Break" " It begins in the crux of beam and insulation..."
October 6, 2004: "Destroying Angel (Amanita virosa)" "I'm way in, way in you, Mushroom..."
April 29, 2003: "For the Fog Horn When There Is No Fog" "Still sounding in full sun past the jetty..."

Books by Sarah Hannah: Inflorescence, Longing Distance

Other poems on the web by Sarah Hannah:
Three poems
"Alembic"

About Ibbetson Street:
Poets in this issue: Marc D. Goldfinger, Michael Keshigian, Dennis Rhodes, Stephanie Hiteshew, Ray Greenblatt, Anne Tom, Jane K. Kretschmann, Brad Bennett, Patricia L. Hamilton, Thade Correa, Ulys H. Yates, Abby E. Murray, Alan Holder, Deborah C. Strozier, J. Melissa Blankenship, Bernadette McBride, Carolyn Gregory, Barbara Bialick, Sarah Hannah, Cammy Thomas, Arlene L. Mandell, Janice Riggs, Eleanor Goodman, Ed Galing, Leanna N. Stead, Alison Cimino, Jean Keskulla, Marcia L. Hurlow, Shari O’Brien, I. Gillis Murray, Sarah Tuttle, Erica Pederson, Laura Rodley, Lyn Lifshin, Linda M. Fischer, Jade Sylvan, Matt Friesen, Joanna Nealon, Ruth Sabath Rosenthal


Subscription: 1 year (3 issues), $20
Ibbetson Street * 25 School Street * Somerville, MA 02143
Editor: Doug Holder
Other poems by Ibbetson Street in Verse Daily:


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New title from Ibbetson Street: Time Leaves by Barbara Bialick

“Barbara Bialick’s poems leave the reader with a sad/sweet acknowledgment of the passage of time. Her work is generously laced with humor, irony, and a peaceful acceptance of what is, and what is to come. This is a poetry collection for all seasons; to read when you are old and when you are young.” — Doug Holder, Arts Editor, The Somerville News


To order: http://www.lulu.com/content/1884973

Death of a Mexican and other poems by Manuel Paul Lopez

Death of a Mexican and other poems
By Manuel Paul Lopez
winner of the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize 2006 Bear Star Press

Reviewed by Anne Brudevold

$16.

Poet Manuel Paul Lopez’s first chapbook, consisting of a short preamble, a half dozen poems in different lengths and narrative voices, and a glossary of Spanish words, is truly engaging. In a varying poetic tone of different narrative voices, the poet shows shows us what coping with two cultures at once is like, from various person’s experiences. In the first one, “Mi Cantita,” is the speaker’s bi-lingual family and culture, prejudice cuts both ways. This poet’s lively metaphors and ability to put us in his place is so simple and natural that I was just taken in – welcomed to the poet’s world where he can speak no language, so his grandmother/nana used to massage his “sluggish tongue.” Without preaching, without taking sides, without self-pity---and with a great deal of humor, brilliant combination of Spanish and English, lively metaphors, and unpretentious use of language, we are there, in a world at once painful and funny, where:

“Spanish trembles beneath my Nine Inch Nails tour shirt/like a beaten mutt,/a crackhead in church.” The poet says: “I was just miming Mexican.” Being darker than other Mexicans, he gets beat up by both Mexicans and Americans as he grows up, and teased by his family and community. “Angel’s mom was funny about my lengua’s white man’s disability/ When she answered the door, she’d say, ‘Buenos dias.’ And I’d say ‘Hola,’/but no more, already taken too far out of myself. But her eyebrows would become/ two magnets attempting to yank out the planetas, estrellas, and saltelites from my mouth from my/mouth so she could contact the great shy sol that for some reason slept too comfortably/ within the arctic of my gut/as I stood shivering pale and naked as a white plastic cafeteria spoon….And with the silence she’d laugh, taking me in with the warmth of her tone,/like the Our Lady of Guadalupe church bell/bringing everyone home on Sundays.”

It’s difficult to critique these poems – why not just quote them all? A common theme is the inability to speak either language: “I knew Spanish words, but they were all different colored marbles/in the jar of my mouth/and I couldn’t pick out the right color.”

In the end, he embraces them both, ardently. With exuberant language, the poet speaks in the voices of characters of his family. In “Death of a Mexican” the poet speaks of his desire to be at once like and unlike his poet cousin, who “made a habit of chewing on paper, because he said that it would feed/ him Lorca, Rulfo, Hamsun, but times when he drank a little to much of his wine, he’d cry/like a drama queen, while chewing on Danielle Steele.” In “Mundo Meets the World,” a retarded cousin is in love with Denise Levertov. In Go, Nijinskym Go” an uncle plays over-indulgent parent to his little girl, even as he tries to express his own failure of poetic, mimetic, and dance experience. “There is a hole in my living room” depicts the glasses of grief left around a symbolic grave, a hole in the poet’s living room. Emotions are expressed in real objects, in real experience, in trances away from reality. It’s not the fluid, poetic unknowing transition, as in, say Mistral’s fiction, between fiction and reality; it’s the poet’s ironic knowledge, even as he expresses each character’s emotion sincerely, that something is out of kilter, and that there is something rich and wonderful about it.

At the end, that something is the richness of language itself. In the last lines of Generationes, Saint Peter says, “Not to question./Because you need to think about this,” he’ll say, pointing at his tongue.”

Generously invoking fear, anger, disgust, lust, loss of self-control and love with eloquent disregard, this small book, “Death of a Mexican” by Manuel Paul Lopez is a jewel.

--Anne Brudevold is the founder of the Eden Waters Press of Allston, Mass.

Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney

Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney (Seamus Heaney, translator)
W.W. Norton 2007
An Illustrated Edition
Illustrations edited by John D. Niles

Reviewed by Anne Brudevold



BEOWULF: Power, divinity, heroism, terror, horror, despair, disgrace, and fame: all the ingredients of a modern-day horror movie are present. The basic plot is Beowulf, Swedish hero from Geatland, Southern Sweden) sails to Southern Denmark to save the Danes from a man-eating monster named Grendal who attacks them night after night. Beowulf kills Grendel in a gory battle scene in Hrothgar’s (the kings) castle. (Castle battle scene). Grendel’s mother returns next night and, although pursued by heroic Beowulf to the bottom of a swamp, supposedly dies in her attempt to avenge her son.(Underwater battle scene, depicted in the book, but not the movie) Years later, a monster comes to Beowulf’s castle from the sea to kill Beowulf, now an old man. Both the monster and Beowulf die. The book ends with Beowulf’s blazing funeral boat set sailing honorably afire into the sea.

After reading Seamus Heaney’s remarkable translation from the Old English of Beowulf accompanied by illustrations of John C. Nies, I waited to write a review until I had seen the recent movie by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avery, accompanied with their concepts of writing the script. I’m glad I waited.

My first reaction upon reading the Heaney translation was awe and admiration. The edition is beautifully illustrated with pictures of relics from the time the manuscripts was presumed to be written, between the seventh and tenth centuries, in the “dark ages.” Helmuts, daggers, jewelry, medals, chain mail, swords, stone inscriptions, and reconstructed architecture set the scene for the reader. Modern photographs of the Danish landscape where the drama took place and artists’ illustrations from different periods of varying Beowulf’ scenes complete a visually elegant coffee table book meant in the most complimentary way. The translation of the text is equally dramatic and impressive, as I had to convince a friend who saw me reading “the most boring book from high school.” He, like me, had had to read the text in the original Anglo-Saxon, or Old English. The translation of Seamus Heaney’s version captures the poetry of the text with its natural accents and verve, and speaks with the authority of an epic. No cheap excitement needed.

The natural rhythm of Scandinavian, and also of Old English, to which it is closely related, in which the poem is written, is four-square, which Heaney keeps as a ground rhythm. “Down to the waves then the broad hull was beached upon the sand/to be cargoed with treasure, horses, and war-gear/The curved prow motioned; the mast stood high/above Hrothgar’s riches in the loaded hold.” (p.129)

Or, “Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, spoke;/’wisest of kings, now that I have become/ to the point of action, I ask you to recall/what we said earlier, that you, son of Halfdane/and gold-friend to retainers that you/if I should fall/and suffer death while serving your cause, would act like a father to me afterwards.”p.(101)

I made a survey of the translations of Beowulf available at the Harvard Book Store. Of these, one was a dreary prose translation (odd, considering that Beowulf is a poem with strong poetic accents) and three were children’s adventure stories – primitive Harry Potter’s. (Please excuse any adult translations—and I know there are many, which I have left out). The period recorded in Beowulf took place (and this must have earlier than the tenth century, since the events are spoken about “once upon a time) was an adventurous. fearful time. Numerous familial revenge wars and also intermarriages wars took place during the Beowulf period – and, I may add, with still on-going consequences. Perhaps because the gene pool was relatively small, people kept a close eye on the family tree and grudges were remembered. My Norwegian parents were upset when I married a Dane.

Scandinavian nature is harsh, life was harsh, and isolation of farms and people made for wild parties at the occasional gathering. Family and clan alliances frequently shifted. Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are so similar that I can understand all three. In fact, it was discovered that I was related to my husband during the tenth century, and that around 1200, my husband’s family executed members of many of my uncle’s clan.

Sesame Street’s Swedish sing-song cook not withstanding , the sentences have square, declarative grammar, usually in four accents, especially in speeches, of which (at least in my family) Scandinavians are very fond. I cannot remember a single family get-together when the oldest male would not make a speech, during which much toasting, laughter and solemn moments occurred. The word skal comes from skull from which the old warriors drank their mead.

The Heaney translations makes this way of life unsentimental, vivid and as close to historical truth as we can know it. Peter Brooks made a film of King Lear that approaches the conditions and emotions of that era.

Death, divine power, heroism, horror, devotion, disgrace and fame are modernized and part-comedic in Beowulf, the movie. The grandeur is gone, but a new Freudian explanation gives us a reason for all three battles, and for Angelina Jolie to be lifted, gilded, from her diabolical pool of chocolate pudding.

It’s very simple. Grendel’s (the monster’s) feud with Hrothgar(the Danish king who has been living on un-earned riches) is fueled by unconscious, ancient Freudian jealously. Grendel wants to defend and better his old ancestor, the long dead Schield Sheafson. Beowulf kills Grendel, who no one realizes is his half- brother. The text infers why when Beowolf goes down to fight Grendel’s mother , he succumbs to her charms, and emerges with Grendel’s head, not hers. He hasn’t really killed her, the text clearly infers. Once Grendel’s mother finds Beowulf, at the pool bottom, there’s air aplenty from an ancient kingdom. Grendel’s mother becomes beautiful, irresistible, and seduces her prey. She’s a shape-changer. Thus she did before, with Hrothgar’s ancestor, Schield Sheafson, and begat the monster that now attacks his own ancestors. Now Beowulf spawns the monster who will come, when he is mature, to Sweden to kill Beowulf, his own father. Oh those feminine wiles and never-ending Freudian theories.

When it all began, Grendel’s mother, who seems to have had a very long life, seduced Schield Sjeafson in exchange for money and fame. The movie explains the beginning of the whole terrible cycle as a punishment for ill-gotten gains.

It is not a long way from children’s story to epic to comedic effect story. The great themes remain the same. The style, consciousness, and language make the difference.

Seamus Heaney’s translation is dignified and approaches the sparseness of a Greek epic. While I appreciate the psychological interpretation given by Avery and Gaiman, I think this approach is already latent in the epic story, and need not be as spelled out as it in the movie. Nevertheless, I think Avery and Gaiman have a good point in their theory of the constant revenge that seemed to plague Scandinavian history. It may not be particularly Freudian, but it is familial, and underlies the text as a constant subtext.

So who is your audience? Read a good Beuwolf to your kids. Read Heaney’s Beowulf on an evening with a strong cup of coffee. Go see Beowulf with the kids, if they absolutely demand it. I did, and I think it’s a cheap version. Buy the Heaney Beowulf. You will find hours and hours of enjoyment and wisdom in it.

* Anne Brudevold is the editor of the Eden Waters Anthology.

David Surette: A Poet who finds it “Easy to Keep: Hard to Keep In.”

David Surette: A Poet who finds it “Easy to Keep: Hard to Keep In.”


David Surette is the author of the new poetry collection: “ Easy to Keep, Hard to Keep In.” Surette is also the author of the poetry collections titled “Malden,” “Good Shift,” and “Young Gentleman’s School.” Surette, co-hosts the ever successful Poetribe Reading Series in East Bridgewater, Mass. Award-winning poet Frannie Lindsay writes of his new collection: “ David Surette is a steward of humility in its many forms: from his blue collar Arcadian roots to his lowly yet noble farm animals. With charm and affability, yet neither of these at the cost of implicit depth, this collection impresses…” I spoke with Surette on my Somerville Community Access TV show “Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer.”

Doug Holder: David, you often write about your Arcadian roots. Can you talk about this ethnic group that many people may not be familiar with?

David Surette: It is interesting that it is such a big secret since it is the second biggest population in the state besides the Irish. Part of it has to do with how we ended up here. Longfellow wrote a very famous poem about us: “ Evangeline.” I don’t know why people don’t put the two together. Longfellow, Arcadians, etc… We were all expelled from Nova Scotia in 1775. The Arcadians had a beautiful life in Nova Scotia. They had beautiful farms and they wanted nothing to do with the English war with France. They just wanted to be. Even when England controlled the area they signed treaties. We were a different people, not loyal to England or France. The English weren’t happy about this and they expelled everyone they could get hold of. They shoved people on slave ships. Three leveled ships. 10,000 people drowned on the way out of Nova Scotia. The rest wound up all the way down the coast from Maine to South America. Most famously New Orleans. They are known as the Cajuns, short for Arcadians. So Longfellow wrote about us, everyone knows the Cajuns, but the Arcadians of New England are not known. Probably because they came here poor and with the French language. They became the “other.” Shame became part of their existence. They just hid. They took jobs, like most immigrants, that no one wanted. I eventually learned to get rid of the shame and to write about it.

DH: You wrote a collection of poems “Malden.” Unlike Paris or Rome you would hardly think that Malden would inspire a book of poetry. (Certainly Somerville would!) But it did. How are you in a Malden frame of mind?

DS: Malden is a place where people think that nothing happens. I think my poetry addresses that. It is about ordinary life, a “ Malden kind of life.” But there is till poetry there. I have to write about where I come from.

DH” In your poem “Smoking Ban,” you write about the patrons of a bar.

“ I watch them believe / that tonight’s the night/ and we never have to wake to/ the morning’s bitter truth.”
The Bar, from Bukowski on has been a sort of stale beer, boilermaker and smoke-ridden muse for many a poet. Why do you think it is so inspiring?

DS: I think it seems like a good idea at first. When you grow up among working people, and you are a working person, it seems like a really good idea. There is music, there are women, there are your friends, and it seems like a natural place to entertain yourself. But there is a line there. In the poem you read, I try to convey that it is one thing to go to the bar, and it is another thing to go home. But there are people who never leave.

Anytime you have two things that don’t seem to fit together, that for me is my poetic moment. I think barrooms have that quality. These are places you go to get away from things. Everyone who goes to a bar brings his or her “stuff” with them. So it makes for a lot of material. In the poem I quote Van Morrison’s “ Brown-eyed Girl.” That’s one of those songs that when you sit down in a bar, you might think, “How can it be better than this?” But I think that it is a pretty false promise.

DH: You are an English teacher on the secondary level. How important is poetry in the “kids” lives?

DS: I am a teacher of English and Creative Writing in East Bridgewater, Mass. It is not an important part of the kids’ lives at all. This is where my job comes in. We read a poem in class everyday and we write everyday. I think the kids are surprised about how much they like poetry. And I will venture to say they are dying to write it. I think everyone in the world wants to write poetry. You don’t want to squelch the kids’ desire to write.


DH: How about your own creative process?

DS: I have a poetic moment when I have something in my head and I can’t get it out. It usually when two things are together that doesn’t fit together. Like hope and a barroom. If it stays in my head for a couple of weeks I write it down. I put it on a scrap of paper and drop it in my pocket. Later I will type it up if I feel it is worth it. I could make up to 30 drafts. Then I have a person I trust, in my case my co host at Poetribe Vicky Murray. She likes my poetry enough to be hard on it.

DH: I know I like to write at the Sherman Café in Union Square, and to a lesser extent Bloc 11 in my hometown of Somerville, Mass. How about you? Where do you write?

DS: I like to write in secret. Usually I write from boredom. I might write during an English faculty meeting. I don’t have a place. I don’t do in front of anybody. I don’t go to a regular workshop.

DH: Any Franco-American, Arcadian writers you really admire?

DS: Mark Strand for one. He was the former Poet/ Laureate of the United States.

Looking For An Eye: Poetry by Peter Krok.

Looking For An Eye: Poetry by Peter Krok. ( Foothills Publishing POBOX 68 Kanona, NY 14856 Looking For An Eye: Poetry by Peter Krok. $15.

Peter Krok writes in the introduction to his new collection of poetry “Looking for an Eye” that, : “ the process of self-discovery involves looking in two directions, both inwards and outwards, and these poems are meant to reflect that search.”

Krok, an editor at Philadelphia’s Schuylkill Valley Journal, encapsulates his search in the title poem: “Looking for an Eye.” The poet writes about his fumbling search to find his third eye, or poet’s eye: “ Fumbling in the dark, always looking/ for an eye, he hurls stones/ at his shadow. Voices startle him. / A stranger keeps stalking/ Each time he seems to see, /a finger pokes his eye. / He sits on beach steps, head against hands. / A child comes up to him. / Can I help you, Mister? /Saying No thanks, / he stares at the Atlantic…”

And since I have worked the 3 to 11 shift at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric hospital just outside of Boston noted for its resident poets Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, I was drawn to the poem “Second Shift.” It is a poem that speaks beautifully to the relentless march of time, the “dull decline of days,” and tired resignation mixed with quiet desperation.



“ You come home drooped and hungry
Night yawns The wife sleeps…
Slump on the couch. Stare
like a disheveled store mannequin
toward the rooms in your midnight…

Do you know what it is What I mean
You want to break
the dull decline of days slipping
through the stubborn hole in life
but your knuckles are not strong enough.”

Highly Recommended

More Voices Israel Picture

1-- Doug Holder with Voices Israel poet Gretti Izak

2-- Doug Holder with Israeli poet Donna Bechar

Richard Kostelanetz PO/EMS Review by Irene Koronas

Richard Kostelanetz
PO/EMS 2008 $6.00
contemporary poetry series
Presa :S: Press
PO Box 792 Rockford, Mi 49341

Review by Irene Koronas



ass/on/ant
tan/gent
the/rapist

po/ems by Richard Kostelanetz give us the reader
chances to see ordinary words in a new configuration,
and new connotations. once we decipher these poems or
this sparse collection of cut up cut off cut from
original meaning, word play word talk, we are left
a/lone up/on a/cross

Kostelanetz challenges our perceptions, ideas of what
a poem can offer. a few poems do this very well, a few
fall open, askew of the original intention, which I’m
presupposing to be profound, humorous, clever or
disco/very, or absolutely nothing, devoid of emotion,
(again this is my presumption. ) I except his
punctuation, his deconstruction; he influences many
contemporary poets, including myself.

I’m partial to his poem on page 23 because the visual
works within the small open framed space. my criticism
would be the bold fon the like so much. I feel like he
feels like we won’t get it unless we are presented
with flash recognitions, unless the page space is
filled with bold strokes like a neon sign on the
highway and those little emphatic symbols gotta go.
infinity or not. there is a sentimentality to those
two symbols and in a book like this it don’t make it.
even though i’m impressed with his tan/gent, I soon
return to his (Kostelanetz’ s) 1993 book, ‘word works,’
a master piece in experimentation. in that book on
page 193, ‘preface xii partitions,’ Richard says, “the
idea of imitating what is taught in school - or either
proving myself or establishing my credibility through
the mastery of classroom exercises - has never
interested me.” then he continues further on, “…I
think it can be seen that my poetry belongs to
tradition, mostly American, that is concerned with
radical inventions within the machinery of poetry…”

po/ems is worth the six dollar entrance fee.

Irene Koronas
poetry editor
wilderness house literary review

Gloria Mindock: A Doyenne of the Somerville Arts Scene

( photo by
Zoia Krastanova)

Gloria Mindock: A Doyenne of the Somerville Arts Scene.

By Doug Holder

On an early Friday morning a slightly soggy Gloria Mindock came out of a torrential rain to talk to the staff of The Somerville News about her longtime involvement in the Somerville arts scene. Mindock has an impressive literary pedigree in our
artistically endowed city. She moved from a small town in Illinois to the “ville in 1984.
She told the News that it took her 3 years to get used to the relatively fast pace of her new hometown. But after her initial adjustment she was off to the races. She co-founded the Theatre S&S Press Inc., which published books and produced experimental plays. It received grants from such prestigious institutions as the Rockefeller Foundation. Later, after the theatre went “south”, she co founded the Boston Literary Review (BLUR), and was the editor from 1984 to 1994. After a decade of working as an editor of other people’s work she took a creative hiatus to concentrate on her own.

Mindock remerged after a long hibernation to find the Cervena Barva Press a couple of years ago. The press to date has published poetry postcards, chapbooks, and perfect bound editions of poetry by such poets as: Mary Bonina, Harris Gardner, Simon Perchik, George Held, and many others. Upcoming in her impressive lineup of talented bards are: Lo Galluccio, Tim Gager, Chad Parenteau and Steve Glines to name just a few.

But Mindock , who has been a drug counselor with the social service agency Caspar Inc. in Somerville for many years, had even greater ambitions. She recently took over the editorship of the online literary magazine Istanbul Literary Review, and along with her partner Bill Kelle, (who helps Mindock with all aspects of her many enterprises) publishes a newsletter that lists poetry readings around the country, includes interviews with poets and writers, as well as featuring breaking news from the world of the small press.

Mindock, along with her friend the poet Mary Bonina, has also launched a poetry reading series at the upscale Pierre Menard Gallery on Arrow Street in Harvard Square in the Republic of Cambridge. It has become the talk of the town, and “the” place to read along with the “Grolier Poetry Series” at Harvard and the venerable “Blacksmith” poetry series down the block.

Recently Mindock has published a collection of her own poetry through Somerville’s Ibbetson Street Press “ Blood Soaked Dresses.” This book of poetry pays tribute to the El Salvadoran people who suffered greatly during their Civil War in the 1980’s.

Of the Somerville arts scene Mindock said:

“The arts scene here is wonderful. Just look at the great events the Somerville Arts Council organizes each year. Somerville is booming with writers, painters, and actors. “

But she warns:

“If rents continue to rise in the area Somerville will see a mass exodus of artists. Most artists are not rich and struggle to survive. The city should do more for its artists, in terms of affordable housing.”

In spite of these worries Mindock feels lucky to live in this vibrant hub of the arts. She attends Saturday morning meeting of the Bagel Bards, a writers group that meets at the Au Bon Pain Café in Davis Square, and like a energized and colorful butterfly she flits from reading to art opening, supporting her many friends in the community. Somerville has been called the “Paris of New England” and one of its solid citizens is a woman who wears many hats, or as the case may be berets, Gloria Mindock.

To find out more about Gloria Mindock go to http://www.cervenabarvapress.com

Doug Holder

Accidental Landscapes. Brian Morrisey.

( Poesy POBOX 7823 Santa Cruz, CA 95061) http://www.poesy.org $6.

I remember meeting Poesy founder Brian Morrisey years ago at the Salvation Army in Cambridge, Mass., where I was part of a poetry reading. He was just out of college—finding his way in the greater poetry world—and the world-at-large. Since then he has moved to the West Coast, but we have kept in touch. I have been the Boston-editor for his Poesy magazine for the past 10 years, and have read with him at the Out of the Blue Art Gallery in Cambridge on a couple of occasions. In his latest collection “Accidental Landscapes,” I can see Morrisey settling into his God-given role as a poet. In earlier books he seemed to give a finger to the world that seemed to deny him this badge. But now Morrisey has sunk or risen comfortably into the role of the artist. There is no need to justify his life—it speaks for itself. The poems in this collection are Morrissey’s most accomplished to date. There is a beautiful stillness and sadness, with flashes of anger at the state of the world and our country. There are the encounters with women in bars in Dublin, in digs overlooking the South China Sea. Morrisey is well traveled and seasoned and it shows in his work.

In the poem “In My House” Morrisey, like the “Doors” song “When You're Strange,” defines the “strangeness” of the artist, the outsider, the artistic sensibility:

“She tells me I am strange
I see the face of death
in yawns of old men
a sly wink of the eye
because we both know
how ashes are made.

She tells me I am strange
I would rather barter
with a sleeping hour
to sift through words
for diamonds
feeding a passion
worth more
than hope
more colorful
than green….”

And in “Poisonous Magic” Morrisey can’t forget an authentic, charming but down-at-the heels woman he met in a bar in Dublin:

“She may have been a drunk
but knew the taste of fire
smoked through Marlboro Reds
between lips
that savored
the taste of pain
given like storybook rhymes
I will always remember…

Back at the local bar
there is too much lipstick
not enough words
too many heels
not enough boots
too many blondes
painted black
and faking it

it is mostly when
a door slams
I think of her
How she may leave
but never say goodbye

This book also boasts a fine cover photograph and inside photos by the author.

Highly recommended.

Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ Jan 2008/Somerville, Mass.

Ada Aharoni: An Israeli scholar of literature and peace.

Ada Aharoni: An Israeli scholar of literature and peace.

With Doug Holder

In December of 2007 I was a guest of the Voices Israel literary organization. I toured Israel, ran a number of workshops, and gave readings in such cities as Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem. One of the many interesting people that I met was Dr. Ada Aharoni. Aharoni in spite of her many accomplishments is an unaffected, and accessible personality. She is a published poet, peace activist, university lecturer, literary critic and founder of: IFLAC: The International Forum for the Literature and Culture of Peace. Aharoni is a noted Saul Bellow scholar and has a new critical study published, titled: “Inner Voice of Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow." I asked Aharoni if could interview her and she generously agreed.






Doug Holder: You are the founder of IFLAC (The International Forum for the Literature and Culture of Peace.) You believe through cultural exchange, and cultural understanding, we can bridge the gaps and stem the conflict between Arab and Jews. Is this an accurate description of your mission statement?

Ada Aharoni: Our mission at "IFLAC: The International Forum for the Literature and Culture of Peace", is more global. We believe that all conflicts can be alleviated if the sides know and understand each other better, through bridges of culture and literature. Our culture is at the basis of our identity, and in a long and tragic conflict like the Arab - Israeli one, the wounds are very deep, on both sides, and to heal them we need a vehicle that can go that deep, and the most appropriate ones are Poetry, Literature and Culture. IFLAC, unfortunately cannot "stem the conflict between Arab and Jews," as it is also a concrete question of land, water, and a Palestinian State living and flourishing in peace by the side of Israel, but IFLAC can indeed contribute to the creation of a peace culture atmosphere that can facilitate the negotiations toward peace in our region.

More about this and the additional questions below can be found on our IFLAC sites: www.iflac.com and www.iflac.com/ada

DH: You have written about a global TV network to foster cultural understanding. So you are in Marshall McLuhan's camp "the medium is the message?”

AA: I don't know if I am in Marshall McLuhan's camp, however, I strongly believe in the power of the Media to spread a peace culture instead of the widespread current culture of violence. Unfortunately, global Media, and especially TV, are daily full of the culture of violence. Murder and homicide are only a very small part of our lives, so why should they fill most of the programs we are offered on TV? Our IFLAC Project for the WSPC: World TV Satellite for the Culture of Peace, will reflect the real problems and situations we find ourselves in, and will offer solutions to solve them, through beautiful, exciting and constructive films, dialogues of writers, poets, women, mothers, and children, on both sides of conflicts, such as the Palestinian and Israeli one. Excellent professional moderators will guide the large public toward the creation of a better world beyond war, terror and conflict. In, addition we will have a fully-fledged university of the air to spread the required new peace culture, which would cover all subjects from the point of view of peace among nations, and will include all the arts, music and dance, etc. As to the coverage of politics and daily News about wars and conflicts, they will be shown through mothers' eyes, on both sides of the conflicts. However, to start this stupendous project, we need like-minded sponsors, and the support of the UN, UNESCO and the World Bank, that would understand, we hope, that the WSPC is an urgent and crucial preventive medicine, before an additional September 11. As Nobel Peace Laureate Eli Wiesel said: "We are the stories we have heard and the stories we tell!" And this is why the stories we tell should be constructive and beautiful ones.

DH: You are fluent in many different languages. I have read that Hebrew is the most difficult for you. Why?

AA: I was born in the multicultural Jewish Community in Egypt, and went to an English school. My mother tongue is French, my cultural tongue is English, but I did not know any Hebrew then. I got my Cambridge Certificate at the age of 16 in Egypt, at the English Alvernia School, in Zamalek, as I jumped two classes. When we were thrown out of Egypt in 1949, because we were Jews, my family remained in France, but I wanted to be part of the pioneering experience in our new State of Israel. I joined the Kibbutz Ein Shemer, in Israel, and quickly learned how to speak Hebrew. However, I did not know how to write or read it. After I left the kibbutz, and my two children were born, it took me many years as an auto-didact to learn how to write Hebrew, so most of my 26 books to date, I wrote first in English, and then with the passing years, translated them myself into Hebrew. Today, at last, writing in Hebrew is not a problem anymore, and I have just published my second book on Saul Bellow in Hebrew, titled: THE INNER VOICE OF NOBEL LAUREATE SAUL BELLOW.

DH: You are a scholar of Saul Bellow and his work. You co-wrote: "Saul Bellow: A Mosaic" and authored the newly released " Inner Voice of Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow." How did you first meet Bellow? Your impressions?

AA: When I completed my M.Phil Thesis on Henry Fielding, at the University of London (Birkbeck College), I read Saul Bellow's masterpiece HERZOG, and was fascinated by it, to the point that I told my Professor, Geoffrey Tillotson, that I wanted to do my PhD on Saul Bellow's works. I got a response that was quite amazing:" "But Saul Bellow is alive! And at the University of London you don't research a writer who is still alive." (This was in 1967). As I was so adamant to work for my PhD on Saul Bellow, we left London after three wonderful years, and returned to Israel. I completed my Ph.D. at the Hebrew University on "Saul Bellow's Introspective Novels," in 1975, a year before he got the Nobel Prize. In 1987, together with the writer A.B. Yehoshua, we organized "The First World Congress on Saul Bellow" and Saul Bellow came to Haifa University, and was with us for a whole week. The Congress was a great success and Saul Bellow enjoyed the deep inspections of his novels by the various world famous literary critics that came to the congress from all around the world. Our book "Saul Bellow: A Mosaic" (Peter Lang, New York, 1992), covers the proceedings of this eventful congress, and it includes important articles as that of Amos Oz and others. My impressions of Saul Bellow is that he was a very intelligent and perceiving man, and I was so glad that he loved my work and research on his novels. Some colleagues thought him to be somewhat cold and distant, however, they were all charmed by him, and by his Keynote Lecture at the Congress in his honor, which I had the great pleasure of initiating and organizing.


DH: What was the “inner voice" that drove him to literary heights?

AA: This is a long question with which I deal with in depth in my two books on Saul Bellow's works, and it is hard to condense the answer in such a small space. I have also published an article together with Ann Weinstein from Canada, which touches on some aspects of this question in "Studies in American Jewish Literature," (Vol. 25, edited by Daniel Walden and Evelyn Avery), entitled: "Memorial: Judaism as Reflected in the Works of Saul Bellow."

In my view, his inner voice that drove him to literary heights is first and foremost his unwavering humanism, and his love of freedom. Most of Bellow's protagonists are concerned with the freedom of choice, social responsibility, the preservation of human dignity and individuality, and a staunch belief in the possibility of change. In Henderson the Rain King, for instance, the protagonist clearly expresses this idea when he exclaims: "What Homo Sapiens imagines, he may slowly convert himself to be." Another aspect is his love of peace. Bellow's deep sympathy to Israel and concern for her safety is the main theme of his book, To Jerusalem and Back (1976), which is Bellow's only book written in a journalistic style. His yearning for peace in the Middle East permeates the book in a most intelligent way. At one central point, arguing with a hostile interlocutor who states that bombs are planted everywhere in the world and not only in Israel. Bellow retorts that there is a great difference between planting a terrorist bomb in Jerusalem or in London. The bomb in Jerusalem is a declaration that Israel should not exist - while planting a bomb in London implies no such genocidal intention.

In my interview with Saul Bellow (published in the IFLAC Peace Culture Literary Magazine GALIM 9, December 2000), Bellow said: "I certainly wish for peace between Israel and the Arabs. But I am certainly not in a position to tell Israel what the peace terms should be. However, some facts are obvious: the political disequilibria, the comparative birthrate between Jews and Arabs - these are sure signs that steps should be taken to stop the conflict. And the quicker the better. My priorities are that the State of Israel should continue to exist and flourish. Therefore my preferences are for a peace that would assure the survival of the Jewish State as such, and as a sanctuary for Jews everywhere. Whether in America or in Israel, I am part of the Jewish people."

In true humanistic tradition, throughout his writings, Bellow struggled against the isolating and destructive forces of defeatism and nihilism, and towards the attainment of meaning, fullness, and spiritual richness in life. In so doing, he has indeed significantly enriched Jewish-American literature and world literature, as well as us his readers, by making us more aware of the world we live in and by making us more thoughtful and better people. This was part of the secret of his inner voice that drove him to literary heights. I personally owe very much to Saul Bellow and my founding of IFLAC was certainly influenced by his humane values and rich inner voice. May he rest in peace.

DH: Many of his women characters in his novels struggle to have a voice. The men seem to be treated in a more egalitarian fashion. As a woman and an activist, how do you feel about his portrayal of women? Was he accurately displaying the zeitgeist, the milieu?

AA: Yes, you are certainly right, he was accurately displaying the zeitgeist of his milieu, where women are seen and treated as secondary citizens. However, in addition, he seems to have understood men better than women. The proof is that he was married five times! When I asked him at the Congress, why does he never portray a woman heroine and all his heroes are men, he answered that his next book "Theft" will have a heroine as the protagonist. Unfortunately Clara is not comparable to any of his male protagonists, she is pale and not rounded enough, and we cannot identify with her as we do with Asa in THE VICTIM, Tommy in SEIZE THE DAY, Herzog, Sammler, or Dean Corde. This lack of a full and deep understanding of women, however, does not impede on the fact that Saul Bellow is indeed a great writer.

DH: In our conversations you have talked about Isaac Singer and his kind, and avuncular manner, as opposed to Harold Bloom, whom you were less impressed with. Can you elaborate about these men?

AA: I love the books of Isaac Bashevis Singer, especially his wonderful novel "THE SLAVE." I met Singer when I had the great pleasure of sharing a platform with him at the Hebrew University, on the occasion of the official receiving of my Doctorate on Saul Bellow. On that same occasion, Singer received an Honorary Doctorate from the Hebrew University. When I asked him why did he not write in English? He answered whimsically: "Yiddish is my mother, and you don't forget your mother, even when she is dead!" One of the beautiful phrases he used in his lecture, and which I dearly cherish, was: " In Literature - as in dreams, there is no death."

In comparison, Harold Bloom, who came to the Saul Bellow International Congress in Haifa, struck me as an egocentric, snobbish and vain man. He was very friendly with Saul Bellow then, who brought him to the Congress, but I was not surprised when this close friendship came apart, as reflected in Saul Bellow's last book.

DH: Can you talk about your own poetry?

AA: Poetry for me is the mirror of my life, thoughts and emotions. I have published several poetry collections in English, my favorites are:
FROM THE PYRAMIDS TO MOUNT CARMEL, PEACE POEMS, YOU AND I CAN CHANGE THE WORLD, and THE POMEGRANATE.
All my books are available on www.iflac.com/ada jointly with www.amazon.com my poems have been anthologized in several anthologies.
I am especially proud of is: POEMS FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW (Penguin, London). My poems have been translated into seventeen languages and have appeared in magazines in many countries. Several of my poems have been put to music, and I have released two discs of poems sung by major singers in Israel and abroad, the first one is: "A GREEN WEEK," and the second one, released this month is: "To Haim - To Life: LOVE POEMS".

DH: Many people claim poetry has not effect in the dog eat dog world. Do you think it can be a catalyst for change?

AA: I think I have already answered part of this question in my answer to one of the first questions above. Yes I think, that despite of the dog eat dog world we often witness, beautiful, strong, true and influential Poetry can indeed be a catalyst for change, if it succeeds to reach the wide public. The Peace Culture TV can help to spread good, lovely and inspiring poetry to the wide public. May it Be!


---Doug Holder

the burning mirror poems by kerry shawn keys

the burning mirror poems by kerry shawn keys $14.95 isbn: 978-0-9772524-9-7 1.1.08 presa press p.o.box 792 Rockford Michigan 49341 www.presapress.com


from the last line from the beginning poem, 'empire', "the sun sank unworshipped into the distance, not until cock crow would there be any sign of resurrection." this grabs my attention and spins me further into the book. he moves from concrete images to surreal images, sometimes there is pure fluff, ".in heroic verse on helium angels.." to the surreal, "I disguised myself as a b-29 on the corners of the cornea of the cyclops so that an artist would depict me miles later as a mote of dust on achrysanthemum."

by the time I get to page 50 and 56 the above line rings true, (the disguise). on page 50 the poem ends with, "..for sparing the women for God. "what does that line mean, even out of context? are women saved by wrapping themselves in cloth? on page 56 the poem "ginger" refers to mother and prostitute like a well laced cliché. now I'm suspicious of his intentions to be experimental (?), which for me means contemporary, (keyes seems to be bringing the past into an un- thoughtful present, and the result is benign.)

"good word slinging." like ginger in a pink silk dress that flounces, layer on layer gathers momentum as ginger twirls, the layers lift and we finally get a scent of what's underneath. he admits to hiding with cyclops and the one eyed view is distracting.

"when the leaves aren't falling, still nimbly attached to the branches of the birch trees, the light then gently flutters among the leaves and around the branches, and enters the window fluttering, and flutters on the carpet and wall dancing with its partners, the trembling shadows." this line from keyes' poem, 'almost invisible,' has nine 'the's' in it. if I pile all the'the's' from all his poems, I could end up on mars scraping dust off the moon.

"the circus of hope on the thinnest split-second of theoretical hairs." I can identify with the poets need to have so many references so many words so much cover so many reflections, nidify, make a nest of all his learning,concepts and delightful images. there can be no denying his poems will try to impress the reader.

irene koronas is the poetry editor of the Wilderness House Literary Review