Winners and Honorable Mentions from Reuben Rose Poetry Award--2007

( Voices Israel memebers Netanya, Israel)



Here are the winning and honorable mention poetry selections for the Rueben Rose Poetry Award 2007 ( sponsored by "Voices Israel") which I had the pleasure to judge--Doug Holder




Fish Eye by Zvi A. Sesling 1st Prize


Once, in the home of a Filipino, I was
served soup with the head of a fish
floating in the middle, the eye staring
up, the same as in a pile of the dead at
Auschwitz, the center of the eye forming
a question mark asking, Why me? Why am
I here? What have I done to earn this infamous
plight? The eye doesn't see, yet it tells
of surprise, shock, fear, anguish and pain,
not love, happiness or humor.
The eye has seen too much, not enough.
Questions are answered, question remain.
In the end humanity
consumes fish, consumes humanity.



Paris Unsaid by Celia Merlin 2nd Prize


I sent my boys off to Paris today.
Twenty-two and twenty,
the same age as I,
when captured by
the Seine's rainbow twinkle,
Elysees' grandeur.
They are cynically young, from
press keys and wires,
with gadgets literally
out of their ears.
They will turn the same corners,
eat the same bread;
their boundless dreams ,
though well-hidden,
as green as mine at that time.
Anxiously I wait to see how they fared
away from their text message world.
Will they feel autumn slide through
the narrow back alleys?
Will they smell lovers' sighs in small dim cafes?
Will their sneakered feet remember
the cobblestone, worn and uneven
from horses past and sports cars present?
Will they tell of glances and blushing
and wet autumn leaves and cool white marble,
of ponds, round and shallow with toy boats that float
as children jump past with their plaid woven scarves and
their small yapping dogs?
I have walked them to school-
these two young men.
I have taught them to swim and to drive.
But I can't help but wonder and worry a bit-
have I taught them to hear what's unsaid?




72 VIRGINS by Reuven Goldfarb, 3rd Prize

--an arrow in the heart of the Intifada--

"Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave
a paradise for a sect…."
Keats, "The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream"

When you complete your mission
and arrive in the place of Judgment,
you will be greeted
by seventy-two beautiful virgins
who won't like you.

They'll talk only to each other,
form hostile little cabals,
engage in whispering campaigns
to discuss your every earthly peccadillo,
and, most of all, mock your ambition
to be honored as a martyr.

No martyr, they will say, ever won his crown
by murdering innocent people
You lost your life in vain.




Poem by Wendy Blumfield 4th Prize


PASSIONS By Wendy Blumfield



The music teacher said sing silently
And not to let my voice`s passion soar to the sky
A voice that held no tune.
The dancing teacher said go home you are a waste of space
As in passion arms reach to the sky
And my plump overweight little legs march on.
My grandfather gave me a little wooden desk
And I wrote my passions in ink
That stained my fingers and spilt down my white school blouse.
God gave me four children
And I fed them with passion
From those plump overweight breasts
Sang them to sleep with the passion
Of my voice that held no tune
And danced with them with passion
through the autumn leaves
And the joy of the windswept beach.



Honorary Mention


MY FATHER'S ANKLES by Donna Bechar


Fine-boned like a thoroughbred's
With the grace of a gazelle and a cheetah's speed
Quick as clippers in a barber's hand
Svelte as the quiet of snowfall on velvet
Flying across the backyard lawn like
A magician's sleight of hand
Bidding many farewells and leaving awe
In their wake and wonder as their legacy
These were my father's ankles of yesteryear
These days, the gas pedal carries him
Speedily to his destinations
Replacing those chiseled contours
Now swollen beyond recognition
His legs are maps of torn-down byways
And too-narrow highways
Preventing the traffic of blood and fluids
Their fluidity and refuge, instead
Bottlenecking, slow passage and nowhere to go
Propped up on sofa cushions while watching tv
In their inertia and repose, I see through time
To when they were ready for action in an instant
I see them when they were like spinning tops
Dizzying in games of tag, softball and soccer
Becoming fins in our swimming pool
Becoming wings in an over-the-fence leap
And for fleeting instances, I think I see them
Wink as they leave a trail of mischievous
Triumphant laughter
Today, my father's ankles can manage a sweet nostalgic smile
As they plod like grounded mortals
But I keep seeing them in their Olympic form




Two Zinnias by Helen Bar-Lev, honorary mention


Two zinnias in a glazed vase
clipped by nuns' careful scissors,
are the only decoration in this spartan room
in a convent in Jerusalem
but it is clean, the mattress comfortable
flagstone floors, yellow- and red-ochre,
have been polished to a gleam by passing shoes
these one hundred years, even more
We have returned to Jerusalem
after an absence of some months –
a jittery city, it is more intolerable than ever
horns constantly honk, faces do not smile
congestion and pollution, agitation,
congregate in its centre
together with beggars,
street musicians, religious Jews, Arabs
an incongruent conglomeration
which beckons in a manner I cannot fathom
and repulses with vengeance,
as though one reaction triggers its opposite,
a contradiction of emotions
that is disturbing considering I lived here
for so long and loved it with passion,
wrote love poems in dedication,
painted its landscapes from every angle
until my ability wilted and the brush
could no longer respond to my commands
So that earlier today when I walked
through this city in the heat of its summer
and watched dusk extinguish the gold from its stones,
I noticed a nostalgia for it – for the once-Jerusalem,
almost expecting the present
to disappear behind a curtain
and lo! enter the Jerusalem of old,
the city I knew and yearned to return to,
smaller, happier, more beautiful
These are my thoughts now, late,
in this sanctuary amidst the city's insanity,
this secluded quaint convent,
where quail and jay and gay flowers reside,
whose energies are lovely, light,
a place that does not disturb
nor disappoint my memories
While the two zinnias in the vase
blink red and pink
in the heat of the night
and soothe me





Some Things, You Just Have to Learn For Yourself

by David Silverman, Israel, honorary mention



The doctors must have thought we couldn't take it,
because they didn't tell us what we needed to know.
Or else they didn't know themselves. We figured it
out, though, on our own. Cancer gets a kick out of
pulling the covers off late at night. Cancer has a bad
attitude and doesn't play well with others. Cancer is
a sliver of glass that disappears into the fleshy part of
your foot. Cancer is burnt toast, moldy fruit, the wine
that's turned. Cancer is the job that should have been
yours, but went to that idiot in Sales. Cancer is a wet
knot in your shoelace, a size 17 neck in a size 16 shirt.
Cancer is termites in the wall, a pregnant rat in the attic.
Cancer is a dead battery on the coldest day of the year.
Cancer is an airball, a fourth quarter fumble, a called third
strike with the bases full. Cancer is a migratory bird,
minding its own business, sucked into the engine of a
jumbo jet. Cancer is the unexpected thunderclap overhead
and the storm you thought was miles away, is here.



BIG GREEN GARDEN by Rena Navon, honorary mention


With a simple tool, our patient, steady gardener
cuts out shadows and insinuates some sunny plants.
Accomplice, sharp blades snip away the marginalia.
Mesmerized by shaded head and sun-glassed focus
balancing

I marvel how his suntanned hands don't make a sound
that doesn't satisfy the purpose of his metal sheers.
Ignoring all distractions as he cuts away the ugly edges,
this worker's so in tune with good performance as the blades
slide smoothly, my questions lose their meaning. Eyes ascend,
together with the green material he is harvesting away.
*
Aspiring to give some form and meaning too,
I was sitting and writing and rewriting,
forgetting how to do it like other artists do.
With my attention in his hands, he keeps cutting
away lines before I get to write them down.
I fail as a hypnotic patient fails to act.
*
As long as a magician in my garden
monopolizes my natural view,
will it take all day
to finish up this poem?


Cowardly Cur!
Battlefield deserter!
Once you were my brave young boy
battering the gates of mighty Troy
marching in a vast crusade
licking loving getting laid
bending heaven to her knees.
Your bulging blade however embarrassed me
standing up in church and school
waiving that defiant tool
in front of my red face.
I smacked it with a stick to keep that prick in place.
We were best of friends
but in the end you stretched too far and I lost everything:
wives kids house jobs.
Now a gross belly droops across my belt.
It's a blinding piece of meat.
When I aim for the stars I piss on my feet.
The ultimate joke and ultimate rule
is every man's a god damned fool.
Old time warriors weary of this fate.
They sit and plot the end of days
then viciously hallucinate.
Rise up my dying dick and rally to the throne
and I will fight my way to hell and back
loyal to the bone.
Wouldn't that be biblical
you and I
to ride into the holy wars and never die.



Counting… by Rena Navon honorary mention


The sky, high taut umbrella, begins to close
around this farmhouse for another country night.
Cleaved feet of sheep get torn from pasture.
I beat an echo to their injured bleating;
my pleading eye skims the flock until the last one
is behind the wall of straw….
When will I realize counting lambs white as rich
sunshine, at the shore of my even white pillow?
Where my brethren lie, are there meadows more?
Abide there in your beauty, Disheveled Eternity,
before stored rain I was amply spared all of my life
comes crashing down on me with all of its might.



Little Departures by Elisheva Gal, honorary mention


One commences with trifles like,
let's say, a single farewell a day,
one small, insignificant departure
so as not to create
an abrupt colossal deficiency
tomorrow.
One may, for example, depart
from the glitter in the eye
one day,
from the elasticity of the figure
another.
Then – from the little coffee shop,
the old school, the beach,
from the lounge furniture set,
the crammed bookcase
and favourite weekly magazine
of so many years.
Last, one says goodbye
to all those who are dearest
one by one
Bidding farewell by installments
makes it less difficult,
in fact it's quite sensible.
At the very end one says goodbye
to sorrow.



THE CHILLED TREE by Rena Navon, honorary mention

Day's vulnerable colors don't collapse
until the last tree chills along with the rest.
The day-old sun drops and bleeds
ashamedly under the swollen ground.
A woman turning toward her weak left side
has given up on the indomitable right, "predictable"
as an ocean tide. Delivering life's waters into earth's aging arms,
she ends by hiding her wrinkling hands under the shade.


As the last light gets doused, the woman's neighbors
distract her by examining the planets: "See?
The problem is far away, way out there," a hand pointed
like a brim lowered to keep the circulating truth away.
When their husbands went off to war, serialized weapons lifted,
a wife shared a pact never to cry before the funeral
as if they could not accept that death will come.
Uniform faces resist any tear and a small,
withdrawn faith holds their old belief dear.
*
The evening colors are thinning together into the dirt.
Ancient wisdom dribbles down their long necks,
darkening their hard nipples staring like cut stones
through shirts hanging down to their soggy moccasins.
Life's witnesses disqualified such a matriarch with her pains
as profound as the green, writhing moon long ago.
Does this trooper receive more than a premonition of death
before hard-metal turns into its red, liquid opposite?
Is that ball buried under a chilled tree the last sun?



the bone by Rena Navon, honorary mention

I used to force past loves to dream
back to me, their slippery hands
as open as the ocean, fingers
numbering greater than ravenous
fish. But diving has taught me since
that their pretty, lustrous orange cover
seems, not is I only saw it from one
side of the sea's latitudinal posture.
Now I wait, watching for them to swallow
bait and get served by willing waiters at
tables set with elegant glasses and able
tools to turn their scaled bodies into meals.
Their spiny substance is but a nuisance we
remove like surgeons careful not to swallow
bones on the shore of inhaling-bliss,
enjoying the food time has made of them.

LIVING IN STORMS. Contemporary Poetry and the Moods of Manic Depression. Edited by Thom Schramm.

LIVING IN STORMS. Contemporary Poetry and the Moods of Manic Depression. Edited by Thom Schramm. (Eastern Washington University Press Spokane, Washington 2008) $24.

The “black dogs” of depression are never far outside our gate, as Winston Churchill once wrote. The euphoria of mania and the freefall of depression are known in the field as “manic depression.” This rapid cycling tornado of mental illness has affected (according to recent studies) poets and writers to a greater degree than the general population. In fact in the New York Times awhile back it was reported that poets and writers, and particularly poets, have a shorter lifespan than the rest of the masses. Could it be we are more prone to suicide or have we just forgotten to take our daily dose of statins?

Having worked at the renowned Boston-area psychiatric hospital: McLean Hospital for the past twenty-five years, I have witnessed mental illness in all its infinite variety, from the locked ward to the outpatient milieu. McLean Hospital itself has a history of “thoroughbred mental cases” as Robert Lowell put it in his poem: “Waking In The Blue.” (A poem that is set at Bowditch Hall at McLean where I worked for a number of years.) Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, and I am told John Berryman have been hospitalized at McLean. Anne Sexton ran her famed poetry workshops on grounds and later was treated on the locked ward for a short period. A friend of mine who was a counselor on the ward she was housed on asked Sexton why she always wore sunglasses indoors. She replied, “ Because I am a poet of course.” I have also interviewed the social worker to Plath and Sexton: Lois Ames. Ames is a poet in her own right and wrote the introduction to Plath’s novel “The Bell Jar.” And more than this, I have been treated for depression myself. And as a poet, I can tell you there is nothing romantic or poetic about depression and mental illness. And if you have been through it, even if it has given you some good material, you wish that it never would rear its ugly head again. Unfortunately, especially among some younger poets, the “Mad” poet has been lionized, and drug and alcohol abuse viewed as necessary as a laptop or pen or pencil in the writers’ life. I say it ain’t so..

So when the distinguished Boston University professor and poet Tino Villanueva handed me “Living In Storms”, (at a meeting of the Boston-area writers’ group the “Bagel Bards,”) a collection of poetry having to do with contemporary poets whose lives have been some way touched by manic depression, I was intrigued.

And perhaps there is something about our dark natures that lends itself to art. In the foreword to the collection David Wojan quotes one of my favorite poets Philip Larkin:

“Happiness writes white. It’s very difficult to write about being happy. Very easy to write about being miserable. And I think writing about unhappiness is the source of my popularity, if I have any—after all, most people are unhappy, don’t you think?”

I was happy to find in this collection that there were many poets I have read with, booked for events, interviewed, etc… over the years like: Lyn Lifshin, Daniel Hoffman, Robert Pinsky, Steve Cramer, and of course Tino Villanueva.

I think the poems in this collection capture the true tragedy of the illness through art not clinical reportage. The poems here capture the maw of the depression; with the poets’ struggle with his or her self, the world-at-large; the claustrophobic tunnel vision, with no light in sight. And it also covers the sizzle and no steak that takes the poet racing to the heights, only to drop like a dead weight.

Hayden Carruth in his poem “ Depression,” captures the relentless cycles of nature, and depression itself:

“ We have tried hard, have labored against the seasons/ like the geese, year after year, against mania, fear, / depression, death in the heart/ the endless mockery/of the children in our minds, we have hurled fat insults/ at each other/ have hurled silence, the same/occult and cloudy words over and over in the wet/ wind, we have persisted, tattered and worn out/ and sorry. / Thank God we love each other and can hold/ our tongues and go to bed, otherwise this/would be intolerable, traveling so far, so long, and never/
Arriving anywhere. Nor do the geese. / Nor the seasons.”

And in Tino Villanueva’s poem “Shaking Off the Dark” Villanueva, like a dyed-in-the-wool pugilist fights through the tight wrap of darkness.

“Distraught,
mad-eyed from told formulas
bound to rule my easy ways,
I look, I see,
but fail once more to know.
Such rites of life
can waste the wit;
can be like strictures
rushing to the head.
Mine is a palpable body
that cannot stand itself.

Yet, a rebellion overtakes the mind
the kind that breaks the shadow’s hold:
I ram a fist into the howl of the wind,
shake off the dark locked
within the hell of these rare depths.
The common street
and shifting sky become a song.”

Also in this collection are poems by William Matthews, Jane Kenyon, Liz Rosenberg, C.K. Williams, Leo Connellan, and many others.

Highly Recommended.

Doug Holder/ Ibbetson Update/ Jan. 2008

Two New Reviews: " All the Meals I Had Before," and "No One Dies at the Au Bon Pain" by Doug Holder

These reviews are in the Winter 2007/8 edition of The Main Street Rag.... http://mainstreetrag.com



OF All THE MEALS I HAD BEFORE: POEMS ABOUT FOOD AND EATING
By Doug Holder
Cervena Barva Press ( 2007) 23 pages $7.
http://www.cervenabarvapress.com

NO ONE DIES AT THE AU BON PAIN
By Doug Holder
Sunnyoutside (2007) 28 pages $8
ISBN 1-934513008, Poetry
http://sunnyoutside.com

Aside from being the founder, publisher, and co-editor of the prestigious and influential Ibbetson Street Press, Doug Holder writes poetry with a passion and insight that deserves prestige and influence all its own.

Take, for instance, “Of All The Meals I Had Before: Poems About Food and Eating,” a work with an organic feel surprising for a chapbook. Among some odes to nostalgic eateries like “Last Night at the Wursthaus” and “At Benson’s Deli,” Holder ponders the silly—“Milk Duds”—and the sublime—“Portrait of My Mother During Her Solitary Meal.” His eye for the rattling image drives many of the poems, like “Eating Out” where he observes: “As the Latino/scrapes the masticated/bone and marrow/into a bloody bin/ and flashes a gold-toothed smile,/at the chef/ whose cleaver/tears through a prime cut--/then holds some/fraction of a gelatinous liver/quivering in his hands…” What makes his work so enjoyable is not only his well-described world but also the fun he has with it, as when he ends the same poem with the line,” “Meanwhile I order desert.” The book flirts with food and sex, comparing breastfeeding and sucking on a straw or rotisserie chickens and pornographic images, until it climaxes in the final poem “Cannibalism,” that begins:
“And what could be more intimate?/ To deflesh a skull/ crack a femur/ to get down/ to the very marrow/ Is there a greater/ act of love?”

His other book “No One Dies At The Au Bon Pain,” doesn’t hold together as well, but it is no less engaging and accessible. The topics are self reflection and relationships, especially those that end. He still exercises that eye for the absurd amid the mundane, as in “Public Restrooms” where :”

“ I once viewed them as religious places,/ men with their backs to me/ in front of urinals/ hands clasped together/ at their crotch/ as if in prayer.” His writing here, though, is less witty than straight to the bone, the bone an image he returns to in several poems.

The two books together show Doug Holder to be a poet of the people, not absorbed in navel gazing language games but reaching out and shaking readers awake.”

S. Craig Renfroe, Jr.

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