Sonnets from The Voyage of the Beagle By Rick Mullin

Sonnets from The Voyage of the Beagle
By Rick Mullin
Dos Madres Press
Loveland, Ohio
www.dosmadres.com
ISBN: 978-1-939929-22-8
155 Pages

Review by Dennis Daly

Charles Darwin embarked on the HMS Beagle into the natural world of fauna and flora from a context of faith and wonder. Like other rationalists and scientists who came before him, he armed himself with revelation and the romance of adventure. Whereas Johannes Kepler had his Pythagorean mysticism and astrology, and Isaac Newton his biblical prophecies and secrets of alchemy, Darwin entered the fray of reasoned observation with a Christian missionary’s certainty and an Englishman’s righteous superiority. Yet something extraordinary, miraculous if you will, seemed to take shape, something which changed the very way we look at the world around us and each other. Darwin’s five years of exploration and growth he chronicled in his journal and subsequently in his book The Voyage of the Beagle. Here begins poet Rick Mullin’s masterpiece of poetic reinterpretation.

Taking with him his painter’s skillset for critical observation and his magnificent formalist writing style, Mullin in his Sonnets from The Voyage of the Beagle conjures up a persona that both captures Darwin’s notebook cadence and blends in his own contemporary sensibilities.  Mullen’s Petrarchan sonnet variations carry the expedition’s narrative amazingly well, while at the same time lending themselves to detailed detections and measurements. The results bring to mind grand interpretive creations of poetic art, Alexander Pope’s translation of the Iliad being one.  Mullin’s perceptive powers are so attuned to specificities that he examines his own metaphor in his opening piece (after the invocation) entitled Launch of a 10-Gun Brig. The poet explains,

Our journey fronts on an incessant volley.
Heavy southwest headwinds sent us back
a second time to Devonport, unto that black
embankment of commercial blight. The trolley
at the warehouse hadn’t moved an inch. My heart
lay heavy as a gun, an iron gun
in line to fire—an apt comparison,
for on the third day we would make a start,
exploding on the sea through open light…

Non-readers of the “Voyage” often think of Darwin island-hopping from research site to research site. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of Darwin’s time was spent on land—three years and three months to be exact. His coastal and inland studies included the native populations. On this subject his perceptions clearly matured over time.  Mullin’s persona relates the circumstances of an Indian attack in a matter-of-fact and somewhat self-satisfying way. He says,

My informant recollected with some horror
the sound of quivering chuzos in the hour
the estancia faced the naked entourage.
He saved the souls of many Christians there,
he claimed, by simply locking the corral
and courtyard. As the horrifying sound
intensified, a Frenchman on the wall
commenced with grapeshot, sputtering a prayer,
and putting 40 spearman on the ground.

Later on in the poem Indian Wars Darwin sees things a bit differently. Noting the genocidal deeds of Argentinian dictator and warlord Juan Manual de Rosas, Mullin’s Darwin tersely clarifies,

General Rosas and his cohorts justify
the government’s campaign in simple terms:
The Christian versus the Barbarian—
one more distinction lost on morning worms
and meaningless to certain birds that fly
in circles.  Carrion is carrion.

One of my favorite pieces, The Plain of Port Desire, prompts sadness and a passion for knowledge beyond the sensory and obvious. Darwin stands alone on the edge of a lifeless field of chalk and gravel. Forced to wait out the tides of life, he seeks words to flesh out descending loneliness and a wavering disquiet. Not much happens. Or does it? The poet puts it this way,

…I walk about
in a virgin forest, noting as I go
the tree line falling to a plain of gravel
mixed with soil resembling chalk, a level
lifeless  field except for one guanaco.
The one suggests a coterie. A herd.
But none is visible. The loner trots
and leaves me on the near edge with a journal
open to the hollow, doubtful thoughts
that fly into a landscape wanting words,
a permanence that speaks to the eternal.

The oddness of that camel-like guanaco and its complex evolutionary history stops one in mid-read and provokes awe, an awe which I’m sure Darwin felt as he captured the moment in his notes.

Although most of Mullin’s sonnets replicate the same rhyme scheme, he does, at least in a couple of instances, vary the initial octave from abba cddc to abab cdcd. One of those poems he entitles Jackass Penguin and it’s quite funny.  The poet details a showdown between man and beast, between Englishman and penguin, a veritable High Noon scenario in the Falkland Islands. In the actual journal entry Darwin noted his amusement triggered by the penguin’s demeanor and its strange jackass-like braying. I must say again that I am amazed how closely Mullin comes to capturing the voice and verbal mannerisms of Darwin. Here is the heart of the sonnet,

…Shall he best me?
We pose at loggerheads, two flightless birds.
But certainly my crude experiment
will show the world (or is it visa versa?)
common traits in nature evident
between Englishman and A. demersal.
Brave as Heracles, he holds every inch
he gains with vehemence, his head thrown back
and rolling side to side, a braying golem

Mullin’s persona considers the human species in the same conclusive matrix as he does finches or lizards. He is at his anthropological best in his journal entry set in Sydney entitled Silent Thoughts at Dinner. He imagines the penal colony mindset of his waiter at a dinner party and delves into this society’s hidden and rancorous undercurrents. The sonnet opens with Darwin speculating on the waiter’s crimes,

The servant’s shirt is snowy white and stiff
with starch. One wonders what he’s done.
One eyes his hand, imagining a gun,
the butcher’s knife. Yet here we dine as if
the man were serving of his own volition
in a London home, but on a wider street.
Remarkable, considering the heat
and given our antipodal position.

Yes, Rick Mullin astonishes with his formalist artistry and his narrative versatility. But more than that Mullin has fashioned a poetic voice that easily ascends, in this book and his previous collections, to the very top tier of all contemporary poetry—whatever the stylistic preferences. If you haven’t read him by now, you’re missing a lot.

Sun Stigmata (Sculpture Poems) by Eileen R. Tabios

Sun Stigmata (Sculpture Poems)

by Eileen R. Tabios

Marsh Hawk Press

Copyright © Eileen R. Tabios, 2014

ISBN (hardcover): 978-0-9882356-6-3

Hardbound, 131 pages, NPG

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

Sometimes I have to read a poem by Eileen R. Tabios two or three times to truly receive the impact of her words and beauty of the poetry.  Sometimes the effort is not so great, but whatever time I put into a Tabios poem the reward is many times the effort.  Perhaps the following poem will help explain is it the story of her life, lover, husband, past and future fused together in an amalgam of memories or the story of an affair, a disappointing one, perhaps or a memory never to be shed.   These are my thoughts, you may have a different view that may also be correct or incorrect:

(Eclipse

           

       Holes in maps look through to nowhere

       –Laura Riding Jackson

                                    … fled

to an alien land

whose history has become

like you—impossible to be grasped

…to feel the white-haired woman           

I will become

(looking through a window and seeing glass)

I never entered a dark building

fraught upon the high heels you love

             feeling the embrace of leers

             a ripped hole in space

                           where you I felt you sculpting

                           a dispassionate embrace

How has she become

a shadow where there is no light

An interesting aspect of these poems is that each of them has a title which begins with a (  at the beginning, but not the end leaving the reader to (a) accept it as is, (b) wonder what is missing, (c) add their own words or (d) just wonder what should be there.

The poems themselves can be as enigmatic as the title or not. 

(BLIND DATE

The vagaries of memory—

you’d considered a prior sighting

inconsequential

           

                        :”an insouciant Sancerre”

Now you feel his touch leap

across a room, the weight

of his fingertips tracing the edges

of your publicly sanguine lips

Dust motes dance in the beams

thrown by a sconce clamped

onto a peacock’s florid tail

flowing across silk wallpaper

Why are you stubborn? He asked

just as you said, I am not stubborn

Both of you were supposed to sense

the presence of a B-movie camera

then smile after this overlap

We were promised a sunset, he said

when you would have walked away

He nodded towards a waiting

window framed in violet velvet

I didn’t lost that badly in poker

you replied but moved towards his

request. Unblinking stare. He should

have spanned your writs with one hand

He watched you as you watched

a sun die by painting its rubicund

departure across your tender face

Ripeness—against this memory

you take your first sip of a golden wine

nicknamed by commerce as “God’s nectar”

It coldness then warmth

down your throat brings you

forward to the future

where he would take the folds

of a hovering drape and swaddle

it around you as if you were

an infant. Even violet can

be gentle, he would whisper

Unexpectedly, you would feel

his fingers tremble

behind velvet camouflage

To spark your heart finally

into breathing. When you

finally would lay your lips

against his, offering a door

he would know can be keyed

it would be the appropriate decision

so that civilization aborts

its potential

as an endangered species

What I have found in Tabios’ poetry are overtones and undertones of sensual/sexual images requiring active thought to accept the image, which is another way saying think while you read her poetry or you will be lost.  Think at the end and you will feel wonderment at her talent.

In a biography of Tabios published in the Poetry Foundation it is noted that she came to the United States from the Philippines at the age of ten.  My guess is that she probably spoke Tagalog, the native language until she came here and to read her poetry is reminiscent of Joseph Conrad who learned English around the age of twenty-nine and then wrote some of the great stories of the English language.  I dare say there are few poets who can use the English language as well, as mysteriously, as excitingly as Tabios does in all her books and especially in this one.

In other reviews I have done of her poetry I have always had good things to say and this book is no exception. (Disclosure:  I am credited with a back cover blurb on this book from a review of a previous book.  Also note that I have published her in my online journal Muddy River Poetry Review at a featured poet.)  Nonetheless, I still find her on our most unique and enlightening poets, both for the subject matter and the style.

I only give two examples of her creativeness in this volume because I believe you should the entire volume and judge for yourself as to the talent she is. 

Here is an abbreviated version of what the Poetry Foundation has to say about her (note I have edited to make it fit my review):

Tabios was born in the Philippines and moved to the United States when she was 10. She earned a BA in political science from Barnard College and an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business. Founder and editor of the online poetry review journal GALATEA RESURRECTS (A POETRY ENGAGEMENT).

Tabios invented a poetic form called the “hay(na)ku,” a tercet in syllabics and is often considered an experimental writer.  She described her “abstract poetry” as follows: “In poetry, I try to create an emotion that transcends the dictionary sense of what words mean or what they typically evoke in the current cultural context. There are words that are beautiful outside their meaning, like azure or jasmine or cobalt.… For me, this is partly the place of abstract poetry, in addition to what’s happening in that space between, words, lines, sentences and paragraphs.”

Tabios has received many awards and commendations for her work, including the PEN Open Book Award, the Potrero Nuevo Fund Prize, the PEN Oakland–Josephine Miles National Literary Award, the Philippines’ Manila Critics Circle National Book Award for Poetry, and a Witter Bynner Poetry Grant. 

Finally, I should note book is separated into sections that include a Preface, My Greece and Returning the Borrowed Tongue. There is an Afterword as well as sections entitled About the Source Material, About the Cover, Humming a Crituque, Selected Notes To Poems, Acknowledgements and finally About The Author.   In other words, you get your money’s worth.

In Tagalog the word maganda means good.  Her poetry is certainly maganda.

______________________________________________________________________

Zvi A. Sesling is author of King of the Jungle (Ibbetson Street, 2010), Across Stones of Bad Dreams (Cervena Barva, 2011) and the soon to be published Fire Tongue (Cervena Barva). He is Editor of Muddy River Poetry Review and edited Bagel Bards Anthologies #7 and #8.

Ball Square’s Gil Barbosa “ The Book Shop” Owner is a Survivor.

 

( Left Gil Barbosa/Doug Holder)

Ball Square’s Gil Barbosa “ The Book Shop” Owner is a Survivor.

By Doug Holder

Gil Barbosa is a survivor.  The owner of "The Book Shop" in Ball Square in Somerville has kept his store alive during a time when many similar used bookstores have had a rise and inevitable fall. Barbosa told me: “It is hard to believe that three and a half years have gone by and we are still here, and I am glad to have a very good landlord who understands and is sympathetic to small businesses."

Barbosa's shop is a small one, but it still carries a wide range of used and even new books covering the Classics, Science Fiction, Murder Mysteries, Children's Literature, and my favorite Poetry. In the Internet age one would think there would be less of an interest in the physical book, but Barbosa would disagree, “There is still a demand for the physical book. People want to support a bookstore especially in this area with academics, young professionals and students. Although younger folks gravitate to e-Books, they still want to have a paperback in their hands,” he said.

In order to increase traffic to his store, and the subsequent sales, Barbosa has started several book clubs.  They include a Science Fiction Book Club, a Mystery and Crime Club (Local mystery writer Bert Robbens helped with this one), and a new book club that will take the stage Jan. 27 at 7PM—the Books to Movies Club. Barbosa said of these clubs: “We usually get about 20 people for these groups. The age range is wide, anywhere from the 20s to the 60s. People who attend these groups are from all walks of life—students, authors, high tech folks, artists—you name it.” Barbosa continued: “These groups are not only good for the store but I get a great deal of personal enrichment from them.”

Over the years Barbosa has had well-known authors appear at hhis store, including: Mystery writers Hallie Ephron, Dennis Lehane, Dr. Michael Palmer and Linda Barnes.

The store also supports a number of local artists. Tom Prince, a local picture framer, has a popular selection of greeting cards in the store. Chie Yasuba, another local artist, has a line of cards that caught my fancy. One card had a snippet of text that I will quote:

“Live slow

  Live Slow

  Enjoy life.”

Words to live by—not exactly Hallmark, now is it? Also Aaron Kovalcik has a card line titled “Monkey Chow.’ Let’s just say they are a bit funny, and ghoulish.

As part of the Green Line subway expansion that just got approved for federal financing, a train will stop at a newly constructed station at Ball Square. Barbosa feels this may happen in 2018 or before. Barbosa opined: “It’s a double-edged sword. It will certainly bring more people to the square. That is good for business. But of course rents will skyrocket and people will be displaced.”

Since I last spoke to Barbosa, he said his taste in reading has changed. Originally he was a True Crime fan, but now he said: “I like the Russians—you know—Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, not to mention Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck, and I have even dabbled in Shakespeare.

Barbosa smiled: “Hey, life is too short to read bad books—know what I’m saying?” I certainly do—and that’s the way it is—here—in the Paris of New England.

Out of Time, Running by Edward Nudelman

Out of Time, Running

Edward Nudelman

 Review by Alice Weiss

            I  am often afraid of seeing what there is to see.  I think many of us are like this but not Edward Nudelman.  He is hungry to see and running out of time for it. As the punning title suggests he wants to look both at time and outside time. What he wants to see is a world populated, of course, by loved ones, and memories, and nature, but his nature is both apparent and microscopic, complex and surprisingly visual.  In this book he is both poet and scientist.

            Indeed, the poem which seemed to me the richest in this rich set, “Biochemist in a Cold Room,” takes place in a laboratory late at night.  Placing drops of liquid into glass tubes, the speaker observes, “Each shivering microliter bifurcates: equal parts myth and discovery.”  And that is his journey, myth and discovery, or his landscape.  Later in this poem he reflects,

It’s a good thing I’m here

in the middle of the night

when the error of judgment

is less pronounced, when artifact

more easily passes for breakthrough.

Here is the juncture of scientist and poet, and the contradiction.  For the scientist, an error of judgment may be disastrous, but for the poet it’s a ‘good thing’ for artifact to “pass for breakthrough,” and a good thing for it to be easy, or is it?  What does it say if late at night the “error of judgment is less pronounced.”  It has to do with seeing, I think and that is the complex maneuver of this book. For what is there to see. “Can one discern” he asks in another poem,  “a single dot/in a sea of pixels?”

            In “Melody of Complaint,” the opening poem, the visible landscape is his home where  “[f]aith would warm his hands if he had it. . .and doubt would hog the room . . but his mood

            shrinks this house into a cell

            . . .[of] wants and wills.  A desk riddled with sheets

            and letters and numbers.

            Above the bookcase leaded

            with broken glass, tulips

            in a glass jar begging for light.

            Everything as it were

            begging for light.

            There are all these details, these cells, these atoms, (one of the poems is titled “ Subatomic Rambling”) observable, visible, but also disappearing, begging, one thinks, for another kind of light, another way of focusing.  In “Monk Inside,” he both is and  is not  “scientist, mud-god, skunk of wisdom,” and addressing this god  of science, part of him, but not, he demands “. . .[S]peak to me no more in your native tongue of secrets

            unblanketed. . .

            Restless I am for the lapping moon

            and the first birds of morning. . .

And so who is the monk inside?  In “Id Ridden” there is some kind of answer. He imagines himself fading into the background “while countless unrecognizable me’s creep forward in stealth. . .sit down with me/ at night, share my silverware. . .

            perhaps it’s better that way

            not knowing the real you,

. so you can “let it slip out between the lines…”where he has, in any event, . . .never found anything but blank space.  “What’s ironic about grief is that it never fully goes away and that’s what makes it tolerable.” “The whole idea of bee is getting softer.” Taking down a roof, he props a ladder partly in a flower bed, “somewhere between heroism and outright idiocy.” So he is a changeling. 

            And in his poem “Lizard Status,” he, the elaborator of visions and implausible explanations, disgusted with the state of being human, posturing in words  like ‘skewered’ and ‘nictitating,’ and ‘ unbridled brine’ slows, finding something wonderful in lizardness announces,

            Here am I, coming to rest on linen.  A pear.

Making Sense Out of Life and Impossible Things by Jason Steinberg : A Review of Expanzaramadingdong

Making Sense Out of Life and Impossible Things: A Review of Expanzaramadingdong

Expanzaramadingdong: A phrase to say when things just don’t make sense—
(Jason Steinberg)

REVIEW BY EMILY PINEAU

    Sometimes life is just a list of things, a close-up look at simple things, and full of times we should forget about things. In his poem “Tree House,” Jason Steinberg writes, “Here’s my lovely tree house/ Inside is everything I need—/ My bike, my glove, my bowling ball/ And glasses to help me read.” Steinberg’s poetry book Expanzaramadingdong is filled with poems that read like little stories. These children’s poems provide life lessons, beautiful insights on relationships and nature, and spread a hearty laugh across many pages. Much like Shel Silverstein, Steinberg’s work has a quality that appeals to both children and adults, inviting them to bond over his play on words, silly situations, and the images that the illustrator Keith Klein created to accompany Steinberg’s poems. These images hold a comic-book quality, making the characters appear as though they move the way the rhyme scheme does—smoothly, like ribbons.

    In Steinberg’s poem “Kitchen” he plays with phrases and has the character/narrator interpret them as being literal. This quality is also found in Peggy Parish’s popular children’s book series Amelia Bedelia, which is about a girl who misunderstands her employer’s orders because she takes figures of speech literally. Steinberg writes, “No way am I beating eggs/ They never hurt anyone./ Pounding cake is out of the question/ What could they ever have done?” In this poem Steinberg’s narrator is imagining that ingredients and food have feelings, and that words like “beating” and “pounding” are only associated with hurting someone. The picture that goes along with this poem shows a girl hiding around a corner, and an angry looking refrigerator and stove in the kitchen. The checkered floor almost looks like it is moving because it is wavy, and appears to be angry as well. This illustration adds to the absurdity, silliness, and overall imaginative scenario that the poem creates. By showing readers how words can be used in different ways and how you can play around with them, this allows minds to be expanded and for people to think about stories and worlds of their own.

    Steinberg continues to encourage his readers to be creative, and to be imaginative in their own lives through other poems in his book. In his poem, “The Pen,” he talks about how the person reading the poem is in control of their own life story. Steinberg writes, “You write the book of your journey/ You choose what goes on each page.” Steinberg is emphasizing how it is possible to take control and to not let others dictate your own future. It is important to make your own decisions as you grow older, and to pay attention to how they may affect your future. Also, the drawing that accompanies this poem has a powerful message behind it. A boy is holding onto a pen twice his size, and he is writing with it in cursive. This seems to symbolize that even though the pen (life) seems too big for him to grasp, he is still capable of taking hold of it and writing with it beautifully. 

    Steinberg’s repetition in his poems “Just a Man” and “Queen” point out how even adults struggle to succeed, and that what truly matters is trying one’s best. In “Just a Man” the narrator repeats, “I try,” at the start of each line, and in “Queen” the narrator repeats, “I might never.” Life is all about trial and error, and recognizing our own limits. The repetition in each poem has the same type of effect that the line, “I think I can, I think I can” has in the infamous children’s book The Little Engine That Could. This chant loops its way into children’s minds, and also in adults, and it pushes them to be the best they can be.

    Expanzaramadingdong touches on different aspects of growing up, and different ways to interact and play with words, people, and life. Steinberg’s poems add color to Klein’s black and white illustrations, and together the stories feel like they exist off the pages. The rhymes in each poem have a similar beat, which makes each story feel linked to the next. These poems act like puzzle pieces, and the overall book feels like a map of life. As readers piece it all together, they can enjoy the images that they carry with them for the rest of their lives.


*****Emily Pineau is an English major at Endicott College.

Imperial Jewelry: A new store that displays the art and craft of local artists.

The artists of the Imperial Jewelry with Doug Holder (Center)

Imperial Jewelry: A new store that displays the art and craft of local artists.

By Doug Holder

 Medford Street, between Union Square and Ball Square, is sort of a forgotten neck of the woods in our city. As the gentrification of our burg progresses and speeds to the inevitable displacement that always happens at times like these, the city is taking some action. They are providing help to fledgling businesses so they can survive in a rapidly changing Somerville—a lofty goal to be sure. Adriana Fernandes, a Community Engagement Specialist for the city of Somerville, is a face of the city—who is helping Imperial Jewelry at 499 Medford St. have a fighting chance in the “new” Somerville. Fernandes is helping the new owner Cleuder Morias, negotiate the shoals of a new language (Morias recently arrived from Italy), as well to encourage his outreach into the community. Fernandes told me; “My role is not just about business, but about changing lives.”

I was introduced to this new enterprise by enamel artist Barbara Marder. Marder is a former art teacher at the Kennedy School in Somerville and currently has a space at the Artists Asylum outside Union Square. At the Kennedy School she supervised students who created a mural that involved glass enamel that is still on display today. Marder, who trained at Skidmore and Boston University, works extensively with enamel, and a lot of her enamel jewelry is on display at the shop. I purchased one of her inexpensive brooches for a friend of mine—and she immediately adorned it on her coat. I say that is a  strong endorsement. Marder has also produced enamel on copper bowls and paints landscapes of the Berkshires, and other scenes. Marder tells me she is hardly a provincial artist, as she has a following nationally and internationally.

Another resident artist at the shop is Consuelo J. Perez. Perez describes her genre of arts as “Trash to Treasure.” She recycles items like bottle caps, key rings, and other items into off the grid jewelry, brooches, zipper earrings, etc… that are displayed at the store. Perez is a longtime Somerville resident and works from a home studio. She sees the neighborhood changing rapidly, and is glad there are still venues for her work. She has also displayed her work at the Somerville Open Studios, and other events that the Somerville Arts Council offers.

The third artist I spoke to was Jennifer Weigel. She describes herself as a conceptual artist, photographer, and painter.  She recently relocated from St. Louis to Somerville to be near her boyfriend.  She described her painting as Monet-influenced, and she works with oil and acrylic.  A few of her paintings were displayed at the shop. She told me “I am and identity-based artist. I work with costumes, gender identity, etc… “ Weigel has had exhibits around the country, like the ARC gallery in San Francisco and others.. She continued, “I consider myself a social  and environmental activist, and a feminist. My work reflects that.”

Weigel and this band of artists have plans.   They will have an open house event on Saturday January 31st from 1-4PM
.  For more info about the gallery call: 857-417-6631.

Jim Baab: A Somerville photographer who sees the “naked” possibilities.

Vegetarian Nudes

Jim Baab: A Somerville photographer who sees the “naked” possibilities.

By Doug Holder

Photographer Jim Baab is a man who sees the naked possibilities in both the human and vegetable form.  This Prospect Hill Somerville resident met me at the Bloc11 Café in Union Square to discuss his unique brand of photography.

Baab told me that he and his wife moved to Somerville in 1999, and lived in the reconverted church (Built in 1887) next to the café. Later they bought a home and put down roots in the ‘Ville. Baab told me he feels right at home with the artistic community in Somerville.

Baab, who has previously worked in the Film and Video Department at Boston University, works with pictures he has posted on Instagram, that he took with his digital camera. Baab said “They can be pictures of my garden, common everyday objects around the home, etc…” One of his projects is titled “Vegetarian Nudes.”  This was inspired by the photographer Edward Weston. Baab started this project back in college after taking a Photo1 class.  Now, you may stalk the aisles of Market Basket to find vegetables to cook, but Baab is a bird of a different order. Baab use vegetables to photograph the human form. He uses things like a Brussel Sprout that makes for the elegant back of a woman’s head. And while you adorn your salad with a Bell Pepper, Baab turns it into a sensuous, curving back—and-- me thinks, with a hint of the crack in the lower back.

But Baab works with the real thing as well. He has a project titled “Palm Spring Nudes,” in which he photographed fine art models at Palm Springs in California, a few years back. Baab told me: “I like to photograph with natural light. Actually, for me, overcast days are the best for shooting.” Baab is also attracted to strong lines, shadows, structures and distinct shapes—all of which the human form evokes or encompasses.

Baab said that he studies with Karen Rosenthal. Rosenthal, according to Baab, explores what she has coined the “Human Landscape,” and that’s what Baab is intimately involved with—here—in the landscape—of the Paris of New England.

Granting AGNI More Room to Grow

Granting AGNI More Room to Grow

By Emily Pineau


    AGNI Magazine (located in Boston University since 1987) was founded in 1972, and has been dedicated to its history ever since. In fact, the editors are proud to note that the 2014 Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano was first published in English in AGNI 10/11, and last year’s National Book Award finalist Cynthia Huntington appeared in AGNI 7. This 42-year-old literary magazine publishes poetry, fiction, essays, reviews, interviews, and artwork twice a year in print and biweekly online. Now as 2015 fast approaches, AGNI has been given a chance not only to stretch its literary limbs, but to also, in a sense, be reborn.

    Recently The National Endowment for the Arts awarded AGNI with a grant of $20,000, which is twice as big as the grants received in recent years. Senior Editor Bill Pierce says, “In 2014 we were able to go up 50% from the prior rate [that we pay our writers] due to the [past] $10,000 grant, but we weren’t sure if we’d be able to sustain that.” Due to this $20,000 grant, the magazine is now able to double the amount they pay writers for their work. This substantial increase from past years also supports the magazine’s social media, which has helped it gain subscribers. AGNI has a considerable Twitter presence, is active on Facebook, and has digital versions of the print magazine available.

    During a time where the Internet is starting to dominate the publishing industry, AGNI is embracing this fact by upholding and improving their strong web presence. Pierce explains:

    "We are not scared of this new era—we publish as much work exclusively on the     web as we do on the print magazine. We are focused on making our digital     presence reflect our print presence. The idea is to not have the digital drain the  print. They feed each other."

AGNI is not trying to be something they’re not, and they do not want to stray too far from their roots. The goal is for their website to be accessible to the public and to be more like a companion to the print version of the magazine. So, to pursue this quest, AGNI Online is being launched with a new design in early 2015. This new design rebalances the site so that the print magazine and the digital content are equally visible.

    AGNI looks for ways to build their community, engage them, and make them feel like an intricate part of each issue. The new issue—AGNI 80—features Erica Funkhouser, Tony Eprile, Anna Journey, and many other notable and talented writers. Also, the art feature by Rosamond Purcell showcases chocolate Oscars hanging out amongst various landscapes and appearing to be quite human-like. This is just one of many examples of how this issue comes to life, and how AGNI continues to create new boundaries, move the soul, and make new connections. As Martin Rock writes in his poem “Portrait of a Sixteenth-Century Etching of the Body,” it is “Not the word that changes,/ but the chambers that move/ around it” (p.76). The heart of AGNI is still hand-stapled, but its digital windows are angled towards the future.

***** Emily Pineau is an intern at AGNI magazine, and an English major at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass.
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Black Stars Poems by Ngo Tu Lap Translated by Martha Collins

Black Stars

Poems by Ngo Tu Lap

Translated  by Martha Collins

and Ngo Tu Lap

Milkweed Editions

Minneapolis, Minnesota

www.milkweed.org

ISBN: 978-1-57131-459-8

110 Pages

$16.00

Review by Dennis Daly

Sometimes old memories and the ephemeral present don’t collide; rather they embrace in a rhythmic dance through a dream-like planetarium where these celestial bodies both repulse and attract. This phenomenon manifests itself elegantly in Black Stars, poems by Ngo Tu Lap as translated from the Vietnamese by Martha Collins in collaboration with the author.

Lap’s words evoke the Vietnam conflict and his childhood in that country gently and in a circuitous but insistent way. His memories seem to emerge from a rich Manichean darkness, take on the shine of life and then submerge to invisibility again. At times the metaphoric landscapes become the only tangible reality, absorbing not only sadness and suffering, but the persona’s self.

Early on in the collection the poem entitled Women from the 1960s (1) conjures up remembered images of childhood, both basic and affecting. A bit of background: Lap was born in 1962 and lived in a town sixty miles from Hanoi. The poet says,

The first women I ever saw

Were huge and dark, with warm breasts

And tired eyes like sad stars

While I played with a snail

In a bomb shelter flooded with rain

The women disappeared without a sound

Thirty years later I still see them

Millions of breasts cut from suffering bodies

Fallen to earth like young coconuts

Full of milk even in the grave

In Lap’s poem Darkness he develops a textured geography redolent of sweat and filled with life. The wording (read lively translation) drips wonderfully and sensually onto the page. Darkness, as used by Lap, delivers freedom of memory and imagination and acts as a life giving prod to continue toward whatever end we seek. Here’s the heart of the piece,

Though ravens flock and thieves prowl

Though wicked intrigues hover above me

Though droning insects sadden my heart

I still choose you, darkness, as my companion

With you, the snails of childhood crawl out again

Eyes, both strange and familiar, close together—

Like heat suffused with the odor of sweat

Darkness quietly honors my faithful smile

Lap appends invisible heavenly pulsars to his own body and gives them substance in his title poem Black Stars. The circularity of the self and its subjective infinity appear and reappear from childhood memories of war time. Lap creates a tension between present and past. They orbit and, quite often, inform one another. The poet’s field of view expands exponentially,

There, in the village, a rooster is crowing

In the scent of burning rice-fields, dew is sparling

Over there is my mother

There, my country

On guns and plows, millions of diligent stars

Are flying in silence

Black stars, black stars

One life might have drifted away

But one has returned

In many of these pieces I’ve noticed a continuous rising and falling motion as if to offset life’s vertigo and develop direction. Tears, coconuts, rain, friends, leaves, years and hair succumb to gravity, while wind, blood, stars and the road rise to the heavens. This lyrical motion mimics breathing and gives the collection its magical momentum. Lap’s poem Viet Blood opens with this versified rush,

Sometimes it rises excited on lips

As red as the sun of Vietnam

Sometimes it flows silently

Like mud, dark in veins

While I travel this vast land, these long rivers

Clouds spread white mist through the border sky

My sweat flows into deep chasms…

And later in the same poem, Lap’s flow of words fall again,

It didn’t choose me, I didn’t choose it

Viet blood

Is like life, love, death

Sometimes hardening into resin

Green leaves keep flowing down the hill

Where my friend has fallen

Lap employs a “well” metaphor to get at the nature of mortality in the poem entitled Empty Well. Everything collapses into non-existence and silence and the silence is deafening. Yet this well cannot be quenched. Is it circular? Does it give up its dead? The poet seems to meditate on this conundrum,

Like eyes in a decomposing skull

Black wells

Look into the earth

Black wells filled with silence

Beneath the acacia tree

Cai flowers withered long ago

Onion stalks have yellowed

Cannas have gone wild

Rainwater keeps falling

Lap delves into war’s horror in his poem Praise for the Dead not with squeamishness but with distance. His response to vulture-like demons feasting on dead carcasses is one of thoughtful sadness. War’s glory and nobility rots in the frozen past, along with unfinished dreams and squandered potential. Lap handles his remembered and imagined goblins with not a little irony. He concludes the piece this way,

I used to be very sad

And afraid

Of their sharp white teeth

Their drunken eyes gleaming like mercury

Their frozen kisses sharp as bamboo knives

I used to be very sad

But who knows, maybe I’m lucky

Thank you, stinking corpse:

Because of your nobility

I now have fewer friends

Lap’s poems flower into movingly phrased English in this not-to-be-missed collection. Martha Collins and Milkweed Editions deserve much praise for this inspired poetic collaboration.