"The Snow That Never Fell” by Paul Steven Stone

  

“The Snow That Never Fell” by Paul Steven Stone, Alien Buddha Press, 2023

Review by Lee Varon

 

“The Snow That Never Fell” is a book I could not put down and one of the only novels told from the viewpoint of a single divorced father. In fact, when I googled novels by single dads, what came up were either non-fiction self-help/how-to books, or single dad romance books!

 

“The Snow That Never Fell,” dramatically brings to life the world of Paul Peterson, a single divorced father of three children—two pre-teen daughters and a nine-year-old son, Mickey. The book is insightful, poignant, and often humorous.

 

In the opening scene, we find ourselves immersed in the excitement and tumult of the annual Pinewood Derby where over 200 nine and ten-year-old cub scouts and their fathers gather in a church basement with their hand-crafted model racecars for a racing competition.

 

Looking around the chaotic scene, Paul muses: “How many times have I been startled by the fact that I do not understand the world my children inhabit?” And yet throughout the book we see Paul doing his best to understand the world of his children, particularly his son Mickey, who often reminds him of himself as a child. Determined not to parent like his charismatic, yet self-involved, brash, and distant father, who left him with a lonely ache for connection, Paul does his best to meet the challenges of single parenting.

 

There are no instructions that come with the box each cub scout is given. There is only a block of wood, two axels and four black tires. The lack of instructions, serves as a metaphor for the lack of instructions that come with Paul’s new life as a single divorced father.

 

“A small, elongated block of wood that someone foolishly painted fuchsia,” is how Paul describes their finished racecar. It was, in fact, Paul who suggested the color, thinking it was similar to a car he once owned. But the result is more pinkish than he envisioned and the color engenders a host of snide remarks from some of the other cub scouts.

 

Apart from the color, initially, Paul blames his ex-wife for the fact that he and his young son don’t have a better racecar. The divorce which his wife (Marilyn) initiated was contentious, expensive and, as Paul states: “Marilyn decided to break up our family, and Marilyn decided to hire a divorce attorney who did her legal best to hang my balls on a plaque and reduce me to poverty.” In the divorce settlement, his ex-wife had gotten the house and all of Paul’s tools stored in the house—tools he could have used to make a better looking racecar! While admitting his own tendency to procrastinate had something to do with the final outcome of the racecar, he still can’t give up the idea that the car’s poorly conceived and executed creation was the fault of his ex-wife. Anyone who has been through the breakup of relationship can relate to Paul’s statement: “It is strange how we can free ourself from someone and yet remain captive to her at the same time.”

 

Obviously, Paul harbors some bitterness, but this is not the way the story ends. Over the course of the book, Paul, deepens his understanding of himself and his children. Paul Peterson is not a static character—as in any compelling narrative, he changes and his readers accompany him on his journey.

 

Although the story revolves around the pinewood derby, our narrator brings us along on a far-reaching saga which includes a mild flirtation with a single mother at the Derby, a contentious run-in with another father—a bombastic blockhead, reminiscent of Paul’s clueless father—nostalgic musings on Paul’s family life prior to his divorce, and contentious sessions with his avuncular therapist.

 

No spoiler alerts here, but there are plenty of unexpected twists and turns in the story line. Through them all, Paul perseveres and comes to a deeper understanding of his own suffering as well as some of the difficult times his son Mickey encounters.

 

For Paul, there is a greater acceptance that—for both himself and his children—you don’t always get a choice about things. And that his suffering has, in fact, helped to make him a better person and a better father. In fact, to become an enormously empathic and caring father.  Paul does not simply succumb to the trauma he has experienced; in the course of the book, he evolves and matures. “The challenge is not to avoid suffering,” he tells us, “but to make the most of it while you can,” Our narrator certainly makes the most of his challenges, and we, as readers, are the beneficiaries as we accompany him on his journey. You will not be the same after reading “The Snow That Never Fell.” It will deepen and sharpen your understanding of the human condition.

 

A condition in which none of us is ever given an instruction manual.

Doug Holder Interviewed for the Boston Authors Club for Poetry Month

 

April 2023 Newsletter

Celebrating Poetry Month Meeting the Market: Interview with Doug Holder, Poet and Publisher The Poetry Bulletin: A Poet-to-Poet Resource Author/Author: Sammarco's Inferno at the Athenaeum Reading Right Now: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain Presidents Notes: Spring Reading Yesteryear: A Prized Poet Who Stayed Home

BAC'S POETRY MONTH ISSUE This poster celebrating Poetry Month 2023 was designed by Marc Brown, creator of the popular series of Arthur books.  The poster was commissioned by Scholastic as part of a new National Poetry Month initiative between Scholastic and the Academy of American Poets. The included line of text, "...we were all meant for something" is from the poem “Carrying” by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón.

This month, Meeting the Market interviews Somerville-based poet and publisher Doug Holder, founder of the Ibbetson Street Press and currently the co-president of the New England Poetry Club. Holder has been a regular literary columnist for the Somerville Times for over 20 years, and he serves as the director of the Newton Free Library Poetry Series. He teaches creative writing at Endicott College and previously taught writing at Bunker Hill Community College. His papers, and interviews are archived at the “Doug Holder Papers Collection” at the University at Buffalo, as well as at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. Holder’s latest poetry collection is The Essential Doug Holder ( Big Table Books). In this interview, Doug shares his thoughts on today's poetry trends, tips for getting published, and the poetry he is currently reading. Q: How would you describe the overall level of interest in writing and publishing poetry today compared to a decade ago?   Well, I think it is greater than ever. Ten years ago, you had fewer opportunities to publish. I think with all the new online journals, the way it has become mush less cumbersome to submit (Submittable, etc...), and in general-- editors have acquired more skills to attract writers to their venues. There are much more workshops offered than ever before--- and many of them are still online because of the Pandemic. I think many people became compelled to write poetry during the Pandemic, as a way to deal with the isolation and chaos of the world. Personally, I know as co-president of the New England Poetry Club that we are attracting more members than ever, and our readings and workshops are packed. I have seen great communities that have been birthed by poetry groups—like the Pow Wow River poets, the Bagel Bards, the Jamaica Plain Poets, etc.... just to name a few. The Mass Poetry Organization has thousands of members and is continuing with their annual festival this May in Salem, MA. Q: What are the most viable paths to publication and what other opportunities are available for poets to reach readers and listeners? I would say—first get your name out there—create your own blog or website—so if people want to know more about you and your work, there will be one central place that they can go to. Join a poetry organization like Mass Poetry, and the New England Poetry Club, so you can be exposed to what's going on in the poetry world, active networks of poets, etc. Through meeting other poets you will learn about more publishing opportunities. The best book resource would be Poets Market which can be bought at many bookstores and online. Here are listed hundreds of magazines that accept poetry. The entries in the book will tell you explicitly what the magazine wants. To state it simply, if you send dog poems to a cat journal—you are out of luck! DUOTROPE is a fine online site to find new places to send your work. Q: What developments and trends do you personally find most promising and exciting?   Well--I think people have become very skillful in publicizing their books. For instance, Gloria Mindock, the founder of the Cervena Barva Press ( Somerville, MA), produces beautiful video trailers for her authors and others. The subjects that poets are writing about are more diverse than ever—so trans, LBGQ, and other folks bring their story to the stage. I have seen more and more people of color publishing and presenting much more than in the past. Q: What poetry are you reading this month?  Purgatory Road by Charles Coe, City Stories by Denise Provost, Virology by Mary Buchinger, Seldom Purely by Linda Conte ...to name just a few. There so many great poets out there whom I admire, like Wendy Drexler, Hilary Sallick, Regie Gibson, Dennis Daly, Lloyd Schwartz, Harris Gardner, Danielle Legros Georges, David Miller, Nina Alonso, Zvi Sesling, Karen Klein; far too many to mention them all—and not enough time to read!

The Ruined Millionaire by Ben Mazer

 

The Ruined Millionaire

By Ben Mazer

MadHat Press

Cheshire, MA

www.MadHat-Press.com

ISBN 978-1-952335-55-6

103 Pages

$21.95

Review by Dennis Daly

Internalized reality and memory need inspired, mindful editing to reach their fated shape of first-rate poetry. Ben Mazer showcases his skills as the genre’s perfect (or, at least, near-perfect) editor in his new book, The Ruined Millionaire. Somehow, in the evident density of Mazer’s work, his mirrored image metaphorically seems to appear distributing versified handbills that alert his already captured audience to the celebration of self-consciousness unquestionably underway. Oxidized word-bronzes and broken shards of stained-glass history are reinvigorated by this poet into contemporary, albeit runic, measures. Here the mind’s suzerainty is never in doubt. And Mazer is nothing if not the self-conscious observer of his own cognizant creations.

Opening the collection, Mazer’s poem The Double dives right into the soup of human imagination. In this universe intent weighs as much as action and time is a function of memory, not the reverse. Distance walks with one, mimicking motion. The poet plays with creation and not everyone appreciates it,

… I remember red gray green blue brown brick

before rain or during rain. One doesn’t see who is going by,

One doesn’t think to see who is going by.

One sees who is going by all right, but one doesn’t see who is

going by.

The bright lights attract customers to the bookstore.

Seeing, chalk it up to that. The bitter looks of the booksellers,

as you leave the shop without paying. Rickety steps that will

soon

be history.

In his piece entitled The Exile, Mazer visits a dreamworld that has solidified into another kind of reality. He moseys around, reconnecting things again into a logic of place, the new overwriting the old, updates added, and lastly, a climatic stimulation of consciousness, in other words, a final edit,

… Coffee is birth.

I was surprised to see how things had changed

since I first dreamed I came here long ago.

The villagers were lobbying new plans,

who had been immigrants before the snow.

I was among the first to try the new

cuisine, the classless restaurant.

In the best house I recognized my host,

and he who had fulfilled a noble life

exhibited no need for conversation.

Then I was swept up in the exultation

Of thousands of revelers’ descent to hell.

There is a lot to see in Mazer’s new world of edited imagination. “Start with the rain,” he says in his fascinating piece entitled The Rain. Indeed, the elemental drumming upon the eaves suggest the consciousness awakening with a new awareness of life’s mysteries. Yes, mankind is different. He sees things and remembers what he needs or he wants to. The poet seems to use rain in the classic way, as a rebirthing force. But Mazer rebirths everything as his own personal universe and in his own image (poetically and internally) from which he continues to slice and dice. Consider these ruminations on man’s purpose,

The streets are slick with memory’s reflections,

the many byways of the mind’s directions,

wet thick on brick,

where nothing in its mystery shall stick,

affording a proper end to introspection

that have no name, where no two are the same,

except in the unity of your dissections,

the fame of eternity’s ejections.

Mankind is sick.

And comes up against naught but stone and brick,

not certain what there is he should atone for.

He’s quite insane, yet know him by his name

and you shall know the most and least of pain,

the trouble he has opening the door.

What stretches forward, and what comes before.

There is nothing holding you together,

except the windy and rainy weather.

Isolation and lost love coalesce in Mazer’s title poem, The Ruined Millionaire. The poet mines these emotions by chipping away at memory’s marble blocks and refashioning a memory of himself. His command over his imagined material appears childlike, most assuredly innocent, but his awareness and experience borders on omniscient. Here is the heart of the poem,

…He does things on a whim,

like take out childhood letters for an evening,

despite the fact his loneliness is grieving

for company that never comes. Who They?

No one gets inside. No one can say

what makes him tick. He lights a parlour trick

by rote, as if the moon were doing it,

but there is no audience, none can complain

he took a turn and willfully insane

made silent inventory of his pain,

his need for utterance still unfulfilled,

reminders of the time that he first killed.

Control is his. Considers History,

and sees that through a century or three

the ways of doing things have little changed.

Under the title of Lexington, Mazer composes in pointillist fashion, cinematic tapestries of remembered images bleeding together, a perception that must be seen from afar. This poem of leisure and wealth brings with it a dystopian undercurrent and intensities such as diseases, assault, and love’s debris kept at bay. Mazer strings together knowledge and nuggets of solidified consciousness. Here he details (picking and choosing, as a good editor should) mnemonic items charged with the raw material of poetry,

In the cellar theatrical properties

and paintings, trunks, of costume jewels,

pirate treasure, and men’s magazines.

Nothing endears the mind except truth.

I am still amazed at all that passion

growing daily, planned like a tea party.

In youth I fell in love with the old movies

and disappeared like Ahab in the screen,

The Son of the Shiek with Rudolph Valentino

gave fevered distance to the afternoon,

its byways and coursings palpable only in the breach,

the stock market, the rare book store, out of reach

Perhaps Mazer delivers his fevered visions of memorious wreckage uniquely and authentically because he has invented a new self from the remains. His editorial consciousness chisels out a mimetic unity which beautifies all that matters in poetic diction and structure. This collection represents the very best of Mazer. And the very best of Mazer is very good indeed.

Waiting for a Sandwich at Clyde’s: Review of Clyde’s, a play by Lynn Nottage

 

Waiting for a Sandwich at Clyde’s

Review of Clyde’s, a play by Lynn Nottage

At The Huntington through April 23, 2023

By Andy Hoffman

Lynn Nottage – Pulitzer-prize winner for Ruined (2009) and Sweat (2017) – revisits Rust Belt Pennsylvania in Clyde’s, a comedy about hopeful ex-convicts searching for a way forward. Set entirely in the kitchen of a truck-stop sandwich joint called Clyde’s, the play bounces from episode to episode as Rafael, Letitia and new-comer Jason learn about life and sandwiches from master-cook Montrellous. Clyde, the cruel woman owner of the restaurant named for her, lords over the kitchen staff, taunting them with the certainty that none of them have any alternative but to thanklessly work for her. They keep their spirits up by imagining new sandwich recipes, competing among themselves for the most inventive and impressive combination of bread and filling. Dreaming of the perfect sandwich becomes the only release, particularly for Letitia and Rafael. Jason is still getting his bearings in the kitchen. Montrellous seems based on Bernie Glassman, the Zen Buddhist roshi, founder of Greyston Bakery, which has practiced open hiring since opening its door. Glassman also wrote Instructions to the Cook: Zen Lessons in Living a Life that Matters. Glassman clearly helped Montrellous transcend his cage.

Combining the earthy reality of life after prison and the existential hopelessness of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Clyde’s snaps with humor and the power of kindness in the bleak lives of the kitchen staff. Letitia broke into a pharmacy to steal anti-seizure medication for her daughter – and took narcotics for street sale, which got her caught. Rafael, high on drugs, ineptly tried to rob a bank armed with a BB gun and lines from the movies. Put out of work by unscrupulous union-breaking bosses, Jason violently beat one of the scabs. They all regret their transgressions and want to make good on their lives outside, but they have few options forward. Like Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon, they only have one another to hold off the despair – one another, and the promise of that perfect sandwich.

Clyde takes brutal pleasure in the control she exerts over her crew. She refuses to so much as taste Montrellous’ masterful creations and remains resolutely deaf to his efforts to make the restaurant something into something extraordinary. Even when Clyde’s gets a surprisingly enthusiastic review in a free weekly, Clyde remains unmoved. Her people burst with pride at being noticed, but Clyde herself just bursts their balloons, only for the purpose of watching their disappointment. This pointless cruelty contributes to the plays resolution, a breakdown of the restaurant’s social structure over the artistic integrity of the sandwich makers. Clyde’s swift movement keeps the audience laughing and thinking until the end.

The production itself impresses with its professionalism. The realistic set plunged me back into the kitchens I worked in decades ago. The lighting and interstitial music helped drive the show forward. And the performances were top-notch, especially April Nixon’s evil Clyde. She’s only on the stage intermittently, but her position as the god of her private hell provides us with the best reason to keep watching. The battle between her guttersnipe world-view and Montrellous’ Buddhist equanimity feel both metaphysical and very real.

Red Letter Poem #154

 The Red Letters

 

 

In ancient Rome, feast days were indicated on the calendar by red letters.  To my mind, all poetry and art serves as a reminder that every day we wake together beneath the sun is a red-letter day.

 

                                                                                                          – Steven Ratiner

 

 

 

 

 

Red Letter Poem #154

 

 

 

 

My mind seems to go there of its own volition: last snow erased, sun returned, afternoons outdoors – and I can almost feel their presence, these tightly-wrapped buds, surprising bits of color.  I’m excited by the knowledge that each pert slow-motion eruption contains whole worlds not-yet-visible, filling the mind with its flowering, with the fruitfulness that must follow. 

 

Not garden blossoms (though they, too, are a captivating presence these days); no, I’m thinking about haiku – those potent three-line poems from Japan that have proliferated across the planet, one of the most popular forms of poetry written today.  And since the form is predicated on careful observation of the natural world, it is integral to every season, not just this one; but as I watch spring rapidly remaking the New England landscape, I seem to find myself scanning my bookshelf for titles by Basho, Buson, Issa, Shiki. . .and, not surprisingly, Arlington’s own Brad Bennett.  Featured several times previously in the Letters, Brad is a contemporary practitioner and teacher par excellence of this literary form whose roots extend, first, back to medieval Japan – and then a millennia further to the Chinese four-line jintishi.   He’s a writer wholly committed to the practice, which means to the daily discipline of being present to the most extraordinary and the most mundane of experiences – searching for the focused image that somehow unlocks an unseen world.  So I asked Brad for a sampling of his spring haiku to help us celebrate both the new season and serve as a prelude to April’s Poetry Month.

 

Most of Brad’s haiku resemble what we typically expect – visually-clear, psychically-charged three-line verses.  But some of his poems are the newer style of one-line haiku which, in ways, more closely resembles how the poem had traditionally been written: a single line of characters descending from the top of the page, where only a kireji, or cutting word demarcates the end of a phrase, often hinting at a parallel train of thought or prompting a sudden leap.  Take this poem for example:

 

spring clouds I have yet to write

 

You can see where thought suddenly jumps the track and veers into a new direction (were those spring clouds what the poet intended to compose – or a gentle scolding that the poet had yet to lift the pen that day?)  And how would you parse the syntax for this one-line gem:

 

each day follows the next duckling

 

Again, my mind flirts with an imagined comma, wholly shifting the meaning.  Some of these poems are taken from Brad’s earlier collection, a drop of pond, or the recently-published a box of feathers – both issued by Red Moon Press.  Returning each day to poems like these, I notice a bit more of their unfolding – not unlike the early daffodils in my wife’s garden; and this means I am watching how language seeds and takes root within my own mind, adding a fertility both unexpected and tremendously pleasurable.  The haiku is not a display of the writer’s verbal acuity; it is a thought-mechanism lending its generator to the reader, an invitation to more fully participate in this moment.  And this.  And of course. . .

 

 

Spring Haiku

 

 

my first

first warbler poem—

a break in the rain

 

 

spring

the dead owl

mostly soil

 

 

kite weather

an inchworm spins

at the end of a thread

 

 

cumulus clouds

a wheelbarrow full

of topsoil

 

 

  ––Brad Bennett

 

 

 

The Red Letters 3.0

 

* If you would like to receive these poems every Friday in your own in-box – or would like to write in with comments or submissions – send correspondence to:

steven.arlingtonlaureate@gmail.com

 

 

* To learn more about the origins of the Red Letter Project, check out an essay I wrote for Arrowsmith Magazine:

https://www.arrowsmithpress.com/community-of-voices

 

and the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene

http://dougholder.blogspot.com

 

* For updates and announcements about Red Letter projects and poetry readings, please follow me on Twitter          

@StevenRatiner