If You Can Still Dance With It: Stone Belly & Cold Mountain Poems by Michael Adams

If You Can Still Dance With It: Stone Belly & Cold Mountain

Poems by Michael Adams

Kittredge, CO: Turkey Buzzard Press, 2012

ISBN-13: 978-0-9450-94586

37 pages

$12.00

Review by David P. Miller

Poet and musician Michael Adams presents poems in three personae. These are Stone Belly, his “nom de plume or alter ego”; Cold Mountain, Adams’ rendering of T’ang Dynasty poet Han Shan in mid-20^th century Appalachia; and in his own person, following a diagnosis of multiple myeloma. This brief volume introduces me to the work of a writer of great heart and broad life experience, from the blue collar communities near Pittsburgh to his current residence in Northern Colorado. More of his work, including sample poems, publications, and an audio selection, is available at www.michaeladamspoetry.com.

The image of the recluse poet retains a powerful attraction. Most of us would find it difficult to survive for more than a couple of days in a simple mountaintop dwelling, entirely self-reliant for food and heat. But there’s much to be desired in this picture: solitude, the freedom to simply concentrate on one’s own work, and the requirement to distill the complexities of living to essentials. It’s intriguing that Adams presents this image in twinned voices. The Stone Belly poems begin with the longer “Stone Belly in the Mountains.” Here we seem to see the recluse we imagine:

                Wandering in the mountains,

                lost amongst pines,

                Stone Belly grows hard and lean,

                chewing on poems.

Removed from the thick of society, he’s not unaffected by it nor attached to it:

                Third day of snow, power lines

                down all over the mountain.     

                But Stone Belly gets his juice

                from other realms –

                                wood, whiskey, and fiery chili.

                Discusses eternity with the stars.

                He hasn’t been this happy all year.

He “daydreams of a girl he hasn’t seen in 20 years” and is prepared for friends to visit, with:

                Eight bottles of bourbon, four cases of beer,

                twenty pounds of rice, one change of clothes,

                what’s left of last fall’s elk,

                buried in a cooler in the snow.

This push and pull between the joyous strenuousness of a life apart and the desire for humankind’s web (in “Stone Belly in Texas” he fruitlessly hitchhikes across the Southwest to find a girl he barely knew), slowly results in self-knowledge:

                I am not very good

                at the world’s business –

                the building and trading

                of fortunes and goods.

                I know well enough

                the quarters of the winds,

                the fluid ways of waters,

                the turning of,

                and movement through,

                the seasons.

With his Cold Mountain poems, Adams directly confronts the very archetype of the poet as solitary. His versions are inspired by the translations of Red Pine, Gary Snyder, and R.P. Seaton. Not a reader of Mandarin, he presents his versions with the hope that readers will also seek the work of those translators. Poking through my bookshelves, I discovered translations by Snyder and Burton Watson, a surprise anecdotally confirming the subtle pervading of the older Chinese poet (I hadn’t intended to collect versions, but now I have three). Adams’ Cold Mountain writings often, to my ear, have the pungency of other versions, but with a clearly North American flavor:

                Pickled pig’s feet in Manhattan –

                Some people say they’re the best.

                Men who live too close to power

                love things that dogs won’t touch.

Again  here, we have the reality that this life, for all its rewards, is not to be romanticized:

                I’m sick all the time,

                but that’s my burden.

                My face looks like an old squash

                that someone forgot

                and left out all winter.

                I’m happy with the mountains

                and a warm thick blanket.

The sequence ends with lines that point straight at the crossing between wonder and annihilation, with impermanence as the solitary’s food:

                Bone-weary

                I reached the top

                of the cliff at sundown.

                An ancient snag rose at the edge

                bereft of leaves, barren

                against the blazing sky.

                It looked like it had stood

                for a thousand years.

                Now it’s just a pile of ashes

                that kept me warm

                through the long night.

The image in this final stanza is a hinge opening on “After the Ashes,” the title of both the third set of poems and the first poem in the set. This simple phrase is rich with multiple meanings. It takes us from the contemplative conclusion of the Cold Mountain poems into the reality of Adams’ diagnosis with a type of incurable cancer. Although his stated aim with these poems is to “examine what it is like to be confronted with a life-threatening disease without prematurely seeking answers, solutions, or solace,” the phrase here suggests a sense of ashes in the mouth. However, in this poem, the phrase, now punctuated, regains calm as part of a view of “the long story of our lives / along with the sounds of love, the wordless / speech of tongues groping beyond themselves in the furnace of another’s mouth”:

                ... A campfire beneath white granite

                and stars, and, after, the ashes.

This final set is filled with a great love for “The World As it Is” (the title of another in the set) and the command to prepare to say goodbye. The volume concludes with perhaps my favorite, “The Ones Who Get the World Ready.” As Adams, sleepless at 2 A.M., sits with paper and pen,

                ... the dog

                comes in, settles at your side.

                You stare at the window and your own face

                stares back, with nothing to say.

                Don’t think this is a poem about searching

                for inspiration. It’s just a man who can’t sleep

                and doesn’t want to bother his wife

                with his restlessness.

But as he sits, he remembers the men and women who rise early,

                ... the ones who make the world

                solid and familiar for the rest of us. Trash haulers and policemen,

                paper carriers, nurses, truck drivers, bakers. Resolute, even brave,

                with a dogged, determinedly unreflective bravery, they grope

                with blind hands in the dark, clutching at the anchors

                that will secure us all for one more day to our common lives.

Michael Adams tells us to remember the bravery we all need, and can all manifest, as we move through our common lives, intimately dependent on each other, and all “staring the monster right in the face” (“Send Some Angels”).

Reality Check word sonnets by Ricky Rapoport Friesem

Ricky Rapoport Friesem

Reality Check


word sonnets

Ricky Rapoport Friesem

Kipod Press 2012

ISBN: 978-965-9097-2-8



This Book of fourteen single word line sonnets

comes to us from Israel:


“The

purple

necklace

you

gave

me

is

all

wrong

but

I

wear

it

anyway”



The poems are as clear as a bright sky, as water

splashed over our faces, as a kiss after we read.

We are refreshed by Friesem's clarity and brevity:



“In

business

class

they

have

plastic

partitions.

In

economy

class

we

have

one

another”



Within each of these sonnets is an entire story

and often it is our own story.”



“The

more

particles

you

discover

the

more

there'll

be

to

discover.

Good

job

security”



My only criticism is the icon (eye glasses) on each and every

opposite page from the poem. The poems are powerful enough

to keep the readers attention, a blank page would lend

to the brevity the poems impart. A good buy and a great read.



Irene Koronas

Poetry Editor: Wilderness House Literary Review

Reviewer: Ibbetson Street Press

Somerville’s Kirk Etherton and Lucy Holstedt: A Couple Who Holds the Arts as High Holy.

 Etherton and Holstedt Performing at Berklee College of Music

Somerville’s Kirk Etherton and Lucy Holstedt:  A Couple Who Holds the Arts as High Holy.

By Doug Holder

   More than once I have heard a knock on my door late in the evening and it turned out to be my School St. neighbor Kirk Etherton. Etherton is a very creative Somervillian and when the germ of an idea germinates in his head about the promotion of an artistic project neither the dark of night nor the cold blasts of winter can keep him from his appointed rounds. He has also been known to drop off artful notes in my mailbox, or stop me in the street to tell me about the latest fascinating person he met, something like a Tibetan monk who has a knack for kosher cooking, and is an excellent break dancer.

  Lucy Holstedt, his other half, or as Etherton would surely put it his better half, is equally as active and passionate and the pair compliments each other well. Holstedt is a professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and an accomplished pianist, composer, vocalist—and may I add one mean poet. Early in her career she started as a scientist working at a lab at Columbia University in New York City and lived on the Lower East Side. But eventually she gravitated to the music scene playing the piano in clubs, restaurants, and coffeehouse such as: Folk City and the Rosebud Coffeehouse, as well as other venues across the city.

  At Berklee Holstedt started the  Women Musicians Network event in 1998 for women students to perform their own music. Now, years later, it is a very diverse network that strut their stuff on the stage. For instance, one group that is now big on the Boston music scene Zili Misik, is an all-female/Afro/Pop/Haitian/R&B/ group. This group got their start with the Network.

  Etherton has for years worked in the advertising industry on projects for the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, the anti-smoking campaign for the Mass. Department of Health, to name just a few. But he is no slouch in his pursuit of the Arts. He is a published poet and won the 2009 Ibbetson Street Press Poetry Award presented at the Somerville News Writers Festival. Etherton taught himself the guitar when he was a mere boy, and now in his middle years he composes and performs his own music and songs often in collaboration with Holstedt.

  Right now Etherton is working on promoting a new record company Mountain of  Leopards founded by a former Somervillian. He is also on the board of the Boston National Poetry Festival and has his hand in many organizations.

  Holstedt reminded me she was part of the famed Mrs. Potato Head sketch comedy group, in which she developed characters and songs for this band of sisters. Her own music is played across the country mainly at Unitarian churches.

 This couple is decidedly lovers of Somerville. Both have lived in Somerville for 15 years. Holstedt lived on Ibbetson Street, where the Ibbetson Street Press was birthed. Of the city she said:

“It is a wonderful place. It has such a wide variety of people. It is international. All these pocket parks, cafes, etc… In Somerville everybody lets you pet their pet and chat with the children. You can be yourself here-and there is not a need to fit into a particular niche.”

  Beside her, Etherton nodded in agreement. But from the corner of his eye I could see he was looking at the crowd at the crowded café for his next find in this burg we have come to know as the Paris of New England.

DIVINE Madness by Paul Pines

DIVINE Madness by Paul Pines

New York: Marsh Hawk Press, 2012

Pages: 64


Cover: Paperback


Price: 15.00


Reviewed by Pam Rosenblatt







With a beautiful, colorful, abstract cover painting by Douglas Leichter, Paul Pines’ DIVINE Madness deals with a lot of things: religion, mythological figures, death, life, communication and of course mental illness, etc. His book is divided into three sections: Book 1: The Serpent In the Bird, Book 2: The Absent One, and Book 3: Who Knows The Knower.

In Book One:The Serpent In the Bird, Pines reveals his intentions for the 64 page trilogy in his first poem, “1 ● It’s not about us”.He suggests what we as readers should expect to discover throughout in DIVINE Madness:



It’s not about us

but what

connects us



a world

forged of links



the parrot’s beak

in the lion’s jaw



divine madness

encrypting our sleep



like Puritans sniffing out

God’s fingerprints



messages born again

and again from the rubble

of our assumptions



what we listen for



as if decoding

the depth

of diamond



or entering a winter landscape

suddenly don’t know

what we thought







until a child

who

for a moment lost

reappears full grown

to tell us

we need not

fear death



if touched by

the consciousness

of the gods

in men



Pines has introduced gently introduced us to DIVINE Madness. He begins with “It’s not about us/but what/connects us” and ends his poem “1 ● It’s not about us”with his advice that “we need not/fear death//if touched by/the conscious/of the gods/in men”.

Pines suggests that like the mythological serpent who lives inside of the bird (as the first section’s title reads), there are “gods [whose ‘consciousness’ lives] in men”.Some psychiatrists would call this mental illness. And since this book is titled DIVINE Madness, the readers may think so also.

As George Economou blurbs on Pines’ book’s back cover, “With extraordinary daring and inspiration, Paul Pines has dedicated the art he has exquisitely crafted for a lifetime to the service of the divine madness that has always distinguished poetry from mere writing.” He also comments on how Pines “captures the universal analogy anew by ‘connecting us to the consciousness of the gods in men’ …. ”

The way Pines writes about this ‘divine madness” is intriguing,after all perhaps this contact with “the gods” is a gift, or - better yet - maybe it’s mental telepathy. Whichever Pines is implying, the analogies/metaphors are there.

Throughout civilization, there have been myths and legends about serpents being powerful, evil, and frightening to humans. Now, in 2012, Pines suggests that, like The Serpent in the Bird, there are “gods” inside the minds of men. How creativeand brilliant, yet how disconcerting at the same time.

DIVINE Madness is filled with metaphors, vivid imagery, and has a pretty consistent experimental structure. While an abstract poet, he uses similar themes with different twists throughout his book. One topic often written about is birds, especially in Book Two: THE ABSENT ONE. His love for these feathered friends can be seen in “20 ● Did Audubon”:



Did Audubon

In the woods around Natchez

think of birds

as aspects of

his inner landscape



a mockingbird

in the marsh

the secretive

part of himself



the pileated woodpecker

his relentlessness



and what of

the thrush





whose song

bends the spectrum



filling the pine grove

of his heart?



Did December’s long beams

touch something



that moved in him

unseen



which he could neither identify

nor tame



but knew

only as a shadow



at day’s end when brandy

staves off dampness



that accompanies

the dark



a shadow

that moves still in his drawings



of flightless wings

stiff legs and talons



in stuffed owls looking down

from mantels



decoys on shelves

or paneled walls



did he imagine these too

had their place



fragments of unrealized

desire



known to him only

as shadows at day’s end?





While this poem is about mental illness or how “December’s long beams/touch something/that moved in him/unseen/which he could neither identify/nor tame/but knew/only as a shadow/at day’s end when brandy/staves off dampness”, Pines describes various birds so beautifully that we can almost visualize them: “a mockingbird/in the marsh”; “the pileated woodpecker/his relentlessness”; “the thrush/whose song/bends the spectrum”. Even “the stuffed owls looking down/from mantels/decoys on shelves/or paneled walls” have a place in his world where everything is “touched by the consciousness of the gods

in men”.

DIVINE Madness’s back cover has a blurb by Robert Kelly that reads, “[Pines] is the quiet sage who makes everything in his room a tender plaything.” He refers to Pines’ poem “20 ● Did Audubon”.

Pines appreciates birds, living or deceased. He even writes about “birds in an ice storm/as if nothing were/more important than/the direction of our intention” in Book Two: The Absent One’s poem “28: Grief strips us bare”and about “… reef birds/feeding on life beneath/the surface” in poem “35: Starting out from a Spain” found in Book Three: Who Knows The Knower. Pines’ birds seem to have a purpose, or a direction, and have a functional existence.

Pines writes how it’s important to know one’s role in life, and to accept it, as seen in Book Three: Who Knows The Knower’s poem “33: The sea beyond bare trees”:



The sea beyond bare trees

under a winter sky

extends to the horizon



highlighting branches

mossed by wind

skinned by salt air



golden finches at the feeder

blue and white nut-hatches

pecking at rind



He understands the role of salt

the geometry of shells

the bios of ocean



how marine life

melts into stone shelves

hollows out

submerged cathedrals

for worship crabs

where the eel of solitude

electrifies its prey



as armies clash wave

upon wave

in the agitation of forces

seen and unseen



he can watch

the gods make love

in the privacy of

his heart



and continue to chop the carrots

dice the garlic.



In this poem, Pines hasthese non-living or living things do their normal routines. The poem’s voice “understands the role of salt/the geometry of shells/the bios of ocean”. Why “he can [even] watch/the gods make love/in the privacy of/his heart” and remain so detached that he can “continue to chop the carrots/dice the garlic”.

As he writes in the final poem “46: but shall we leave it here” in Book Three: Who Know The Knower, “but shall we leave it here/with a drop of dew/on a leaf//stars snaking through/the heaven//the underworld/in the Milky Way//to navigate/the world as it forms around us/the universe”.

Here questions are raised that are probably thousands of years old like: Is a god, or are there gods? How did the world begin?Is there a heaven and hell? And will we ever find the answers to such inquiries?

In “46: but shall we leave it here”, the poet also asks:



the voice

that asks us



is it hard

to look upon the fear

in your father’s face?



who calls the ancient one



HaShem?



Paul Pines presents and deals with difficult topics throughout this read. And if asreaders we keep an open mind, we can appreciate and understand Paul Pines’DIVINE Madness.





###

Gloucester Writers Center Presents Nov. 14, 2012

Gloucester Writers Center Presents Nov. 14, 2012


Come see these great poets. Afaa Michael Weaver is a featured poet in the new issue of Ibbetson Street due out this month. Sam Cornish is the Boston Poet Laureate and author of Dead Beats ( Ibbetson Street Press), and I was proud to have poet Martha Collins as a featured reader at The Somerville News Writers Festival. This is a great new center in Gloucester, so all should come out and support it. And thanks to Endicott College Creative Writing Student Maxwell Snelling (An intern at the Center) for informing me about this!--Doug Holder/Endicott College/Office of Ibbetson Street Press

The Hungry Ear Poems of Food and Drink edited by Kevin Young

 
The Hungry Ear

Poems of Food & Drink

edited by Kevin Young

Bloomsbury

New York NY

Copyright © 2012 by Kevin Young

ISBN: 978-1-60819-551-0

Hardbound, 300 pages. $25

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

There are a lot of anthologies out there, a number of them about food.  Few, however,

top Kevin Young’s entry.  Young, an excellent poet in his own right, does a fine job of selecting gastronomical verse from a marvelous and diverse group of poets.

To name just a few, Mary Oliver, Seamus Heaney, Yusef Komunyakaa, Lucille Clifton, Elizabeth Bishop, Mark Doty, Billy Collins, Ted Kooser, Charles Reznikoff, Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, Matthew Dickman, Jane Hirschfield, Charles Simic, Frank O’Hara, W.B. Yeats, Philip Larkin, Charles Baudelaire, Pablo Neruda, Sylvia Plath and a nice selection of Young’s own poetry.

On the humorous side Roy Blount Jr.’s Song to Bacon brings it home:

Consumer groups have gone and taken

Some of the savor out of bacon.

Protein-per-penny in bacon they say,

Equals needles-per-square-inch of hay.

Well, I know, after cooking all

            (You also get a lot of lossage

            in life, romance, and country sausage.)

And I will vote for making it cheaper,

Wider, longer, leaner, deeper

But let’s not throw the baby, please

Out with the (visual rhyme here) grease.

There’s nothing crumbles like bacon still,

And I don’t think there ever will

Be anything, whate’er you use

For meat, that chews like bacon chews.

and also: I wish these groups would tell

Me whether they counted in the smell,

The smell of it cooking’s worth  $2.10 a pound.

And how bout the sound?

And then there are some tantalizing opening lines such as Hot by Craig Arnold: 

I’m cooking Thai—you bring the beer./The same order, although it’s been a year/

--friendships based on food are rarely stable./We should have left ours at the table

There is Jimmy Santiago Baca’s Green Chile:

I prefer red chile over my eggs

and potatoes for breakfast.

Adrienne Rich begins Peeling Onions thus:

Only to have a grief

equal to all these tears!

There’s not a sob in my chest.

And finally there is Howard Nemerov’s two-line tribute to Bacon & Eggs:

The chicken contributes,

But the pig gives his all.

These are just a few of the selections in this volume worth devouring. In often intriguing or delightful verse there is discourse on melons, berries, meat, vegetables, fruits – enough to fill a supermarket or your refrigerator and pantry.  It covers appetizers, main courses, desserts, celebrations, holidays and the seasons. The views of food and their relationship to us are there for our discovery.

If you are a fan of food – and who is not, even if dieting – then this book will whet your appetite and crave a snack.

______________________________________

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 Bagel Bards Anthology #7.

Poet Manson Solomon: A well traveled poet with the wisdom of 'Solomon'

Manson Solomon fishing in Nova Scotia

Poet Manson Solomon: A well traveled poet with the wisdom of 'Solomon'




By Doug Holder




Early on Manson Solomon had a bad case of wanderlust--that brought him to many countries, advanced degrees, and a successful business. He is the rare bird that combines business acumen with artistic talent. Solomon wrote the News:





“I emerged from the womb with a mission to be a writer with a large trust fund. Said trust fund being inexplicably absent, I took the road more traveled, {acquiring graduate degrees in Economics, Psychology and Philosophy from the London School of Economics, Columbia and Harvard,] engaging in various academic, artistic and entrepreneurial pursuits — in New York, London, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Nova Scotia, Wellesley, Cambridge – I am currently a member of the Bagel Bards of Somerville, Mass.”





Doug Holder: What was it like for a Jew in South Africa in the 1950's?



Manson Solomon: It was like living in Newton or Brookline. It was like a ghetto. People were from immigrant backgrounds who would cluster in the suburbs. As far as the literary scene here is a clue. When I left and had my farewell party--I read from Emerson and Thoreau. There was no one local worth reading. Now you have a couple of people like Nadine Gordimer, Fugard, etc... that I read.



DH: Why did you leave South Africa?



MS: I left when I was 20 or 21. All my interests, all my soul, simply were with Western culture...particularly American literature and music. I loved Gershwin and Berlin--all that spoke to me. Again I asked:" Why am I here?" I didn't know. South Africa was too provincial and confining for me.



DH: You had a sever case of the wanderlust. You traversed Europe--picking up degrees--probably picking up fodder for your poetry--did you have any mentors at the time?



MS: I don't think I had any mentors. I learned from people who might have listened to me, people whose work I read, but I can't point to a teacher and say this person inspired me to do one or the other thing.



DH: For a while you had a life in the academy.



MS: I did. I majored in economics and business because I figured I had to make a living and I thought  how could I make a living from studying the literature and humanities?



DH: You left the academy, and poetry, when you started a family. Did the family life prevent you from having a creative one?



MS: For me there was no time to do anything creative. I had to pay the tuition bills. If I didn't have a family I probably would have explores a more creative life in writing and poetry.



DH: Do you think poets and writers are in need of more business acumen?



MS: Generally. I really didn't like business and economics but I came to learn it wasn't a bad thing. I can make money much faster for projects than say an artist or academic who is going for a grant.



DH: You got your PhD in Philosophy from Columbia University. What did your dissertation concern?



MS: It was a study of what goes into making a judgment of something. If you are saying something is good are you describing it? Or are you approving it; urging someone to like i?. I tried to tease out the different parts of making a judgment. My great contribution to philosophy. (Laugh)



DH: Why did you leave Columbia?



MS: Well it was during the tumult of the 60s. I finished my course work, and then I secured a fellowship to Hebrew University in Israel to teach. Then I took off with friends to live off the land in Nova Scotia. When I finished my dissertation at Columbia, I came to Harvard as a visiting fellow in philosophy. I spent eight years at Harvard.



DH: You started a successful real estate business. Why did you switch paths in life?



MS: It was an accident. I wanted to get out of Cambridge for the country. I bought up distressed real estate, rehabbed it, and sold it for a profit.



DH: A lot of your poetry is infused with nature imagery. Who or what influences you?



MS: That's true. What influences me most is going to my house in Nova Scotia every summer. It overlooks the ocean. I have been doing that for 40 years.



DH: You have had a number of poetry publication credits since you retired 5 years ago.



MS: Yes. I have been in the Muddy River Review, Bagel Bards Anthology, Ibbetson Street, Lyrical Somerville, and others.



DH: How do you write a poem?



MS: I'm walking a long . I see something--something happens--I jot down ideas--go away--come back--after awhile I flesh it out.







WINTER HAS COME







Winter has come



quietly



tumbling white



out of the grey



grey sky.



Trees stand



to attention



pointing blindly.



Scattered clusters



of dead oak leaves



snagged on the outstretched fingers,



orange-brown tatters, cling



to the stiff, empty coat-racks



stark witnesses



to the creep



of the insidious white



along the bark’s crevices.



Blanched bladelets accept



without protest



the enveloping ice



until they disappear



entombed



deep-frozen.



Forsaken by the sun,



starved into submission,



the earth yields



to the suffocating pillow of snowflakes,



life drained from its desiccated veins



it draws a final sigh,



exhales



and lies still



in its white, white silent shroud.



No birds, no squirrels, no blooms,



no song.



No gentle breezes stirring the



odorless air.



Only the steady drift



of the accumulating crystals



smothering,



embalming



the colorless earth.



Nothing moves.




- Manson Solomon

God Lights His Candles Poems By Dorothy Morris

God Lights His Candles

Poems

By Dorothy Morris

With an Introduction by Sam Cornish

Ibbetson Press

Somerville MA

ISBN: 978-0-9846614-2-8

52 Pages

$15.00

Review by Dennis Daly

Today’s society undervalues serenity and that is too bad. In other eras serenity has flourished as a positive concept promoting sometimes poetry and sometimes prayer and sometimes merging the two. Francis of Assisi, for example, could not have written his revolutionary Canticle of the Sun, combining both pagan pantheism and Christian monotheism, unless his soul centered on sereneness and a profound sereneness at that.

Dorothy E. Morris in her book of poems, God Lights His Candles, draws from an obvious reservoir of spiritual serenity to compose her quicksilver images of natural and ritual happiness. Her poem Images is a good starting point. Like all good imagistic poetry her three subjects interest us with texture and emotion. Here’s the first image,

On a looping wire

Myriad starlings squat

Like black Majorca pearls.

The second image turns ducks into a line of obedient monks. Did I mention that serenity can, but need not, be eremitic? The poet puts a little twist in the third image,

It’s been three years,

I saw a crimson cardinal.

Was it you?

The sadness at a glimpse of that flamboyant bird offered here has no sharp edges. Serenity persists.

In Spring: Beach Walk the poet turns the sun into a toddler playing hide and seek, then, as he carries the burden of original sin, sends him on his way seeking redemption.  The poem ends with these lines,

Out of darkness

Night to light

Traversing the way

In search of

Eternal grace.

In our modern world bringing up grace as a poetic motif doesn’t happen. Brave woman!

I don’t believe the poem July Benediction works well independently. However it does further the context and sets up what comes after. By the way, the first four lines of this poem do create a wonderful stand-alone image. Here they are,

Twilight,

The sails are coming down.

Sun is waning.

Serenity.

Morris’ version of serenity again does not exclude melancholy. But it is a considered thoughtful melancholy. In Elegy the poet says,

A chill.

Was it only the fear of ice

Or the cold to come

That brought sudden despair?

Or something deeper,

A long-ago September

When summer ended,

Bringing regret, guilt or grief.

The poem entitled Advent 2007 takes place within the confines of the poet’s car. While listening to the Magnificat sung by the Mormon Temple Choir, she meditates on the sun’s reflection on the bay’s surface in front of her. Images of her childhood are recalled and the lost cleanliness that the water of baptism offered, and that strange word “grace” shows up again. Morris explains,

In my car mirror I watch the sun

Reflecting on the water of the bay

I think: grace

How one might dip one’s fingers

In the water

Or naked, immerse oneself

In the icy pool

To be clean.

Another poem which speaks of rebirth is After The Storm: Winter 2007-2008. It begins with childhood observations touched with pagan magic and then proceeds to adult images gleaned after a Nor’easter had struck. Once again a hint of sadness: the poet likens the iced up trees to a heart’s brittleness. On the other hand even the “the dead of winter” becomes a hopeful time of promise in this poet’s eyes. Morris says,

Why do they call it

The Dead of Winter?

When the tiniest blade

Brings promise,

And one can and must hope.

In Changeling the poet gives us a compelling image of the ocean personified. Morris speaks from memory of the sea’s many moods: the rage, the tempest, and the thunderous roar. The scene then changes to the present. The poet concludes,

But today

With the sun shining on you,

You seem almost serene,

Tranquil, gentle

As with a sigh

You glide gracefully to shore

Notice the use of the word “gracefully.”  These pieces are most assuredly imagist poems with a spiritual bent.

All religions use symbols in their rituals. Sometimes these symbols become so powerful they merge into the reality that they represent. Transubstantiation is one of them. Morris borrows this symbol from Catholicism in her poem Eucharist. Then she does something different. She describes the ordinary transference of the host from priest to communicant in a way that transforms her into a mother of divinity, a Madonna. Morris accomplishes this with these simple lines,

I hold the Host

Making a cup.

Like Mother Mary

I lift him up.

Another poem set in church is Holy Thursday. The poet begins in a tangle of trees, a pagan setting and ends at evening Mass where she observes the regeneration of human- kind. The poet marvels,

In the pew before us

A small blonde woman in a loose blouse

Prays.

Her husband turns to look at her

Then gently, reverently pats her belly.

In the poem All Hallows Eve the poet espies one more mother and child moment. A three year old child hops off his bicycle and offers his nearby mother two dandelions. The poet continues,

“For you, Mom,” he said proudly.

She laughed, “Two weeds.”

“Lucky you,” I called to her.

Sometimes I wonder if God is three years old.

Neat finish. Nice sentiment.

Now find that quiet spot within your selves and give Morris’ book a try.

********** To order go to   http://ibbetsonpress.com

Book Launch Dec 2, 2012:With Robert Lowell and His Circle Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz, & Others by Kathleen Spivack

Please celebrate with us!

The Harvard Bookstore and the Grolier Poetry Bookshop

invite you to the book launch of

With Robert Lowell and His Circle

Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz, & Others

by Kathleen Spivack

A memoir of a famous poetry circle

published by the University Press of New England, November, 2012

Sunday, December 2, 2012, 4-6 p.m.

Co-hosted by the Harvard Bookstore and the Grolier Poetry Bookshop

Refreshment, books, and celebration at both locations

The Harvard Bookstore: 1256 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA, 617-661-1515

The Grolier Poetry Bookshop: 6 Plympton St, Cambridge, MA, 617-547-4648

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The book is available for pre-order through the University Press of New England, and will be released on November 13.

Call toll-free, 1-800-421-1561, email university.press@dartmouth.edu, or visit their website here.

Also available at your local bookstores and online.

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"This book is absorbing and alive, human and compelling . . . the best memoir yet about Robert Lowell."
-- Steven Gould Axelrod, University of California, Riverside

"A portrait [of Lowell] that serves to define his role as poet and teacher in fresh and significant ways . . . . This is a memoir that will make an impact right away and that will be referred to by scholars, readers and biographers for many years to come."
-- Thomas Travisano, Hartwick College

"I devoured your book in one sitting last weekend; it's extraordinarily evocative of the poet and his time, your time. Thank you so much for writing it . . ."
-- Don Share, Senior Editor, Poetry Magazine

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With Robert Lowell and His Circle

Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz, & Others

by Kathleen Spivack

A memoir of a famous poetry circle

In 1959 Kathleen Spivack won a fellowship to study at Boston University with Robert Lowell. Her fellow students were Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, among others. Thus began a relationship with the famous poet and his circle that would last to the end of his life in 1977 and beyond. Spivack presents a lovingly rendered story of her time among some of the most esteemed artists of a generation. Part memoir, part loose collection of anecdotes, artistic considerations, and soulful yet clear-eyed reminiscences of a lost time and place, hers is an intimate portrait of the often suffering Lowell, the great and near great artists he attracted, his teaching methods, his private world, and the significant legacy he left to his students. Through the story of a youthful artist finding her poetic voice among literary giants, Spivack thoughtfully considers how poets work. She looks at friendships, addiction, despair, perseverance and survival, and how social changes altered lives and circumstances. This is a beautifully written portrait of friends who loved and lived words, and made great beauty together.

A touching and deeply revealing look into the lives and thoughts of some of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, With Robert Lowell and His Circle will appeal to writers, students, and thoughtful literary readers, as well as to scholars.

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