Tag: Poetry

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: OLIVER DE LA PAZ

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

INSOMNIA AS TRANSFIGURATION
by Oliver de la Paz

Because the night is a scattering of sounds—blunt
branches hurtling to the ground, a nest stir, a sigh
from someone beside me. Because I am awake
and know that I am not on fire. I am fine. It’s August.

The scar on my neck, clarity—two curtains sewn.
A little door locked from the inside.

Nothing wants anything tonight. There are only stars
and the usual animals. Only the fallen apple’s wine-red crush.

Rabbits hurtle through the dark. Little missiles.
Little fur blossoms hiding from owls. Nothing wants
to be in this galaxy anymore. Everything wants the afterlife.

Dear afterlife, my body is lopped off. My hands
are in the carport. My legs, in the river. My head, of course,
in the tree awaiting sunrise. It dreams it is the owl,
a dark-winged habit. Then, a rabbit’s dash
to the apple, shining like nebulae. Then the owl
scissoring the air. The heart pumps its box of inks.

The river’s auscultations keep pace
with my lungs. Blame the ear for its attention. Blame
the body for not wanting to let go, but once a thing moves
it can’t help it. There is only instinct, that living “yes.”


(“Insomnia as Transfiguration” was originally published in diode, and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)


Oliver de la Paz is the author of three collections of poetry, Names Above Houses, Furious Lullaby (SIU Press 2001, 2007), and Requiem for the Orchard (U. of Akron Press 2010), winner of the Akron Prize for poetry chosen by Martìn Espada. He co-chairs the advisory board of Kundiman, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of Asian American Poetry. A recipient of a NYFA Fellowship Award and a GAP Grant from Artist Trust, his work has appeared in journals like The Southern Review Virginia Quarterly Review, North American Review, Tin House, Chattahoochee Review, and in anthologies such as Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation. He teaches at Western Washington University.

Editor’s Note: “Because I am awake / and know that I am not on fire. I am fine. It’s August.” How could you not be blown away by a moment like that? Today’s poem is spotted with such moments, appearing between flashes of abstract images and ideas. “Nothing wants anything tonight… Nothing wants / to be in this galaxy anymore.” The idea of nothing being an entity of sorts, something capable of desire, is one such abstract idea, ever successful in its ability to get the reader’s mind to think outside the box.

Want to read more by and about Oliver de la Paz?
From the Fishouse
Guernica Mag
Linebreak
The Rumpus
Memali

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: OCEAN VUONG

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

By Ocean Vuong:


TO LOVE WELL

is to place a hand
  on another’s chest and know
  that the heart only beats
  when locked in a cage
  of bone.


DEPARTURE

Dawn cracks: a lightning bolt
carving slowly through the clouds.

All night I listened to your breath.
Even tasted your lips
when the moon turned you pale
as a corpse.
I haven’t killed a thing

since the morning
we followed gunshots into a field
peppered with sparrows. Remember
how their necks twitched
beneath our thumbs? Before twisting,
I took some time to feel

the rage of wings against palm,
marveling at such fierce resistance
to mercy. Perhaps
it was selfish—I couldn’t bear
the sound of wings
flying nowhere.

Darling, forgive me. When you wake
and begin to flutter in the emptiness
still warm from my whispers,
I will be too far
from this field
to wrap my hands around
that little bird
                               in your chest.


(“To Love Well” and “Departure” were originally published in Diode. Both poems are reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)


Ocean Vuong: Born in Saigon, Vietnam, Ocean Vuong is the author of Burnings (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2010) and is currently an undergraduate at Brooklyn College, CUNY. His poems have received an Academy of American Poets Prize, the Beatrice Dubin Rose Award, the Connecticut Poetry Society’s Al Savard Award, as well as four Pushcart Prize nominations. Poems appear in Word Riot, Diode, Lantern Review, Softblow, and PANK, among others. Work has also been translated into Hindi, Korean, Vietnamese, and Russian. He lives in Brooklyn and is an avid supporter of animal rights and veganism.

Editor’s Note: I find Ocean Vuong at once inspiring and inhibiting. Like Rimbaud before him, I am in awe of Ocean’s extreme talent and numerous accomplishments at his age, and at the same time I am inhibited by feelings of inferiority when considering both his written word and his accolades. I’ll try to err on the side of inspiration and say that I am honored to be sharing a city, a school, and a genre with this exceptionally gifted poet. Ordinarily I would share with you some of my favorite moments from today’s poems, but I am honestly in awe of every word, every beat, every line. I urge you to read and re-read today’s poems; it is like breathing a new kind of air. I also urge you to consider buying Ocean’s first chapbook, Burnings, to support both this up-and-coming artist and Sibling Rivalry Press, an on-the-rise press you should be keeping an eye on.

Want to read more by and about Ocean Vuong?
Ocean Vuong’s Blog
Buy Ocean Vuong’s book, Burnings
An interview with PANK magazine

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: KEETJE KUIPERS, REVISITED

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

By Keetje Kuipers:

THE OPEN SPACES

She said it was a place that held nothing
but sadness for her. Still, I think I could
lie down in it forever, head resting
in the sagebrush flats. I told her I once had a man

who drove us past every chapel in Vegas
threatening to turn in. But I’m wedded
to the burlap hillsides and bearded drivers
of pickups, my dog’s face the shadow

in my rearview mirror. With all this light,
I don’t need water, don’t need the river’s
green lung. I can take up the sadnesses
that surround me, these small ones

of dust in the air, of weeds that climb
the ditches until yellow is the worst
color. Semis that make the dead
bird’s feathers fly again, the deer’s tail

leap from the gravel of the road. She
can go home to the farmer’s sunless chest
under his shirt. I’ll sleep beneath
mountains still choosing which name

they want to take. If I’ve learned anything
about myself, this is where I belong:
with the dead scattered where we hit them,
the engine ticking as it cools under my hand.


DOLORES PARK

In the flattening California dusk,
women gather under palms with their bags

of bottles and cans. The grass is feathered
with the trash of the day, paper napkins

blowing across the legs of those who still
drown on a patchwork of blankets. Shirtless

in the phosphorescent gloom of streetlamps,
they lie suspended. This is my one good

life—watching the exchange of embraces,
counting the faces assembled outside

the ice-cream shop, sweet tinge of urine by
the bridge above the tracks, broken bike lock

of the gay couple’s hands, desperate clapping
of dark pigeons—who will take it from me?


(“The Open Spaces” and “Dolores Park” were originally published in The Offending Adam. Both poems are reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)


Keetje Kuipers is a native of the Northwest. She earned her B.A. at Swarthmore College and her M.F.A. at the University of Oregon. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Oregon Literary Arts, and Soapstone. In 2007 she completed her tenure as the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Resident, which provided her with seven months of solitude in Oregon’s Rogue River Valley. She used her time there to complete work on her book, Beautiful in the Mouth, which was awarded the 2009 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize and was published in March 2010 by BOA Editions. It contains poems previously published in Prairie Schooner, West Branch, Willow Springs, and AGNI, among others. You can also listen to her read her work—which has been nominated five years in a row for the Pushcart Prize—at the online audio archive From the Fishouse. Keetje has taught writing at the University of Montana and is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. In the 2011-2012 academic year, Keetje will serve as the Emerging Writer Lecturer at Gettsyburg College. At the moment, she divides her time between San Francisco and Missoula, Montana, where she lives with her dog, Bishop, and does her best to catch a few fish.

Editor’s Note: Well, this is embarrassing, but I’m determined to make lemonade out of lemons and take this opportunity to open up our discussion about poetry from today’s little mishap. You see, when I went to prepare today’s post, featuring a poet I had secured reprint permission from a couple of weeks ago, I discovered that my co-editor, who edits the weekly Friday Poetry Series here on As It Ought To Be, had shared the work of Keetje Kuipers on her series yesterday. At the time I made the discovery it was too late to secure permission from another poet, and so here we are, looking at the work of Keetje Kuipers for a second day in a row. This little blunder, however, gives us a chance to think about what draws us to poetry.

While my co-editor and I both read The Offending Adam, from whence today’s poems came. But the poem my co-editor shared yesterday actually came from a different journal altogether. Somehow both of us found today’s poet in the poetry world at large and were both drawn enough to her skill with words that we each wanted to share her work with you.

Are these poems that everyone would like? Is there such a thing? What is it about today’s poet that we both found so captivating? My co-editor and I both like Walt Whitman and Federico Garcia Lorca. Is there such a thing as a poet who is so universal in their way with words that everyone who reads them is drawn to their work? Poetry, like any form of art, is subjective. And yet, there are some who are so adept that most people agree on an appreciation of their work. Keetje Kuipers, apparently, is among the next generation of such artists.

As for me and my co-editor, it is fitting that our friendship came about as a result of our involvement with this site, and that we became friends in San Francisco, the city that houses the Dolores Park written of above. We have both left San Francisco, and yet, when it comes to poetry, our hearts and minds clearly still reside in the same place. Much love, Lezlie. Great minds clearly think alike!

Want to read more by and about Keetje Kuipers?
Keetje Kuipers Official Website

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: JARED RANDALL

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

STATIONS OF THE CROSS (UNTRANSUBSTANTIATED)
by Jared Randall

I. Jesus is condemned to death

No one suspects our empty stomachs
when shaking hands
over polished oak pews, our smiles
averting dark stains
we hide in skin creases, the body ache
we carry across
our imagined spirits, our thirsty backs
and sealed lips.


II. Jesus carries his Cross

This sanctuary cross is always empty,
a memory without body,
without panting, thirst, hanging head,
blood and sweat. No fingers
stray—too needy a gesture—to touch
his nail-scarred hands.
No slivers sink deep into flesh, sharing
the rough-hewn death.
No wine to drink, nothing blood-thick,
but watered-down Welch’s
chase stale saltines, broken in pieces
to save money. Only
our symbols, our denied sustenance.


III. Jesus falls the first time

When poorly we remember, poorly we live:
our after-church feasts,
spirits still craving a crumb of bread
until by Monday
the symbols have faded, souls thirst
even vinegar,
next communion a month, two,
three months away.


IV. Jesus meets his afflicted mother

No one from church sees us, angry-palmed,
shouting children down;
passing the beggar who will only spend
on alcohol, we know
and tighten a fist; or hungry-eyed, slipping
into video stores,
past dark paneling and plate glass windows
to little rooms in back—
thrilled and dead and rising, peeking
for eternity.


V. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry his Cross

Our shaking hands pick forbidden fruit
from outstretched arms.
When she has gone, we wake at night
and hear a crying,
pluck thorns and slivers from flesh
we feel, each quiver.
We would nail our limbs to dogwood…
the hammer too heavy.


VI. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

A cool hand on our brow traces
the shape of sin,
her hand soft over stretched limbs,
our tired eyes licking
her light, her curve, every touch.
Unheavenly angel,
never—almost—pull back,
my earth-angel.


VII. Jesus falls the second time

Eyes on our backs are not enough.
The shopping aisles white
and bleeding, we turn our faces
to stolen paperbacks
and bottles, red-letter editions
mouthed around glass
openings, fluorescent visions,
lusts we trade in, covers
we open, available confessions
we whisper.


VIII. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem

All eyes confess the shape of hips,
of necklines worn low,
the inconcealable draw of veils, lace
uncovering skin
whenever electronic eyes meet.
We wonder why girls
lose their eyes—why stars pirouette—
and we wonder.


IX. Jesus falls a third time

Touching, she began to touch, we say—
not our blame here,
having forgotten how thirsty…
How thirsty men drink
from any stream, well, fountain.
The tin cup hanging
from a rusty nail, wooden post,
falls clattering
and if she picks it from the ground
eyes follow
                         legs inside.


X. Jesus is stripped of his clothes

We look away when wives cluster nearby—
no temptations here—
but with their laughter in the kitchen
our eyes unglue the screen,
her curves shaking pom-poms
on football Sunday,
a groove we all imagine swimming,
our voices fallen.


XI. Jesus is nailed to the Cross

Each pounding rhythmic wave takes us
over the crest.
Flesh: the sight, the touch, the hunger,
our angry words
at children asking why to our backs:
why this pounding,
these nails we should not have seen?

(Let the children come…)

What did he do, did we see, pretend—
what does wine mean,
this blood spouting from nails, over wood,
this bread?


XII. Jesus dies on the Cross

Can we turn from her, turn away,
release the fist,
climb a hill outside any known city
loose with gravel,
the pit where children ride their bikes
and teen lovers meet
on nights to empty their hunger,
the thirsty ground
where people dump old appliances.
Do we admit this?
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? Must we
pound this nail
and why? Must we kneel in this dust,
say, Yes…my hammer
…see my hammer, hear my rhythms,
Eli, Eli…


XIII. The body of Jesus is taken down from the Cross

When it is over, hunger admitted,
we want more
and to eat, bread and to drink, wine
and frequent sips.
This month. That week. Every Sunday,
Friday to remember
with a body on every cross. Every tomb
empty. Open palms.


XIV. Jesus is laid in the tomb

Still we tear them open, our gaping wounds
from plucked nails,
lower the rags, wrap in white, oil
embalmed limbs.
We chew our bread softer, a weight
on shoulders
we lay down (hungry tomb) and wipe
thinned blood around
the rim, drip to earth. We wait the month,
two months, another
passing. Wait the crackers and juice. Someday
we only hope to drink
the symbols we fear incarnate. We dare
her, body’s hunger.
We dare her
                           to substantiate


(“Stations of the Cross (Untransubstantiated)” was originally published in The Offending Adam, and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)


Jared Randall received his BA from Western Michigan University in 2006 and his MFA from the University of Notre Dame in 2009 after spending a decade working in warehouses. His first book of poetry, Apocryphal Road Code, saw print in 2010 from Salt Publishing. His work can be read in Controlled Burn, Crucible, and online at Danse Macabre, Subtle Tea, and The Offending Adam. He is also responsible for the occasional blog post at Montevidayo.com. Connect with him via Facebook or Twitter at his personal blog, Wandering Stiff.

Randall resides in Michigan where urban sprawl cramps old farmhouses. When not writing about tourist attractions, roadside diners, aging factories, the future, the past, and the folk who might frequent them, he makes his living as an adjunct instructor and freelancer. He hopes you’ll keep a wandering eye open for new roads and that you’ll always lend a ride and a hand to fellow travelers.

Editor’s Note: What is this poem about? Suffering? Longing? Sacrifice? All of the above? What at first glance appears to be a religious poem upon further reflection proves to be deeper, richer, layered with the exceedingly current themes of hunger, desire, poverty, desolation, sex, and sin. People–all over the world and in this poem–are starving. They are stealing to survive. They are giving in to temptation. They are human, with human needs, desires, and flaws. In today’s poem, Randall not only weaves for us a world that is thick with meaning, but does so with moments of finely-crafted language. Moments like “a memory without body,” “When poorly we remember, poorly we live,” and “All eyes confess the shape of hips, / of necklines worn low, / the inconcealable draw of veils, lace / uncovering skin.”

Want to read more by and about Jared Randall?
Wandering Stiff
Subtle Tea
The Offending Adam

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: H. L. Hix

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

FIRST CONFESSION FROM HARVEY OF THE PIOUS AND PATRIOTIC HIX FAMILY
(After Mustafa Zvizdic)
by H. L. Hix

I didn’t mean to fall away.
I own no whit of defiance.
I am, though, afraid of everything.
Others have a lucky amulet
attached to their key chain, or,
on a necklace they wear every day,
a ring from a lover. I have my fear.
I carry it in my left front pocket,
always, because (of course)
I am afraid to leave it behind.
I couldn’t carry it with me like this
without naming it, so I call it Kasimir,
because it resembles a Russian nobleman
out of Chekhov, with serfs who scythe
his sazhens and sazhens of wheat,
but for whom each year it proves
harder and harder to find credit,
and whose estate falls each year
further, more utterly, into disrepair.
It’s me in Benton’s “Persephone,”
keeping a tree between myself
and the most exquisite human body
I will be near ever, making sure
she doesn’t know I am there,
afraid to speak, afraid to ask her name.
And I talk to myself, out loud,
when no one is near (and no one ever is).
How could they not distrust you,
you who cannot look yourself in the eye?
Even in first grade your fear was visible,
and gave away to Miss Cassandra
the failures she rightly foretold.
So I slip through the party,
shuffling sideways, with my arms
above my head to avoid bumping
an elbow that would slosh someone’s drink,
hoping to get out the door
without Whoever Notices noticing.

(“First Confession from Harvey of the Pious and Patriotic Hix Family” was originally published in The Offending Adam, and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)


H. L. Hix’s most recent book is a “selected poems” entitled First Fire, Then Birds: Obsessionals 1985-2010. Others of his recent poetry collections include Incident Light, Legible Heavens, and Chromatic (a finalist for the National Book Award). His books of criticism and theory include As Easy As Lying, Spirits Hovering Over the Ashes: Legacies of Postmodern Theory, and Morte d’Author: An Autopsy. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Texas, and currently teaches in the Creative Writing MFA at the University of Wyoming. More information is available at his website: www.hlhix.com.


Editor’s Note: What a heartbreaking work of human genius. How brutally honest Hix is–not only with himself–but with his readers. Keenly observant of both his own inner workings and of the world around him, the narrator notes that while some carry a trinket for luck or love, he carries his fear–keeping it with him always because (of course) he is afraid to leave it behind. The mindset driving this piece is almost palpable. I know and love people who approach life in this way, and I have had my own moments of awkwardly trying to escape a room, “hoping to get out the door without Whoever Notices noticing.” Relatable in its content, today’s poem is also embellished with moments of brilliant and beautiful language and imagery. My personal favorites: “a tree between myself / and the most exquisite human body / I will be near ever, making sure / she doesn’t know I am there, / afraid to speak, afraid to ask her name,” and “I talk to myself, out loud, / when no one is near (and no one ever is).”

Want to read more by and about H. L. Hix?
Like Starlings
Poetry Foundation
Connotation Press

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: HUGH MANN

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

BROTHER
by Hugh Mann

I’m not well
If you are sick

I’m not rich
If you are poor

I can’t live
If you’re not free

I depend on you
And you can depend on me

A brother is no bother
We all have the same Father


(“Brother” was originally published in organicMD, Envisioning Peace, and Poets Against War in Canada, and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)


Hugh Mann, MD is a holistic physician-poet whose website, organicMD.org, promotes peace and health by publishing Peace Poetry. His work has been published in various poetry anthologies, websites, and medical journals, including MIT’s Envisioning Peace, British Medical Journal, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Annals of Internal Medicine, Jerusalem Post, and Poets Against War in Canada.

Editor’s Note: In keeping with our recent discussion on this series about peace poetry, today’s poem is by a poet who has dedicated his life to bringing about peace through poetry. Short, sweet, and to the point, today’s poem highlights how simple peace ought to be.

Want to read more by and about Hugh Mann?
Hugh Mann’s Official Website
Envisioning Peace

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: MICHAEL HETTICH

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

AFTER THE RAINS
by Michael Hettich

So let’s say one sweaty morning you wake
in another person’s body, or you wake up without
any body at all, which means you start feeling things
as the air might do: the flight of birds
across your garden, even pigeons, makes you sing inside
your backbone; the delicate staccato of a lizard
climbing your kitchen window, the snakes
draped in your wild coffee, that come alive
like water when you step out. You feel that sometimes.
And so you walk slowly, feeling even what the beetles do
with their singular lives, and you feel what the spiders
intend by their webs, beyond hunger.
You study caterpillars, and you spend your evenings
imagining the lives of the creatures you rarely see,
hummingbirds and manatees, the foxes and opossums,
birds of lovely plumage, and you start to open up
to nothing you call it, but it’s not really nothing:
Squirrels are breathing right outside the window.
Birds are breathing as they fly across your roof.
You are the only person in your body
for a moment. What’s a moment? Where eternity resides
you think, and blush at your grandiose pretensions,
turning back, with relief, to the world.


(“After the Rains” was originally published in Perigee and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)


Michael Hettich’s most recent book of poems, Like Happiness, was published this past fall by Anhinga Press. A new book, The Animals Beyond Us, is forthcoming from New Rivers press. Today’s poem is from a manuscript in progress, tentatively entitled Systems of Vanishing. He lives in Miami and teaches at Miami Dade College.

Editor’s Note: Ah, a nature poem; a poem celebrating life and the earth! I came across Michael Hettich’s work in Perigee and was taken by all of it. The poems in that publication vary in style and theme, and I recommend heading over there after taking in today’s poem and reading them all. When I read Michael Hettich I feel alive, I ponder the nature of things, and I am renewed in my belief that life should be celebrated and the universe revered.

Want to read more by and about Michael Hettich?
Michael Hettich Official Website
Mudlark Journal
Anhinga Press

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: LAWRENCE CRONIN

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

MY FATHER WAS A WANDERING ARAMEAN
by Lawrence Cronin

Behold, I was somebody back there!
Then this guy, who calls Himself
‘I AM who I AM’, let me tell you, He
looks more like three hooligans, and
comes talking about blowing up
Sodom and Gomorrah
if “He” can’t find ten decent people.
Oy, they should be so lucky.

Back there they called me Sarai,
others called me Ishtar.
We had god-sex up in high places
on the pyramid of the moon.
None of this sordid swinging
what with slaves and pharaohs
and Abimelech!
Yech.

Behold, I was somebody back there!
High priestess of the moon
But now we have this I-AMbic god.
He, my husband insists we spell it He,
was over for dinner last night
with a couple of buddies.
I laughed them out of the tent.

I’m sure those three are thinking of
doing it again, but I’ve had enough
of this royal wife-swapping scene.
I’m getting too old for it anyway.
We’ll never settle down.
My husband should stick to sheep.

For behold, I was somebody back there,
But my father was a wandering Aramean
So was my husband, my brother
And they took me from those whom I loved,
More importantly
From those who loved me.


(“My Father Was a Wandering Aramean” was originally published in Perigee and is reprinted here today with permission from the poet.)


Lawrence Cronin: Ostensibly a practicing psychiatrist, Lawrence Cronin’s literary work is better described as that of a spiritual chiropractor working to achieve a better alignment of all our off-piste notions. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, he dreamed of migrating out west. One day on the streets of San Francisco he met a Mexican girl from the town of old Tucson. Lawrence fathered all her children and is working on a series of novels based on the Book of Genesis.

Editor’s Note: Thanks to my mom, I am immensely interested in pre-monotheistic goddess worship, particularly that of the Jewish matriarchs. Today’s poem explores this idea, reflecting on a time when the goddess was turned away from in favor of the idea of one god. In today’s post, Cronin uses humor and wit to play around with these notions from the goddess’ perspective, a dance I know my mother will enjoy. This one’s for you mama; specially chosen for Mother’s Day. Love and light, and may the goddess(es) be with you!

Want to read more by and about Lawrence Cronin?
Lawrence’s work has appeared in the following publications:
– “My Muse” appeared in Sandcutters, 2008, Arizona State Poetry Society.
– “Alzheimer’s in Triptych” appeared in Harmony, A Humanities Magazine, University of Arizona, 2009.
– “My Father Was a Wandering Aramean” appeared in Perigee, an online literary journal.
– “Cutting Grass” appeared in Sandscript, Pima Community College, 2008.

Lawrence is currently working on a novel titled Edge Of Innocence (and its four sequels), in which Adam still walks the earth, Eden is a town in modern America, and God meanders into lives almost daily, shining new light on Biblical truth in surprising and shocking ways.

Small Press Review Series: Adam Robison and Other Poems (A Call to Arms or At Least to the Continued Search for the Munitions Locker* of Meaning Where Arms Might Be Kept)

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

Adam Robison and Other Poems
Adam Robinson
Narrow House (2010), 77 pages, $12

As an editor at a small press/journal, I wage daily confrontation against the sheer tonnage of quality work out there. After awhile, you don’t always ask yourself “Is it good in some objective measurable sense?” or even “Do I like it?” but “Does the literary world need this?” Of course this leads to a more fundamental question: What kind of writing, if any, does the world need? The shelves of bookstores and warehouses of Amazon are flooded with writing someone thought worthy of publication, and yet much of it is just more words on a page. The detritus of a culture with too much time on its hands.

As I read the charming Adam Robison and Other Poems by the not-quite-eponymous Adam Robinson, I wondered why this particular book needed to be published. As the title suggests, this is a work of fourth-wall-breaking experimental postmodernism. When I say that as an editor, I am seeking “the new,” I mean the truly new, not the merely “experimental” – which as anyone versed in their Barth and Barthelme knows is neither new nor actually experimental. It is, rather, another tradition like the more accurately named traditionalism.

Let me stress that Adam Robison is not a bad book. I even have a soft spot for this type of writing; I did pay for the book. The charm in Robinson’s writing is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. In fact, it seems to directly position itself against serious interpretation. In this sense, asking whether the culture “needs” such a book is already answered, quite cheerfully, in the negative by the book itself. Its language is deliberately unpoetic and the poems tend to end on flat, declarative statements or sometimes even non sequiturs. Here are some representative endings, all as printed, without periods – suggesting that the poem’s ending is provisional or even arbitrary:

He had a pompadour or feather/A nom de plume was Johannes Climacus – “Soren Kierkegaard”

Brahms died in 1897 – “Brahms”

My grandmother is still alive – “Emma Ruth Rogers Tyner”

I know a lot about Mike Schmidt but he doesn’t know one single/solitary thing about me – “Captain Cool”

As I’ve already mentioned, and as is especially evident in the above quote from “Captain Cool,” Robinson’s prose is purposefully conversational, even comically so. From the same poem: One time Mike Schmidt hit a hit that hit a loudspeaker in Houston. That repetition is 100% grammatically correct and yet it’s the kind of move we rarely see in prose, let alone the heightened, compressed language of poetry. Or this, from “Curtis Ebbermeyer, Leading Authority on Flotsam:” What’s up with bottled water man…Boy howdy what’s the deal with bottled water. The missing commas only heighten the sense that these words have been arranged to resemble an overheard conversation, just more cultural flotsam, to echo the poem’s title. Such a tone and syntax seem to be saying, “Hey, none of this matters, but it’s kind of fun and interesting anyway.” This is a smart rhetorical position to take in this age of centerless postmodernism, but in its extreme – i.e.–when it’s used over and over throughout a collection – it leaves a reader a little sad and untethered. The trouble is that it’s not a trick meant to lead us toward the meaning at the heart of apparent meaninglessness. (See how, for example, David Foster Wallace uses postmodern means for traditional ends.) Rather, Robinson appears to believe in the meaninglessness of it all. Which leads me to the question: why a book of poetry? Is it just one more wet noodle thrown against the void? Robinson seems aware of this weakness:

My poems lack depth and complexity in which the reader can invest
They are bald things…
…Readers will grow bored and go about their day
“There’s no urgency” they’ll complain “No incision.”

And yet an admission of a book’s faults does little but reveal the impotent self-consciousness of the author; it doesn’t eradicate or reduce the faults (though it can mitigate them marginally). Robinson is not wholly without poetry, as that interesting word “incision” in the above passage suggests. Here’s a passage from one of the stronger poems:

Deathbed is one word made special for the place you die
But there is no one special place for your deathbed
On her deathbed what do you want your daughter to say
You will be so spitsoul sad
Then you will be okay
Then you will be sad that you are okay
Then mostly okay again and well this will continue
Even now I often feel sad that I am not sadder
And my worst thing that died was a dog

This piece strikes me as new and weird and truly experimental. It strikes me, which is exactly what literature needs – poems that act as a slap to our complacency. Who hasn’t felt “sad that you are okay?” And further, doesn’t it say something interesting about the paradox at the heart of Western luxury and ease that the speaker is saddened that his “worst thing that died was a dog?” And yet this is an ugliness that we rarely admit: that our lives are empty, and our poetry shallow, due to the fact that our lives are too good.

Probably it is unfair of me to insist that every book assert its necessity. When you get right down to it, Robinson and I are asking the same question: when the traditional is too retrograde and predictable to impact us and the postmodern is a dead end (and equally retrograde), where and how do we find meaning? I worry, though, that Robinson has settled for postmodern stasis rather than trying to find the hard path forward. Because I believe there is meaning in the world. People die – not just dogs – and along the way they suffer and kill and surprise with kindness, creating narratives about themselves and the world, just as they always have.


*Editors Note – But of course the munitions locker wouldn’t contain meaning itself but merely the tools to target that meaning. Or something. To append a Robinson-like ending: Oh well.

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: NICOLAS DESTINO

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

SATURDAY MORNING
by Nicolas Destino

When you live alone you can put thing s where you wish.
Alone, you can contaminate your own environment and spill
olive oil on an orange floating in the sink.
You can Sink where you want to, in your own part-icles,
part the water in your own sink, create miracles.
You can say things like excuse the mess. Would you like a drink?
When you live alone you are naked more often.
If another man is naked with you in bed, you can say welcome visitor.
If another man contaminates your environment, you can say
thanks for coming over,
and you can clean up after him with old rags
only you know where to find.


(“Saturday Morning” is printed here today with permission from the poet.)


Nicolas Destino’s work has appeared in The American Poetry Journal, The Bellevue Literary Review, Barge Journal, 580split, 322 Review, and others. He is a graduate of the MFA program at Goddard College, and his first full-length collection of poems, Heartwrecks, was released by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2013.

Editor’s Note: I have been a fan of Nicolas Destino since he was published in the Friday Poetry Series here on As It Ought To Be last year. There is a lulling quality to his work. A rise and fall of language like waves that either gently lap against wet sand or swell and crash as torrential surf. If his poems had arms, I feel as if they would wrap around me and rock me; comforting, familiar, gentle, but with intent.

Today’s poem is a snapshot of the familiar. Of the struggles one has as an individual. Self-perception of one’s own space, of one’s own independence and control. There is a beauty in Destino’s vision of what it is to live alone, and, yet, beneath the surface of that beauty is dissatisfaction with that lone existence, of an uncleanliness inherent within it.

Today’s post is dedicated to a special occasion in the poet’s life. Mazel tov and congratulations on your marriage, Nicolas. Here’s to having found love worth cohabitating for!

Want to read more by and about Nicolas Destino?
322 Review
Verse Daily