Borrowed Trouble: Micro Tribute to Larry Levis (1946-1996)
I wouldn’t write at
all if it weren’t for myriad writers before me whose works showed me what was
possible. The poems of this series are small offerings of respect, of thanks,
to those muses. – Brian Beatty
Larry Levis
New Harmony, Indiana,
1995.
Our afternoon game of pool lasted
well into the night of the student poetry reading
we agreed would be better off without us.
The bar jukebox blared the Allman Brothers’
“In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” on repeat as if to bring
her
or this failed utopia for three-two beer back to life.
Low-point townies followed me into
that toilet’s toilet to share their idea of an elegy.
Until you appeared at the men’s room door to give me my cue.
Brian's most recent collections of poetry are Dust and Stars: Miniaturesand Brazil, Indiana. Don't miss Brian's columns on the great poets: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.
According to Wikipedia, stream of consciousness is "a narrative mode or method that attempts to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind of a narrator".
According to Tobi, this is what I think about when I’m not sleeping or writing.
Thank you to everyone who commented on the blog post, Facebook, and email, and voted for your favorite color for Sanity Among the Wildflowers. Twenty edited and updated poems, a font you can read without reading glasses, an afterward about the history of the book, fifty-two pages, $5. THANK YOU Rich Soos, for your infinite generosity.
Based on your opinions, and the cover artist’s opinion, we went with red. There are some wildflowers the exact shade of red that was used, so it makes sense. For anyone who notices that I deleted a comment below…it was my comment. It had a typo and I couldn’t edit it.
To all you wonderful writers, may your first chapbook give you as much happiness as this one gave me - twice!
Speaking of cover artists, three years ago, Judith Ortiz from Hondo, TX designed the cover of somersaults with life by r soos, writer, editor and publisher extraordinaire. To celebrate the end of National Poetry Month 2019, you might want to order it. The cover is a joy. You know the poems inside will be too. 152 pages. $5.
Even though there are just a few days left of Poetry Month to finish your 30 poems in 30 days, write baseball poems, put poems in your pocket, etc. - don’t forget to pay your bills! I’m the first person to quote Ron Carlson Writes a Story, about getting your butt in a chair and writing; you’ll be writing by candlelight if you don’t take care of the bills. So yeah, forget vacuuming, forget cleaning out the garage, but open that pile that’s been sitting at the end of your desk (unfortunately for me, I also got stuck being on the phone with multiple doctors and multiple 1+800 phone numbers…if your insurance changed this month, take care of that too).
Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 12th. You may have a tradition for this. You may not celebrate. One thing we do for many holidays is
pick a perfect photo, make a card at Walgreens, and glue-stick a perfect poem
inside. Seriously, all you need is a poem, a glue-stick, and a $2.50 card made
with a sentimental photo. “Sentimental” means whatever works the best for that
person. It could be a 1936 Buick, or a wedding photo. Likewise, the poem. As
long as it’s short, it could be a beautiful three-line poem like Rich writes. It
could be a lovely bayou poem like Jeff writes.
Or enough about your poems, if there’s a special poem by
someone else that would fit in a card, use that. Just be thoughtful about the
length. “What I Like in a Man Besides a Mustache” by Diane Wakoski might be odd
for Mother’s Day, and you’d have to print it in 4pt font.
Let’s talk about books for a second. We all probably have
favorites that we think someone else would love. You would be celebrating
National Poetry Month by buying a book by a favorite writer, and celebrating
Mother’s Day by sharing that book (I JUST got a text from Jeff from Barnes
& Noble saying Adam Zagajewski has a new book out, and ours will be coming tomorrow. Happy Mother’s Day to me!).
If you’re on Facebook, you might want to send a friend
request to a writer you like. That doesn’t mean you have to participate in
their conversations, but you may find the journals that accept them, journals
that don’t, and questions they may have.Be thoughtful about who you choose. If you’re not a fan of politics, or
cat pictures, don’t friend the person for whom that’s their life. By friending
a new writer, you will see posts by other writers they know. The circle can grow
wider and wider, a lot of it will be interesting, and if/when you have
something to say, writers you respect will read you.
Likewise Facebook groups. There’s a closed group called
“Calls for Submission (Poetry, Fiction, Art)”. A LOT of the submissions are for
online journals. Some are print. This isn’t the place to get in an argument
over online vs. print. Consider it one more resource for submissions and submit
to the ones you want.
And finally, friend the journals that appeal to you. You’ll
get updates on submission windows, themes, contests, and so on.
Keep writing!!! Think of anything new to write about? Think
of any new forms to try? Just because National Poetry Month is almost over,
that doesn’t mean you should stop writing.
My stats for the month:
Only two poems written. I like them a lot, but in terms of batting averages
that kind of sucks. Both are free verse. Neither are about baseball L
One 1098-word piece of short fiction written. This needs one
more edit, and it‘s ready to go.
Three submissions made. From the “Queen of submissions”,
that’s shameful! I did get a few acceptances for submissions made prior to
April, and I did receive a few contributor copies, but as they say in
“marketing land”, if you don’t keep the pipeline full, it’s going to dry up.
As you know from above, my very first chapbook from 2005,
Sanity Among the Wildflowers, has been reprinted. Yes, I edited all the
poems, and proofed it, but the home run for this, and all the thanks, goes to
Rich!
Prompts for May, if you’d
like:
Title: This is the part of the story I left out:
Subject or line: All through the city, losers find salvation
For all teachers getting ready for finals, good luck to you.
For all parents and students getting ready for finals, good luck to you too.
For all upcoming June graduates, congratulations!!!
No excuse to stop writing!!! Do your very best, and enjoy!!
- - - -
Tobi Alfier's most recent collection of poetry is Slices Of Alice.She is also co-editor with Jeff Alfier of the San Pedro River Review. Don't miss Tobi's columns on the craft of poetry: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.
Borrowed Trouble: Micro Tribute to Raymond Carver (1938-1998)
I wouldn’t write at
all if it weren’t for myriad writers before me whose works showed me what was
possible. The poems of this series are small offerings of respect, of thanks,
to those muses. – Brian Beatty
Brian's most recent collections of poetry are Dust and Stars: Miniaturesand Brazil, Indiana. Don't miss Brian's columns on the great poets: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.
John Brantingham has spent a lifetime wandering the High Sierra,
and in this poetic tribute he invites us to hike and backpack beside him and
his artist-wife, Ann, through an iconic landscape—from Mineral King to
Huckleberry Meadow, Kaweah Gap to Alta Peak, Mist Falls to Moro Rock. Along the
way, he captures a sense of place that’s both immediate and deeply rooted in
memory.
John has a straightforward, conversational style that’s like
talking to a good friend. You get the feeling you’re sitting across from him
while he enthusiastically tells his stories from the backcountry. In the title
poem, he talks about “the emotion of this place in high summer”—
the way it makes you turn inward,
the way you get that church
feeling,
the one you always wished you’d
found in mass
when the priest would swing his
mitre of incense
but you never did, and that was the
reason
you knew you had to leave it
behind.
The natural world he knows so well abounds in mystery. In “Half
an Hour on Silliman Pass,” he writes:
…Annie points to a hawk
circling down below us. It’s a
hundred feet
above a meadow, and we watch it
hunt
until it plunges into our unknown.
We talk
about how life is always a mystery,
how most of what happens is just
out of sight.
Evoking the unseen, his poem “In these Autumn Caves” begins:
This autumn, as the dogwoods
in the High Sierra glimpse me
into a sense of what color can be,
the stream that flows past me
seeps also downward into a cave
that no human will ever see,
into a world of rock, water, and
creatures
that have lived only there
for 50,000 years, becoming animals
of darkness with their own passions
and dreams.
What they know, we will never know.
What they dream, we will never
dream.
In this volume, you’ll meet bears tearing apart logs to
devour termites, and a coyote who “had so much/of his life ahead of him he
could just let/time pool around his heels.” You’ll become acquainted with sugar
pines and manzanitas, snow plants and turkey vultures, and feel the region’s mounting
losses—the vanishing glaciers, the devastating fires.
There are moments of humor, too—like the poet’s memory of
his boyhood self dancing on the edge of Moro Rock and singing his favorite
song, “Salt Peanuts, Salt Peanuts.” Or the sense of geologic time being like a
slow motion bossa nova by Jobim.
In the end, there’s no separation between poet and landscape.
As John says in “Several Miracles of the High Sierra”:
One of the miracles being
that once I enter the forest,
I am the forest and the memories
and fears and joys I bring
are the forest as well.
Last and certainly not least, this book is a love story. It
begins with a dedication to Ann, and ends with “Sing the Frogs,” a poem that ties
the High Sierra to the time when their relationship began. Crossing The High Sierra is a satisfying read for both mind and
heart.
John Brantingham is
the first Poet Laureate of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. He has
authored ten books of poetry and fiction, and his work has been featured in
hundreds of magazines. He teaches at Mt. San Antonio College. He and his wife,
Ann, teach poetry, fiction, and art classes at the Beetle Rock Center in
Sequoia National Park’s Giant Forest. Learn more at
Book Reviewer Cynthia Anderson lives in the Mojave
Desert near Joshua Tree National Park. Her poems have appeared in
numerous journals, and she is the author of seven poetry collections. She
co-edited the anthology A Bird Black As
the Sun: California Poets on Crows & Ravens. www.cynthiaandersonpoet.com
You may have heard me say before how much I love making
chapbooks. How they’re shorter so they can be read in a sitting or two, they
don’t get boring, and you have more control over them.
If they’re self-published, you can decide on the cover
yourself, make up a name for “your” press, price them reasonably, be sure you keep an archive copy for
yourself, and learn something new every time. I hope the story of this
book inspires you to make one. Once you get started, you’ll be on the road to
chapbook happiness, and you’ll never look back!!
Here we go…
I’ve been writing since dinosaurs walked the earth. That
doesn’t mean it was any good, just that I’d been doing it. In 2005, I began to
read at weekly readings, and submit my work for publication. I always say that
every poem has a story behind it, and if you want to know the story, ask me at
the break. No one ever asks. The same is true about why I started reading, and
publishing. It’s sad. It’s personal. If you want to know, email me at sprreview@gmail.com. I will
not be offended if you don’t ask.
One weekend I was at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, and I
happened to meet Jack Grapes. Jack is a well-known, larger-than-life poet and
teacher.The final project for his
Beginner’s class was to make, and turn in, a chapbook. Well heck!! I’d been
thinking that it was time I started making my first chapbook; this was an omen!
As I’d been going to readings, I’d been buying chapbooks
from the featured poets who I liked. I had been keeping notes of what I liked
about some of them.
So…
I knew what poems I wanted to
include,
I wanted the title to be the title
of one of the poems,
I wanted the cover picture to be
one of my aunt’s. She’s a fabulous artist.
I didn’t know anything about the computer. I knew I’d need
my mom’s help with everything from the Table of Contents to everything else. I
named the press AV8TRX Press in her honor, because she’s a pilot. I also named
it Carpeted Stones Press for no reason. I liked it.
My mom found a press out by her in Calabasas who gave her a
price of $300 for a box of 100. DONE!!! My greatest joy was learning that the
guy who did the printing made an extra copy for himself, and he read it on his
lunch breaks. Fourteen years later that still remains one of my greatest joys
(and yes, I am a dork).
What
I Have Learned Since Then, Otherwise Known As Don’t Make The Same Mistakes I
Did…
Don’t let ANYONE but you
proof the manuscript before printing a hundred copies. That means first
line, last line, period at the end, ALL punctuation, even the colors of
the printer. Printers can be calibrated, and it can make a huge
difference.
It may look “more
professional” to have your entire poem on one page, but as a poet friend
said to me “do you want to look more professional? Or do you want to be
kind to your readers?” 10pt font is TINY. I have never done that again.
Old Days
In the “old days”, we
learned to put two spaces after a period. Now it’s appropriate to put one
space after a period. Do whatever you want, but be consistent. In Windows
you can do it by using “Home”. “Replace”.
Likewise em dashes. I know
there’s a way to do them on the keyboard, but you could give me a million
dollars and I won’t be able to do them. Use “Insert”, “Symbol”, “More
Symbols”, “Special Characters”…the first one is the em dash…,”Insert”,
“Cancel”, (done).
There’s “self-published”
and “self-published”. My books were great. I turned one in for my class
and I was proud of it. But now, I have two left. One I sent to Rich for
his library, and one is in my archive “after I’m dead” box.That’s it.You want to make sure you get an ISBN
number so your book is available on Amazon, and maybe Barnes &
Noble.com and some libraries. The ISBN number will be listed inside your
book, on the page with your publisher information on it. Why do you do
this?
Because if people like your work, they are going to look you up and buy every work of yours that they don’t have. And if your book was self-published in 2005, they probably won’t be able to find it now.
Why I’m so very thankful to Rich Soos and Cholla Needles
Press:
Rich is going to reprint
“Sanity Among the Wildflowers” for me.
My voice is still the
same, but I have learned a lot about writing in the last fourteen years. I
will have an opportunity to edit all my poems, give them better linebreaks,
bettter punctuation, and a decent sized font so we don’t have to include a
pair of reading glasses with every copy.
pretty cute picture
I have gotten married!! I
can use my married name, update the dedication, update the ridiculously
short bio, unfortunately update the pretty cute picture 😔.
I will have an ISBN!!! So
from now on, anyone looking for me will find me!! I’m doing the happy
dance, and I hope you do the happy dance too. Chapbooks are a blast! Ask
me anything you want to know and I’ll be thrilled to tell you!!
AND
because of technology and democracy you can help Rich and I decide what color scheme works best with the updated version of "Sanity". We can have the plain vanilla white-edged cover as above, again - to maintain the "feel of the original", or we can have one of these more colorful covers: Please comment and let us know which meets your eye the best =:-):
- - - -
Tobi Alfier's most recent collection of poetry is Slices Of Alice.She is also co-editor with Jeff Alfier of the San Pedro River Review. Don't miss Tobi's columns on the craft of poetry: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.
We are releasing the 28th issue of Cholla Needles!
On April 14, from 3-5 PM at Space Cowboy Books, YOU will be our featured reader. We are celebrating the arrival of issue 28 with all the local poets who appear in the issue, and any member of the community who wishes to be part of this celebration of National Poetry Month. Bring a poem with you and let's celebrate our love of poetry of all kinds as a community! See you at Space Cowboy Books. We all look forward to hearing your work!
Borrowed Trouble: Micro Tribute to Denis Johnson (1949-2017)
I wouldn’t write at
all if it weren’t for myriad writers before me whose works showed me what was
possible. The poems of this series are small offerings of respect, of thanks,
to those muses. – Brian Beatty
Denis
Johnson
Nights
I had too many beers
I would
declare war on streetlights
the
color of those Tibetan salt rock lamps
new-agers
now claim ease tension.
Please. Respect my fear and intelligence.
I’ve
slept off nothing. Passing trains
rattled
the faux wood walls of my studio apartment
with
outdoor furniture dragged upstairs,
trains
clacking louder than any gun.
Undergrads queued up to die along those
same tracks.
Brian's most recent collections of poetry are Dust and Stars: Miniaturesand Brazil, Indiana. Don't miss Brian's columns on the great poets: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.
Yes, this reviewer has to look up the word azimuth. What I find is, “the direction of a celestial object from the
observer.” What I get from reading Lisa Mednick Powell’s poetic memoir is the
trajectory of a life—an azimuth made up of many roads and journeys, jumping
backwards and forwards in time, all happening at once and all leaning into the
wind.
Lisa blends prose
and poetry, plus her own artwork and photos, to tell her story. A veteran of
the music business, she starts young and takes big risks to realize her dreams.
“When I quit school in 1978, I gave up almost everything for music,” she says. In
“New York/New Orleans,” she relates, “I bled on my keyboard and sax reeds. I played
hard enough to hurt myself—I felt I had to. I am sure I hurt some other people
too.”
Yet wherever she
goes, she finds affirmations—“I met bums on the bowery who told me I was
blessed.” An old man on the Southern Crescent train stares hard at her, seemingly
understands what’s at stake, and offers, “You’ll do just fine.”
She tours in the U.S. and Down Under with The Chills, crisscrosses
Oklahoma with the Red Dirt Rangers, and plays with more other bands than you
can count. And in between, she travels some more. “Quintana Roo/Yucatan,”
contains this vivid description of visiting Chichen Itza:
You can climb that inner flight
of stairs and get very close to the past…you will never think about time the
same way…Once you glimpse into the deep past, it never leaves you alone and you
carry it with you like a fossil in your pocket. Your own distant past and
recent experience move toward each other and you feel a window start to open.
Her years in Austin
include playing with James McMurtry and Ray Wylie Hubbard. One night the actor
Matthew McConaughey is in the audience and screams her name repeatedly—she
ignores him, not knowing who he is. She leaves part of her heart in Texas,
recounting:
There is a soothing quality that I always feel performing on a wooden
stage in an old hall with sawdust on the hardwood floor. When I play a waltz
with a good band in a Texas dance hall, I get lifted off my feet. I get to
dance with all the cowboys.
Her spare, taut
writing cuts close to the bone. The last piece in the collection—a long one
titled “A Plastic Orange Raincoat, a Little Drool of Blood, & Chaos on the
Girl”—wanders the azimuth using wind speed as its gauge and ends in 2008 when
she lands in Western New York, taking a break from the music business and earning
an MFA. That’s why this book exists.
A bonus is that each
prose vignette begins with a great quote from a great songwriter. But the prize
is Lisa’s writing. She knows what she’s doing, and she’ll take you on a ride
you won’t forget. And by the way, she’s a great songwriter, too.
Lisa Mednick Powell is a musician and
songwriter who lives in Twentynine Palms, California with her husband, bassist
and songwriter Kip Powell. Together they have a band called Arroyo Rogers,
playing country hits from the 60s and 70s plus their original compositions.www.lisamednickpowell.com
- - -
Cynthia Anderson is a poet & writer in the Mojave desert.
Don’t think this is exclusive to parents. You could be a
grandparent, teacher, nurse, doctor, librarian…even a barista or waitstaff at a
family friendly restaurant. Anywhere you are in a place to ask “oooh, what are
you reading?” you are in a position to inspire. Anyone who is younger than you
is a “kid”.
Inspiration Example:
I spent most of Wednesday in “Health Insurance Hell”. At one point I said to
the very nice woman “I can tell you anything you need to know about 401(k)
plans, but I know nothing about insurance.” “Yeah, I need to start saving”, she
said. That was all I needed to hear. At the end of our conversation, I was no
longer crying in frustration, she’d learned something, and I felt like I’d
inspired her to start saving for retirement (yes, I am a dork). It wasn’t
reading or writing, but I hope it was inspiration.
It works that way with poetry – this IS National Poetry
Month after all – and it works that way with fiction, short fiction, memoir,
any kind of writing, and reading…JUST because we are focusing on poetry this
month doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to keep “kids” excited about anything to do
with words! (In my opinion 😍 ).
In April of 2008, Prism Review, published by the University
of La Verne, had a “Sleepover Issue”. The submission window was open for 24
hours, and the issue was printed the next day. Jeff and I submitted. My nine-year-old
son Owen submitted also. Jeff and I were accepted. Owen was not. We agonized over how to tell him. When we
finally did, he threw his clenched hands up in the air in victory, and yelled
“NOW I’M A REAL POET!!!!”
My poem from The Prism Sleepover Issue (somewhat inspired by
the art of Belgian artist Jean - Michel Folon, a favorite artist of mine and
also a favorite of my wonderful Aunt Debbie, a gorgeous artist herself):
Surrealist, Mon Amour
I
A ladybug lands on her
collarbone.
He wants to lick it off her,
get some good fortune for
himself.
But she unrolls the window,
tells
him to gently help the
ladybug free.
He picks it up with
fingernails—square,
like unopened Valentines, the
same way
he makes his bed—precise.
Her collarbone free, she
tells him
to lick it anyway, and she
drives straight,
the car honing a razor’s path
through desire.
He does not wear scent.She leans toward
him anyway.Wants to take a picture of him
in front of the window and
kiss his neck.
II
The label in her shirt says
13 years married.
She tucks it in and pours a
glass of wine,
it makes no difference.Change is heavy.
When she empties it out of
her purse
she walks lighter, looks at
the cherry blossoms
in the valley of hearts.Hearts floating like
paintings of melting ice
cream between
green and purple hills. Her
roll of stamps
also has cherry blossoms but
they are for
right-handers.She awkwardly pays
her debts and otherwise does
kind things.
She has left-handed scissors
and a left-handed
fish knife.No one else thinks about this.
III
They can’t take their eyes
off their hands.
They talk about them over and
over until
their hands become
organic.They would
name them, but then the
beautiful
sea-creatures of them might
come alive,
undulating in their
exhalations
and changed breaths.What would be
the explanation—they do not
know, and they
take turns raising them to
their lips, his finger
innocently yet deliberately
stroking
the inside of her wrist, her
pulse keeping time
with their unspoken words and
unblinking eyes.
Time is interesting.So is quiet.So is the sea.
THAT’S inspiration, and what we need to do.If you teach a group, or are in a group, whether
it’s practicing English in an ESL class, or practicing typing…it doesn’t matter. Make a project for yourself (try and get
extra credit, what the heck?) Take a group of people, tell them to go outside
and write what they see, or write what they hear. When they come back in, show them what makes a line break…it’s
not like how you breathe, it’s how you put an important word at the end of a
line, and a teeny unimportant article at the beginning…Remember: not everyone watched “Conjunction Junction” on TV…you may
need to explain what an article is. Even if you’re not a teacher, and God knows
I’m not one, you can explain an article.
Have everyone read their work out loud to themselves all at
the same time. It’ll be noisy for a few minutes but so what? MAKE IT FUN!!!
Before they know it, they’ll have a poem! It may be horrible but who cares?
It’s National Poetry Month and they’ll have a poem!!
Seeing the way people write will give you intel on authors
you can suggest to them. Not necessarily poets…authors. And here is where you
shouldn’t worry too much about the age of the people you’re talking to and the
authors you suggest. My nine-year-old read books from the “Tweens” section all
the time. He read all the Harry Potter books, All the Eragon books, The
Chronicles ofNarnia, The Boy in theStriped Pajamas (which he’s now reading in German), and so on.
The same works for you!! What do you like to write? Make an
effort to read that way too! Are you a narrative poet who likes to write about
food? Read “Garlic and Sapphires” by Ruth Reichl. Read Jim Harrison’s “Roving
Gourmand” books. Read (and submit to) anthologies and journals focusing on
food.
Like magical stories? Read “Crescent” by Diana Abu-Jaber. Southern
works? Poets Jack Bedell, Dixon Hearne, William Wright, Tyree Daye. Fiction
writers up one side and down the other. And on and on. There are a ton of
gorgeous books and authors who write in and about Northeast Canada! Annie
Proulx, Howard Norman, poet Ross Leckie, The Fiddlehead, a journal based in New
Brunswick…”Our editors are always happy to see new unsolicited works in
fiction, including excerpts from novels, creative nonfiction, and poetry.”
Fiction writers, memoirists, and poets! Read them all and be
inspired by them all. Before you know it, you’ll have written a poem with some
sadly beautiful woman sitting at a copper bar, tapping her nails on the counter
as she waits for a Kir Royale, and you’ll realize the drink was inspired by a
book by Georges Simenon!
Now let’s just say you do work in a restaurant, and you see
someone sitting alone at a table reading a book. What harm does it do to ask
them “oooh, what are you reading?” Is it the worst thing to have them feel like
they are not eating alone? (Note: If
it’s “The Story of O”, or any book that raises the hair on the back of your
neck, have someone walk you to your car when your shift is over).
You can’t have
writing without reading. Why don’t you bring someone along with you on
your journey? Kids, adults, book club members, writing group members…help match
them up with what might resonate with them. They will remember you forever.
They will read forever, and hopefully, they will write forever.
- - - -
Tobi Alfier's most recent collection of poetry is Slices Of Alice.She is also co-editor with Jeff Alfier of the San Pedro River Review. Don't miss Tobi's columns on the craft of poetry: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.
