Tag: Poetry

Writing Exercise 22.1

Denton LovingLeave a comment

If you missed my previous post, please check out my conversation with Rosemary Royston where Rosemary talked about the process that inspired the poems in her poetry collection, Second Sight. She also talked about how writers should think about writing about traumatic events, and some revision tricks to make poetry sound and feel less prosaic. The poems in Second Sight combine folk traditions, superstitions, sixth sense, and the powers of suggestion and intention. Now, I’m sharing a writing exercise that Rosemary shared with me. Before you start, read Rosemary’s “Appalachian Ghazal” online at the museum of americana, and “Rumex acetosella” online at Split Rock Review.

Writing Exercise 22.1: I challenge readers to do some quick research on a superstition, belief, colloquialism, or a nagging question they’ve had, and to take what they find and turn it into a poem (or an essay or a scene for a short story or a novel chapter). It can be a narrative or list poem or even a lyric! Whatever comes out, but be sure to pay close attention to sound, imagery, and diction.

I love prompts like this one that involve a little research. For this one, I suggest writing into any superstition or belief that you already hold, but if you need more help to get started, check out ScaryMommy.com’s list of common superstitions, or Good Housekeeping’s list of 55 of the Strangest Superstitions From Around the World.

Rosemary Royston, author of Second Sight

I’m so grateful for the time and energy Rosemary took to talk about her writing and to offer this prompt. Please buy Rosemary’s book, Second Sight, available through Kelsay Press and Amazon), and give her a follow for regular updates at her blog “The Luxury of Trees.”

Rosemary is also teaching at two upcoming events, both of which I highly recommend:

February 5, 2022 — Poetry Workshop, Mildred Haun Conference, Walters State Community College. Rosemary says, “In this poetry workshop, I’m addressing the overall theme of the conference: Coming or Staying Home: the Appalachian Dilemma, by focusing on places/emotions/relationships/etc. that we wrestle leaving or staying with. So the workshop will be both place-based and universal.”

May 8-14, 2022 —Creative Writing across the Genres, John C. Campbell Folk School. Rosemary says, “In this week-long class at the wonderful John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina, participants will read, write, and discuss poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction. It is always lovely to be at the Folk School.”

Conversation with Rosemary Royston

Denton Loving6 Comments

According to Rosemary Royston’s own description, she is a poet, writer, re-imaginer of things. I couldn’t agree more, especially with that last part. Her most recent publication—a full-length collection of poetry, Second Sight, available through Kelsay Press and Amazon—is all about reimagining things. Reading the poems in Second Sight causes me as a reader to want to reimagine things too.

Rosemary agreed to answer some questions about Second Sight as well as about the writing and publishing process. Come back tomorrow for a writing prompt from Rosemary, inspired by her new collection.

* * *

DL: The poems in Second Sight are often about intuition and premonition. A number of poems such as “Mountain Hoodoo” explore rich traditions of superstition. How did you first become interested in these traditions, and why/how did it occur to you that they were ripe for poetry?

RR: Having lived in many places in northeast Georgia, I found Appalachia, where I’ve spent the last 30 years, to be full of wonderful traditions and superstitions that intrigued me greatly. Always one open to the sixth sense and the power of suggestion or intention, I wanted to know more. Where did these “spells” come from? Why did some contain scripture from the Bible (something I stumbled upon), and why were others different? These questions led me in two directions: one, asking my friends and acquaintances in Southern Appalachia for their stories, and two, doing research that ranged from academic to collections based totally on experience or wisdom passed down. There were two sources that were very rich with history and on both ends of the spectrum: Anthony Cavander’s Folk Medicine in Appalachia, and Edain McCoy’s Mountain Magick: Folk Wisdom from the Heart of Appalachia. Cavender’s text is based on significant research, and identifies the “magic” or superstitions that have a level of legitimacy (such as medical magic that uses herbs of the region), along with identifying folk” treatments” that can be confounding and not based on scientific evidence. One of the examples Cavender shared that stayed with me is the act of “passing” a colicky baby around table legs nine times to end the colic. On the other hand, Edain McCoy (an actual relative of the famous McCoy’s) recorded a substantial amount of wisdom that had been passed down from her family. So before I began crafting the poems, I did a good bit of research as I wanted to honor the traditions and be as accurate as possible. Nothing in the poems with “Mountain Hoodoo” are totally made-up by me: they are references to the texts listed in the end of the book, or based on oral traditions shared with me by those who have lived in Appalachia for the majority of their lives.

As for their ripeness for poetry, I know that the traditions of any culture begin to slip away as society changes. I do not want the heritage of Southern Appalachia to evaporate. To capture them in poems allowed me to not only practice my well-loved craft of poetry, but also pass on some of the practices that I found most intriguing.

Second Sight, available through Kelsay Press and Amazon


DL: The third section of Second Sight begins with your son’s at-first undiagnosed illness, but the section includes poems about other traumatic experiences from your life. Can you talk about the benefits of writing about trauma? What’s your process like for transforming that kind of therapeutic writing into a well-crafted poem?

RR: Early in my writing career, I had the luxury of working with Heather McHugh. I had written a poem about my (favorite) dog passing away. She read the poem and put it down and said in the kindest way, “this is too close.” What she meant was that not enough time had not passed. I needed time to grieve. To reflect. She was 100% correct. So my thoughts on trauma are to definitely journal the pain and spiraling that trauma throws us in. But then let it sit. Because if a writer does not, the writing can be too painful to process, or come out in a way that is too sentimental. Even today, when I read “Type 1” or “Sudden Awareness of Embodying the Dialectical” I may tear up. It took years for me to be able to write poetically and with somewhat of a psychic distance about our son’s near-death experience, and my own experiences in this miraculous but aging body. I’m glad I did, but processing and grieving take time, and the writer must honor that. I’d also posit that turning therapeutic writing into poetry is not unlike writing creative nonfiction. The writer must decide what details are necessary, and they must be comfortable editing details or events in order to support the essence of the poem—this includes language, chronology, and the actual event in order to convey the emotions that the writer wishes the poem to convey to its audience.


DL: One of the questions I’m asked the most, especially by poets early in their career, is how to not sound overly prosaic. What kind of craft elements do you employ to identify and modify those prosaic turns of phrase?

RR: Oh, this is a great question and extremely relevant. In the first drafts of many of these poems, I would go back and read them and see that I’d just made more or less a list of my research findings. Making the language poetic was a big factor in taking research and shaping or conjuring it into poetic form. To do this, I had multiple drafts, with specific attention to diction, sound, line breaks, and form. I think that those of us who have grown up in the South have an innate ear for sound, and we often incorporate it without even thinking about it, but I made a concerted effort to take advantage of sound. I turned some of the research I’d gathered into narrative poems. Also, I used the ghazal form, which is a Persian form that allows for repetition. Since spells often involve repetition, I found this to be an applicable form. I intentionally steered away from ballads because not only was I not good at doing them, I felt they were a form already done well by my Appalachian literary aunts and uncles. Finally, I went for the scientific—Latinate titles for some of the poems with the intent that the reader be both aware of sound and craft, but also intellectually engaged—having to read further or deduce exactly what is being described.


DL: My first book took two years to find the right publisher, and that time while you’re searching can be really disheartening. What was the submission and publication process like for Second Sight?

RR: Just as hard as the first process! However, I’m grateful for both opportunities, which took about six years of reorganizing, resending, and hoping. I was proud of myself for being more assertive this go around, though. Initially, Kelsay Books accepted a chapbook submission. But I felt that the submission was too thin for the work I’d done; it did not feature everything I wanted. I asked if they would consider my full-length, and they did! It was very rewarding.


DL: What are you working on now?

RR: Of all the questions, this one (which should be easy) was the most challenging to answer! I will always write poetry. It’s in my bones. However, I’ve found that I’m branching out and experimenting with all types of art, from mixed media, needle felting, and playing barbies! LOL. Yes—barbies. But not only in the sense of play, but also of conveying a message, which is often based on issues such as gender, feminism, and sexism. Often, I’ll “enact” the essence of a poem in one of these forms (for readers who want to see this, follow midge_and_midge on Instagram). I’ve also done some collaborative work with the painter and artist Larry Caveney through ekphrastic poems based on his paintings. For the most part, I feel like I’m in that necessary lull between poetic projects, and I’m enjoying it (as opposed to berating myself!).

* * *

My next post will feature a writing prompt supplied by Rosemary Royston, as well as more information for opportunities to study with Rosemary this spring.

Cathey Smith Bowers’ “Paleolithic”

Denton Loving2 Comments

While waiting for the snow that still hasn’t truly arrived, I finished reading Cathy Smith Bowers’ debut collection The Love That Ended Yesterday in Texas. This book was first published by Texas Tech University Press in 1992 and later reprinted by Iris Press. There are so many memorable and beautiful poems in this book, but I thought I’d share the very first one from the collection. First poems in collections have a heavy burden to speak to the overall theme of the book while also drawing the reader in. This first poem, “Paleolithic,” does all of that and more.

PALEOLITHIC

We love these old caves—Lascaux,
Altamira—and walk carefully
the way we always enter the past,
our hands bearing
the artificial light of this world.

We imagine those first hunters
crouched, conjuring luck,
carving into rock-swell
their simple art—whole herds of bison,
the haunches, the powerful heads, floating
orderless along the walls.
And some are climbing sky
as if they were stars, planets
orbiting something they cannot see.
Centuries will pass before they
right themselves, their hooves
coming down on to the deep
wet floor of leaf-fall.
Remembering where it was
they were headed.

Jeff Hardin’s “Seed Heads Bursting Gold Light”

Denton Loving3 Comments

The first book I read this month was Jeff Hardin‘s collection, Notes for a Praise Book, published by Jacar Press. Jeff Hardin’s poems are always thoughtful and beautiful, and here’s one I wanted to share:

SEEDS HEADS BURSTING GOLD LIGHT

We need to busy ourselves with memorizing autumn
in the puddles down the drive. A single
forgotten reflection
makes all the others tremble.

I didn’t think twice as a boy, lying prostrate
to watch a dandelion bend with the breeze.
Amazing!
I knew already what to do with my life.

I’d wager Solomon, had he lived nearby,
would have taken long walks in the sage grass field,
just to watch how seed heads
burst with gold light.

I’m an advocate of letting things lean as they must.
When one tree rests its dying toward another,
I go among them
to listen in and take my place.

No big difference, I say, between years that lean that way
and a shared gaze between me and some friend’s eyes.
Some weakness unspoken
may be the strongest voice we have.

Lauren Davis’s The Missing Ones

Denton LovingLeave a comment

Lauren Davis’s The Missing Ones is a slim but engrossing collection that reimagines disappearance of Russell and Blanch Warren. In 1929, the couple were driving home to reunite with their two young sons and to celebrate theLauren Davis - The Missing Ones 4th of July. Their route took them on Route 101 along Lake Crescent where they presumably drowned. What makes these poems work so well is that Davis doesn’t waste time recreating the ways the Warrens may have ended up driving into the lake. Instead, these poems give voice to the dead as in the very short poem that introduces the collection:

Blanch Says

There are dangers
in deep waters no one

speaks of. Like dark
that climbs the spine.

There’s a stain on the rock
Unfolding. I drink the lake,

all of it. I make it mine.

Many of the poems are in Blanch’s voice. In some, she gives advice, such as in “I’ll Tell You What Happened,” where she says: “Your husband has something to tell you— / you can sense it in the cold. Wait until you are both done / drowning. The build a new home.”

The idea of the lake as a home is one of my favorite aspects of these poems. A grave is a home of a kind, but the lake is a living ecosystem. Some poems reference the lake’s “population” which sometimes mean the fish in the water, or the birds outside, and sometimes it refers to others who have perished in the lake’s waters. In some poems, the idea of the lake as a home is expressed through its “rooms,” all of which suggests that the Warrens are still there, unable to die or be truly forgotten because they were never found. The idea is haunting in numerous ways, especially when the reader is reminded of the couple’s two young sons. This is expressed in Blanch’s voice again in the poem, “Have You Seen,” where she says,

My love haunts good as
any ghost. It is more
than lake deep. Boys—

I am never so buried,
gloated, hemorrhaged with blue
That I forget you.

My only criticism of this lovely book is that it’s too short. I wanted it to go on and on. I guess I could say that I, too, am now haunted by this story.

Britton Shurley’s Spinning the Vast Fantastic

Denton Loving2 Comments

Britton Shurley’s new collection, Spinning the Vast Fantastic, is a beautiful guide for spiritual sustainment in a complicated and down-heartening world. The first poem in the collection, “When I Think I’m Through with Beauty,” refers to the world as one that “gnaws us to gristle, if we / don’t work free from its teeth.”

Britton Shurley - Spinning the Vast FantasticMany of Shurley’s other poems make similar references. Shurley is not speaking specifically the restrictions and hardships suffered under a pandemic. He’s talking mostly about how hard life can be in general, and yet, these poems feel especially appropriate for our time. This isn’t because of the way Shurley sees how life can beat us down. It’s more so because of the ways Shurley finds solace. In so many of the poems, that solace is found by taking a breath and paying attention to our surroundings.

In “When I Think I’m Through with Beauty,” the beauty that surprises and pleases is a “boy who’s built / like a thick brick shit-house / spinning a whip of forsythia // just bursting with bright / yellow blossoms, while his // boom box floods the street / with velvet organ chords / of old-time Baptist gospel.” As evidenced in this passage, one of the other ways Shurley finds delight and gives delight to the reader is through sound. The language here and in every poem in the collection is stunning, filled with assonance and internal rhyme, all of which help bring alive these amazing images like this boy with his forsythia.

A recurring theme in these poems is the joy that children bring, as well as the promise for their ability to better the future, as seen in “The Red-Winged Blackbird.”

THE RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD

     Its name is a strut for the tongue.
A song that can crack the heart
     like mine did when that bird lit down

on a purpled redbud’s branch
     in Ron and Kelli’s field. This handful

of acres saved from an inland flood
     of McMansions drowning half of Indiana.
This field where chickens roam—

     Orpingtons, Wynadottes, and Rhode
Island Reds—all hunting for bugs at dusk

     by a garden of onions and melons.
And as if that’s not enough, a child’s
     on his way in fall. Now I know

I know nothing for certain, but this boy
     will be born amidst magic, in a home

where cabbage, apple, and ginger
     turn to jars of kraut so crisp
my mouth wants to shout and dance.

     I hope his name holds such a tune,
that it sings like the sound of the red-

     winged blackbird and can bare
a hyphen’s weight. Maybe Banjo-
     Nectarine or Cannonball-Daffodil Abdon.

Either way, his life will be music;
     he’ll make this cold world swoon.

One of the immense strengths of these poems is in Shurley’s ability to juxtapose the bucolic and familial against the material and trivial. With similar hope and promise, he references his own daughters, notably in “To the Harvey Weinsteins et al.” Shurley begins the poem, “Know my daughters believe in their power.” He then describes the girls performing a “spell” to bring snow and a snow day from school. “And damn, if it didn’t work,” he writes, “so that we could wake in a world / slowed and stilled for a day.” Shurley brings the end of the poem back to Weinstein—not only Weinstein but all the men he represents—warning such abusers to be careful, and to see what powers these young women have.

Spinning the Vast Fantastic is overwhelmingly an optimistic view of life. We see this in the view of young women like his daughters but also in the hope for young men like the aforementioned Banjo-Nectarine. But Shurley’s optimism is seen also by the wonders found in the world. One example is in the poem “Headless Wonder” that examines a 1945 report of a chicken who lived for 18 months without its head. Another example in the book’s title poem re-imagines an 1876 report of fresh meat falling from the sky. In “Parthenogenesis” Shurley writes, “If the ankle of the horse is holy, then so is the cow’s / cracked hoof, the sheep’s bleating tongue…” What I take away from these poems is that the world is always miraculous, even during dangerous and frightening times.

Buy Spinning the Vast Fantastic from Bull City Press.

Jennifer Stewart Miller’s Thief

Denton Loving1 Comment

Jennifer Stewart Miller’s new collection, Thief, (Grayson Press 2021) begins with the poem, “My Dead,” wherein she says, “Maybe your dead / are kinder. But mine— / they won’t look you / in the eye. Won’t / say sorry or / bare their hearts.” Such are the privileges of death, one might argue. But not Miller. Instead, Thief is a collection of poems that gives voice to the deceased. They seldom say they’re sorry, but their hearts are revealed all the same.

Miller’s poems have a history of this sort of exploration. Her chapbook, The Strangers Burial Ground, recreates the lives of historical people found in New England cemeteries. But Thief hits far closer to home. These poems are more personal. In Thief, Miller explores many different forms of her own personal grief. There is the grief that follows the deaths of her father and her stepfather. But there is also the grief of a sister lost to addiction and ongoing mental health crises. In these poems are also incredible depictions of the ways that the living manage (or are forced) to endure, often because of everyday necessity. This is perhaps best explored in her poem, “The End,” where Miller writes:

I keep coming back to how my mother
left my stepfather

at Rutland Regional Medical Center
to hurry off to the bank in Granville—

thinking she could still add her name
to some account or other by

bringing in a few shaky words he’d
scribbled on a scrap of paper.

And that was that.
After all the grand passion—

just an old married couple
trying to sort things out.

One of Miller’s many strengths is the slantwise framework of her poetry as seen in “Poems I Probably Won’t Write About My Stepfather” that hints some parts of the past are better left unexplored no matter how much they haunt us. In “This poem has a highway in it” the poem takes on geographical qualities that reveal history, and yet, like the aforementioned highway, the poem and the narrative inside it move ever forward. It’s impossible to read this poem without feeling such forward momentum that you feel part of the narrative.

Another of Miller’s strengths is her knowledge of the natural world and a gift for mixing biological details with current events and elements of her own life, as in this poem:

To the Dead Striped Bass Swimming in Sunset

Swim on, beached beauty, agog
in the chilly marsh, aglow without
scales or skin. May the jut
of your jaw, your eyeless eyes,
guide you back to the sea. May
your body—filleted of flesh—
follow so lightly. Long, supple,
golden spine. Ribs vaulted with
air and light. Moony-white tail.
Even the waves lap you a prayer—
undulate, undulate. Striped bass—
gather up my newly dead, school
with them, show them the way
out of the still-dead April grass.

And the title poem, “Thief” celebrates the masked banditry of a raccoon even though its life is fleeting. “Tonight, I’ll raise a glass to what moon there is,” Miller says in this poem, “and lick up every last tongue-full of grief.” And really, this entire collection is like a celebration of that sweet taste that comes alongside grief. How would we go on without it?

Submission Calls for Writers 2/14/2021

Denton LovingLeave a comment

submissions

This Valentine’s Day is maybe the coldest I ever remember. If you’re stuck inside, I hope this list of journals and contests will inspire you to start submitting. Until next time, stay safe and stay warm.

Litbreak
Writers are invited to submit prose and poetry to Litbreak, an online literary journal that publishes poetry, fiction, book reviews, and essays on literary subjects. All prose submissions should range from 500 words to a maximum of 5,000 words. Submission is open year-round. We pay all contributors on a case-by-case basis from $25 upward. There is no submission fee. With regard to fiction, there are no specific requirements on style and content. Some literary sites suggest you look at what they publish to get an idea of what they would accept. We would rather suggest that you look at what we have published and come up with something else. We will consider excerpts from novels. For book reviews, although we are paying special attention to contemporary releases, we won’t rule out reviews of older books or critical surveys of a writer’s body of work. For poetry, we suggest but don’t require a minimum of one hundred words. We may also accept essays on literary subjects or ideas.
https://litbreak.submittable.com/submit

Western Humanities Review
Western Humanities Review accepts unsolicited submissions of original poetry, fiction, nonfiction, hybrid work, audio/visual work, essays, and reviews year round. Because of the volume of submissions we receive, we are only able to publish about 2% of them—so please send us your best work. We’re looking for dynamic writing that engages, surprises, and moves us, work that is, in fact, out to get us.
http://www.westernhumanitiesreview.com/submissions/

Bearings Online
Bearings Online is accepting poetry submissions. We are seeking clear, accessible poetry (30 lines or less) that addresses faith, culture, or what it means to be human. Submit as a Word document to poetry editor Susan Sink: ssink (at) collegevilleinstitute (dot) org.
https://collegevilleinstitute.org/bearings/submission-guidelines/

Valparaiso Fiction Review
Publishing since 2011, Valparaiso Fiction Review is a biannual publication of Valparaiso University and its Department of English. Valparaiso Fiction Review is seeking submissions of short stories for its upcoming 2019 issues (Summer & Winter). Submissions to VFR should be original, unpublished works that range from 1,000 to 9,000 words. There is no set deadline, and submissions are considered on a rolling basis.
https://scholar.valpo.edu/vfr/guidelines.html

Booth
Booth was established in 2009. Our staff is comprised of MFA faculty and students in the Butler University graduate writing program. Booth publishes one new piece or author every Friday, square on our home page. We are now open to new submissions in all genres. All accepted work will appear on our website and may appear in our subsequent print issues. Submit up to 3 poems or up to 7,500 words of fiction or creative nonfiction.
https://booth.submittable.com/submit

Copper Nickel
Copper Nickel accepts submissions of poetry, fiction, essays, and translation folios through March 1, 2021. Please submit four to six poems, one story, or one essay at a time. For prose we do not have any length restrictions—but longer-than-normal pieces have to earn their space.
http://copper-nickel.org/submit/

Pittsburgh Poetry Journal
Pittsburgh Poetry Journal PPJ seeks work that clangs with grit, passion, and a multitude of voices. We want poems that celebrate or break traditions and strive for progress. We do not restrict our journal to Pittsburgh poets or poetry. All writers and themes are welcome! Please submit no more than three (3) poems, or seven (7) pages total. Our open reading period runs through March 21, 2021.
https://pittsburghpoetryjournal.submittable.com/submit

The Hudson Prize in Fiction / The Hudson Prize in Poetry
Each year Black Lawrence Press will award The Hudson Prize for an unpublished collection of poems or short stories. The prize is open to new, emerging, and established writers. The winner of this contest will receive book publication, a $1,000 cash award, and ten copies of the book. Prizes awarded on publication. $27 Submission Fee. Deadline: March 31, 2021.
https://blacklawrencepress.com/submissions-and-contests/

The National Poetry Review
The National Poetry Review is an annual online journal of poetry (previously a print journal published from 2003 to 2015 by our sister press, The National Poetry Review Press). Our reading period is January 1 – April 1 annually. Please submit all poems in one file. Include a brief bio with previous publications.
http://www.nationalpoetryreview.com/

Landlocked
We love found pieces, eco-poetics, works about displacement, and stories of how your body fits (or how it doesn’t) into the world. Imagism and hybrid genres, including experimental and visual works, lyric essays, and prose poems are all welcome. Please send 3–5 poems per submission with no more than 10 pages in total. We want stories of literary quality and encourage fantastic, speculative, and weird literature. Send us your most imaginative and challenging writing in 4,000 words or less. We also encourage flash fiction of 1,000 words or less. Finally, we are especially drawn to nonfiction pieces that challenge the boundaries of the genre, incorporate fictional and poetic elements, and make us question how “creative” nonfiction can be. As far as length, we prefer under 4,000 words. Landlocked is open for submissions through April 1, 2021. https://landlockedmagazine.com/submission-guidelines/

Bennington Review
Bennington Review is published twice a year in print form, Summer and Winter. For poetry, please send no fewer than three and no more than five poems per submission. For fiction and creative nonfiction, please send no more than thirty pages per submission; any excerpts from a longer project must work as self-contained essays or stories. Deadline: May 18, 2021.
http://www.benningtonreview.org/submit/

Posit Journal
Posit is currently considering submissions for late 2021 and beyond. Send 1-3 pieces of prose, including fiction and hybrids, but no nonfiction please, 1000 words or less each. However, if you are submitting very short pieces, please send us at least three to choose from. Please include a minimum of five and a maximum of six poems for us to consider. Deadline: May 31, 2021.
https://posit.submittable.com/submit 

Sunset - February 2021

Linda Parsons’ Candescent

Denton Loving1 Comment

Linda Parsons’ fifth collection of poetry, Candescent, begins as a three-legged story of grief. There is the loss of a 24-year marriage that she describes as an utter surprise after so many years. There’s the loss of her fourteen-year-old German shepherd, an ever-watchful presence that views the narrator as his sole sheep to protect until the end. And then there is the loss of her aged father.

The question of memory is just as important in these poems as the pure element of grief. How the two twist and turn upon each other! Before her father’s death, there is the earlier insult of lost memory. When Parsons visits him in his hospital, she must introduce herself. Often, he asks his daughter if they’re kin, recognizing a familiarity but unable to name her or their true relationship. Memory and its many tricks enter the poems again in the aftermath of divorce. Perhaps no poem sums up the absence of a lover better than these lines from “Phantom.”

Ghost pain, phantom pain, a limb lopped
clean, the dead bee’s sting. We are good
amputees, efficient little starfish and lizards,

regenerating feet and tails in the shadows
where no one watches us spin and weep,
where no one sees me turn a corner

in the dark before bed, giving wide berth,
my body’s radar still beeping and flashing
to sidestep a bookcase no longer there.

In “The Only Way” Parsons writes, “Honor your grief with ragged breath and privation / in the body’s dark cell despite how the blithe / world cries enough.” And that is exactly what Parsons does in these poems. She honors her grief, but she also works her way through it.

As in real life, grief doesn’t disappear in these poems in any single instant. Rather, there are many shifting moments. One of the most exciting shifts occurs in the poem, “Stand Up.”

                                   Lo these many years,
I the peacemaker, the walker on eggshells,
the biter of lips, the please pleaser, the clay
not the molder, the stream not the bank,
the moss not the rock, the stern not the bow,
queen of if only I’d said, if only I’d done.
Lo I say unto you, I’m done with sit down,
sit down, done with the broom and its dust,
old love and its rust, the future walking right
out the door. Hear me, I’m here with a voice
from the gloom, the moon-filled room, rise
of wing to beat the band, however long
I must stand is how long I’ll rock,
rock, rock the boat.

Aside from the powerful narrative that emerges in this collection, Parson’s language is always delightful. She has a knack for sounds and rhythm, and she has the skill to employ all of these elements of craft without ever taking away from the poems’ accessibility. Candescent is a power collection, a perfect beacon to help readers enter into the new year.

Candescence

Jesse Graves’ Merciful Days

Denton LovingLeave a comment

In his third solo poetry collection, Merciful Days, Jesse Graves returns to the East Tennessee farm of his youth. The land Graves writes about is also his ancestral home. Sense of place is almost a requirement for Tennessee writers, but Graves’ abiding connection to place gives exquisite life and meaning to his work. Many poems center around the loss of the author’s father and brother. Those poems are poignant in their own right, but they speak to a larger theme that flows throughout the collection: that we as individuals are only a fleeting part of something much larger and more mysterious than we can fully comprehend. This idea is evident in “Mossy Springs” where the narrator revisits a watering hole on the family farm:

…you wonder at the bloodlines
that drank here before you,
dating as far back as time records.

Hunters from the original tribes,
trackers chasing game upstream,
farmers drawn over from the fields,

and now you, looking for the lost
kingdom of your ancestors,
their eternal thirst to be found.

For Graves, this big examination of generations extending “as far back as time records” is inseparable from his own personal experience. His life is tied to the past in ways that are not completely understood even though they are tangibly felt. “Come Running” depicts this, and it is perhaps my favorite poem in this collection:

Come Running

They amble across the field, drawn to shade,
sniffing for uncropped clover and sprout,
their slowness measurable by galactic tilt.
From a distance the calves look identical,
but watch closely, and the shadings around
white faces range from salmon to maroon,
and the little curls on their foreheads
twist in tighter and looser tangles.
If a baby separates from its mother,
she calls for it like a foghorn, the lowing
anyone can tell means “find me now.”
But listen closer, and a mother can signal
her child with the slightest grunt
from the other side of the field—
no other calf will move or even look up,
yet one comes running, summoned home.

In many ways, Merciful Days is simply about the idea of memory—how memory keeps the past connected to the present and the future, and how memory sustains us through loss and sadness. Merciful Days is an elegy, but it’s not a dirge. These poems are full of joyous moments, as well as of the deepest sense of love, the kind that only expands and grows.

Merciful Days cover