| Bart Edelman "Poetry Editors" |
David Salner "The Glory" |
Peter
Makuck
"How to Deal with Winter Dark"
First measure your mood
against, say, Mozart or Mingus
and the direction memory is likely to move.
Consider color and tempo, how you want to process
this silence that darkens and builds.
Take your time at the window
with the last orange light fading from skeletal trees
that will help you decide the score.
Then make it loud enough to reach the kitchen
and the Maker's Mark, 80 proof—
less potent but better for its first bosky needles.
Uncap, and breathe in the blue
bass cords
that blossom and color the room.
Take the one glass saved from your parents' crystal,
allow them entrance
along with other homeless figures from the past.
Pour two ounces, clunk in some
cubes
and a splash of Poland Spring.
Taste the smoky bite of that first baritone ride.
Now lean back in your best chair
and listen, just listen.
Peter Makuck, winner of the International Poetry Forum's 1993 Charity Randall Citation, is the author of five collections of poems, Where We Live, The Sunken Lightship, Pilgrims, Shorelines, and Against Distance, and two story collections, Breaking and Entering and Costly Habits. He is also co-editor of An Open World, essays on the Welsh poet Leslie Norris. His work has appeared in Poetry, The Yale Review, The Nation, The Southern Review, The Sewanee Review, and many others. He has edited Tar River Poetry since 1976. In 1996 he was named East Carolina University Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences.
[Makuck] [Edelman] [Pollock] [Salner] [index]
We rock back and forth in our chairs,
Praying for anything at all
But the lingering submissions
That hover above our heads
And cover our small desks,
Begging each day to be read
Here is one from a woman
Who lives on a farm in Ohio
And claims to adore turnips.
Her latest full-length manuscript
Is a series of "elegant" sonnets,
Commemorating the misbegotten root
In its magnificent glory.
Might we care to indulge
And publish at least a few gems,
With which she is willing to part.
A gentleman in the throes
Of a rather nasty divorce
Has sent us his poetry—
This long litany of complaints
Concerning his shrewish wife, Claire,
Who has stolen his car,
Quit her job at the Winn Dixie
And left town with the local pastor.
He informs us, matter-of-factly,
Should we choose to reject his work,
He may very well move to Peru.
Late at night, we picture
Sad faces and hear tearful pleas
Before we close our eyes to sleep.
In nets of recurring dreams
We lead the July 4th parade
Down Main Street in Anytown,
Pushing rust-colored wheelbarrows
Containing assorted pages,
Spilling out from their sides,
Fluttering so high in the wind
We cannot catch them all.
Bart Edelman is Professor of English at Glendale College, where he edits Eclipse, a literary journal. He teaches poetry workshops across the United States and was Poet-in-Residence at Monroe College of the State University of New York. Collections of his work include Crossing the Hackensack, Under Damaris' Dress, The Alphabet of Love, and The Gentle Man. Red Hen Press will publish his next volume of poetry, The Last Mojito, in the fall of 2004. He lives in Pasedena, California.
[Makuck] [Edelman] [Pollock] [Salner] [index]
Michele Heather
Pollock
"Why I Write the Way I Write"
I write in the language of dreams. Do you blame me? In dreams I can fly.
I do not reveal myself directly
in my poems. Let me explain.
Whenever I set foot in my own poems, I burst into a flock of birds.
Since you know how much I admire birds, their hollow bones and mastery of
wind,
you might accuse me of coaxing the bird-words into my lines, as if I had
that kind of power,
as if I were not as surprised as you when I sprouted feathers and took flight.
Words come to me like wild birds
if I sit quietly and wait for them to land.
Sometimes I long for the nightingale. I grasp within my heart the meaning
of its song,
though its Latin name is not intelligible on my lips when I try to coax
it to me.
Sometimes when I struggle toward the nightingale, mimicking what I think
to be its cry,
a whole flock of hummingbirds gathers, hovers around my face and hands.
Yes, I sometimes say to them. Come into my poem. And the nightingale
is forgotten.
I write in the language of dreams. Do you blame me? In dreams science and beauty are one.
I reveal myself indirectly in
poems. Let me explain.
The long wavelengths I favor reveal my love for red, the amplitudes hinting
at its intensity.
The equations I use to explain love? Solve for x and you will have the answer
to my heart.
Solve for y and you will understand the value I assign to you in my life.
The geometries into which I
fit large questions reflect where I stand on things:
sometimes square words meet nicely on the page; other times round ones circle
endlessly.
Beware! You may examine the lines I’ve written and imagine they contain
the position and momentum of great ideas. They cannot. Remember Heisenberg
and the fact that in dreams the laws of art and science are indistinguishable.
I write in the language of dreams. Do you blame me? In dreams I can converse with trees.
I lie down and wait for my poems.
Let me explain.
Whenever I set foot in my poems, the ground opens up and swallows me whole.
But if instead I set foot in a grove of trees, bend to bury my fingers in
earth, lie on my back
and stare up at the canopy of leaves, the trees will start to whisper beautiful
words in my ear, and all I have to do is listen closely and write it all
down.
Words fall onto my page like
autumn leaves. Each one beautiful.
The ones I pick from the growing pile and flatten between the pages of a
book
have a chance to retain their vibrant colors, slightly asymmetrical saw
tooth edges,
gorgeous branching of veins. But there are too many. I must choose. The
rest turn brown,
curl around themselves, grow crisp and fragile, break apart. The wind will
spirit them away.
I write in the language of dreams. Do you blame me? Otherwise you wouldn’t believe me.
Michele Heather Pollock's second chapbook, A Clean Escape into Something Else, was the winner of the Sarasota Poetry Theatre Press 2003 EDDA Poetry Chapbook competition. Her work has appeared most recently in Rockhurst Review, Water~Stone and Freshwater. She lives near St Paul, Minnesota with her husband and works as a marketing communications professional at a Fortune 500 company.
[Makuck] [Edelman] [Pollock] [Salner] [index]
Mahmoud was generous as hell,
but mixed up,
like all of us, and, well, you know cab drivers.
They always have a roll of bills—to make change
for high-rollers—as they work the fast lane
and live on dreams. Anyway,
he held more money in his hand than he had in the bank,
so when he ordered an expensive wine,
I tried to pay—but he waved me off and began
a story about this fare he'd picked up
at the airport. "Take me to the Four Seasons,"
the man said in a voice you'd recognize
without seeing his face. "It's timbre.
Dave, you wouldn't work in a factory, and I wouldn't
be driving a lousy cab, if we had timbre."
Mahmoud asked for the menus, in Farsi,
and returned to the story of how he was speeding
from Dulles, running red lights and risking his license
to make time for this man with the famous voice.
They arrived at the Four Seasons and Mahmoud
opened the door and the famous man held out a bill
like he was the last of the big-time spenders.
"Keep the change," he said, in that voice with timbre.
Mahmoud waved his hand (as if he were searching
for a nuance lost in English) above the table,
which was spread with pita and a white sauce
made of cucumber and yogurt, and then said: "Dave,
even on your factory wages, you'd be ashamed
to leave a tip that small for a cup of coffee."
An insult like that could not be ignored.
So Mahmoud made a quick choice of weapons
and aimed what he had at the famous man
who fled under the canopy for the door
of the Four Seasons—but not quickly enough—
for Mahmoud caught him dead-to-rights,
with his weapon of choice, his cab drivers' wit.
The other cab drivers exploded in laughter—
two Iranians, a Pakistani—plus the valet from West Africa.
"You were playing to the home fans," I said,
"and when the moment arrived, you weren't wordless."
To which he responded, "That's the glory
of a cab driver's life—let's drink to it."
David Salner's poems have appeared in Threepenny Review, Margie, Prarie Schooner, Poetry Daily (poems.com), ForPoetry.com, Poets Against War, 5 AM, Southern Poetry Review, and Poet Lore. His first collection of poems, The Chosen, was published by Pudding House in 2002, and his second, Mug Shots, by March Street Press will be published later in 2004. David has worked as a bus driver in Texas, an iron ore miner in Minnesota, a furnace tender in Arizona and Utah, and a power plant laborer and machinist in West Virginia. He currently lives in Frederick, Maryland and is a teacher and librarian.