Poetry Pick with Kelsey

It's Springtime, Elise, and You're Missing All of It

Not the expected robin, or the ragged deer
stepping from the woods
to lip the new green—

but rather the girls in bikinis who stand
in Tallahassee traffic, lifting Car Wash signs,
their pert behinds a greater glory
than pollen count, or
even gravity.

Boxing ring girls, sans spangles,
they leg in heels from corner to corner,
the culmination of suffragettes
and Betty Friedan, their every step

a violin’s reel in the orchestra
of the sunny day, a glare
that makes me lower my shades against it all.

You’d say it was a word like heartbreaking—
how in the coffee shop
the young man’s shirt is open just enough
to see a flash
of curling hair—

Either that or tasty—

Let me put it another way—

even though you’re not sitting here,
the bored policeman directs traffic,
the strolling dogs sniff from ass to ass,
the telephones still ring.

-Rebecca Hazelton

Come see more of Rebecca and Hadara Bar-Nadav's work this coming Thursday, November 3rd, at 7pm in Beaverdale Books

November 3 Reading: Jennifer's Pick

Although my favorite poem in Hadara Bar-Nadav's A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight is "Companion Piece," it's a longish poem--too long for a blog, perhaps--so I've picked a second favorite to include here. Hopefully Hadara will read "Companion Piece" when she's in town for the next YAPRS reading, November 3rd, 7pm, at Beaverdale Books.

GOD OF STARVATION

The iron and rolling pin
           press me paper-thin.


I'm almost a millimeter
           of cotton string.


Almost liquid,
           almost a leak.


Permission to worship
           glorious transparencies.


I'm in love with the ant and skink,
           animals that hunt the ground.


The shrimp and oyster call my name,
           mud and oil in their mouths.


           I'm forbidden to writhe or crawl.
           Forbidden to put pig flesh in my mouth.
           Must throw lobsters back.


When I'm thin, thinner than water,
           not even God recognizes me.


But oh, the page,
           the string, the sea.

Mariah's Pick

The following poem is from Hadara Bar-Nadav's book entitled A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight.

The Last Gesture

My hand grew as big as a house.
It was heavy to carry
and drag through the streets.

I staggered across the lawn
on gravel-burned knees
to watch the home
I could no longer enter.

My wrung wrist turned blue.
My shoulder bled.
Skin tore up my neck
and split open my eye.

I had given too much.
I had taken too much.

The hand grew
as the sky grew,
hand the size of wind

expanding until it was no longer
my own, until the weight
buried me.

Hear more of Hadara's poetry at the reading on November 3rd, 7:00 p.m. at Beaverdale Books.

Get to Know the Poets: Hadara Bar-Nadav, November 3

Hadara Bar-Nadav is the author of two books of poetry, A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight (Margie/Intuit House, 2007), winner of the Margie Book Prize, and the forthcoming The Frame Called Ruin (New Issues, 2012). She is co-author, with Michelle Boisseau, of Writing Poems, 8th edition (Pearson/Longman, 2011). She teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

We asked Hadara a few questions in anticipation of her reading with Rebecca Hazelton on November 3rd--here's what she told us:

Do you have a favorite book that people who know you or your work might not expect you to like?  I’ve been reading and re-reading Emily Dickinson’s Collected Poems, as well as her letters.  Her language is so wonderfully strange and evocative and fresh.  Reading her poetry makes little lights go on in my head.  I always find something new.

Is there a poet whom you wish more people would read?  Yes, Helene Johnson, a fantastic poet from the Harlem Renaissance. Like many accomplished women poets of the period, she was unable to publish a collection of poetry in her lifetime.  However, Verner D. Mitchell edited This Waiting for Love (U Mass, 2000), a collection of her posthumously published poems—and it’s brilliant.

If you were holed up during an Iowa blizzard and you could choose only one person with whom to ride out the storm, who would it be and why?

My husband and my poodle (does that count as 2 people?).  They are great at keeping me centered, happy, and calm.  Plus, my poodle is very warm and great to cuddle with when it’s cold.  

What drives you and/or your poetry?

I suppose what drives me has changed over time and might even change depending on the poem.  Right now, I’m working on a manuscript of elegiac poems that riff off of Emily Dickinson’s poetry.  So that project is driving me now, as well as exploring the elegy, discovering its language and form, and considering mortality, which I suppose we all must do eventually.  I’m also simply inspired by Dickinson’s fantastic and weird language, her electric, elastic syntax, and her absolute bravery in the face of loss and death.

If you weren’t a poet, what would you be?

If I weren’t a poet, I’d be a painter.  Equally realistic and lucrative, I know. I was a painter for many years, but have found that I don’t really have the time I’d like to, to invest in it.  I channel my love of art into poetry.  Both my first book, A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight, and my forthcoming book, The Frame Called Ruin, are largely inspired by visual art.

Vlad's Staff Pick Poem- Rebecca Hazelton

This is just a teaser of Rebecca's amazing poetry.


You Say the Burning Bush is Rhetoric

So what would you have me do? Flick his thigh
and wrestle him to the ground? You can't pin

a god. Such a thing unknots your hands, unweaves
your braided structure. Water can be wine as easily

as I might be a cricket chirping to the luminous bug zapper,
Oh Big Light, you are so very large. But you find even this

small bit of God vulgar, especially the cricket. God might
as well be a fingernail clipping. Cut the cricket —

just as the landlord trimmed a limb from the camphor tree.
For days our bedroom smelled like lip balm,

the kind I wore as a teenager to protect my mouth
from the rigors of unanswered lust, kisses that wore

me down until — how can there be no God, even a small one,
if you are always singing his name? You're not listening;

let me chirrup closer and I'll spell it out on your skin,
then you'll climb into the camphor's branches,

rhetorically, shake the leaves, and rustle its medicine down on me



Don't miss your chance to hear more of Rebecca's work, as well as that of Hadara Bar-Nadav, at our November 3rd Reading at Beaverdale Books!

And our first place reader, Joel Nathanael, reads his poetry and will do so again at one of our upcoming reading events at Beaverdale Books! Congratulations, Joel!

Peter Ripple, second runner up from last Friday's poetry benefit, reads his poems titled "Love Next Door" and "Fuck Poetry."

YAPRS Benefit Reading

The Younger American Poets Reading Series hosted a benefit last Friday at Mars Cafe.  The event presented an opportunity for local poets to read their work.  At the end of the evening, Stacey Waite selected Joel Nathanael as the winner of the benefit contest. Joel will be reading more of his poems at an upcoming YAPRS event at Beaverdale Books.  If you couldn't make it to the benefit, here are some recaps. 

Stacey Waite started the event by slamming a poem.

Christine Her, the 1st honorable mention, wows the audience. 

Peter Ripple, 2nd honorable mention, gives everyone his take on poetic history.

Joel Nathanael wins the evening's contest.

Stacey slams a final poem, bringing the evening to a close. 

Get to Know the Poets: Rebecca Hazelton, November 3

Rebecca Hazelton attended The University of Notre Dame for her MFA in poetry and completed her PhD at Florida State University.  She completed a fellowship year as the Jay C. and Ruth Hall Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Creative Writing Institute. A nominee for Best New Poets 2010, she currently teaches at Beloit College in Wisconsin.

We asked Rebecca a few questions in anticipation of her reading with Hadara Bar-Nadav on November 3--here's what she told us:

Do you have a favorite book that people who know you or your work might not expect you to like?

I feel like most of my reading choices show up in my writing -- my circular obsessiveness and overriding concern with love very much stems from an early exposure to Marguerite Duras, whose book The Lover (as well as The North China Lover,  and The Ravishing of Lol Stein) had a huge effect on my ideas about love and about writers (probably to my detriment). I read lots graphic novels, I read comic books, fantasy novels, blogs on science fiction, Victorian novels...none of that is terribly surprising because elements from that show up in my work (apocalypse, transformations, concerns with sexuality). I suppose the surprising thing might be that I have a soft spot for male writers who write in an aggressively macho way--Frederick Seidel, John Updike, a little Henry Miller here and there--the kind where it's not clear whether that attitude is a sort of posturing or an uncompromising honesty. 

Is there a poet whom you wish more people would read?

Frederick Seidel -- he doesn't need your financial help, but he's a fascinating read and just as worthy for how he might aggravate you as for how he might please. I'm in awe of Inger Christensen's Alphabet, and I think that's a poet a lot of American readers aren't aware of. I really like what I've seen of Angela Vogel, whom I first ran across as an editor at The Southeast Review.

If you were holed up during an Iowa blizzard and you could choose only one person with whom to ride out the storm, who would it be and why?

I need more parameters. Do I have food? Do I have shelter? What's the warmth situation? If we're talking some sort of cozy bungalow deal, that's one thing, but if it's dire, I want a survivalist. Someone who is going to know how to make a shelter out of sticks and discarded Cheeto bags. Who always has fire at the ready. Who can kill animals I don't find cute. Whose skill at survival is only exceeded by his need for a good woman who understands him.

To what do you aspire in your writing?

For someone to read the whole poem. Seriously. I want to write lines that compel the reader to go forward, either out of curiosity or for sheer enjoyment of sound. Then I hope to god they have a desire to reread. That sounds so basic, but I think if we boil it down, that's what most writers want -- to be read, to be read with attention, to be remembered. Not to be speaking to indifference.

What drives you and/or your poetry?

The poems I write are usually a result of me trying to tease out what I think about things. I find verbal communication difficult. People who have met me might find this a strange statement -- I'm pretty talkative and social -- but to actually convey feelings, thoughts, and not just be funny, entertaining, pleasant? Really damn hard. My mouth sometimes cannot even shape the words. The more I care about someone or something, the less I can speak. I don't think in words, I mostly feel, which is a hard way to live, for me.  So poetry is a way to find language for those things I can't say out loud, to articulate the roaring in my ears when I am upset or the flush on my cheeks when I am embarrassed or ashamed. Many of my poems take contradictory positions, and in those I am often trying on different scenarios, to see which one feels "true" to me. 

If you weren’t a poet, what would you be?

This is a terrifying question.

The YAPRS Fundraising Challenge Is Back!

Dear YAPRS Fans:

We have two more readings left in the Fall 2011 Series, and yes, we're still fundraising! To help meet our goals for the fall, we're offering a special gift--if you contribute $50 or more by November 1st, we'll give you a signed copy of your choice of the books authored by the poets reading this fall. Just donate by one of the methods below, then email us at youngeramericanpoets@gmail.com with the title of your chosen book.

To donate:
1. Send a check payable to Metro Arts, 305 East Court Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa 50309. Include a note that the donation is for YAPRS.


or  

2. Visit the Metro Arts Alliance Homepage to enter your desired donation amount and to pay by credit card. Donate here! After your payment is successful, please remember to email youngeramericanpoets@gmail.com with the name(s) of all donors you wish to be credited by Metro Arts for your gift, and the amount gifted. Gifts donated without a reply-confirmation will still be processed by Metro Arts, but will not be applied directly to the Younger American Poets Reading Series. Please, help us by letting us know after your donation.