Monthly Archives: May 2020

13 posts

“Eyelashes Peeking Through My Rib Cage”

minnie

Over the weekend, I read (and reread) Ben Purkert’s 2018 outing, For the Love of Endings. The book was a good match for me because it’s a.) free verse, and b.) fond of word play, and c.) mostly short poems staying on a single page.

In fact, many stay in the upper fourth of the page, giving the book a lot of space, the final frontier, in certain sections.

To give you a sense of Purkert’s style, here is a poem from the first set, one affording Minnie Mouse a cameo.

 

If I Shut My Eyes, What Other Doors in Me Fly Open
Ben Purkert

I’d like to meet my bones.
I’d strew them on a Minnie Mouse

beach blanket near the water–
her red dress, eyelashes peeking through

my rib cage. Isn’t this love: to marry
a plush background? I’d unthread

Minnie’s face, stitch it into places
I’ve lived: each hole in the wall,

each rough winter I’ve held
against my lips. I remember snow

like it was yesterday, sticking
into the night. But memory is lost

on bones. Flesh, on the other hand,
grasps what it can, while it can:

like the sea takes the shore,
dragging it by the ear.

 

I love how the bones get cast on a Minnie Mouse towel only to “peek through / my rib cage.” This, along with the play on words in “…to marry / a plush background” is signature Purkert.

Then summer is contrasted with the memory of winter, and bones (which “memory is lost on”) with flesh — flesh that “grasps what it can, while it can.”

The grand finale gives us an idiomatic personification by way of metaphor: “like the sea takes the shore, / dragging it by the ear.”

Fun. Light. Even when dark subjects are sometimes explored (and they are, in some poems). My kind of poet, in other words.

How To Get Your New Poetry Manuscript Published in 14 Easy Steps

booky

How to Publish a Book of Poems.

  1.  Begin work with 40 to 70 pages of poetry in mind. As you write, be poetic but don’t be overly poetic. Keep it simple. Anglo and Saxon over Latin and -ate, every time.
  2.  Subject-wise, say the same ole, same ole only in a new way.
  3.  Submit to poetry journals. Make sure they are prestigious so as to give your future Acknowledgments Page *pop*. Maybe something like Kenyon Review or Pleiades or Ploughshares or Agni. In a pinch, The New Yorker‘s not bad, either.
  4.  When one of these well-known journals accepts individual poems, say yes. Never hold out in hopes of a bigger bopper. A bird in the hand, and all that.
  5.  If you can be a Fellow, be a Fellow. Jolly Good is optional.
  6.  Apply for residencies and go to conferences, preferably taught by established poets who get published before their poems are even opened and read. Mix. Schmooze. Don’t drink too much. Laugh at other people’s jokes. Read established poets in advance so you can allude with accuracy.
  7.  Attend poetry writing courses taught by established poets who get published before their poems are even opened and read.
  8.  Share drafts of your poems with established poets who get published before their poems are even opened and read. Ask for feedback.
  9.  Ask a friend who happens to be an artist or one who happens to be a photographer to design your book cover. If your friend’s initials are “Chip Kidd,” all the better.
  10.  Only submit to publishers who invite you to submit. These will be the ones the established poets who… yadda yadda… publish with. Maybe something like Faber & Faber or Milkweed Books or Copper Canyon Press. In a pinch, Harper & Row Publishers is not bad, either.
  11. When your poetry collection gets accepted by the publisher who outbid all the others, don’t forget your “Thanks” and “I Am Indebted To” page where, in alphabetical order (it’s safest), you can thank all those established poets who get published before their poems are even opened and read. You know. The ones you mixed with and got feedback from and who now consider you their protégé.
  12.  Write an op-ed feature for The New York Times Book Review that has something to do with the something to do your book of poems is doing with. Send it in requesting a publication date that matches the week of your book’s debut.
  13.  Voilá! as they say in Montmartre. You are now on your way to Park Place Poetry (as they say in Monopoly).
  14.  You’re welcome.

 

Just Another Random Thoughts Saturday

will shake

What? Time for another “Random Thoughts” post? I thought so.

  • Just finished James Shapiro’s Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future.
  • The answer to that title? A lot. Starting with race, moving on to gender, class warfare, immigration, marriage, same-sex marriage, adultery, and left vs. right.
  • I loved the chapter on Lincoln, who loved Shakespeare over all else. I was probably attracted to the fresh air of a president who not only reads, but memorizes vast stretches of great literature, which he wanted to discuss with people.
  • President Lincoln’s Top 5 Favorite Shakespeare plays: King Lear, Richard III, Henry VIII, Hamlet, and especially Macbeth.
  • Being a fan of effective repetition, he liked to recite the “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” speech from Macbeth.
  • John Wilkes Booth loved Shakespeare every bit as much as his eventual victim, only JWB was partial to Julius Caesar and loved playing the role of Brutus.
  • Can you say “foreshadowing”?
  • No surprise: Booth was a white supremacist.
  • Around 10 days before his assassination, Lincoln told close friends of a dream he had: he got up from bed, walked to the East Room of the White House, and found a corpse guarded by soldiers. When he asked who it was, he was told, “The President. He was killed by an assassin.” A burst of grief from mourners woke Lincoln up from his nightmare.
  • Can you say “foreshadowing” twice in one day?
  • It’s May and states are slowly opening up, depending on the state. Here it amounted to barbers and hairdressers, but my hair had already met its match in the form of the Good Wife with clippers.
  • I hope crew-cuts are back in style.
  • On the plus side, I’ve read a lot of books since Pan came to demic all over the place. On the negative side, I’ve also watched way too much Netflix.
  • In a word: “Overrated.”
  • Watching prime time news for my daily dose of depression, I came to this conclusion: “Imagine the money we’d save on prescription drug costs if Congress banned Big Pharma from airing these #*&$%*&@ drug commercials.
  • You know, the ones that include, in rapid-fire voice-overs, warnings about that little side effect known as “death.”
  • For sanity’s sake, people need to get out of the house, apartment, condo every day, even in the rain (which is kind of fun). Nature is behaving the same as it always has. The bonus? You don’t have to antisocial distance yourself from it.
  • Unless you choose the same “nature” (e.g. the beach on a sunny and warm day) that a thousand other cabin-fevered sorts have.
  • Have you memorized a poem or a slice of Shakespeare (ring on deli) lately? If not, why not? As good as remdesivir, I swear.
  • I know weekends and weekdays have jumped in the smoothie together, but if you’re out of work and reading this at home: Have a great weekend!
  • For old time’s sake, I mean.