This Sunday, June 22 2014, at 2 pm, I read in the Fourth Sundays series at the Claremont Public Library

What it says. I'll be reading with the illustrious B.H. ("Pete") Fairchild, recipient of many awards, collaborator with many other illustrious writers. The H stands for "Harold", and is that not truly one of the best writers' names you have ever heard?? Herald (or Fair-haired, perhaps) Fair Child. I am merely Purified Green Tree. I am very pleased to have this gig so soon after the publication of Eggs Satori; it's a friendly bit of timing. Shout-out to Sammy Greenspan of Kattywompus Press. But back to Pete. My first thought was to pick out poems of mine that are in his style--I have a few. My swiftly-following second thought was that mine were likely not to measure to up his. My tentative but dawning third thought was that I might be better off not competing with Pete, as it were. There are poems and styles and modes I write that he does not. Why not play up my own strengths, rather than invite comparison to his? I mean, the guy's a master. He's been doing this since his teens. Seriously, I think his first collection was published when he was in his 20s. I've been writing all that time also, but not solely and steadily. My doctorate is not in Litt. I have not been apprentice of nor been mentored by sundry Great Twentieth Century Poets. As Martha Graham said, if I do not speak in my own voice, what I have to say will never be expressed in any other medium, and will be lost.

An example, soon to appear in Goreyesque:

Because of his hairline’s retreating,

old Ovid declaimed, Life is fleeting,

            but Art, she lasts long.
            This he put in a song,
and found it improved with repeating.

Eggs Satori, my second poetry collection, is here.

 

Eggs Satori is finally published. The collection originally took an Honorable Mention (or was it Special Merit?) in Pudding House's 2010 chapbook contest. The publisher had a severe health crisis, and brought in her son to take on the chapbook end of things--and then he died, suddenly and unexpectedly. Pretty awful. After a few years, I sent my second collection, Burrowing Song, to Sammy Greenspan of Kattywompus Press. She picked it up and last year printed up a very handsome chapbook. Somewhere in correspondence I mentioned to her that I had another collection, though in limbo. "Let me take a look," she wrote graciously. I sent her the file, and she picked up that one too. Naturally, in the four intervening years, I had written more poems, and had stronger work to include, mealier work to delete. Sammy has brought this one into existence, featuring my photo below as cover art. In this regard (and no other) I am like Beethoven, whose First Symphony (first published and performed) was composed after his Second.

I would be charmed as hell to send you a copy. Like all Kattywompus publications, it is priced at $12. If you want a copy of Burrowing Song as well, you get a discount, two chapbooks for $20, such a deal. Just email me at KarenGM.poetry@yahoo.com with your address. I'll tell you how to go from there. I'll absorb shipping costs in the name of art. And eggs.

Below, one of the poems in this collection:

Exchange student’s ghazal

A Jewish girl, in love with old things German.

Opera, poetry, quartets for strings in German.

Streets of concrete cubes, all closed and locked.

What Kafka meant:  nothing mingles in German.

With tea or coffee, elaborate torte must be served.

For birthdays, flowers you must bring in German.

In the first warmth, all go outside bare-armed.

Shed boots and heavy coats. Spring in German.

We walked at dawn in North’s mild light.

Our little private summer fling in German.

We couldn’t understand what each one wanted.

We gave each other hurts and stings in German.

Oktoberfest.  Rivers of beer, brewery tents, ponds of piss.

Barmaids heft liter-steins and everybody sings in German.

Change your job?  Only for misfits.
No one has new wings in German.

I love you, care in vain.  Go where you are headed anyhow.

You need to live where you were born, to cling to German.

Burrowing Song emerges

The next big thing has finally arrived. My chapbook of prose poems, Burrowing Song, is in the process of being printed and bound, and should be available by next week. I say "finally" because it's been four years since my first chapbook, Eggs Satori, was chosen as a finalist by PuddingHouse Publications. PuddingHouse and its editors were hit by a number of setbacks, the worst being health crises, and they put their publications on hold--apparently, on permanent hold. Sammy Greenspan of Kattywompus Press was good enough to take a look at my set of prose poems, and accepted not only Burrowing Song but also Eggs Satori into her catalog. (ES should be coming out at the end of 2013).

But--! If you are interested, you can find Burrowing Song at www.kattywompuspress.com. If you would like a signed copy, send me your address, and make payment to pieplate8@yahoo.com at PayPal. Prose poems have been around a while, although not under that name. You may find them reminiscent of the short pieces of Kafka, or Buber, also of shaggy dog stories, fairy tales, and dreams. Who knew that most of the preoccupations of my adult life would find a place in one genre? Below, an example:

Golden Hind

Time-traveler from disco days wears molten gold space pants, astronaut-tight, catching rays and glances. She’s known at Gold’s Gym. Her pelvis leads the way across the parking lot. She’s muscle-queen of SoCal’s March heat wave, gold standard of saucy butts, she is shrink-wrapped in a Lycra blend of gold lamé, she hits her aerobic range just tugging those things on. Her 18-carat hair is the Golden Fleece. How many golden hours given for that elevated rump, those plastic alabaster arms? Not the working sculpt of dancer’s muscles, but a body for no motion at all, for beholding alone. She smiles the secret smile of the marble maidens at the Acropolis. Their eternal draperies mention rounded bellies. She basks in her own fat-free golden light. Her daughter with golden locks trails in her wake, a mirroring moon waiting for a moment of just-right, sneaking another cheesy goldfish from the foil-lined bag.

The Next Big Thing: Burrowing Song

Vieve Kaplan, friend, colleague, and poet, invited me to join The Next Big Thing, a cascade of promoting myself (read:  my work) and inviting others to do the same.

My tagged writers for next Wednesday are:  Judith Terzi, Richard Garcia, Dale Wisely, Nickole Brown, Cati Porter, and, Maria Andrade. I haven’t collected their URLs, but when I do I will post those here. Check them out too!

What is the working title of the book?

          Burrowing Song

Where did the idea come from for the book?

          Sammy Greenspan of Kattywompus Press challenged chapbook submitters to offer her unusual collections, such as a chapbook of prose-poems. I just so happen to write a lot of those, thanks to Richard Garcia’s mentorship.

What genre does your book fall under?

          Poetry chapbook, I guess…maybe weird fables, or dream book.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

          Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Robert Downey Jr., Tina Fey, Angelica Houston—those people who can play anything and anyone they want, and no one at all.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

          Apparently, I look at the world in strange, or at least unique, ways, and my sense of humor also is tweaked.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

          To write the poems, a span of four years; as we all end up saying, to perceive the poems, many more years than that. When I write, I continue to be surprised how drifts from so many different things in my life enter my words.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

          Immediately, Richard Garcia, for introducing me to the notion of the prose-poem form; more broadly, the Brothers Grimm, my dreams, German Romantics, Kafka, shaggy-dog jokes, Dada, Mitteleuropa humor, and people who speak in code because they are in danger.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

          When I’m being serious, I’m pretty funny.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

          Neither; Kattywompus Press has picked it up (after inspiring it) and tells me that it should be published sometime in 2014.