Poetry In the Marketplace--Literally

 

Fresh herbs are where it's at in the open air market

Chinese or Asian eggplants in the farmers market

Marketplace

 

Thin blondes and their teacup Yorkies yap

next to the baby beets, the bunches of purple basil.

A wannabe-Dylan’s harmonica whines,

but these organic buyers don’t look back.

By the heirloom potatoes, fitful typing chatters

as the Unheard Poet taps out a poem,

free, for anyone who asks, plus a bill or two for Art.

He is taking the Basho challenge on his dusty portable Olivetti.

Hipster skulls twitch on his brown suede sneakers,

and he works his toes as he hunts and pecks his way.

Behind him, a puddle holds a scrap of lettuce

            floating in its mirrored milky sky. 

Rowdy Seniors Close Down Poetry Reading, Get Booted from Bookstore

Signing copies of TBL for Stephanie and for Sherry

McKenna DeLucca, much-tried bookstore manager, and Mark Givens, my esteemed publisher

 Last Saturday, September 9 2023, I threw a book launch party for The Beautiful Leaves at the Claremont Forum's Prison Project Bookstore. The Prison Project sells donated books to fund prisoners' requests for books. (The most requested book? Dictionaries.) It was a great afternoon. Official start time was 2:00, but we kicked off at 2:20 to give people a bit of time to gather and to buy books. Mark Givens, my publisher at Bamboo Dart Press, introduced me warmly (and told me privately that he thought this was a really good collection, and that it gave him ideas for expanding the purview of his press). 

I read five poems. I selected them on the fly, so I could gauge my audience’s response. I found myself avoiding the poems I wrote closest to his death—not really for read-aloud. Nancy Murphy commented that my poems sounded conversational. It’s true that I strive to write the way I talk, which is sometimes conversational, sometimes more elevated and holding forth. Left over from having taught pre-docs, I suppose. It’s also true that I am a fairly experienced reader, so choose poems that read more conversationally. The more intricate poems work better on the page, and that’s where I leave them. It is also true that it takes a lot of craft to sound artless.

Partly because of my age, most of my friends are seniors. The rest comprised friends from all parts of my life:  high school, acupuncturist, voice teacher, psychologists, poetry people, people affiliated with the Cal Poly Chemistry Department whom I met through Walter, friends who are simply friends. People drifted, congregated, saw old friends, talked with new people, milled around. Then the manager received a call—three calls—from Claremont Forum board members. They were ‘concerned’ about people blocking the aisles. It was at this point that I noticed a camera surveying the bookstore. Apparently board members can monitor the feed. The manager apologetically asked me if I could ask my guests to leave those spaces clear, in case some emergency arose and the place had to be evacuated. I thought to myself that the board apparently hadn’t minded people in the aisles before my event started, when the bookstore was so full of people milling around in the center space that I had trouble entering. But anyhow. My guests fitted themselves into a bay, rather the way you arrange yourself in an elevator, talked and sampled refreshments, ventured out of their improvised compound to buy the bookstore’s books. Then the much leaned-upon manager told me that the board was insisting she stop the reading, or else close the bookstore. I read another set, a little grimmer this time. My daughter and friends packed up the refreshments while I chatted with folks and signed some more books. We were out by 4:00 instead of 5:00.

How often do you get to say, “Dude! Raging seniors kicked out for partying too hard! Whoot!” Walter would have been proud.

The Beautiful Leaves, the book arrives

 

You’ve been hearing me talk about this collection for a few years, and now it is about to see light of day. The Beautiful Leaves , the collection of my poems about my beloved last husband Walter, will be published on August 8 by Pelekinesis Press (specifically, the Bamboo Dart division). Usually, I feel somewhat constrained about promoting my collections, but not this time. I feel that I am honoring Walter as he deserves. I feel also that my particular take on death and dying is not one you commonly encounter, and that my approach might strike a chord with other bereaved folk.

If you would like me to sign a copy and send it to you, please send $12 ($9 for the book, $3 for packaging and mailing, to my PayPal account, pieplate8@yahoo.com. Be sure to include your address in the notes. If you prefer Zelle, send me an email to the above address, or leave a comment, and I’ll send you the account number. Venmo also works:  @karen-greenbaum-maya. Of course, if we will see each other soon, or if you are planning on attending my book launch, or any of my readings, then just the $9.

I am so happy to have this collection come out. Walter loved the poems I wrote before his death, and I am glad to leave testimony about him.

Everything new is old again

 

We're getting into the time of year when my dear husband, Walter Maya, declined and died. This photo speaks for itself, including the little flourish of flowers apparently growing out of Walter's head:  his playfulness, his imagination, his ability to take what was in front of him and make something good out of it.

And this pertains to writing how? I am in the thick of making a collection of poems about him, mostly directly, and incidentally about mortality and decline. There's a lot of that going around. My memories and preoccupations have always been influenced by the time of year. I wonder if it is the slant of the light and the length of days, but who knows--not me. Anyhow, I am writing new poems about him and adding them to the older poems. I've always written about death and decline, even mortifyingly early on. In the years since his diagnosis with cancer, I wrote very few poems that were not about loss and change, his changes, losing him.

 As a psychologist, I performed neuropsychological evaluations. Which is to say that I used my experience and the available tools to answer questions about changes and difficulties in other people. You might say that I was peculiarly trained, suited even, to notice his changes, his losses, and therefore my losses too.

So, since the last time I posted in this blog, I've been steeped in thoughts and feelings about who Walter was and about the hole his death has left in my life. I do believe I'm making progress in this project, this book-to-be. I don't know if the smaller or larger worlds care about such a thing, but it's what I need to be doing.

It's ART, for heaven's sake, not widgets

There is a new practice I've noticed among editors using the submission manager Submittable. No complaints about Submittable, by the way. It seems to be a good engine for organizing and tracking the hundreds of submissions editors of a given journal might receive during an open reading period. That part is fine. Lately, though, editors of said journals have taken to using only Submittable to advise writers of the writers' submission status. No emails. Not even a tacky and insensitive form email. (See:  Co-Axial Reply to a Snippy Form Letter, http://www.riddledwitharrows.com/issue-1-4-toc/poetry/#reject) Just a change in  status, of which no notice sent to the writer, so you have to check in at Submittable to find out if there is any news. 

A paying market is a rare place. I understand the economic realities of publishing poetry; supply/demand comes to mind. But it is art, and it's hand-made, so to speak, and we folk who work on writing it give a lot of time and devotion to bringing it forth. And not only is poetry art, we write it essentially for the love of it, for free. How dreadfully hard can it be to send out an individual email to the rejected writer? or the accepted one, for that matter? Just two months ago, I nearly missed an acceptance from  B O D Y, a very cool venue that is open to some of my weirder productions. And these editors are extraordinarily gracious and supportive. They paid me the compliment of rejecting an earlier submission by telling me that the work wasn't as good as my best work, so they weren't going to take it. And they were right!

So OK. I've incorporated checking my Submittable account into my daily routine. But I do miss the one-to-one notifications, and I do not find the new efficiency an improvement. 

30/30 in a word cloud

In case you ever wondered if there are words you use frequently--too frequently--there exist some marvelous programs on the web that will map out a given text visually. I don't mind the words I'm repeating, and I'm glad that there are so many I used only once. The text here was the entirety of the poems I wrote in October for Tupelo Press's 30/30 project. That is correct:  thirty poems in thirty days. I can't quite believe that I did it, but the poems are there to prove it. Now, to revise and edit.

My usual unreasonable self-criticism

Day 26 and I find myself second-guessing. The last few days I've posted lighter poems, rhyming and playful--and I'm asking myself, where's some depth? Where's some insightful epiphany that illuminates some  corner of the world? Jeez. I do get tired of being on the wrong side no matter what side I'm on.

It's a Book! Part 2: The Book of Knots and their Untying is here--and ready for you

At last. After nine years of writing and who can say how many years of living, my first book length collection has been published by Karen Kelsay of Aldrich Press. You can get it through Amazon (click the link) or I can mail you a signed and dedicated copy. You can pay through PayPal at pieplate8@yahoo.com. btw, thanks to Lynn Maya for wearing the shoes that provided me with the cover photo.

If you wish, click on the link at the upper left, just for the hell of it, and read the truly kind and generous things that Richard Garcia, Charlotte Davidson, and, David Ebenbach have written about my poems.


Below, the title poem:

Knots and Their Untying 

See how easy others write of knots.

Books show pliant ropes

lying over and under. Loaded knots

cannot be undone by crushing.

Always the challenge, pulling against holding.  

For mathematicians there are no knots, only

the counting of loops and crossings.

All knots are Gordian, made to slice.

Knot knuckle netting knitting: 

not one related to another.

Sounds entwined

yet nothing ties the words together. 

I learned knots that would not hold

in the enduring mystery

of tying my shoes.

Others found it easy, quick.

My unclever fingers worked

to manage the weaving.

Hold pinched what you cannot see.

Pull tight, not too soon, not too slow.

Untying a knot, easy

as talking to people who do not listen.

Persuade the fold to release both parts,

though the center promises to hold forever
against tugging and anger, hunger and haste.

Each knot works to be one though it is two,

two moving back to back,

mirrored without looking,

craning to catch the other pretending to oneness.

Tie a knot for memory, to outwit

the gap between you and your desire

when it eludes you, reminds you

             it is not you     it is not yours   

You are not the string around your finger,

holding close what wants to flee.

Step out of your shoes, unbind your feet.

Time to walk away.

I am very very pleased also to note that this poem received a Special Merit award in the (prestigious) Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial poetry contest sponsored by Comstock Poetry Review. I made it to the top 10! out of more than 1000 entries!!

Verses and Flow 2015, sponsored by Lexus, part 1

Ya gotta hand it to Lexus for sponsoring this performance series. This is the fifth season that they have presented half-hour shows of performance poets who know who they are and where they are from. The crowd trends under 40, black, and friendly. Thank you, Delvis, for offering me your seat when my heels overcame me, and for offering to get me a drink. It was another exhilarating event. Once again, the color was violet.

Poetry is alive and well and rocking at the Siren!

Tomatoes in poetry

At the Claremont Public Library poetry reading today, from Krista Lukas:

I was up early today wondering which to describe,

the fruits or the mold. I kept a bowl of tomatoes

 so I could write about them as they rotted.

from "Patio Tomatoes" in Rattle http://www.rattle.com/poetry/patio-tomatoes-by-krista-lukas/

The Four Questions (nothing to do with Passover)--or--the nature of work

Women making dumplings to order
--right there, on the spot, before your eyes, not until you have placed your order--
at FFY Noodle House in Rowland Heights, California

A long-time poetry friend tagged me to post on this my blog my answers to four questions about my writing. As soon as I figure out how to access her blog I'll read her answers too. Here are mine:

1. What Are You Working On?

 

A book-length collection, The Book of Knots and Their Untying; three different sestinas that resist closure; poems about death; poems that are not about death.

 

2. How Does Your Work Differ From Others In Its Genre?

 

I keep bringing in the psychological angle. Actually, I don’t have to bring it in; it shows up as soon as I start thinking. Also, when I seem to be most ironic, then I am being most accurate and direct. Also also, I write a lot of sardonic sonnets and literary limericks.

 

3. Why Do You Write What You Write About?

 

I write about what I notice. I write about why I notice what I notice. I try to explain to myself why something is remarkable, or weird. I write to give voice to what we are not supposed to notice.

 

4. How Does Your Writing Process Work?

 

Sneakily, mostly. Kicks in at the last minute. Maybe I’ll circle around and around, returning to some draft for three years. Or write a sonnet in an hour. Or free-write, and return to it months later. Or play Minesweeper for an hour and then write what I was trying not to think about. Or I’ll achieve that semi-trance state in which I am following an imaginal thread, swinging and grabbing the next metaphorical vine, almost taking dictation, ignoring what seems to be a disjunctive image or thought and then swerving back to it and hearing it out. All the while ducking the voice that says, That’s not a real poem. Or telling it to shut up.