December 2009
Lindsay Marianna Walker
commentary
Marguerite Scott-Copses
commentary
David Prater
commentary
Sherry O'Keefe
commentary
Corey Mesler
commentary
Jeff Crandall
commentary
Ryan W. Bradley
commentary
Monday, November 30, 2009
Lindsay Marianna Walker
The Josephine Game
Port Maurice, April 1796
Josephine,
By what art have you learnt how to captivate all my faculties,
to concentrate in yourself my spiritual existence—
it is witchery, dear love, which will end only with me.
To live for Josephine, that is the history of my life.
I one you on Thursdays and at both elevens, and often
around dinner time.
I two you during evacuations
and afternoons when it rains. But not on Sunday mornings
or days when ladies
play Euchre.
I three of myself while you are thinking of food,
or the army, or a hidden switchback
trail back over the mountain.
I four to hate you like a steam piston hates. Though later,
love again, and the engine block.
I five someone with your kneecaps!
I six like the woman of another, though it’s probable
most of my days aren’t spent in pursuit
of the gardener.
I seven like a cattle catcher cow-powers
down train tracks.
I eight the slump that was in the ice chest
since Labor Day weekend. I feel old
and delirious and purple.
I nine all the bubbles in a bar of soap.
I ten you with holly-hocks. I ten you
with holly-hocks. I ten you
without remedy.
Josephine in the Tower
“The danger, on the contrary, lies in the subtle instant that precedes the leap…”
--Albert Camus
Heights frighten me, or rather, I’m afraid of myself
at heights. I know why the road chicken crossed.
It’s what puts my palms to the stove burners,
my tongue to the blade. Not a question
of danger, but a call to the edge.
The fact of the cliff. Its
simple imperative,
jump.
Port Maurice, April 1796
Josephine,
By what art have you learnt how to captivate all my faculties,
to concentrate in yourself my spiritual existence—
it is witchery, dear love, which will end only with me.
To live for Josephine, that is the history of my life.
I one you on Thursdays and at both elevens, and often
around dinner time.
I two you during evacuations
and afternoons when it rains. But not on Sunday mornings
or days when ladies
play Euchre.
I three of myself while you are thinking of food,
or the army, or a hidden switchback
trail back over the mountain.
I four to hate you like a steam piston hates. Though later,
love again, and the engine block.
I five someone with your kneecaps!
I six like the woman of another, though it’s probable
most of my days aren’t spent in pursuit
of the gardener.
I seven like a cattle catcher cow-powers
down train tracks.
I eight the slump that was in the ice chest
since Labor Day weekend. I feel old
and delirious and purple.
I nine all the bubbles in a bar of soap.
I ten you with holly-hocks. I ten you
with holly-hocks. I ten you
without remedy.
Josephine in the Tower
“The danger, on the contrary, lies in the subtle instant that precedes the leap…”
--Albert Camus
Heights frighten me, or rather, I’m afraid of myself
at heights. I know why the road chicken crossed.
It’s what puts my palms to the stove burners,
my tongue to the blade. Not a question
of danger, but a call to the edge.
The fact of the cliff. Its
simple imperative,
jump.
Lindsay Marianna Walker Commentary
6 Things I think when I think about "The Josephine Game:"
I used to make my parents play this game over and over when I was a kid and we lived near Chicago. Me: "I one the Sears Tower." Dad: "I two the Sears Tower," "blah blah blah" Dad: "I eight the Sears Tower." Me: "You ATE the Sears Tower? Hahahahaha." And every time it was hilarious. It still hasn't gotten old, in fact.
Euchre is a fun game. I wish more people played it everywhere.
Jaime Sabines
In stanza 8 "Slump" = "plums" (anagramish stanza from William Carlos Williams's "This is just to say." I stole it cause I love it.)
I knew a lady here in Mississippi who, during the Civil Right's movement, went down to the polls to vote. She had to "take a test" before casting her ballot. The question the city officials asked her was: "How many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?" Seriously. Needless to say, she didn't get to vote. There were some other crazy ass questions she got asked, but I've forgotten them now, sadly.
If my love life had a footnote it would be stanza 2 of "Variations on a Theme By William Carlos Williams" by Kenneth Koch:
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.
4 things I think when I think about, "Josephine in the Tower:"
1. I used to watch a lot of Road Runner and Coyote cartoons when I was little - a lot.
2. Once a lady yelled at my little sister for horsing around near the edge of the Grand Canyon. My mom got mad at the lady. I observed the whole scene from a reasonably safe distance.
3. I am fascinated by people who lick peanut butter off the knife.
4. My little gas stove and its hand-sized burners.
Lindsay Marianna Walker is a Ph.D. student in English at the University of Southern Mississippi. A finalist for the 2009 Walt Whitman Award for her manuscript, the Josephine letters, she has served as Poetry Editor for the literary journal, Juked, since 2005. Her poems have appeared recently, or are forthcoming, in: The African American Review, Valley Voices, West Branch, The Southeast Review, Gulf Stream, and others. Winner of the Center for Writers 2009 Joan Johnson Award for Fiction, she has published stories in: Smokelong Quarterly, Pindeldyboz and 971 Menu. Her play "Boy Marries Hill" is included in Gary Garrison's guide to playwriting, A More Perfect Ten.
I used to make my parents play this game over and over when I was a kid and we lived near Chicago. Me: "I one the Sears Tower." Dad: "I two the Sears Tower," "blah blah blah" Dad: "I eight the Sears Tower." Me: "You ATE the Sears Tower? Hahahahaha." And every time it was hilarious. It still hasn't gotten old, in fact.
Euchre is a fun game. I wish more people played it everywhere.
Jaime Sabines
In stanza 8 "Slump" = "plums" (anagramish stanza from William Carlos Williams's "This is just to say." I stole it cause I love it.)
I knew a lady here in Mississippi who, during the Civil Right's movement, went down to the polls to vote. She had to "take a test" before casting her ballot. The question the city officials asked her was: "How many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?" Seriously. Needless to say, she didn't get to vote. There were some other crazy ass questions she got asked, but I've forgotten them now, sadly.
If my love life had a footnote it would be stanza 2 of "Variations on a Theme By William Carlos Williams" by Kenneth Koch:
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.
4 things I think when I think about, "Josephine in the Tower:"
1. I used to watch a lot of Road Runner and Coyote cartoons when I was little - a lot.
2. Once a lady yelled at my little sister for horsing around near the edge of the Grand Canyon. My mom got mad at the lady. I observed the whole scene from a reasonably safe distance.
3. I am fascinated by people who lick peanut butter off the knife.
4. My little gas stove and its hand-sized burners.
Lindsay Marianna Walker is a Ph.D. student in English at the University of Southern Mississippi. A finalist for the 2009 Walt Whitman Award for her manuscript, the Josephine letters, she has served as Poetry Editor for the literary journal, Juked, since 2005. Her poems have appeared recently, or are forthcoming, in: The African American Review, Valley Voices, West Branch, The Southeast Review, Gulf Stream, and others. Winner of the Center for Writers 2009 Joan Johnson Award for Fiction, she has published stories in: Smokelong Quarterly, Pindeldyboz and 971 Menu. Her play "Boy Marries Hill" is included in Gary Garrison's guide to playwriting, A More Perfect Ten.
Marguerite Scott-Copses
No. Final Answer.
A single sun, all else was orbit;
Spanish class was the back of his neck.
He'd have done me such a favor
To grab my wild arms, to make me toss the paintbrush,
the baton, the penning-it-even-now story
I wanted to write in his name's sake.
Had he held my hands, not in love,
but in earnestness, and said, "no,"
"no.... I don't"
I might not have believed in magic,
might not have insisted I could come back
from the next in a series of sad moments,
like the one, in my room, studying for pre-cal,
while we listened to the Smiths,
and drank Italian soda,
the back of my palm casual against his knee,
and how he picked it up, placed it back
in my lap, and mumbled, eyes on the page
"I can't concentrate with you touching me."
How hard to know then, what I still
don't know now, did he ever love me?
And how I still want to disguise that line,
to say it some other way--
Alguna vez me amas?
Que el nunca me amas?
What if I'd been brave enough to ask
yes or no, plain as this poem?
What if I'd been brave enough to listen
The sun, so silent in its sky.
A single sun, all else was orbit;
Spanish class was the back of his neck.
He'd have done me such a favor
To grab my wild arms, to make me toss the paintbrush,
the baton, the penning-it-even-now story
I wanted to write in his name's sake.
Had he held my hands, not in love,
but in earnestness, and said, "no,"
"no.... I don't"
I might not have believed in magic,
might not have insisted I could come back
from the next in a series of sad moments,
like the one, in my room, studying for pre-cal,
while we listened to the Smiths,
and drank Italian soda,
the back of my palm casual against his knee,
and how he picked it up, placed it back
in my lap, and mumbled, eyes on the page
"I can't concentrate with you touching me."
How hard to know then, what I still
don't know now, did he ever love me?
And how I still want to disguise that line,
to say it some other way--
Alguna vez me amas?
Que el nunca me amas?
What if I'd been brave enough to ask
yes or no, plain as this poem?
What if I'd been brave enough to listen
The sun, so silent in its sky.
Marguerite Scott-Copses Commentary
I recently submitted a packet for the much-dreaded "third-year review" process at my university, and I put my current manuscript in what's called the "supplemental binder." It included this poem, and many others about adolescence and early discovery/loss. After having turned it in I felt so vulnerable...like I'd put my childhood wounds on display for the entire department. I talked to a good friend and colleague about this, and he joked that "Come Visit My Childhood Wounds," was the almost-title of his first book. I guess there are some things we just can't get over about those years. I'm fascinated by the ways in which adolescence is such a blur, something like what Virginia Woolf calls "being blown through the Tube," but how, also, time becomes so crystallized by key moments that roll over us again and again. I wonder about what our emotional memories do to these moments, how distorted and energy-charged they become through time. "No. Final Answer," is about one such memory. Cue the Smiths, "Well I wonder..."
Marguerite Scott-Copses is a native of Charleston, SC where she currently teaches composition and poetry at The College of Charleston. She earned her Ph.D. in Creative Writing from The Florida State University and her work has appeared in Feminist Studies, The Journal of Poetry Therapy and The Green Hills Literary Lantern. But, she thinks these career facts much less important than her role as a new mother. Her days are spent, mostly, juggling classes, jotting down new surprises on scratch pieces of paper, changing diapers, and laughing at the absurdities of love intersecting with stress.
Marguerite Scott-Copses is a native of Charleston, SC where she currently teaches composition and poetry at The College of Charleston. She earned her Ph.D. in Creative Writing from The Florida State University and her work has appeared in Feminist Studies, The Journal of Poetry Therapy and The Green Hills Literary Lantern. But, she thinks these career facts much less important than her role as a new mother. Her days are spent, mostly, juggling classes, jotting down new surprises on scratch pieces of paper, changing diapers, and laughing at the absurdities of love intersecting with stress.
David Prater
The Germ! The Germ!
Love episode of a strange nature;
as usual, with badluck [sic] to meh.
- Bernard O’Dowd, writing to Walt Whitman.
i have a germ inside meh (love i have a gun
inside meh (bang i have a truth inside meh (
death i have a life inside meh (born i have
a seed inside meh (tree i have a leaf inside
meh (air i have a girl inside meh (oh i have
a heart inside meh (boom i have two germs
inside meh (blood i have a ghost inside meh
(peace i have a dream inside meh (depth i
have a charge inside meh (light i have a man
inside meh (shame i have a coup inside meh
(stop i have a breeze inside meh (chain i
have a fire inside meh (road i have a bomb
inside meh (we i have a past inside meh (no
i have a watch inside meh (yes i have a but
inside meh (worm i have a mole inside meh
(shock i have a plane inside meh (sky i have
a scene inside meh (egg i have a sun inside
meh (ah i have a you inside meh (love i have
a germ inside meh (love i have a germ!
Love episode of a strange nature;
as usual, with badluck [sic] to meh.
- Bernard O’Dowd, writing to Walt Whitman.
i have a germ inside meh (love i have a gun
inside meh (bang i have a truth inside meh (
death i have a life inside meh (born i have
a seed inside meh (tree i have a leaf inside
meh (air i have a girl inside meh (oh i have
a heart inside meh (boom i have two germs
inside meh (blood i have a ghost inside meh
(peace i have a dream inside meh (depth i
have a charge inside meh (light i have a man
inside meh (shame i have a coup inside meh
(stop i have a breeze inside meh (chain i
have a fire inside meh (road i have a bomb
inside meh (we i have a past inside meh (no
i have a watch inside meh (yes i have a but
inside meh (worm i have a mole inside meh
(shock i have a plane inside meh (sky i have
a scene inside meh (egg i have a sun inside
meh (ah i have a you inside meh (love i have
a germ inside meh (love i have a germ!
David Prater Commentary
"The Germ! The Germ!" is from an unpublished MS called Leaves of Glass, which is loosely based on correspondence between Walt Whitman and the Australian poet Bernard O'Dowd in the 1890s. In these letters, O'Dowd revealed much about his inner desires and passions. The title of the poem is taken from O'Dowd's poem "Cupid" in which he concludes:
"So that it live The Germ ! The Germ !
It matters not to me
If sheep or tiger, man or worm
Earth's victor-captain be."
David Prater's publications include The Happy Farang (self-published, 2000), We Will Disappear (papertiger media, 2007) and Morgenland (Vagabond Press, 2007). He is managing editor of the online poetry journal Cordite Poetry Review.
"So that it live The Germ ! The Germ !
It matters not to me
If sheep or tiger, man or worm
Earth's victor-captain be."
David Prater's publications include The Happy Farang (self-published, 2000), We Will Disappear (papertiger media, 2007) and Morgenland (Vagabond Press, 2007). He is managing editor of the online poetry journal Cordite Poetry Review.
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