The losses in this book are several, including a group of poems in memory of musicians. Several others recall the poet’s parents, to whom the book is dedicated. Bond, a classical and jazz musician himself, gives us a mother whose hands wear music as gloves and whose body becomes a radio. The father he paints is both the young warrior in Europe fighting for the flag and the dying man whom a petrified son finds already unreachable. The extent to which those we love give form and meaning to the universe we inhabit is trenchantly and compellingly explored in each of these poems. The poet’s voice, sometimes singular, sometimes plural, is placed and displaced in the universe by the departure of these important figures. Bond writes, “I eat, sleep, move about, / forever losing my place in the sky,” dramatizing a displacement of the self that seems also to upset the structure of the universe. That the world can seem meaningless when those who crafted that meaning depart it, forces the voice back into a one-sided dialogue, talking to the man in the hospital bed and all those already gone. Another poem ends, “as if the silence / of things were their readiness, their ears,” and we can feel, and finally understand, that the silence of the loved one amputates the self’s comprehension of the world.

Read this book for the beauty of its rhetorical observations, the surprising turns of its language and images, or if you’re having a hard time, have ever had a hard time, and want proof that it is universal, and can be beautiful.

—Jasmine V. Bailey

9:00 pm – 10:00 pm

LOCATION: Topics Cafe, 2122 N Halsted St, Chicago, IL 60614
COST: Free

32 Poems and Smartish Pace present contributors Todd Boss (SP), Geoff Brock (32), Victoria Chang (SP), Carolina Ebeid (32), Luke Johnson (32), Rebecca Lindenberg (SP), Erika Meitner (32), Mary Quade (SP), Natalie Shapero (32) & Eric Smith (SP) in a battle royale of heavyweight poets. Join us for drinks, verse, and a celebration of two of the nation’s leading journals of poetry.

I confess to amusement with a poet’s wife. When her poet husband introduced her to me, she wrinkled her nose, looked off
into the distance, and said, “Deborah….” She wanted me to fill
in my last name. Why would she know me? I am not Mark Strand. I obliged and said my last name. She wrinkled her nose more, looked at me, and gently shook her head. Very odd! Meanwhile, I have no idea of her name. I only have the story.

I confess that I can’t change how people see the world. I can
only change how I see the world.

I confess that life gets better as I get older. I used to care more about unimportant matters. As I age and see people die, I have been able to discern the important matters from the unimportant ones. It helps if you answer these questions:

1. You’ve been told you’ll die in six months. What will you do with your life?

2. The doctor was wrong. You are going to die in two weeks. What do you do?

3. You are going to die tomorrow. What do you do? How do you spend your time?

Thanks to Kelli Agodon and January O’Neill for inspiration.

On the plane, I put my tray table down and carefully removed one postcard at a time. I found myself wanting to keep them in the original order. Eventually, I realized I had no idea which way they’d been, so I had to be okay with letting them get “out of order.” What’s funny is that you can read the poems and view the art in any order you want. Why did I care? I had to laugh at myself.

Visit the Tuesday: An Art Project website and subscribe.

My interview with Jennifer Flescher follows:

32: On the Tuesday: An Art Project website, I read that you named the journal after a poem of yours. Could you describe how you made that choice?

JF: Well, when I wrote the poem I was thinking about a sort of strange, dissociated day. It had been raining all week, so the days were sort of blurring together. Tuesday is both specific and vague at the same time. It’s also a sort of lost day — not laden with a lot of other things — a strange transition day….I was in a strange transition — suspension. This is, of course, one of those connections you create after rather than before, but maybe the journal is the same kind of transition spot — after creation but before really traveling on.

32: Your journal is unique in that it provides poems, prints, and photographs on postcard-sizes of paper. Each issue contains a handful of cards wrapped inside colored paper. What led you to create a journal in this format?

JF: Well, I’ve seen a lot of them cropping up… it’s always a mixed flattery. I was a book maker. I made books all the time and also holiday cards — my cards were very elaborate, and I would make about 100 of them a year. In the last incarnation they looked a lot like Tuesday — they had loose pieces bound together with a silk ribbon. That happened partly because I wanted people to be able to keep the photo of the kids and toss the rest, come February… I think that feeling of editing garbage had a lot to do with it. I only ever want to keep the parts of a piece that are important to me — I want to be able to leave the rest behind — I want to give away a piece if it seems meant for someone I know. I came across a project in DC in which someone was sending out a postcard/poem a month — I loved that idea. Bound journals frustrate me sometimes — I hate to get rid of them and I hate to keep them… At the same time, the holiday cards were frustrating me — because I wanted to do something more important — to have a content that really complimented the beautiful format I was creating. I was a journalist, and missed the community and importance I felt in reporting. It all sort of fell in pretty quickly. I love hearing stories of people sending them through the mail and putting them on their mirrors. I have a friend who is a literacy specialist in an elementary school — she leaves poems in the bathroom. I love that.

32: Readers of this blog may be interested in sending you work. What should poets know — beyond what’s in your submission guidelines — about what you’d like to see in a poem? Are there certain kinds of poems that you’d not publish?

JF: I always squirm out of this kind of question because it seems to me that it will limit my options. People often ask if I print visuals connected to poems — I don’t really do that. I look for bravery and risk. I look for an emotional center. I suppose that is my prejudice. I don’t publish light verse. I try to trust my authors — so that I would rather publish my favorite author’s favorite poem than my favorite poem by my favorite author. I think that publishing is cooperative — I prefer it to be.

32: A wise and well-respected editor of poetry and fiction told me that every editor has their prejudice in terms of what they do not want to read. Are there certain subjects that repel you?

JF: Yes — writing. And teaching. A lot of us are in that world &mdash and I think it’s natural to write about it — but I also am not interested. I guess it gets back to the emotional core concept — I’m not interested in what we are trying to write in between what we have to write.

32: What is the most challenging aspect of running a literary journal?

JF: Just time and money. Same as writing, and teaching. All of which I love so much. Distribution can be hard, but we are really lucky — amazing little bookstores all over the country write me and ask for copies.

32: You’ve been published in The Harvard Review, Lit, The Boston Globe, Agni, Jubilat, and Poetry Daily. What advice do you have for writers just starting to send their work out to magazines?

JF: Remember when you send that it is the beginning of a relationship. Think hard about presenting yourself with respect, and remember that it is only the beginning. A relationship with an editor can take years to develop — and that is a wonderful thing! You want people who are really reading and listening to the work. Always send again, and never send frustrated vent e-mails in your moment of rejection. Some of the people I was most bruised by helped me the most later…

32: Where do you most like to create? Do you have a studio in your house? Do you prefer to work in public somewhere?

JF: I have an office — it’s too filled to work in. I work on my couch, in the very early morning. Also out in coffee shops. I love to write traveling — I guess in every place I need some element of dissociation — of otherness. I can’t quite merge it with my real real life — if I do, my kids have to yell and poke me to get me to hear them…

32: What question would you like to answer that we did not ask?

The one question I think I would add is — about editorial mission. I’m not sure how I would phrase the answer, but the question goes something like this…

I think that, as is true in all of publishing, publishing in the literary world remains a fairly gated community. I think about that all the time, and I feel it is a privilege and a responsibility to be editing. I’m interested in the kind of work that I like — which tends to be slightly more experimental than the norm — but I am also interested in opening doors and crossing boundaries. I think that this often means reading and printing work that is outside of my comfort zone — but poetry, I believe, shouldn’t always be comfortable — or maybe, should rarely be — and that can mean many different things. If we don’t somehow cross boundaries of readers and writers we remain a tragically compartmentalized society.

Wednesday, June 17, 7-8:30 pm: Richard Peabody (Gargoyle, Last of the Red Hot Magnetos), Maria Padhila (Capitol Cougar), Deborah Ager, Dallas Corsair (Z-Spot) and open mic.

Rethinking Methods in Poetry Publishing (Reb Livingston, No Tell Motel and No Tell Books; Adam Robinson, Publishing Genius; Kyle Dargan, American University; Deborah Ager, 32 Poems)

1. Do you think poets have an easier time getting published with higher credentials? Why or Why not? Also of your “hats,” which do you find most difficult to wear and why?

Over the years, I’ve occasionally heard this suspicion that having a good cover letter can get you “in” at magazines and presses. I just don’t buy it. Only the work matters to editors. And if a lot of people being published have degrees in creative writing, isn’t there a rival hypothesis to the idea that the degree “got them in”? Doesn’t it make sense that someone who committed two-to-four years of his of her life to study writing at a post-graduate level might just have developed abilities to the point that he or she is writing poems worthy of being published?

I do wear a lot of hats, and it’s difficult in the sense that it stretches my economy of time very thin. But I’m lucky in that every hat I wear—as writer, teacher, editor—is wonderful, so it’s hard to apply the word “difficult” to any of it. I’m blessed, really.

2. Do you see spoken word, performance, or written poetry as more powerful or powerful in different ways and why? Also, do you believe that writing can be an equalizer to help humanity become more tolerant or collaborative? Why or why not?

I think it’s a real apples-and-oranges situation. Spoken-word and performance poetry can be really amazing, but it’s something in an entirely different realm of art. If you were to put it in the academy, you’d house it in the Department of Theatre and Performing Arts, not the Humanities and Fine Arts. I hope that doesn’t sound elitist—I mean no denigration of the former.

The words of the performance poet so often just cannot survive on the page (as most song lyrics can’t, separated from the music), and really, not even in the mouth of another person. It’s an act that’s reliant on the delivery of the performer, like stand-up comedy. There’s nothing wrong with that, but why would anyone want to compare it, especially on the grounds of relative merit, to the work of Philip Larkin, or Elizabeth Bishop, or Yusef Komunyakaa, or Brigit Pegeen Kelly? Completely different ballgame.

3. Do you have any obsessions that you would like to share?
This will be my “J” response: Joy Division, Jack Gilbert, John Keats, Joss Whedon, Jeff Mangum (of Neutral Milk Hotel). I might be obsessed with the tenth letter of the alphabet.

4. Most writers will read inspirational/how-to manuals, take workshops, or belong to writing groups. Did you subscribe to any of these aids and if so which did you find most helpful? Please feel free to name any “writing” books you enjoyed most (i.e. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott).

And here’s my “H” response: Jane Hirshfield (Nine Gates), Edward Hirsch (The Demon and the Angel), Robert Henri (The Art Spirit). These are all great books on the mysterious elements of art. I value these over any nuts-and-bolts guides. And of course, having completed the MFA and attending workshops at writers’ conferences, I do endorse the workshop experience. Writers should look for ways that they might join the larger conversation, be in contact with other people committed to the art. Establishing a community with like-minded souls is always good.

5. Poetry is often considered elitist or inaccessible by mainstream readers. Do poets have an obligation to dispel that myth and how do you think it could be accomplished?

In my previous answer, I endorsed developing a community with other poets. But there’s a danger there, as well, if you forget that other poets need not be the only audience for your poems. Poetry has become so “professionalized” that it’s tempting to see it as an isolated community. I would encourage poets to think of a more general reader, not just the one who will get the very subtle allusion to Berryman in line six. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t include the Berryman allusion—just that the poem’s effect shouldn’t hinge entirely on the reader getting it. I hope I’m making my point here. In short, I think the development of a refined poetic community could tempt us to write poems that are essentially illustrations of our poetic knowledge and cleverness, and I think we should be very careful to resist that temptation. Poetry’s more important than that. It’s not a game, a contest, or a stage.

6. When writing poetry, prose, essays, and other works do you listen to music, do you have a particular playlist for each genre you work in or does the playlist stay the same? What are the top 5 songs on that playlist? If you don’t listen to music while writing, do you have any other routines or habits?

I don’t really have any routines or playlists, but I love your question, and since you opened the door with your invitation of a “top five,” I will seize the opportunity to list my five favorite albums of all time, if for no other reason than to promote them to other people:

The Clash, London Calling
Radiohead, OK Computer
R.E.M., Murmur
Joy Division, Closer
Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane over the Sea

While these aren’t necessarily playing when I’m writing, they are all albums that I find inspiring. I remember that great moment at the 2008 Oscars when Glen Hansard, at the end of his acceptance speech for best original song, exhorted the millions watching to “Make art, make art, make art!” When I listen to these five albums, I want to make art in any way I can. And that’s always a good feeling.

7. In terms of friendships, have your friendships changed since you began focusing on writing? Are there more writers among your friends or have your relationships remained the same?

I have made many great and deep friendships with other writers over the last decade, and certainly my writer friends greatly outnumber those friends who do not write. But I don’t want that to imply that I’ve lost friends because of writing or that I seek out friendships only with other writers. I’ve just been blessed to meet many wonderful people who care as much about poetry as I do.

8. How do you stay fit and healthy as a writer?

Well, your question implies that I’m fit and healthy, and I’m not sure I’d measure up to that judgment! But joking aside, I’m in reasonably good health, and I don’t think being a writer poses any greater challenge to my fitness than any other life would. I try to eat well and get regular exercise. How’s that for an answer? Maybe I should apply for poet laureate of the surgeon general’s office.

9. Do you have any favorite foods or foods that you find keep you inspired? What are the ways in which you pump yourself up to keep writing and overcome writer’s block?

There’s a great episode of The Simpsons where Dr. Hibbert refuses to put himself in danger because, he says, “I have too much to live for—I just discovered Thai food.” At times, I think I too could live for Phad Thai and Chicken Green Curry.

As far as combating “writer’s block” (just another name for self-doubt), I try to remind myself that the feeling of failure and insufficiency is a natural part of the process felt by everyone who does this. Alan Shapiro has a great essay called “Why Write?” in which he says that the gap between the writer you are and the writer you wish to be only widens as you improve, that as you get better at writing you also get better at imagining getting better yet. So frustration is natural, and greater frustration is probably the sign of progress! How’s that for “reverse psychology”?

10. Please describe your writing space and how it would differ from your ideal writing space.

There’s no one place I could name. I’ve written at desks, outdoors, on a computer, by hand, when I’ve carved out time specifically for writing, when I’ve bolted awake at 2:00 a.m. For me, there’s no set routine or location that I can count on. I’ll quote Hamlet here: “The readiness is all.” And I do try to be ready—always prepared with pen & paper wherever I may be, and always willing to stop everything else if something must be written. The ideal space is the space where the writing happens.

11. What current projects are you working on and would you like to share some details with the readers?

Lately I’ve been writing in form a good bit, which is something I haven’t done in a while (all the poems in The Boatloads are free verse). But I’ve been writing new free verse poems as well. I have a very general idea of the shape that my second full-length manuscript will take based on the kinds of poems I’ve been writing. I don’t have a systematic project to fill a collection, and I tend to avoid such thoughts of larger structures when writing poems. So I’m afraid I have little more detail to provide than “I’m writing poems.”

When I saw the poem below, I knew I had to publish it!

—-

Thumbelina’s Mother Speaks: To the Toad’s Mother

With each year’s passing, grief dilutes itself
within my body, portioned out the way
a flash flood ultimately finds a meek
abode to welcome every soiled drop.
In letting go, I learned to be a “good”
mother, the kind who disciplines herself
to think only of what’s best for her child.
Of course, that’s why you seized her for your son—
deluded as you were to think she’d stay.
The sky is never bluer than we dare
imagine it to be. As we think
then so it is. At times, I understand
the desperate hands that reach for more—
and yet, I kick the cat who scratches at my door.