YB Journal
Issue 4 - Windows
Managing Editor: Rose Hunter
Guest Editors: Sherry O’Keefe and
John Riley
Copyright 2011 YB Journal
Smashwords Edition
Table of Contents
Corrigan: Visiting Lighthouses
Urquhart: when it's just spring: two sestinas
Moro-Huber: Review of Dom Gabrielli's The Parallel Body
Sebastian: Review of Ren Powell's Mercy Island
I
was a master of bad timing.
I put this on my resume along
with
“Rice Krispie Treat counterfeiter”
and “sloppy
kisser.”
When
I’m around you, my body
is not fluent. I muzzle my hands
with
pockets and teeth.
Once,
I lost a fight against
a green plastic chair. Failure
is my
chief export.
Loving
me can be an accidental
contact sport.
These
are not a draft of my vows,
warning signs. I’m making
contacts
out of these facts for you.
bruise
like a black blue rose and he
can barely see
white and
swollen
lily again
the
bandages pressed to the cut
her eyes shut
bleak sand
crunching
cornea in
her
mother will fear the worst an
un-found scar a
permanent
girl
yet boy fists whirled
Visiting Lighthouses
Brittney
Corrigan
You
and I have been married one week, and now
on the Three Capes Loop
of the Oregon coast
what is important is calla lilies, herons at
dusk
with their feet in low tide. The days are landscaped
with
breakfasts, afternoons of sun and my hair
tied up, harbor seals
eyeing us at Strawberry Hill.
We climb the twist of steps in the
lighthouse
at Cape Meares, look at one another through
opposite
sides of the original lens, now still and unlit,
removed
from the memory of ships. At Heceta Head, we walk
past
the haunted keeper’s house and up the hill
to where the
lighthouse, its windows bricked in,
still blinks its pattern of
flashes, a conversation of comfort
by which ship captains navigate
their way around land.
We hear stories, lenses shipped here in
molasses to keep
them whole, thrown overboard, buoyed to shore,
unpacked
and polished until they lost their hoods of thick
liquid,
arriving transparent at the lighthouse tower.
We are
told how the keeper used to strain the kerosene
through silk so
the lenses would not blacken as the light
burned. I watch you
across the small room beneath
the active lens, think of the keeper
welcoming the company
of ghosts, someone with whom to share this
view of sky
and the white lines of waves gathering towards shore.
I first saw cancer
Risa
Denenberg
I
first saw cancer in winter, rocking gently
as if to mollify a
small child by keening
a lullaby. She murmured a promise,
a
truss of blossoms.
After
a chill, in the thaw of spring,
wisps of hair returned, a limp
corkscrew crown,
while pain cracked open bones and shred
them
into lacy stalks.
Cancer
rocked gently again in autumn, smothering
the lumpish soil with a
thin coat of saltpeter.
And when it dried out like a codfish on
the shore,
she offered her caress.
–Winslow Homer, At the Window (1872)
The
windowsills need dusting.
In all the corners: curled-up spiders
and
what the spiders have wrapped in silk
or partly eaten.
Upstairs waits that wasps’ nest.
This
is difficult to say
but what I want most is to lean away
from
this tall chair,
birdcage throne. I don’t dare
look
too long at the mist of sunlight raining down.
Time is a
cyclorama.
A
gauze hung straight from ceiling to floor,
curved to infinity.
I
know I am posed, not here.
I know I was never here.
but
in blue pajamas—it is too cold
beside the mini white Christmas
lights
strung on the windows all year round.
It’s
three oh three,
I’ve dreamed a giant red poppy,
tall as a
small tree,
noted
the time in case of concurrent disaster,
and the moon glows blue
on new snow.
It’s good to be lonely
at a
time like this.
I wouldn’t want to wake the sleeping world
from
its soft desserts.
I
pull the curtains
so I don’t appear in the window all lit up
to
frighten the paper boy at four.
Is
this how the world sees me,
a woman awake before dawn
for no
good reason?
Isn’t
it good the world’s not looking
and I can be alone
in my
little house?
What if the boy was meant to fall. What if his flapping limbs were kite strings whispering to the wind—avoid the temptation to pull; let the body come to a meteoric thud. What if the cleaning lady knew the janitor removed the plate of glass that separated a view and a viewing. What if the 53rd story was a book in the Bible, and not a lifestyle. What if the boy doesn’t know his father’s name when he sees him in Heaven. What if the father doesn’t go to Heaven. What if there is no Heaven?
And when we die, let’s come back as black sheep. An ostracized flock of herbivores feasting on grass we took for granted in that other life. Let’s hijack a meadow; ignore the sunlight failing to see that our shadows were gone. Dashed the moment our souls became too big for our bodies when put out to pasture in left field. Our diet of dandelions groomed our incoming matted fleece, an unruly extension of our skin—the color of marriage between thunder and storm. Picture no shepherd to corral us. No reason to hide. No need to be shorn.
has
a grappling hook
and a coil of rope
she wears them over her
shoulder
when she goes to work
she
gives us fifty kisses
anchors her grappling hook off our
bedroom
window and climbs
over the sill in her big
adventure boots and
her black
adventure watch with a compass and she
rappels away
bouncing
and gliding down the side
of the world
we
look out the window
down the rope
a lot but she
always
surprises us she climbs in
at night and wakes us like a
moon
on fire and daddy comes in frowning with
sticking up hair
he says
it’s late and it’s
a school night but he wants
to
dance around her too
* This poem is taken from Forever Will End On Thursday.
Time Keeping
Elizabeth
Kate Switaj
I
see you hiding in your clock
your children at six and seven
your
wife at nine
you
stay centered
your arms are long enough
to tick & touch
each one in turn
I see you
& my
ear whispers
that your heart at rest
on a
drunken bench
took the rhythm of your touch
I see you
the glass you put up
only
protects you & yours
from sunburn
and my wobbly gnomon
is
imperceptibly wrong
except when it’s right
I see you
when it’s just spring: two sestinas
Troy
Urquhart
when it’s just / spring
green / leaves peeking budding
from the tips of tree-
fingers left
brown by frost that’s left / just
now, when each tree
stands brown & bursting spring
beneath its brownness, budding / green
beneath brown revealing green
that left / with winter’s budding
frost & when it’s just / spring
days rising earlier over tree-
tops the sun itself a tree / that rises golden rays branching over green
& marks spring / with early beams & nights left / just
as they were budding
just spring budding / driving flowers birds trees
us crazy just / spring green
& robins in nesting-ground battles right & left
driving out doves & cowing to mockingbirds that spring
from heights like gerberas who spring / budding
in blooming-ground battles of their own peering through mulch left
from last year’s planting & choking in dandelions & driving through tree
roots little green / heads peering just
above the just / & level earth & ready to spring / green
& budding / like the trees
that winter left
when it’s just / spring
& me too much / inside sitting back to open
window muddy smell of rain
or crisp smell of sun
tapping me on the shoulder & sun
through the window screen just
reminding me of rain / & spring / with its wide open
days too long too short too much
to be done too much / undone & the sun
wide open
just / sunshine in spring
or even rain
because even when it’s rain
there’s so much
spring / reaching in & the sun
tempting me just / to open
the door & wanting me to leave these things undone & walk shirt open
in the rain / just / water & mud & then much
sun / in spring
& when I finally think I’ll spring / from this chair & open
doors & stride headlong into sun / or rain
I know it’s much / too much to just
stay indoors & not just / spring
myself not when there’s so much / open
outdoors & so much rain / & sun
& spring
Teach me. Show me how to entice birds, the way you do it. Demonstrate camouflage, decoy in the mountain laurel. Instruct me, I want to hear them coo. I want to keep them alive in my pocket. Soft beaked. Illustrate for me how to ambush, damage their insides without ruffling an outside perfect feather. Teach me how to stun them, to permanently muffle their songs. How to never let them see me coming.
Most
days I fail to meditate long enough, nose burns
with the breeze of
counted breath. Out the window, birds sing
as squirrels eat
their food & flowers bloom. I don’t know any of their names,
but
the mug you stole me is still called “Betty,” painted
gothic
above blue blossoms. We should name ourselves
the
Bombshelters if we cave to marriage the way I caved to
freezer pizza
this
breakfast. 7 a.m. Second pot of coffee. Wish we were camping
in
the May snow at Payette Forest; wish your car were stuck in mud with
us
on the backseat. Wish we could contemplate Jesus, neo-hobos,
universal love—
Back
in New York, I contemplate love by buying lingerie
with you in
mind. What spiritual practice would look like enough
when
more sex shops than churches stand on this block?
Most
Sundays, I pass the back-seamed stockings & vibrators erect in
windows
after tasting different denominations—none as
Eucharistic as your mouth.
Review of Dom Gabrielli’s The
Parallel Body.
M.L.
Moro-Huber.
Dom Gabrielli’s collection, The Parallel Body, was published by Ziggurat Books International and recently went into its second printing -
every poem
is a moment
trying to escape time
(from poem 3)
Gabrielli’s collection includes drawings from artist Piers Faccini, whose rough sketches of the human body in nude form parallel the nakedness of the poetic form Gabrielli uses in his writing. A triptych parallelism, if you will, the words in the poems sprinkle a dash of meta, just enough for one to notice the poetic dexterity of the poet but not so much that the reader loses the feeling of being caught up in the poem, and as the poet catches us in his finite language (reading in the present moment) so also are we caught in that other-world of dreamscape and memory, an infinite mode of communication beyond language, which Gabrielli has attempted to capture through the written word.
The syntax Gabrielli presents is sparse, direct, and without adornments. There are no titles, no punctuation, no words wasted. The poet uses his adjectives with precision and his line breaks are subtle, elegant guides that serve instead of the comma, period, or the em-dash we see used so copiously in contemporary poetry.
The “body” of poems in this collection also parallels the bodies of dreamscape and reality confronting the physical bodies which house the “Self.” It is this “I” this “self” which separates us and makes us individual, one of many, alone. Yet through Gabrielli’s exploration of “you,” these poems reconcile the individual “I” with the many, the other, the “you.” The tribulations and the triumphs that are universally common are uniquely presented through the “you” perspective. His use of the “you” and “I” becomes less of a dichotomy and more of a singularity. Gabrielli expresses one of the noblest intentions of poetry, to touch or uplift another through words. He continually returns to and struggles with the concept that somehow words can be bestowed as a blessing, and the act of capturing them on the page is a type of magic which can undo harm and assuage pain recalled through memory.
I have broken the bars
I have learnt to travel in and out
of
what they rigidly call my person
I will come back to help you
when
the demons recite their ugly partition
I will guide you to
safety
(from poem 19)
Above we see how the narrator is taking on the role of guide: the “I” is speaking directly to “you.” Although the “you” likely refers to a specific person from a specific memory, Gabrielli uses this technique throughout to address the reader in such a way to allow for a silent participation in the events unfolding. He invites this participation here, very aware of the reader as he shares:
words can sing now
words from so far
motionless
in a moment
of you
moments wish to leave
beg to depart
to live their own
lives as bridges
between our crystal skins.
(from poem 3)
That words used in poetry can form a “bridge” between “moments” to provide us with a connection through time so we may relate to the lives of other people and be affected by those lives, those other memories – is somewhat of a miracle. Gabrielli has captured this longing for unity and this recognition of the miracle of language, as he compels the reader to “cross over” the “bridge” of his words to experience the reality of which he writes.
And further:
each moment knows when it must be lived
and sometimes moments can
remain inert
longer than the lives which could be living
them
(from poem 29)
Here it seems Gabrielli accepts the constraints of language, those moments which happen beyond the page. “Each moment knows when it must be lived” recalls to my mind Shakespeare’s sonnet 16:
“Why seek you not a mightier way/ Make war upon this bloody tyrant, time.”** In his collection Gabrielli constantly pushes up against those walls of communication, fighting to capture what moments time keeps taking away, even though, in his grappling, he acknowledges: “books can no longer save you” (poem 12).
The collection as a whole becomes a rallying cry to live life, to use poetry as a war upon that “tyrant, time,” and he attempts to move poetic language beyond its inert state on the page to create a book that can be viewed as a living vibrant testimony. This poetry requires a lot from the reader, there is a desperate, almost demanding sort of intimacy exposed in these lines, and yet the poet remains self-aware enough to understand that the sense of intimacy he creates through language is limited, as intimacy itself is often transitory in the “I” and “you” construct of existence: “and the more I touch you/ the more you become untouchable” (poem 29).
I imagine, for him, the war continues.
I clamor for revolt
I cannot win I cannot even try
I brought
you down knowing all this and more
I called you to battle with the
lizards and the weeds
knowing the chimera of victory is the
goalless lure of beauty
(from poem 24)
And from the introduction:
These pieces ask questions, many of which have no
answer. In these
most difficult times, poetry and song,
thought and beauty, are
vital to our spiritual survival.
Poetry is our resistance to
emotional tyranny.
It manifests our love of beautiful things and
feelings.
But it is also simply courage, the courage to speak up
and say:
if we lose these words, we lose everything.
**Shakespeare’s sonnet 16 admonished the reader for wasting time reading poems instead of living life, while Gabrielli’s poems seem to point towards the opposite, that writing and reading poems can and do conquer time and capture moments and thus create a life beyond the singular moment, and a life more fully lived.
Dom Gabrielli studied literature at Edinburgh University and prepared for his doctorate in Paris and New York. In Paris, Gabrielli’s passion for French literature and thought led him to begin writing, translating, and teaching. His published work includes translations of Battaille and Leiris. In the early 1990’s, he left the academic world to travel and devote himself to writing, while pursuing various business ventures. The Eyes of a Man, his first book of poetry, was published by Ziggurat Books International in 2009. Gabrielli currently lives in Paris and the Salento region of Southern Italy.
Piers Faccini studied painting at the Beaux Arts in Paris between 1988 and 1990. He has been represented by Galleria Spicchi dell’Est, Rome and by Lucy B. Campbell Fine Art, London. In 1996, Faccini formed the band Charley Marlowe before embarking on a solo career in 2002. He has recorded three critically acclaimed albums: Leave No Trace (2003), Tearing Sky (2006), and Two Grains of Sand (2009). Faccini has also recorded soundtracks for the BBC, Channel 4, and the South Bank Show.
Review of Mercy Island
by Ren Powell.
Nic Sebastian
The narrator in Mercy Island is explorer and cartographer of a multitude of emotional, spiritual and international landscapes. Whether ruthlessly illuminating even the darkest corners in the rooms of herself, or putting on the lives of other women like so many beautiful garments, with tenderness and respect, Ren Powell’s narrator holds our attention and enriches our thinking.
The themes of death, sexuality and violent change – for humans and animals alike – run close to the surface throughout the collection. The earlier sections are fraught with pain and lack of trust in others and in the mechanisms of life, and emphasize self-reliance:
There
are
no permanent bridges,
So I carry a continent
on my back.
while the later poems expand geographically and thematically and become more open-hearted, empathetic and confident, while still retaining their fine awareness of the existence and impact of random pain in the world.
Something
is lost
leaving the heather:
The
craggy beauty
of an old woman’s throat
the mellow man’s joy
-
Something
is lost
to the morning’s mackerel
as they slap
Halleluiah
Halleluiah
There is a deep and moving empathy with other women across the globe in these poems. I particularly commend three beautifully tender portraits of women – “Gulah;” ”On Karl Johan;” and “A Strange Woman.” I wish more of Ren’s poems were available online so I could link to the ones I really love in this collection! My ultimate favorite is “A Request for Sound from a Televised Report from Afghanistan,” which is stunning in its musicality, delicacy and empathy. The ghazal “that she has known” runs a close second, as does “Spinster’s Shroud” – a lyrical description of a dress made from “hollowed egg shells / and white thread” – that contains entire universes of longing and expectation and pending pain.
There is a lot to absorb both in terms of content and perspective in this collection.
* This review has previously appeared, at Goodreads and at Nic’s blog, Very Like A Whale.
Sherry O'Keefe's Window Response:
Some windows aren’t aware of themselves. They show up when we don’t want to be revealed. The green chair in Bradley’s poem speaks up for the permanent girl in Carty’s poem, the “Betty” mug Williams refers to in the first of her two poems.
What we don’t speak of becomes a window into worlds that may hurt. But hurting is in the hands of the beholder and the sense of pain can be slanted depending on which window we look through. Take a look through Denenberg’s window as she shows us cancer rocking gently before we find we cannot walk away. And now that we cannot walk away, now that we stand rooted in front of every window these poets present to us, you’ll find the ache of Clapton showing up in Romo’s poem.
Then comes the need to slip away into magic, into some other time zone. Romo offers us this chance with his second unshorn poem. Magic and magical - the windows we never tire of. Switaj convinces with her wobbly gnomon and Sebastian gives us the world through a child’s window knowing we’ll want to dance with sticking-up hair, too. What memories tug at us as we stand before a view? Corrigan offers the memory of ships and harbor seals and bobbing lenses shipped in molasses! A window starting from the present and dipping into the past. Oh yeah!
But maybe you would opt to “walk shirt open?” Then read Urquhart’s words. Step through that window into just / spring. It will lead you to a window Kirk writes of that doesn’t allow us to look through. Some windows we want to see through, some we would rather not. Vitoria’s poem brings us the shadow we should consider next time we see stained glass.
Rose Hunter's Window Response:
Well let's see, how can I encapsulate all these lovelies. How can I do that violence? Well - Bradley builds us a fire and the losing end of a fight with a formidable adversary. The green chairs are tougher than the red ones, it's well-known even if people usually don't like to mention it. Carty does something to a cornea that makes me go aheeouch-sters. Corrigan knows what's important are those calla lilies and herons, and then she puts lenses in molasses - yes, but not those kinds of lenses! - and Denenberg knows how to place a codfish, oh boy, oh boy, while Kirk goes all wonderful embalmery with her naked dance - but for the blue pajamas, and if her lady says it's good to be lonely (at a time like this) who wouldn't believe her? Romo's unplugged boy can't think about that, mid-plunge, because what if there is no heaven? Hmm, what about reincarnation then? Could we all come back as ostracized herbivores? That seems all right. We'd eat dandelions and no one would grip us by the legs, flip us on our backs and tear into our flesh as they ripped away our woolly hides in order to make Ugg boots. Look, there are certain things you shouldn't do on a school night. At least so I've heard.... I have to stop naming the contributors now. That part drops away. Do not try hiding in a clock, you will be seen.... By who? Me, that's who. Even when it's just spring. Which is how you could stun a bird. No, it's not for some of us, the genteel activity of bird-watching. I am warning you, there is a personage (hmm, I think it's a personage?) who cannot be trusted with our feathered friends. But what I really want to know is, is caving to marriage the same way you cave to frozen pizza necessarily a bad idea? That could work out all right, right? Perhaps, supposing things were different. But they're NOT. Boom. Take that, birdy....
Oh yeah, and there's windows. All this is to do with windows; yes it sure is.
Are some lucky people born with windows, while others have to earn theirs? Are windows a blessing or a curse? What we see changes from window to window, so what causes us to choose a certain window? Windows let us out, but also let others in. Does that bring joy or embarrassment? When is revelation aggression?
Windows are full of space and questions without answers, and each of these poems is wise enough to know this. There are no attempts at answers here, only the exuberance that comes from reveling in the uncertainty. So raise the curtain, undo the latch, and escape into the doubt. We promise you won't leave satisfied.
J. Bradley is the author of Dodging Traffic (Ampersand Books, 2009), The Serial Rapist Sitting Behind You is a Robot (Safety Third Enterprises, 2010), My Hands Are As Thick As Dreams (Patasola Press, 2011), and the upcoming e-chapbooks A Patchwork of Rooms Furnished By Mistakes (Deckfight Press, 2011) and Our Hearts Are Power Ballads (Artistically Declined Press, 2011). He is the Interviews Editor of PANK Magazine.
Jessie Carty’s writing has appeared in publications such as, MARGIE, decomP and Connotation Press. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks At the A & P Meridiem (Pudding House 2009) and The Wait of Atom (Folded Word 2009) as well as a full length poetry collection, Paper House (Folded Word 2010). Jessie teaches at RCCC in Concord, NC. She is also the photographer and editor for Referential Magazine.
Brittney Corrigan’s poems have appeared in The Texas Observer, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Borderlands, The Blue Mesa Review, Oregon Review, Manzanita Quarterly, Hip Mama, Stringtown, and Many Mountains Moving, among others. She is the poetry editor for the online literary journal Hyperlexia and lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children.
Risa Denenberg is an aging hippy currently living in Tacoma, Washington. She earns her keep as a nurse practitioner and has worked in end-of-life care for many years. Recent poems have appeared online at Soundzine, Umbrella, Sein und Werden, This, and Touch: a Journal of Healing.
Melanie Lynn Moro-Huber has written several reviews because she reads way too much poetry for her own good. Also, she often wears socks that don’t match. She believes these issues are closely related. Essays, reviews, interviews and poems of hers appear or are forthcoming in the New York Quarterly, Savvy Verse & Wit, Red Room Review, Scattered Light, and Mortal Corkscrew.
Kathleen Kirk is the author of three poetry chapbooks and the poetry editor for Escape Into Life. Her work appears in a variety of print and online journals, including After Hours, Leveler, Poems & Plays, and Soundzine. She blogs about poetry, reading, and synchronicity at Wait! I Have a Blog?!
Daniel Romo is an MFA candidate at Queens University of Charlotte, but represents the LBC. His poetry can be found in Fogged Clarity, MiPoesias, Scythe, Praxilla, and elsewhere. His first book of poetry, Romancing Gravity, is forthcoming from Pecan Grove Press.
Nic Sebastian hails from Arlington, Virginia and travels widely. Her first collection, Forever Will End On Thursday was edited by Jill Alexander Essbaum and published by Lordly Dish Nanopress – a poetry press with a twist. Her work has appeared in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Anti-, MiPOesias, Salt River Review, Mannequin Envy, Avatar Review and elsewhere. Nic blogs at Very Like A Whale. She is building an audio anthology of her readings of contemporary poetry at Whale Sound and is the founder of Voice Alpha, a group blog focused on the art of reading poetry aloud for an audience.
Elizabeth Kate Switaj’s first book, Magdalene & the Mermaids was published in 2009 by Paper Kite Press. She has also published a chapbook, The Broken Sanctuary: Nature Poems, with Ypolita Press. She is currently an Editorial Assistant for Irish Pages: A Journal of Contemporary Writing, and a doctoral candidate at Queen’s University Belfast.
Troy Urquhart is the author of Springtime Sea Bathing (Greying Ghost, 2010), the editor of Willows Wept Review, and a contributor to Vouched Books. He teaches writing and American literature at Montverde Academy, where he serves as Director of Professional Development.
Helen Vitoria lives and writes in Effort, PA. Her work can be found and is forthcoming in many online and print journals including: elimae, PANK, Mud Luscious Press, kill author, Commonline, Poets & Artists Magazine and Dark Sky Magazine. Her chapbooks The Sights & Sounds of Arctic Birds and Random Cartography Notes are both available as e-chaps from Gold Wake Press, 2011. She has been thrice nominated for Best New Poets Anthology 2010. She is completing her first full length collection: Corn Exchange, with an expected release Fall, 2011.
Megan Williams writes poetry in Boise, Idaho where she currently creates a cradle for her manuscript-and-a-chapbook-in-progress as a Writer-in-Residence at the 8th Street Marketplace. She received her M.F.A. in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College where she was awarded the John B. Santoianni Prize for Excellence in Poetry from The Academy of American Poets. A runner-up for the 2011 “Discovery”/Boston Review poetry contest, Megan’s work has appeared in journals such as Tin House, PANK, Opium, and Mudlark, among others.
The End!